PipemanRadio Interviews Hard Rock Artist Mick Blankenship About Legacy

0:04 Hi, you have unto censure? Wow for you young Wake up America. It's time for the adventures of Pipeman on W four C Why I Coms. Pomp Beats is number one Internet radio station. Here's your host, the pipe Man An the Chance. Why in Awaken we face the day the dream is over? Or has it just speaken?

0:54 This is the pipe Man here on the Adventurous Pipe Man W four C Why Radio. When I'm here with our next Jess, who is an amazing musician, artists and everything bad ass. So let's welcome to the show. Nick Flankinship, how are you good man? Thanks for asking? Hey, So, first I want to say right off the bat that when you go try to attempt to do Silent Lucidity, so you better be really good because that is a hard song to sing, at least in my opinion. But you freaking nailed it, man like it. Don't tell them, but it's almost almost better than Jeff.

1:38 I won't tell him you said that. So what made you pick that song to cover? Well, I'm a huge Queenswrack fan and it was really tough to decide, but I felt, like, you know, I don't have a lot of ballads in my catalog, it's it's and when I whenever I do a song like that on social media, especially like covers or on TikTok or whatever, it usually it does the ballads do the best for whatever reason, I don't know. And then I just, you know, I just decided that I always felt like I I just had something as like a special bond with that song. That is, it is a badass song. But yeah, you definitely nailed it. And speaking of TikTok, what did it feel like with your dog jumping off the roof? Oh?

2:24 My goodness, yes, I have. I have a German Shepherd puppy. He's six months old and he's scared. He scared the crap out of me. Man. I thought I thought he was going to leave earth when he did it, But he's fine. It was about twelve foot drop, I think, but he jumped off of it and just kept on going. I don't know. He must be part like cat because I guess, man, I've actually had this joke on my live radio show, like asking the listeners and viewers, Okay, so how many flights up can a cat jump off and still land? No problem? So? Wow? Probably a lot?

3:06 Yeah, And I forget what the exact there is actually an exact like how many floors that they can handle, but I can't remember what it is. But I'm thinking a dog like jumping that much. I can't even imagine. That just walked away like nothing happened. Yeah, he didn't even limp like I just he just you know, he landed and he I heard a little bit of a yelp, but then he just got back up like we were playing a game, and then took off runt of the wow, damnedest thing I ever saw. Man. My I used to have a pug and all the time, since it was a puppy, if cars drove down the street, it would like run like a frickin bullet and like right up to the wheel to where her nose was literally like a centimeter from the wheel. As the cars like driving, we always used to be like, you know, and there's nothing you can do at that point. So that's why I was seeing that TikTok. I was feeling that, you know, because there's nothing you can really do, you know at that point. That's wild. You need to write a song about that.

4:17 That sounds like a country song for sure. Yeah, that definitely country oh man, So tell the listeners a little bit about you that have maybe never heard your music, and uh, you know, basically what makes you unique from other artists? Oh goodness, Uh, well, you know, I kind of fell into this category. I don't I don't even really know how to describe it. But I'm really in love with grunge music and new metal music, and a lot of that type of music bleeds through. Uh. And I feel like, you know, I try to push the envelope as much as I can in a modern way.

4:57 So if you are into bands like Disturbed and Shine Down, Alison Chains and Queen's Reich, those are, you know, a few of my absolute favorites. I feel like I take a little bit from each of those guys, and I try to put it in my original music. And then, you know, obviously I want it to sound like it was written in twenty twenty five, not nineteen ninety five, so I try to make it as modern as possible. But you know, I really I feel one of the things I'm most proud of is I feel like I have my own sound. I don't, for better or for worse, I don't think I sound like anyone out there right now. You could hear you can hear the influence, I believe. But I think that's true of any artist, Like if there's no way you could not hear some kind of influence, you know. But I love that what you said, because I find that a lot of music nowadays, in twenty twenty five, it is hard to differentiate. And I remember, like, Okay, so I was into metal in the eighties, and I remember when, you know, the older generation would be like, oh, it all sounds the same, like a bunch of noise.

6:00 I'm like, no, Metallic and Anthrax don't sound the same. You know, Slayer doesn't sound the same as that either, you know. But now I do hear bands that they like they use this like kind of I call it an algebraic equation formula to make their music, you know. Yeah, And I didn't. I don't find that with you because you know, listen to your music. There there's depth to it. There, there's definitely it's your artistry coming out. Yeah, I'm very proud of that, and you should be, because it's like a rare thing nowadays, and I think that's what makes a real musician. Anybody can hit a couple of buttons and make music, but it takes a real musician. And listen, I played drums, I played guitar, I sang thrash mellow, I sucked at all three. I probably would have been great back if they had TikTok back then, because I'm really good with I'm a real techie, so I could easily make music, but I would never like to me, you need to actually be a musician, know how to play the instrument. Doesn't mean you can't use elements in it, sure, but it shouldn't be one hundred percent of it. I agree absolutely so Queen's Reich. Interestingly enough, I remember when me and my friends when the first EP first came out and we heard him I own it. Oh yeah, cool, oh nice, Yeah, oh my god. We were just like,

