Blake Christiana - Yarn Interview
Doug Burke:
Welcome to Back Story Song. I'm your host Doug Burke and today we're here with Blake Christiana of the band Yarn.
Blake Christiana is the front-man and songwriter for Yarn, the four time Grammy nominated alt-country rock band based in Raleigh, North Carolina. The band relentlessly tours, and Blake tells stories or yarns based on the trials and tribulations of life in America. Yarn songs often depict the challenges and setbacks of life and the perseverance of the human spirit.
I'm here at Back Story Song, and I'm here with Blake Christiana from the band Yarn.
Blake Christiana:
Good to be here. Thanks for having me.
Doug Burke:
And we're here to talk about the backstory of some of your songs. Before we do that, I was very fascinated by your background that you actually started in Brooklyn and have moved to Raleigh, and played the famous Kenny's Castaway, where Bruce Springsteen and Aerosmith started their careers.
Blake Christiana:
Yeah, every Monday night for two years right at the beginning. Before we even had a name, we were playing Kenny's every Monday night.
Doug Burke:
You were the house band?
Blake Christiana:
Yeah. We would play til, man, 3:00 in the morning, I think. That was a weird street, Bleecker Street, and I think it still is. It's probably even weirder now, but it was just tourists coming in and out of those clubs, all those music clubs down the street. The Red Lion, and The Bitter End, and Kenny's, and Stella Blues, all these weird places. But yeah, we did every Monday night there, and they were just ... Basically, we'd get free liquor, so Tuesday would be rough.
Doug Burke:
A lot of those clubs are gone, including Kenny's.
Blake Christiana:
Yeah, Kenny's is gone.
Doug Burke:
They can't afford the rent in Manhattan, and they move over to Williamsburg, and the whole music scene's moved out there.
Doug Burke:
But we're here to talk about some of your songs. Which one do you want to talk about first?
Blake Christiana:
Let's talk about ... Abilene's a pretty good story.
Blake Christiana:
Abilene came out on our Come On In record in 2010. When I was a kid growing up, my first introduction to music was my father and his friends sitting around a campfire in Lake George, New York, up in the Adirondack Mountains. And they would always sing this song, and they'd probably sing it three or four times a night and, to this day, it was a song called Abilene. So, it was ... That song. Kind of famous. I think Loudermilk did it. A bunch of people did it. I didn't know who did it at the time. It's just a big, vivid memory of my musical past. And so, I had a band in New York City before Yarn, and it was called Blake and the Family Dog. So, we played in this club called The Bag It In, and we did that probably once a week or once a month with this band. And a guy, a Budweiser rep, who would bring in the Budweiser for the bar, created this music program for bands like us or bands that played regularly in New York, where he would bring in an engineer and a little portable studio and record a live show, and Budweiser would pay for it. And we'd have a free CD to give away at shows, a live CD. And so, the guy who did this asked the bartender at The Bag It In, "Hey, who in here would you recommend that plays this club." And he said, Oh, that's Blake and the Family Dog. So we got each other's number and we eventually talked, and I met him down at the The Bag It In one afternoon in Greenwich Village on Third Street. And so, we set down. I was working a day job at the time. I was on the 40th floor of Madison and 42nd Street, aka hell on earth, between the hours of 9:00 and 7:00 PM. Yeah, it was awful. So I took my lunch break and I went down to The Bag It In and met this guy. His name was Josh Roy Brown. We started drinking Guinness. We were getting along pretty good, talking about our past and how we became musicians, I guess. He was a slide player, and a songwriter, and a really good guitar player. So I started telling him about my father and how we would sit around the campfire and I'd listen to him play music. He goes, "Oh, that's cool." And I go, "Yeah, and this particular song Abilene he just used to play it all the time and that's just ... And josh is like, "No way, man. You're messing with me, man. You're lying to me. That wasn't really the song that started you on playing music." And I said, "No. What are you talking about?" He was like adamant that I was messing with his head. He goes, "My father wrote that song." And I'm like, "Get out of here." He goes, "It's the only song he ever wrote." And he said he wrote it in a bathtub in Chicago, I think, or something. And his father's name is Les Brown, so you can find it. I think Loudermilk gets most credit for it, but he actually wrote that song.
