BDTB Interview w/ Blake Allee About “Toxic Flowers” & Other Things

We sat down with Blake Allee for an interview about him and his new Toxic Flowers, which is the first sound that we have heard from the Indy producer / emcee in over a year. But, that doesn’t mean he hasn’t been working in the studio. The artist has just been steering his sound into a new direction: his direction. He took a break from the scene to really put himself into his sound and has started making music for himself, but thankfully, is willing to share it with us.

BDTB: So, where ya been?
BA: I don’t wanna say I’m gone or still in it, I don’t where I am exactly. Man, I just got tired of promoting stuff, and playing shows because you had to promote them. I enjoy playing shows and enjoy making music, but I realized that if you don’t promote or have other people help you promote it just doesn’t work out. I just got to a point to where I wanted to do it for fun. It’s a lot of work when you just want to make music. I’m not saying that I won’t be doing any more shows or making any more music, but I want to make it for myself, and if I release it, I release it.

BDTB: Kinda like how you released, Toxic Flowers. (Referencing the 24 hour before Facebook post)
BA: Yeah, I had the album done for a few months, but I really struggled with if I wanted to do a video with it. I had always worked with Digital Rabbit on my videos, but he’s gone now. It was always part of the promotion and I had to stay up every night and get to blogs or whatever and it just became what you had to do, but I was just like, “Nah, I’m just gonna drop it tomorrow.” (Chuckles)

BDTB: Do you plan to do any videos at all with the new tracks?
BA: If I do a video I am going to do it myself. I’m not sure how that will go (chuckles), but since Digital Rabbit is a very talented director, to compete with him is not going to be easy. But, I guess I don’t really care as much. I don’t mind if every angle is perfect or if I don’t have the best camera or correct lighting. It just needs to be an idea and just doing it myself because I can edit, but if I did another video it would be that way. Focus more so on the story of it.

BDTB: It should just be simple, it should just be, “Here it is. Enjoy it.”
BA: Yeah, exactly. I know it can be hard to standout and I know that it is part of the game, I understand that, but I tried.

BDTB: With Toxic Flowers were you trying to tie together a certain theme or were you trying to get a point across? It seemed like a lot of the album dealt with looking for and finding something.
BA: The album is not necessarily personal because I know it is off the wall, it’s not in plain English and you have to decipher it. I just felt like really comfortable in saying what I needed to say.

BDTB: I noticed a lot of supernatural themes within the production and “Laser Beams” kinda sounds like an X-Files sample? And obviously in “Missed Calls” you use Godzilla in the background? Was there anything that lead you to use that?
BA: Nah, it was a sample. It was just a sound I found from OmniSpirit, but can see the X-Files in there now. Supernatural and weirdness is something I have always been drawn to. I don’t even know where the Godzilla came from. Sometimes I like to look around for weird sound fx and someone on YouTube had every roar collected from the early movies to the new one. I recorded them and mapped them on the keyboard and found the one I liked the most.

BDTB: And in “Shamrocks” you have the voice over interlude. Where was that from?
BA: It was from a documentary called Comic Book Confidential. What I do is when I watch movies sometimes I will have a recorder going with it so when someone says something cool I have it on tape to use.

BDTB: We talked about you making the album just to make the album; does that make it any easier to decide who to bring on? Or who to ask for a verse? I guess, how did you decide to put Tony Styxx in for a track?
BA: There are some people in the city that I have always worked with and man, he just fit the song and what I was doing with it. I felt he had something special to bring to the track.

BDTB: So do you have anything on deck ready to release or is it gonna be a while before we hear from you again?
BA: I honestly don’t know. I will say that I haven’t been writing music as extensively as I used to. I felt like I didn’t have another life. I was working at the Post Office and then coming home working on music until I slept. Only to wake up in time to go back to the Post Office six days a week. And while I still love making it, I feel like once you lose that desire to be the best you will still create and put out music, but I don’t think I will try to be the best. The goal was always to be the best producer or be the best emcee. I’m not saying that I am or that I’m not, it is just not the goal any longer.

BDTB: Now it is more about you making music and making sure that you are getting across what you want and that you get your art out there?
BA: Yeah, if I want to work on something I will and if I don’t, I won’t. I don’t feel the pressure to anymore.

All being said, it’s safe to say that this will not be the last time that we hear from Blake Allee over at Bringing Down the Band. How soon we will hear from him is up the artist himself. Until then, make sure you check out his newest work, Toxic Flowers, which is out now. You can listen below.