Review Fix Exclusive: Blandlord Talks “Sun Explorers” And More

Review Fix chats with the band Landlord to find out about their signature sound and goals for the future.

Review Fix: How did the band get together? 

Blandlord: We (Jon and Greg) met at a recording studio, where I (Jon) was engineering Greg’s old band The Gladly Fools EP and then his solo EP. At a mutual friends album release party we jammed a faithful lengthy rendition of Velvet Undergrounds “Sister Ray”, and we have been inseparable ever since.  Our first band The Great Machine was lining up to release our second EP, when our drummer bailed on us. Luckily stars aligned and a good friend of mine introduced us to Caleb. That was going on 6 years ago, but just this year we gave birth to Blandlord, to really focus our sound and attention. 

Review Fix: How did you get involved in music? 

Blandlord: Caleb has been playing music since the age of 3.  It chose him. I picked up guitar in gr. 9, after I spent all summer before high school pilfering my dads record collection and digging into classic rock, first year of college I started engineering at local now defunct recording studio where things really started taking off. Greg started playing because of Hendrix, but mostly because a bunch of my friends older siblings were players and it always fascinated him.

Review Fix: What’s your creative process like?  

Blandlord: We are very influenced by current personal events, and generally write about either things like that or fictional stories that represent the follies of man.  We like the DYI approach and try to record and produce as much as we can in our creative place/studio, “Rock Out Farm”.  Our credo is to not to dwell on things too long and record as much as we can live off the floor with minimal overdubs.  We like to sound like us playing live, and not sound like it has been overly manicured, just honest recordings, keeps it fresh. 

Review Fix: What makes Sun Explorers special?  

Blandlord: Sun Explorers is special because it is a very good representation of us sonically, and it nails our personality. We are generally pretty easy going fun guys, but we don’t like to mince words and how we feel about certain issues. The last few years it seems like the human race has been running backwards at an incredible speed. Sun Explorers is about trying to find hope, but knowing that humans are usually their own worse enemies, and inevitable will trip over their own feet !… fate? 

Review Fix: What are your goals for it?  

Blandlord: We would love to get the track out to new audiences and to people that will honestly listen to it and give feedback.  Trying to organically grow our audience with every audience, hopefully that people will appreciate the hard work, blood, sweat and beer we put into the tune.

Review Fix: What inspires you?  

Blandlord: Most things.  Funny things.  People.  Current events.  Beer. A lot of our songs seem to come late at night, and very spontaneously. It is probably the reason why we like to keep that energy or mojo when we go to hit record, just let the song/idea be itselves.

Review Fix: How would you describe your sound to someone who has never heard you? 

Blandlord: It’s always hard to throw a label on yourself without sounding too pretentious or pigeonholing yourself into a corner. But….. We are LOUD, ENERGETIC, & FEROCIOUS at least on this tune.

Review Fix: How are your live shows different from your studio work? 

Blandlord: Usually we are on a stage or playing in front of an audience har har har.  Vocals/guitar solos sometimes are overdubbed. Live we usually a have lights and a sound guy.  Both are sweaty, Both are loud, we don’t hold back in either situation. We try to keep it pretty transparent, not to many studio magic curveballs that we can’t recreate when we are on stage. 

Review Fix: What are your goals for the rest of 2019?  

Blandlord: To keep releasing content that matters. Music videos.  More singles released.  Start & Finish recording a new EP. Start recording an LP end of year into 2020.  We plan on playing more more shows in Southern Ontario and start planning some small tours to broaden our fan base.

Review Fix: What’s next? 

Blandlord: We are filming a new music video in the next few weeks. 

This weekend we are starting to record a new EP. We have a couple shows in the works for September, keep yer eyes, but more importantly your ears open to us. 

Review Fix: Anything else you’d like to add?  

Blandlord: Please listen to our new single Sun Explorers as much as and as LOUD as humanly possible.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 13821 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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