Doug Burke:
And he's still getting royalty checks probably.
Blake Christiana:
So then, I never went back to work. We started Jameson. I mean, we were just Guinness and Jameson, and just going back and forth. We're lifelong friends. He actually played on the first three or four Yarn records. I think he might've played on this song. So after that whole thing happened, I had just started Yarn I think at that point, so I had two bands going, but eventually I was like, "I've got to write my own version of this song Abilene just because of all the ... just everything." It was crazy. So that's what it was. I mean, the song is about a girl named Abilene who's down on her luck and kind of in the gutter and a guy coming along and bringing her out, which doesn't have anything to do with Josh Roy Brown or his father, but it's become like a bit live staple. And we don't play it every night, but people request it every night. It's just funny that that song has carried me through as long as I can remember and now I play that song at least two or three times a week. So that's my Abilene story. It's kind of a coincidental crazy thing.
Doug Burke:
So was there a girl that you were envisioning or some composite of women that you were thinking about with Abilene or is this just made up?
Blake Christiana:
It's pretty made up. I think it just came out. I started playing the chord pattern. It was more of a fingerpicking intro and the verses just came out of me like that, "I know a Texas town," whatever the words are.
Doug Burke:
That bears your name.
Blake Christiana:
That bears your name, yeah, yeah.
Doug Burke:
I love it. I'm reminding you of your own lyrics.
Blake Christiana:
But yeah, so I mean, yeah, the song is about kind of pulling a girl out. Abilene, I don't know if you've ever been to the town, but it's not exactly a-
Doug Burke:
I haven't.
Blake Christiana:
Yeah, it's not a-
Doug Burke:
Have you been there?
Blake Christiana:
No.
Doug Burke:
You guys have been all over the world.
Blake Christiana:
Yeah, well, I've been there. I've been to Abilene, but played there, but it's not a pretty town. Like the song Les Brown wrote, prettiest town I've ever seen, no. No.
Doug Burke:
Not true?
Blake Christiana:
Not true.
Doug Burke:
It was a pretty song you wrote a girl named Abilene. The town, not so much.
Blake Christiana:
So pretty ... This is pretty much fiction, but with just a good backstory.
Doug Burke:
You write a lot of breakup songs, it seems to me.
Blake Christiana:
Yeah, I write a lot of anti-love songs.
Doug Burke:
Yeah.
Blake Christiana:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
This is kind of as far as you go towards like a love song in some of your work. Is that right? I mean-
Blake Christiana:
Well, no, I wrote one of the most beautiful songs and one of my most favorite songs I ever wrote is a song called Take me First. And that is on the record Shine the Light On which came out in 2013, which is an all acoustic record, but that's about just love lasting forever. And then, the reason it's called Take me First is the narrator is like, "If she goes, I've got to go right with her," or, you know,-
Doug Burke:
Yeah.
Blake Christiana:
... "Don't make me wait too long." So that's the gist of that. And that's inspired by my wife and my parents who are still together and soulmates forever. So there are a few. I don't know if you have time,-
Doug Burke:
Yeah.
Blake Christiana:
... Take Me First-
Doug Burke:
Yeah, no, we can.
Blake Christiana:
... because it talks about just like-
Doug Burke:
There are a few love songs in your repertoire, but they-
Blake Christiana:
Yeah, yeah. Just like George Burns and Gracie Allen, just like Johnny Cash and June Carter, too, getting old is a privilege we hold and I'm so lucky I'm getting over the hill. Then in the bridge is "Take me first or at least spare the course of a long and lonely wait." So that's a positive love song with death involved. So it's not fully positive. It has to have a little dark punch in the gut.
Doug Burke:
You always have that element of darkness in your songs.
Blake Christiana:
But yeah, I wrote that in like 10 minutes and I was, "Ah, someone going to record this and make me some money." Nope, nobody.
Doug Burke:
I always ask the songwriters who come to Back Story Song if there's a song where you could pick any voice in the world.
