After a long history of being involved with notable bands and composing music for television series on renowned stations, Andy Blunda is well into making waves with his own solo musical endeavors, going just by his last name. His most recent EP, Messages, is an excellent 5-track foray into methodically layered indie-pop that earned an 8.5 out of 10 in our recent review.

Blunda took some time to speak with us this week about Messages and everything that’s led up to its release, beginning with his childhood and weaving through his work in bands like Fastball and Paloalto before arriving at a decision to go solo in order to unleash his own visions in the form of music unto the world.

Tell me how you originally got involved with music way before you started getting into working with bands. Was music always a part of your life growing up?

Well, my Dad always tells me that I was conceived to Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde, so yeah, I guess that’s where my musical journey began. After my parents divorced my mom re-married to a singer/songwriter/recording engineer. So, our house was always a studio with the living room subbing as a live room and the garage as the control room. We always had bands recording in the house so music was constantly going. Even when we moved, the first question was, “how can we convert this garage into a studio?” It was a great musical environment to grow up in and I’m sure had a lot to do with my obsession with recording and playing music.

And you played piano in college, right? What was it that initially lead you to that instrument over any others?

Yes, I was a piano performance major. We always had a piano and guitars in the house and my mom encouraged me to play at an early age. It wasn’t until I was 10 though that the piano clicked for me. My mom was a big part of that initial push and was always extremely supportive of me musically as she herself was a fantastic watercolor artist. I got super into ragtime piano and would go to the library and check out old tapes and records and then find the sheet music and just kind of teach myself the tunes. Once I got into that you couldn’t tear me away from the piano and I’d play until my family was begging me to take a break. That’s when my mom decided I might do with some proper lessons.

Now that you’re primarily working on your own solo work, do you miss being in bands at all or do you still work with any currently?

It was just a natural progression to do some solo stuff after being in bands for so many years. I had all these tunes and ideas that I wanted to finish and release so I could get them out of my head. It was just quicker to do it myself. I’m quite enjoying not being in a band at the moment. It’s still nice collaborating with other musicians though and I’ve put together a little live line-up that is great fun. The last band thing I really enjoyed was playing with Jason Falkner. He’s such a great songwriter and master guitarist, playing in his band was an absolute joy and an amazing learning experience.

And how did you get involved with composing music for television shows? Do you have a favorite that you’ve worked for?

An old friend of mine, Andrew Kubizweski, kind of pulled me into it. He was the drummer and main songwriter for Stabbing Westward and I had recorded some guitar stuff for them when they covered a New Order song for the Not Another Teen Movie soundtrack back in the day. He’s a composer now for a ton of tv shows and he introduced me to the world of writing cues. The last one we did together was Appalachian Outlaws on History Channel. We were going for more of an ambient soundtrack vibe but using all organic instruments of the Appalachia mountains. We were trying to get all these etherial drone-like sounds out of banjos and dobros which was a bit of a challenge but really good fun.

Are there any shows currently on that you’d love to write music for?

I absolutely love scoring to picture. It’s the ultimate in composing, finding that marriage of music to film. So, any chance I have to do that, even a short student film, I jump at it.

So what can you tell us about the new EP in terms of how it differs from your last EP? Was there anything in particular you wanted to focus on this time around when you began writing it?

I’d like to think the songs are a bit more focused. I really wanted to simplify everything and keep it uncluttered where every part had a purpose and nothing was overdone. I was constantly asking myself, “what is the most minimal I can get away with and still have it be listenable?”

And it’s obviously quite different than your work with bands years ago. What has influenced your desire to work within these genres since being in more straight-forward rock bands?

I’ve always sounded like this. It’s just the first time I’ve actually released it. Not to disqualify the bands I was in–they were great, and obviously somewhat successful but they were never necessarily my vision.

And you did most of the work on this album in your own home. Do you prefer that method as opposed to going to someone else’s studio and having them be in control of it all?

There are pros and cons to both. These days, as an independent artist, you kind of have to wear multiple hats I guess. You’ve gotta be engineer, producer and performer if you don’t have that big label behind you footing the bill for everything. Which in some ways sucks, but it does allow more control over what you do. I love being in my studio and finding those magic moments where there is a happy accident and having my own space where time is no issue I think allows for that kind of creativity. At the same time, having someone else worry about wether or not that happy accident was recorded properly would be great. I wouldn’t mind seeing the industry come back around to big studios and engineers again. It might make for some great music and allow musicians to be more creative and just play their instruments.

So what are your upcoming shows or touring plans looking like? You mentioned bringing in some friends that play with you live.

A couple of my good friends, Paul Rogers (Bass) and Fernando Sanchez (Drums), who are A+ players to help me realize these tunes live. We will be playing our first show at The Hotel Cafe in LA on April 2. Depending on how things go there and if we have fun will determine our next step. I’m all about this being enjoyable right now so the minute it becomes a drag is when I call it, but if the opportunities arise and we decide we want to keep playing out, we will.

Since the record’s release back in January, what have you been working on? Have you already began writing new material? When would you suspect that you may release your next effort?

I’m always writing. It’s kind of a sickness…it’s not always brilliant but when the gift comes you’ve gotta be ready, so I figure if I’m not in the studio or at my guitar I’m not ready to receive the gift. Gotta be available for it…so yeah, there are some new tunes in the works. There is a feeling I wait for, like a spine tingle and if I feel it then I go, “okay, work on this one and maybe put it out into the world.” As soon as I get some spine tingle, I’ll let you know.

Do you plan to do another EP or is there any desire to do a full-length record at some point?

A full-length sounds like a lot fun at this point but it all comes down to whether or not I have a group of songs that belong together. I may just do a few singles first. It’s all up to the spine tingle.

What else can fans expect in the promotion for Messages? Any music video plans, etc.?

No videos for this one; videos are always a bit boring in my opinion. It’s all about the live shows at this point. Really looking forward to getting out and rocking these songs in front of some people and feeling that energy. It’s been awhile for me.

Is this project your sole focus musically are is there anything else we may see coming out from you this year?

I would love to do some more collaborating with other artists this year in addition to my solo stuff. It just depends on where that tingle up my spine takes me.

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Brian Leak

Editor-In-Chief. King of forgetting drinks in the freezer. Pop culture pack rat. X-Phile. LOST apologist.

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