7:34 and we've actually thought when we heard it, like before seeing the album, we thought it was a New Maiden song. We thought it was Bruce Dickinson. Oh okay, yeah, well that's when I first heard was. I was young, and when I first heard it, it's kind of like vampire metal, and I was like, this is the cool nice ever heard in my life. And then I saw, you know a little bit later on down the road they came out with the music videos and stuff. I was like, whoa, this is really cool coin of the Reich and all that stuff. Man, I was like I was. I was head over and heeled, head over heels in love with that that whole album, and yeah, I loved him ever since. And then you know, Empire came out, and to me, they just kept climbing and kept climbing and kept climbing.

8:16 Well, Jeff became more of an artist singer as like he had a great voice, but then he developed it too, like by time you get to like, maybe Silent Lucidity wouldn't have sounded the same at it been on the first EP, you know, And I think that's what happens, and it should happen, Like you gotta grow as an artist, like lot a lot of fans want you to stay a garage band, but if you're a true musician, you don't want to stay a beginner. That's right. So tell us about the rest of the album legacy and what people can expect from it and why they should go out and get.

8:57 It well, because it's just and you should support independent artists. If you believe it, then you should absolutely support out. I'm always by direct. I cannot say that enough, because you know, there really is two different worlds out there. There's there's the music industry and then there's everybody else. Yeah, and there's a lot of everybody else out there. And you know, if you're not signed to a label, most of us know that you're not going to get to play ball with the big guys. So I kind of play ball by myself and that's I'm okay with that. And because you know, I built up a nice community in a nice following. So but anyway, the album is the It's interesting because it's the first time I've actually co wrote with somebody. So my first two records were written alone, and then I once I wrote, like, for instance, the first record, which is called Crown of Apathy, I wrote that in segments over the course of a couple of years, and then I would bring in John Moyer from the band Disturbed. He's the producer on that album.

9:58 He would come in after the music was written, and then we would take something good and we would make it better, and so on the next album. I wrote all of that in one, you know, one long shot during COVID actually, and then I had John come back in a second time, and he also produced on that record as well, but for the first time. Legacy, the third album that we're talking about, it was co written with Noah Henson. And for those of you that don't know who Noah is, he plays a guitar with Brantley Gilbert, who's a country artist, like a country rock artist, and he was before that, he was the guitar player for a Christian metal band called Pillar. And if you ain't never heard of Pillar, bro, you have got to look them up. They are amazing.

10:46 I think Brantley's amazing and I'm a metalhead, but it taught me. I saw him because I cover festivals all over. It's funny because I was just covering punk rock bowling this weekend and Social D headline. But this festival where I saw Brantley he played at and Social D played at and he was pretty badass. And if you're one of those people who kind of ride the fence, like you like country and you like rock, that's a good place to be, man. I like the and to that point, I like the new country. You know, like that sounds like rock like to me, like you take Miranda Lambert to me, sounds like she could be lead a Ford. Sure, you know that the same vibe. So yeah, totally. And uh did it feel like would it feel like writing with somebody else when you were so used to doing it on your own?

11:47 Uh, it was a bit of a relief. There wasn't a lot of challenge to it other than I just it was it was kind of new and we just had to figure that out, you know how. We we would just navigate the writing process because every artist writes different and funny enough, Noah and I had a side project several years ago. So this is the second time we technically worked together this Yeah, this is the first time we actually co wrote an album together. And so Noah's a pretty well known producer these days in the Nashville area, and you know, I made the decision to reach out him very intentionally because I love the way he writes. I look up to him as a producer, and I feel like he's he really is one of my favoriteitar players, and you know, working with him in the past, it just made sense to me. We the project we worked on years ago just never went anywhere.

12:41 But I knew back then that he was a wonderful person to write music with and he's also literally playing the game right now. He's in it's he's in the game, and he's he's produced huge artists like Caine Brown, you know, and he's working with other huge artists that are up and coming right now, and he's just he's in the thick of everything, and he really you know what I mean, like got he's got to grasp on the modern sound. Yeah, and I think you've said it a few times. I think it is key modern sound because you have to be relevant. I always say that that, you know. That's kind of what I dig about myself, man, is like I feel like I'm a throwback to a lot of the people I have a lot of respect for.

13:23 You know, if you listen to my music again, you can hear the influence of Disturbed. You can hear Alison Chains, you can hear Stone Tipple Pilots, you can hear Queens reg I feel like it's all kind of just sprinkled about in my music, which is really really neat for people our age, because you know, we're still looking for new music even though we're in our thirties and forties, right, but right it's new and it's but it reminds you of you. Know, uh, it gives you that familiarity, is all right, That's what I'm trying to say, exactly. Yeah, and there that's to me the great musicians nowadays. There's been a few that I've heard songs since, like, man, I know this song, but I didn't really know the song. I know.