Blake Christiana:
Whoever is going to make me the most money. No. But if there's a guy who's the biggest honor to sing one of my songs, I mean, I would go with Tom Waits or Bruce Springsteen. To have one of those guys. I mean, I'd probably make more money if Bruce sang it, but man it'd be fun to hear Tom Waits sing a yarn.
Doug Burke:
Sing that love song?
Blake Christiana:
No, not necessarily.
Doug Burke:
What song would you pick Tom-
Blake Christiana:
Anything.
Doug Burke:
What song of yours would you pick Tom to sing?
Blake Christiana:
I have no idea, man. That would actually be cool. To hear him sing that love song would be cool.
Doug Burke:
That love song? He does-
Blake Christiana:
It would be so dark. "Take me first or at least ..."
Doug Burke:
So when you did-
Blake Christiana:
Yeah, I would love to hear it. I'd love to hear him sing every song I've written. That would be amazing.
Doug Burke:
When you wrote Take me First for your wife and your parents, when you played it for your wife, how did she react? Was it like,-
Blake Christiana:
I did not-
Doug Burke:
... "What's wrong with you? You're writing me a love song now?"
Blake Christiana:
Not the first love song. I wrote her a song on an earlier record. Actually, it wound up being on an outtakes record called Leftovers called Luanne. Yeah, I mean, she's got favorites, but that one, yeah, that one just ...
Doug Burke:
Take me First, when you wrote that, did you play it for her like a demo style as soon as you wrote it?
Blake Christiana:
I wrote it in her living room. So I was living part-time ... This was before I fully moved down to North Carolina. Yeah, so she heard it that day. She probably went to work and I was working on it.
Doug Burke:
How did she react? It's always interesting to me like how ... Like I said ...
Blake Christiana:
Well, she's had a lot to do with a lot ... She's a songwriter, too.
Doug Burke:
Okay.
Blake Christiana:
So she's had a lot to do with a lot of my songs. And she's written some songs about me. So it's ... I mean, there's nothing better, is there? I mean, that's ... I can't speak for her and I know she loves ...
Doug Burke:
Does she break down in tears?
Blake Christiana:
Oh, no.
Doug Burke:
Does she come over and hug you?
Blake Christiana:
Hello, no.
Doug Burke:
Do you ... It is like a romantic moment? Is it?
Blake Christiana:
Of course. It's a beautiful thing. It really is. And she ...
Doug Burke:
Or do they just go like ... I've heard some guys say, "Nothing happened." I was like, "Nothing?"
Blake Christiana:
Oh no, I mean, we're soulmates so we just ... It's a-
Doug Burke:
That's a beautiful thing.
Blake Christiana:
Yeah, that's a beautiful thing. It's an everyday love. But yeah, no, I mean, I'm trying to think. There's been a number. I mean, the song Falling on This is the Year, I wrote that for my wife and I made a video of all her old pictures with that song set to it. There might've been a tear on that one.
Doug Burke:
Well, that's good. That's good.
Blake Christiana:
Yeah. But there might've been a tear. I mean, I got the worst memory on the planet.
Doug Burke:
Okay.
Blake Christiana:
But she definitely loves it and when she writes about me I love it too. And when she tells me, she actually gives me great ideas for songs. Sweet Dolly. Write a song about a kid seeing Dolly Parton on TV for the first time. She told me to do that.
Doug Burke:
Did you give her a co-write credit? No.
Blake Christiana:
I don't think I did, but she deserves it. She gets pretty much all credit for everything, Doug.
Doug Burke:
Got it. Got it. So on Abilene, I watched the YouTube video and it's like a 13 minute workout jam.
Blake Christiana:
Oh, did you see one on YouTube or something?
Doug Burke:
Yeah.
Blake Christiana:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Doug Burke:
Yeah.
Blake Christiana:
Yeah, we spaced that. We stretched that out live, yeah.
Doug Burke:
And it's awesome.
Blake Christiana:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
And your mandolin player plays both-
Blake Christiana:
Well, we don't have him. He's gone now, yeah.
Doug Burke:
I understand that. So I want to ask you about that.
Blake Christiana:
Oh wait, you watched something ...
