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I go to a lot of shows and I tend to watch the people around me as I stand in line, judge their excitement and see what they are into. One time, I saw a bunch of people spraypainting something on the sidewalk, so I watched them then went up to see what it was. It was from that point that I heard about the band you are about to hear about below; The Artist Life. With amazing music and an even better fan base, they are going places. With catchy tunes and an amazing live show I believe that this is a band you should make sure you should see.

Catch out my chat with Ian below and maybe you will become a fan like I have!

“We like to write about pretty much anything that’s on our minds. We are creative guys, we don’t pick one topic and say this is what the band is all about, you know we like to broaden our horizons I guess, write about anything and everything that to us would be good subject matter”
Ian Blackwood: The Artist Life

So basically first off for our readers who don’t know, can you tell us who you are and what you do for the band.

Hey, I’m Ian Blackwood and I’m the singer and guitar player in The Artist Life.

Ok, now for just a little history on the band can you tell us how The Artist Life came to be.

Ya, it started off with Dean and I just sort of meeting up in Toronto, he’s from PEI and he was going to UFT for his English and we kind of met up one night and said, hey we should start a band together and then that was about three years ago, but the band wasn’t serious up until about two years ago, we just sort of like, him and I for about a year were kind of just writing songs and jamming with a couple of guys, it wasn’t until about two years ago when Chuck and Jake joined that we got really serious.

Ok, is there any significance behind the name?

Well, yes and no, I mean it’s just one of those simple things I kind of just came up with it one day when I was kind of struggling to pay the bills as you know most artists usually do, and I just kind of said to Dean, one day I was like man you know, lately it feels like I’ve been living the artist life, then I was like, man that would be a really cool band name. This was just on the cusp of the band starting, when we got like three or four songs together but we didn’t really have a band name and I didn’t know, I thought it would actually be a really cool band name and then the rest is history I guess.

Wow, ok. Now I have to admit actually, the first time I heard you guys I was at another show and I saw some people spray painting ‘Lets have a Riot’ on the sidewalk, with a link to a website, so I remembered the site and when I got home and checked it out, I like instantly fell in love with your music. So that was a very creative promotion plan. So how does the inspiration come about for your music?

Lots of things, you know like Dean and I, you know a lot of old punk rockers who are singing about social change, political issues and then you know stuff in general, love songs, you know we’re softies too, like we like to write about pretty much anything that’s on our minds. We are creative guys, we don’t pick one topic and say this is what the band is all about, you know we like to broaden our horizons I guess, write about anything and everything that to us would be good subject matter.

Ok, it’s kind of like diversity, so you’re not like stuck in this one genre.

Ya, its, you know like, that’s it, that’s the problem with a lot of punk rock bands, that’s why a lot of people are jaded in the punk rock music, like you know, older people and older bands because they have this problem, that they think it’s all the scenesters faults or the kid’s faults when really it’s like if you don’t make yourself available to other people that might enjoy your music as well, then you’re not going to you know, I don’t think you are necessarily really gonna last through the times and through the ages, and I mean, it depends on what you want. Some people don’t want that, some people just want to be a band that just plays here and there and say what they got to say and you know it gets said and that’s fine, you know Dean and I are very passionate people and you know as well as Chuck and Jake, we’re just guys who want to play and, we don’t write music to impress anybody, we just write music because we love writing and if it just so happens to be poppier than this or not as punk as the other song, it doesn’t matter, we just want to write music, we just enjoy writing music.

Which is a really good way to be actually.

I find especially in these times it’s a really good way to be, especially with a lot of things that are going down right now, and just the state that a lot of things are in, I just think its way better to look up and be more positive than it is to be more negative, you know try to take a more positive approach to things so.

Exactly. Now I was actually reading that you started out by releasing your EP Living for free on the web? Do you think that helps to cement you a place in the music industry by getting your name out there?

Ya you know I think like with Living it was really cool because again, it’s something great to have as our roots record, it was very organic, it was recorded back in my home town in Burlington in a studio that a lot of great bands have come out of, a good friend of mine owns the place and he basically gave us a great deal on it and a friend engineered it for like $10.00 an hour, it was so cool it was just one of those records that you know, Dean and I did most of the playing on it, actually just before Jake and Chuck joined the band Dean and I pretty much played every instrument except for the bass which was done by our friend Dave but all the other stuff was done by Dean and I. It was just one of those records that we knew we would always have a great story to it, and giving it away made so much sense at the time, you know it was just one of those things like we just wanted to get people involved with the band and get people stoked about the band and we thought, what the hell just give them eight songs for free, it’s kind of a nice little tool to start off with and now with the new EP out, Underground Operations it’s like more enticing to for people to go, listen they gave away an EP before lets buy this new EP you know.

Ya, well that’s what I did actually.

Wicked, well that’s cool.

Now you say you released Lets Start a Riot in October, 2008, what has been the response from your fans for this album?

