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Arts & Music

Gimme Five! Blake Schlukbier of River City Ransom

“Lets be honest, subgenres are fucking stupid,” or so says the bio for Raleigh five piece River City Ransom. The bands aggressive rock sound may harness a range of influences, but these boys have no time for the semantics of music critic fluff. Thankfully, their lead singer, Blake Schlukbier, did have time to entertain a few questions.

Can he handle the five hardest questiins in faux business, though? See for yourself after the jump.

1. If your band were a character from Full House, which would it be? (and why? if you can articulate it)
I am going to be completely honest with you. I never watched Full House. My brother, who is RCRs drummer, has a tattoo of Uncle Jesse on his inner thigh. He is still a really big fan. I do remember they had a dog named Comet who ran away a lot. I think our band would want to run away from that house too… especially after seeing this.

2. When did you decide it was time to share this music? (how’d you begin playing together?)
Okay, this is a loaded question for us, and I don’t really want to tell you how we met, sorry. If it was a good story I promise I’d tell you… it does include Craig’s list and Kyle in a wig. Okay I lied, Kyle never wore a wig. There is a story about our keyboardist stealing my sister and moving to Boston, but I’m not going to talk about that either. Those who have seen us live more than once know that we have had a lot of different members over the past four years. The current line-up has me on vocals, my brother David on drums, Erik and Kyle on guitar, and Ben on bass. Perfecting our style and sound is our motivation for sharing our music. Playing a live show is worth about 50 practices. You learn more from mistakes you make in front of people than from the mistakes you make inebriated in a basement (this rule only applies to music). We discover what works and what does not work from how people react to our songs. I strongly believe that performing live can help mold the personality of the music and the musician. Presentation is a big part of good rocknroll.

3. Describe your typical band practice.
We practice in my basement. And it’s super gross. We keep telling ourselves we’re gonna clean up the beer cans and sweep. But the thing is….. we never do. Another weird thing- Ben is afraid of centipedes. And there are freaking centipedes everywhere. How do centipedes get there? It’s better than roaches, don’t get me wrong. But isn’t it weird that there are a bunch of them? Do you think there is a centipede commune under my house? Should I be alarmed? Are centipedes harmful in large groups? Ever since I watched that movie with the people sewn together (butt to mouth) I have not been able to look at centipedes the same way. So. I sympathize with Ben’s fear of centipedes.

Our practices are very different from most bands. We do not have one songwriter. Our musical backgrounds are not very similar and this forces us to have a democratic process with our song writing. If one person has a chorus, or a verse, or a guitar riff that they like – we will loop it – forever… FOR-EV-ER… seriously, a long freaking time. And hopefully it will turn into a part of a song. We spend hours looping, and rewriting riffs. It is more difficult than having one person come in with a finished song, but it makes RCR songs more about the band than an individual.

4. Who/what might be a few inspirations or influences that would really surprise people?
I can’t really speak for the entire band because we all have different music taste, so I’ll just speak for myself. Let’s explore the obvious firsts: Bad Religion, Elvis Costello, NY dolls, Television.

You probably can’t tell that I’m obsessed with: Harry Nilsson, Randy Newman, Chixdiggit, and Des Ark.

I find it interesting that RCR does not have one band that we could consider an inspiration to all of us. With most music you can guess a bands influence (think The Cars to Weezer). I’m not sure you can do that with us. Or maybe you can, but you’d probably be wrong.

5. What did you dream of being when you were a kid? (how ’d that turn out?)
When I was a kid I wanted to be performer. Growing up I dreamed of becoming the next Michael Jackson. Now though, looking at how people treat famous performers, and seeing what these performers are driven to, I’m pretty happy with my place in the world. I am making music with my best friends, on our terms, and performing alongside some of the best bands that no one’s ever heard. I love the Triangle’s music scene and we are proud to be a part of it.

Come check us out March 21st at King’s in Raleigh… or watch a recent performance here.

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Slip over to Kings Barcade Wednesday, March 21st to hear River City Ransom live. And by all means, give Blake a high five when you see him!