Once You’ve Tasted Death You Leave Behind The Inhibitions of Being Afraid To Express Yourself
Transcript of our interview together:
Spencer Blake: A little catharsis is... I mean what have we talked about except that catharsis is necessary for growth and understanding yourself?
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Brent Stott: Thank you so much for coming in.
Spencer: Thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited to be here.
Brent: So I'm here with Spencer Blake from Pinch Hitter: a new, well, new to me local band. How long have you guys been a band?
Spencer: Well, we released our first single the Ides of March 2024. March 15th. So we started playing shows around March; less than a year, really. I wrote the songs about a year ago.
Brent: You haven't been a band that long, but you you've got your first- is this like a full-length album that you guys are dropping this month?
Spencer: Yeah, it's a full-length album. It's 10 tracks. All original tracks by me, and yeah, I've got a cool little band together to play some songs that I wrote, and I’m super excited about it! What they are- they're very personal songs, and I'm excited to unleash them on the world.
Brent: Tell me a little bit about the music video you released for Age of the Roach.
Spencer: Yeah, that was the second single that we released and yeah, that was a kind of a DIY project I wanted to do. Really what happened was- is- I was shopping around trying to make a music video and just wasn't having much luck finding someone that I wanted to work with and had my sensibilities, so I just said, you know what, let's crank up the iPhone to 24 frames per second and just shoot it on an iPhone with my friends. And yeah, so we made the roach cam which was basically just a tripod upside down my friend Aimee, she was the roach cam operator for the video.
Brent: There's a bit of a twist…
Spencer: Yeah, and I don't mind spoiling the ending, but yeah! So basically a roach chases me around Chattanooga. Tere is a twist. The roach chases me, maybe I turn the tables. A lot happens in the last 10 seconds.
Brent: So let's talk a little bit about you. Are you from Chattanooga?
Spencer: No. I was born and raised in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. I went to MTSU and then basically, you know, got married moved away and my now ex-wife got the opportunity to move here to Chattanooga and we moved as a family and, you know, we all are still close and we co-parent together. I have a little 10-year-old daughter, and so I've been in Chattanooga for about seven or eight years. Really started playing music for the past five years I didn't- well- well, I played music back in Murfreesboro in a lot of rock and roll bands and I kind of gave it up but then when I moved to Chattanooga I kind of saw an opportunity to play again and I took it. So I have tried a couple of different bands and not everything worked out but I think I finally got just a great group of songs and a great group of guys to play the songs and everything's clicking.
Brent: Oh man, that's great. That’s great, but you play with a few other bands, like this is not your only [project]
Spencer: Sure! Yeah, the other band that I play with, I rock the bass guitar for a band called Sun Bleach. They're this great group of guys who play indie rock and yeah they write their own music and we just released an album a couple months ago...
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Spencer: JJ's Bohemia even as a youngster in Murfreesboro and Nashville, you hear the legend of JJs as “that's the place to play in in Chattanooga,” and I always knew that, you know. And when I started performing here in Chattanooga that's the first place I played, and that's the first place I wanted to play was, you know, I was like “I got to get on that stage at JJ's,” and you know I've had really the pleasure of meeting John and everyone who works over there and he has just been the most hospitable, great member of the community and he's really given me a shot in a way that he didn't have to and I appreciate it. And you know I like to think that I've done well with that shot he gave me in all the projects I've played with him you know we, we rock hard.
Brent: But let's talk about your music these songs on this album. It's- you've got a band performing them, but they're your songs so. You wrote them.
Spencer: That's right. And I've played with different lineups before and, you know, I have kind of an A squad and a B Squad, and I kind of play with a lot of different people. I treat it more like a jazz band. But right now I have some incredible people playing with me, and I really can't imagine playing with anybody else at the moment. On on drums, my drummer Seattle Gage-Chavez is kind of my main collaborator right now. I just feel like I have this great group of people to finally play this music and- yeah, on drums is Seattle Gage-Chavez. He's just this powerhouse drummer. He has sort of this light, airy punk rock sound on the drums. And then on bass I have Joey Scruggs who I've worked with for a couple years. And then I just found the best guitar player, Preston Colling, is going to play with me on Friday and he's really rounded out the group. So yeah, that's the lineup for Friday and hopefully the lineup for the foreseeable future because these guys are- they're rippers...