Doug Burke:
From 2012.
Blake Christiana:
Okay. That's probably about when he left the band, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Doug Burke:
Yeah, he's not in Yarn today,-
Blake Christiana:
Yeah, exactly.
Doug Burke:
... but he plays two different mandolins.
Blake Christiana:
He was playing an electric and an acoustic, yeah.
Doug Burke:
Yeah, in the middle of the song. I thought that was cool. I haven't seen that every day. And you had a sax in that setup.
Blake Christiana:
Oh, this is the way ... Yeah, this is back in Portland, Oregon. I know what you're talking about. That was ... Yeah, that was off the wall. There's a good new version. There's a good one we just recorded a few months ago in a live show you've got to check out, yeah.
Doug Burke:
Are you still doing it that workout style-
Blake Christiana:
Oh yeah.
Doug Burke:
... where it's just like extended jam. We love that here in Park City.
Blake Christiana:
Well, I'll tell you it's-
Doug Burke:
We just love that kind of extended jam.
Blake Christiana:
I'll have to send you the link for the one that got filmed a few months back in Massachusetts. The quality of the recording and that ... It's really good.
Doug Burke:
And it's you and your three band mates from Yarn today?
Blake Christiana:
It's just the four of us, yeah. So it gives you more of what's going on now, yeah.
Doug Burke:
You wanted to talk about Carolina Heart.
Blake Christiana:
Carolina Heart, yeah. This is another. I mean, my wife has a lot to do with this one too, yeah. I was living in Brooklyn and things were getting dire. We were on the road. It was my only job. I was subletting my place when I was gone. There was actually a guy, he was a Yarn fan and he needed a place to stay, so I let him sublet my house. And little did I know he had a really bad drinking problem, like really bad. And I had just gotten like a case of Buffalo trays because they were thinking about sponsoring us. I just always had liquor in the house from people giving it to us. I went out and played Flood Fest and came back, and he had almost drank himself to death. I had to send my buddy over to call the paramedics so they could save his life. But I had to get out of Brooklyn. I couldn't afford it. I was subletting to these crazy people. Not that Clark was crazy. He had an alcohol problem and I loved that guy. He's since passed away, but ... So I was just like, "I've got to get out of here." And I had started dating my wife, but I couldn't move to North Carolina. I only had one vehicle and then the band had the van, everything. So I get an email probably about a year prior to me realizing if I don't get out of here, I can't do the band anymore. I didn't have enough money and all sorts of circumstances. A year prior to that this woman emailed me. She was a fan and her husband was a fan. And she said, "Hey, I know how hard it is a musician. If you need a place to stay, we have a house across the street from us that's vacant." It's on a dairy farm in Pennsylvania about two hours from New York. I remembered that email and over the course of the year I'd probably seen her and her husband three or four more times at shows in Pennsylvania. And so, I got to know them a little bit. And I was in kind of a situation where I had to go. And so, I emailed her from that email she had sent me. I said, "Does this offer still stand?" And she said, "Of course." I said, "Well, can I come stay there tonight?" And so I did and she said, "Sure." And I went and I got like an air mattress or something. This is before I moved any real furniture in. And I stayed there for two years. And in that two years ...
Doug Burke:
That's quite a tenancy you were there.
Blake Christiana:
Rent free. Rent free and I'd go over to their house when I was in town and they would make me dinner and serve me wine and whiskey.
Doug Burke:
That's a good deal.
Blake Christiana:
And I mean, they're family now. I mean, just that type of thing happens. It's about as extreme as it gets as far as kindness and opening up everything to somebody who provides them with music, but now we're lifelong friends and family, but … So that was my little interlude between Brooklyn and North Carolina. I knew I was eventually going to North Carolina because my wife was there, but she was, obviously, just my girlfriend at the time. So in that period I wrote a whole bunch of songs about getting the hell out of New York City and getting down to somewhere that is more accepting or feels more like home. I mean, Brooklyn felt like home for long enough and I was ready to go. And so, that song as much as it's about Carolina, it's about my wife Mandi and just everything in the past, and that being the future. And that pretty much is the story behind Carolina Heart.