14:07 And I think even your musicianship is throwback, okay, because I find a lot of musicians nowadays they're pretty basic. I don't mean that in a negative way. It's just more of like it's just a basic formula, and that art of like really you know, creating music not just a song, is not as often nowadays. Yeah, And I think what happens with that, man, is is you know, all these labels, they kind of it's a pretty it's pretty small network, and they all use the same producers in the same mix engineers, and therefore it just sounds like the same thing over and over and over again, you know, se different singers or whatever.

14:49 I think that's the way it appears to me. I think also I've talked to a few artists and like the way you're supposed to write a song nowadays has changed to appeal to the half of Goldfish, attention Span, Spotify, skip track men. Oh yeah, you know, so it's like it used to be, okay, you had an intro, you had one verse, chorus, second verse, bridge, solo. I proudly ignore all of those rules, right. That's great, you know, because nowadays it's just like get rid of everything. Just you know, hit them with the verse real quick, hit them with the chorus, and that's it, goodbye. You know. I think it's some of my most favorite songs in time that if I was thinking that way, I would have never made it to the actual song because you had to wait anywhere from ten to sixty seconds before you even got to the song.

15:39 Yeah, if Rush was trying to release a record in twenty twenty five, that would be a different story, wouldn't it. I know, right, that would be be kind of weird if like Rush was around this time. That's what I'm saying, you know, in a band like that or Queen or something trying to release music now. Or yes, oh no, yeah, but even like okay, so even take Metallica like they're older. Shit, it's you know, you take battery, one of the most brutal songs they have. If you don't wait sixty seconds. You don't know it's a brutal song. Yeah, it's like eleven minutes long. Who wants to be pissed off for eleven minutes straight? I don't. I love Metallica.

16:20 It's just that, you know, in twenty twenty five, You're right, it's just changed, and uh, you know your minute, you know the minutes and everything, and there's only so much time in a day, and if it's going to be a radio song, it has to be under three minutes and all that stuff. And it's yeah, I don't. I don't give a damn about any of that. Man. I'm an independent guy, so I love to abide by anyone's rules. And I love that because I also was like very involved in that Sunset Strip eighties scene and watching these record labels and what they were doing to my friends. Yeah, like everybody looks at all the glamor and shit. But I remember sitting there and Chrysalis liked telling the band like, you're gonna sound like this, You're gonna dress like this, You're gonna do that, like everything was planned out for him.

17:06 And in my opinion, the artist should do the creative stuff. The suits should do the business. Stuff. I have no problem with the business stuff, but stay in your lane. Sure, you know, because I think that's what that's what paved the way for the bands I influenced. You paved a way for grunge. Grunge would never happened if it weren't for the record labels destroy metal. Oh yes, you know, But I think now today grunge has been a great addition to create a newer rock and newer metal that's modern today. Like you could still take that grunge aspect and put it into today's music. Right So, there's not really anyone doing that right now that I'm aware of. There There might be a couple bands, but it's not really like that's not something you hear on mainstream, which is kind of cool.

17:55 Yeah, totally. So how do people reach out to you on your socials, get your music and connect with you? But most importantly by your merch because they can't listen to my show unless they buy your merch because that's the only way ours survived. Man, Mick Blancanship dot com. It's just my name. I'm easy to find if as far as I'm aware, I'm the only Mick Blankenship on the planet Earth. So how that happen? Like, that's just a rare, rare combination. I guess I know, right because I laughed. There's so many bands that have to like put in symbols and stuff like that. Oh yeah, Well, I've. Talked to record labels before and I you know, I've considered a few different ones along the way, but every single one of them the first thing out of their mouth is, well, what's your band name going to be?

18:45 And I'm like, it make blanket ship. They didn't like that at all, man. So you know, one of the things I feel pretty strongly about is why would I do that? Why would I pick a band name and disappear? You know what I mean? So to me, my name is very different and it's very memorable, you know, So why would you know? And it's it's not hard to you know, find you don't even have to think about it, right. If you google mic, M I, C K, space B, all of a sudden you get all these Google search results of big that's brilliant. Like even if you didn't do that on purpose, that's brilliant. Yep.

19:26 So any anything else you want to tell listeners about a file words before we go that we haven't covered already. Just to reiterate, man, that independent artists needs your support, you know. I if it's not a T shirt, make sure it's a CD or a digital download or something. I even have the ability for folks to subscribe to me directly on my website, and I get I have a platform there that's very similar to like Patreon, so they get exclusive content and access to things that other people don't early releases, demo stuff, it's unreleased, you know, behind the scenes stuff like that. So I see that's all the cool shit too.

20:06 Yeah. Man, it's all right there on my website. If it ain't on there, let me know. I'll put it on there. Cool means well, everybody, make sure you subscribe check out Legacy. If you haven't listened to Silent Lucidity yet, okay, you need to listen to it. Because yeah, they'll make blankenship version. Yeah, exactly, forget the other version, don't. All right, man, thanks for making us great music, and thanks for being on the Adventures of Papemn. Thanks for having me a ticket. Thank you for listening to the Adventures of Patemn on w for CUI Radio.