Brent: When you finally get that lineup filled out and everyone's clicking and you've got like the right crew it feels like it takes songs to like a different level. It takes performance to a different level.
Spencer: It did. And, you know, it kind of makes you, you know, look back at the recordings go “Oh I could have done this or that,” but really I'm just so grateful for kind of these new sounds that I've heard in my own songs because they're interpreting it in a way that I didn't maybe foresee and which is exciting. Because yeah, like we were talking about, these are very personal songs and I think what people will take away from the album is that this is- It's a dark journey in kind of what the past couple years of my life has been like. You know, I've struggled with, you know, a lot of stuff, and this goes into depression and suicide and alcohol and lots of stuff that I've dealt with in the past few years and friends and family and I think what people will take away from it is these songs are 100% honest, 100% real, and they come from a place that I had to, and chose to, give 100% of myself to make them and I think that that will make the difference as far as like how you feel about the songs, you know. When you listen to it, I hope- my hope is that people will feel the authenticity and feel, in a good way, my pain...
Brent: Like when you hear a song and you connect with what that person was going through when they wrote it, and maybe like you shared some of those similar experiences or certainly like similar feelings. To be able to experience that with someone else and know that somebody else has experienced this exact same thing, like, it makes it like less alienating. And yeah it's- as a listener, I'm not an artist, as a listener, those types of experiences are… they make the best records, man…
Spencer: Sure, and I think, you know, as a listener of music I search for that authentic and just really raw emotional experience from people. And I think that those are the records and the songs that just touch you for life...
Brent: Where did you record this album, like did you produce everything yourself?
Spencer: Yeah, I have a little studio in my house and, you know, I have Pro Tools and some microphones and a drum set and I just make everything kind of work for me. I've recorded bands for a long, long time. I've been- I've sat in that producer seat for quite a few full length albums back in Murfreesboro and Nashville. I didn't want anybody else to produce it because I wanted to spend some time on it, and really this past year these tracks started as demos. They've had different drummers, they've had different bass players, they've had, you know, different iterations and then finally, you know, to have something that I think I've settled on that's really perfect for that moment, you know, it really… I'm looking- and it sounds weird to say, like, I'm looking forward to leaving this album behind because it is painful…
Brent: Yeah…
Spencer: And it has some hurt in it, and these songs are rocking and they're fun but yeah, they- they're very deep. And not in like a, you know, philosophical way, but they come from a place that I really had to dig down deep to get to and kind of like you said: it's hard to go to that place. I think, you know, the experiences I've had in the past year, you know, I've lost people. I've, you know, learned a lot of things about myself. I think, in a way, not to sound morbid, but like: once you've tasted death you sort of leave behind the inhibitions of being afraid to express yourself. You know I lost a close friend about a year ago and the things that are unexpressed haunt me. And I think with my music I don't ever want to shy away from what I really, truly feel. And I think what you'll get with these 10 songs is: I'm nobody special. I'm just some rocker dad, but you're going to get 100% of me. You know on this album, as much as, you know, you know, I've struggled with employment and alcohol and I've had a divorce and not to say "Woe is me" about any of these things, but you know, life is hard for everyone, and I think life is really all about what you choose to do with those experiences and how you choose to sink or swim in those times. And I think in my life I've chosen to sink many times. I've chosen to sink, and I feel like I'm finally ready to [swim]- like nothing can stop me, you know, and I think that's what that motivator was. Yeah, I'm not afraid to express myself anymore because life is too short to leave things unsaid, and yeah, I don't want to! Really what I found in these bad experiences is that is that life is beautiful and it's worth living, and worth being here and worth making the most of and- so yeah…. I'm glad you're like, you know, taking that from it rather than saying “Oh God, this guy is grim…”
Brent: Oh, no no no…