Doug Burke:
So you live in Raleigh.
Blake Christiana:
I live in Raleigh, yes.
Doug Burke:
And you love it?
Blake Christiana:
Well,-
Doug Burke:
No?
Blake Christiana:
I'm a part-time Raleigh now.
Doug Burke:
You're on the road so much?
Blake Christiana:
We bought a house in Brevard, my wife and I. We still live in Raleigh because our kids are still. One's going to college and ... They're both going to college. So we might move out west in the mountains, to the Blue Ridge Mountains. We got a house out there now.
Doug Burke:
But you still have a Carolina Heart?
Blake Christiana:
I'm still Carolina.
Doug Burke:
Because any ... This is ...
Blake Christiana:
But it's more like Park City than opposed to ...
Doug Burke:
Yeah, I get it.
Blake Christiana:
Salt Lake City.
Doug Burke:
Carolina's got a lot of beautiful places.
Blake Christiana:
I do love Raleigh. I don't want to dis Raleigh. I'm just ... It's growing so rapidly. I'm in the scale back mode of my life where I want a small town.
Doug Burke:
I always ask the song writers about the, ye, he, woo, woos.
Doug Burke:
Yeah. So how does that come to you? Do you write it down exactly as it comes? Like, how do you write it when you write the song? Is it something you do in the studio?
Blake Christiana:
I can't remember. No, that one was written. I know Bobby our drummer sometimes gives me some like, "Oh, do ... Give it a little something. Not a word, but ..." He's good at finding those moments. But that, Carolina Heart, I think that was just I felt the urge. Bruce Springsteen does that all the time.
Doug Burke:
Totally.
Blake Christiana:
So I've done it only I think on two tracks. I did it on a song called Bar Down the Road and on Carolina Heart. But yeah, it's really fun to do, I think, is pretty much the only reason I do it.
Doug Burke:
I think it could become the theme song for Carolina.
Blake Christiana:
Yeah, I wish it would.
Doug Burke:
Is there a theme song for Carolina?
Blake Christiana:
I'm sure there is. What would it be? Carolina Heart.
Doug Burke:
Yeah, it should be.
Blake Christiana:
Well, it's funny, one of my licensing guys called me and was like, "Oh, well well we're pitching Carolina Heart for that political show on ShowTime, The Circus. I was like, "Oh sweet, sweet. I hope it happens." They were doing something about Carolina. I guess maybe the Super Tuesday. They didn't go with it. They went with a hip hop song. But maybe it'll get there someday. I don't know.
Doug Burke:
The song isn't distinctively North Carolina or South Carolina is it?
Blake Christiana:
It can be either one.
Doug Burke:
It can be either one, right?
Blake Christiana:
I do love Charleston. I love South Carolina, too.
Doug Burke:
Your Carolina heart is either north or south.
Blake Christiana:
It's for me, yeah. But for anybody listening whatever you want it to be.
Doug Burke:
Hey, let's talk about Hard Times.
Blake Christiana:
Hard Times. That's just a fun one because I wrote that when me and my wife bought our first house and it was in a semi questionable neighborhood. It bordered a little sketchiness. But I'm a musician, what else can I afford? We bought a house. We were all excited. And we close and we go and we start moving our stuff in. And I'm like, "Yes, this is going to be great." And then, I'm walking around the house and some guy must've within the last week since I'd last been there tagged it with like graffiti whatever his tag sign was. I was like, "Oh, no." I was so depressed. I went to Lowe's or Home Depot and I was like, "What is there that gets paint off of brick?" This is brick, just plain brick. You can't paint over it. And then, I got this stuff called Oops. I'm spraying it and I'm scrubbing, and I'm like super depressed. And I'm like, "Awe, it didn't ..." All it did was move the paint around. Shoved it around all over the brick. So I just gave up, walked inside, and thought, "Well, I just made the biggest mistake in my life. This is not a good neighborhood. I shouldn't have done this." And then, I sat down and a black cat walked right through these three big window in my living room. A black cat just walked right in front of the house. I was like, "Yeah, this isn't good." So I was like, "Well, I'm going to write a song. I'm feeling sorry for myself. I'm depressed. I've got buyers like nobody's business." And so I wrote this song Hard Times, which starts with ...