Honestly, it’s been incredible, like a lot of the fans, the majority of them that loved Living for Resting Place and City Blocks loved it for like the sure sort of pop catchiness, the hook. We basically with Lets Start a Riot we thought lets pick our five favourite songs and, our five hookiest, catchiest songs we really enjoy and lets make this EP just a constant pop, punk rock record, and its been exactly that, like the reviews and with just the shear fans telling us they love how catchy it is and how popping it is. You know we couldn’t be happier, again that’s what we were going for, we were just going for songs that are memorable, the songs that everybody can sing, you know there’s no weird time signatures, it’s very simple, very easy to get into, it’s very easy to record punk rock you know.

Ya it is, I really enjoy it, its been on my I-Pod since I picked it up.

Well that’s great, thanks.

Now, actually the first time I saw you guys live was at the protest show in December, and I have to say that your stage presence is amazing, now if you were to describe your live show to someone who hasn’t seen you, how would you describe it?

Basically just super high energy, an incredible case of four guys with the worst ADHD in the world, you know like, I don’t know, we love involving the crowd its one of the most important things to us is that you know, we’re always gonna be having fun and we want to make sure everyone else is having fun and taking care of each other, and the energy, full blown, such an energetic show, we don’t like to stop, if we could play an hour without even drinking a drop of water we probably would but I guess we’d probably end up passing out.

Probably, ya.

It all depends because I mean the more, if there’s ten people there it doesn’t matter, if its ten people or 10,000 or 1,000, it doesn’t matter, we’re always going to play the same show and if those ten people are really enjoying it or if its 1,000 or 10,000 are really enjoying it, its gonna sort of reflect on us. I mean we’re always go you know what I mean, get on stage and we just don’t stop until we’re done like 25 minutes or 30 minutes whatever our set length would be.

Well I have to say the energy was really amazing, it actually got me going for the night. So that was really awesome.

Thank you, I’m glad we could do that.

Now what feelings run through you when you get the reaction from the audience that you do?

I guess like excitement, sort of like happy extreme, I’m the happiest I could be, when I’m on stage and I’m getting a reaction from the crowd, like when I’m asking them to put their hands up or their fists up you know, and giving them their moment as well because we are trying to share as much of the stage as we can, we’re trying to be on the same level as much as possible. When a crowd reacts the way, especially when they were reacting at the Protest show, I just feel so happy it’s just one of those feelings it’s just like, it can’t really be described like it’s the most energetic feeling in the world, it makes you feel like a million dollars, it makes you feel like you’re getting the message across and it feels like you’re making thousands of people happy, what’s really better than that right, what’s the ultimate goal when you’re playing in a band, to put on a great live show and make people stoked so.

Exactly. Now have you experienced the people singing your songs back to you?

Oh ya, we get that quite a bit. Like smaller shows like the Reverb at the Cathedral there’s a lot of times we’ve had crowds dashing for the stage and I’ve had a few microphones in the face, but it’s amazing, I don’t care at all it would scratch on my teeth and I wouldn’t care. If you want to come up and sing its one of those things like, we ask for that, if you want to come up, if you wanted to come be part of the band for the night that’s fine you know, know when to get off the stage and get on. We love it, we invite it all the time, every show it’s like come on up if you know these lyrics.

Ok, awesome. Now I understand you were on the show Instant Star?

Yep.

How did that come about?

It was during like a break, you know the thing in the past I played in a band called Jersey and I played in a band called The Full Blast and I sort of took a break from music for about 2 ½ years and that was sort of when The Artist Life was kind of in development but I actually took a 1 ½ solid where I didn’t even play guitar, so that was nice I just took a big break from it but I sort of wanted to just you know explore other options in my life. I’ve been playing music from a young age like right when I graduated high school I went on my first tour with Jersey and I mean I toured for like seven months straight with Any Flag you know AFI, I had been working for like 12 days and at the end, ya it was great and right into my early 20s it sort of like, it was great but it was also a huge life experience, in some ways positive and some ways negative, I mean it also had sort of a, somewhat of a negative effect in some ways and some ways it had a positive effect, but some ways it was just kinda like, I just kinda bottomed out you know, being in a band is a really hard struggle you know, eat food you know, it was one of things you know, I just need a break and I kind of through in the towel for about a 1 ½ and decided to become an actor because you know, in high school I never really had the guts to do it then I always kind of wanted to try it. So, I got an agent and kind of just started auditioning and going out to things like that and finally she put me up for this TV show. I went out and they were focussing mainly on instrumentation and you know, if you could do some dialogue here and there that would be great but a lot of it was how well do you play your instrument, and I just happened to be a drummer for ten years and a guitar player for 15 so, I had some pretty good experience in music and my acting skills were ok so they decided I was good enough and they gave me the job for three years so.

Ok, well that’s awesome.

It was fun ya, I played like a 17 year old and I was like 21 or 22 so, I had a blast.

Awesome. Actually I want to try and get into acting so,

Really?

Ya, like you said you wanted to do it in high school but you never had the courage to do it, so it’s something that I never had the guts in high school to do, so it’s something I want to try and do now. So I’m actually starting to look into it so we’ll see what happens.