Doug Burke:
This is a song about luck ...
Blake Christiana:
No luck at all.
Doug Burke:
No, it's just like bad luck and good luck. It's like every sort of superstitious thing-
Blake Christiana:
Well, yeah.
Doug Burke:
... is in this song.
Blake Christiana:
Exactly, yeah.
Doug Burke:
Like luck ... Lucky rabbits foot.
Blake Christiana:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
That's the second verse, but the first verse is all about bad luck.
Blake Christiana:
You're right. You're right.
Doug Burke:
Everything bad that could possibly happen from a luck standpoint. You feel like this guy's doomed.
Blake Christiana:
Yes, he is doomed. But that's how I felt, obviously. It's fiction, nonfiction, however you want to see it. And I also just ripped off on Albert King. What's the song? If it weren't for bad luck I'd have no luck at all, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Doug Burke:
No luck at all, yeah. No, there's definitely that reference. You're’s is a little different though.
Blake Christiana:
Yeah, mine's if it weren't for hard times, I'd have no time at all or something. But it just seemed perfect. I was Born Under a Bad Time is the song I was ripping off there, but, I mean, obviously, it sounds nothing like it. That was just a lyric.
Doug Burke:
I won't step on a crack again after this.
Blake Christiana:
I have stepped on ... That line came to me and I loved it, man.
Doug Burke:
Stepped on a few cracks.
Blake Christiana:
Walking back from the old soup kitchen down on main. Figured what harm could it do. My momma's back was broken already. Anyway, next day ...
Doug Burke:
Did you break your mother's back growing up?
Blake Christiana:
No.
Doug Burke:
Were you a good kid?
Blake Christiana:
No, I was not a good teenager. Yeah, I was a bad one. I've been a good son since. Yeah, I was a pain in the ass, man. I owe them several apologies, but they stuck with me. They love the whole music thing. They're on my side.
Doug Burke:
So where'd you find the lyrics for these?
Blake Christiana:
We have some lyrics on our website.
Doug Burke:
Yeah, you're sites very good by the way.
Blake Christiana:
Okay.
Doug Burke:
That's where you get a B+. On your site. You can listen to your entire catalog-
Blake Christiana:
Exactly.
Doug Burke:
... on your website, which is really fun to do.
Blake Christiana:
Yeah.
Doug Burke:
And it's album by album, and so it's really nice, with a little bit of a write up. Not done by you, but done by an critics-
Blake Christiana:
Reviewers, yeah.
Doug Burke:
... of your albums.
Blake Christiana:
We weed out the bad ones and put the good one up.
Doug Burke:
But I like the song Bad Bad Man.
Blake Christiana:
Bad Bad Man. I wrote that with my buddy Shane Spaulding. I mean, he's probably more so the lyric writer on that song. When we first started this band me and him would just sit around. He had note books and note book and I would go through his notebooks. And sometimes not one lyric would remain the same. Like, we'd write the melody and then I'd have his lyrics. His lyrics were so filthy. He would say anything. I would be like, "Shane, we can't say this. We're trying to at least ...
Doug Burke:
You're trying to get on radio or at least Spotify-
Blake Christiana:
... get on something, I mean this was before Spotify.
Doug Burke:
... without the explicit tag next to you.
Blake Christiana:
But, I mean, it was just bad. So like Bad Bad Man. I mean, he was just ... He'd been a drug addict and a raging alcoholic and really had a whole lot of self hatred. So, "My demon is alcohol. My demon is drugs." It's a very violent and just self-
Doug Burke:
Confession -
Blake Christiana:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But he's not that guy. Bad Bad Man is fictional, but that's how he sees himself. He's a little 120 pound ginger and the sweetest guy you'll ever know.
Doug Burke:
Oh, so he's not a bad, bad man.