You know you should. It’s a great business, I enjoy both and music is obviously like, music is like the drug I could just never cut out of my system you know what I mean, I just keep coming back to it and it’s like, it’s always there, you know like someone who has quit smoking and then four years later smoking again. It’s one of those things, this constant drug that will always be in my system, but acting it was just a lot of fun to just exercise a different part of my brain and you know with acting it’s great because it’s an independent thing, you’re by yourself, in a band you’ve got to line up four or five guys and make sure everyone is doing their jobs, it was fun to step away a little bit but I mean, again, I had a blast but now with The Artist Life doing what we’re doing you know and breaking ground the way we’ve been doing, I have no other interests right now except for The Artist Life.

Except for music. Now is there one piece of advice that you would pass along to young bands that are taking their first steps into the music industry?

Ya, work hard you know, but if you’re getting to a point to where you are working too hard and you are getting into fights then address that first because sometimes a lot of bands think that the only thing that they should be doing is non-stop touring across everywhere and everything but, I think that you should work hard but you should also be mindful of your friendships and make sure you keep your heart in the situation and you know.

Exactly. Now on that note, if you could be in charge of the music industry for one day, what would be the first thing you would change?

Oh wow, what a question. The first thing I would change, wow. I think you know, wow, that’s really good. You know what I would change, I would change the rules going across borders and getting into different countries just to play because I think they are way too hard right now. The music industry side and the union sides of it all, its just an absolute nightmare to try and get a Canadian band into the United States legitimately, when all we want to do is go play, it’s not like we are coming to invade your country. I think if I had control of it for one day I would make it somehow so much easier for bands to get across legitimately and legally because no matter how many union papers you have and how many union dues you have paid or haven’t paid there’s always a problem.

Ya, I noticed that when I went to a few shows and a lot of the opening bands that I actually went to see couldn’t make it across the border, which I don’t see the problem but apparently there is one.

Its one of the worst things. It’s like they make you, oh god it’s so bad, especially, I don’t want to, again I don’t want to single countries out but you know, quite honestly, how many times have I heard the story of a friend’s band going, oh man it was great we just told them we were driving through, and then sure enough they got all their dates in Canada set and everything is good, sure enough you hear about that Canadian band that went down and you know they got held up at the border for five hours, they got interrogated, separated, the van got completely torn apart, trailer got torn apart and then at the end of the day they still said to go back home. It’s just, I think the Canadian stories vs. the American stories, I think the Canadians will win in the fact that it is a lot harder to get into the United States.

Oh, it definitely is. We’ll agree with you on that one.

And I know it’s hard for American bands to come up to but you know, it’s sort of 70/30.

Even when just us as regular people go and try and cross the border, its difficult.

Its so intimidating I hate it. We do everything; we wear long sleeve shirts and part our hair in the middle. You try and do everything you can to be innocent, be like hey man just going across, they always, I don’t know.

The always have to stop you, it’s weird. Now what can we expect from The Artist Life in 2009 and beyond?

Oh wow, 2009 look for a full length for sure because we’ve been working on it like crazy. We’re really, really excited, I know the EP just came out in October but I’m not gonna lie to you we already have just so many new songs ready to go and we’re really excited to hit the studio so ’09 will be a full length record out lots of touring, we’ll be playing everywhere we can as much as we can.

Now also at The Sound Faction there are probably five of the most random people that you are ever gonna come across, now with every interview we do we try to ask five of the most random questions you’ve ever been asked. Are you up for it?

bsolutely, of course.

Ok, awesome. Now if you were a scented candle, what would you smell like?

Cinnamon, I love cinnamon. That’s so creepy.

Now if you could bring any fictional character to life, who would it be and why?

Any fictional character to life, I would, hhhmmmm, probably like Homer Simpson.

Homer Simpson? Any particular reason?

I don’t know, everything that character says makes me laugh and I think that would be amazing everyday waking up and just going like, hey what’s up Homer and him just saying something really stupid.

Awesome. What female fashion trend do you just not get?

Female fashion trend that I do not get, hhhmmmm, ok, I don’t know if it’s a trend, I guess it would be but, you ever notice when you go out to small suburban towns and every girl has got like that weird like, not like nicely done bleached blonde but they’ve got that crazy bleached blonde and then those really bad maul jeans, you know what I’m talking about when I say maul jeans?

Ya, I hate that.

I think that’s the one, you know because it’s funny, like that hasn’t changed in like ten years. I graduated high school, I go back to visit my hometown to visit my folks or see some friends, I see the same people but they’re now like almost 30 and yet they still look exactly the same when they graduated high school because of the maul file, like the maul bang, you know what I mean. I guess we can all thank garage clothing.

Now if you could pass one law for the world, what would it be?

Pass one law?

Yep, for the entire world, what would it be?

Well, if we could make war completely illegal that would be fantastic.

I’m with you on that one. Ok, last question, if you could be any old school rock god for a day, who would it be and how would you abuse the power.

Oh my god, um, if I could be an old school rock god, I would be Joe Strummer from The Clash, and how I would abuse the power is smoke as many cigarettes as he does a day because I quit smoking two years ago and still miss it.

Wanna know more about the band? Check out these links!

Website: www.theartistlife.com
Myspace: MySpace.com/theartistlife