Blake Christiana:
He's not a bad, bad man, but that's how he sees himself and definitely saw himself at that time. Yeah, "We've been rotting in bars. Looking out at the cars as they come barreling through. And they're wise not to stop because it don't take a lot to get his talons in you." I've written a lot of songs about Skinectity. Bar Down the road is about Skinectity. After I moved back there for a few years before I moved to ... Actually moved out west to Arizona. Then moved to New York City. But I sat in a bar. The name of the bar was the Manhattan Exchange and it was just crazy. We just ... There were us who were in our mid to late 20s and then there were the people that had been there late 40's, late 50's and they've been sitting there forever, you know?
Doug Burke:
Yeah.
Blake Christiana:
I'd seen them and everybody's single.
Doug Burke:
Back when there was smoke in the bar or?
Blake Christiana:
Oh, yeah. Oh yeah, we were all smoking in the bar. And even when I lived in New York we were smoking in the bars. But that happened when I lived there. We stopped at ..But yeah, it was just like ... So Bar Down the Road was about the Manhattan Exchange. It's like all these guys and girls just ... Sometimes they would talk about what they were gonna do, but they never did a damn thing.
Doug Burke:
How they were going to get out?
Blake Christiana:
Yeah, how they were gonna get out. What they were gonna ... Oh, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that. Nobody did shit.
Doug Burke:
Well, you guys tour so much, right?
Blake Christiana:
Yeah. Well, I mean, I got out by moving to New York city, you know?
Doug Burke:
Yeah.
Blake Christiana:
I was like, "I've got to get out of here." And I'm glad I did. I actually moved to New York the summer before September 11th, and it just beat me up and I moved back. I actually moved to Lake George and painted my parents cabin. And then, I was like, "I've got to go back. I can't let it beat me." So I went back right back right before September 11th. And then, I think I went back in August.
Doug Burke:
Did you write any songs about that?
Blake Christiana:
I wrote a song just a few months ago and I haven't done anything with it. I was there. I mean, I was in Union Square when the second plane hit. So the name of the September 11th song is called I was There. I haven't gotten there yet and I don't know if the song I wrote it quite right, but eventually.
Doug Burke:
Boy, it takes a while to process that, doesn't it?
Blake Christiana:
I went down and saw it-
Doug Burke:
- is really profound.
Blake Christiana:
... for the first time this year and that was pretty heavy. And then, I actually found a roll of film just a few months ago at my parents house. I was like, "What is ..." My parents had a box of my shit in it. I saw these pictures. When you actually had to get pictures developed, you know?
Doug Burke:
Yeah.
Blake Christiana:
I'm looking through them and I'm like, "What the hell is it?" I just see a New York City taxi cab. I see a building. And then, I realize I'm taking pictures of the towers on fire and then I'm taking pictures when they're coming down, but I'm working on that too.
Doug Burke:
Yeah, that's a hard one. Sometimes ... How do you know when a song is done?
Blake Christiana:
Yeah, I mean, I just ... I'm a pretty lazy song writer. So sometimes I'll just sing the second verse twice and say I'm done. It evolves. I try to finish it. Once I've finished the third verse or the bridge or whatever, I don't really go back and make too many changes.
Doug Burke:
You don't obsess your songs?
Blake Christiana:
I don't.
New York City Found. That was just me walking around New York. I guess, I was kind of think about when I first moved there. It was a lot of fun. And I was discovering the city and the village. And I even referenced The Bag It In, which my old band used to play at and Bleeker Street, how much it changed. There was Dylan, and Paul Simon, and Lou Reed down there in the real days.
Doug Burke:
60s, 70s.
Blake Christiana:
And in my day it was not very good.
Doug Burke:
It was Yarn.
Blake Christiana:
Yeah. It was. It was Yarn. I mean, it was Blake and the Family Dog.
Doug Burke:
Blake and the Family Dog, yeah.
Blake Christiana:
But I guess we knew musicians down there. I wasn't ... It would've been cool to have like a scene, which there was. It just never really became anything.
Doug Burke:
Kind of sad because it was such a scene for me growing up.
Blake Christiana:
Yeah, and I think maybe there were just different towns where the scene was happening. It wasn't when we were there.
Doug Burke:
Yeah, interesting.
Blake Christiana:
But we got out. We got out.
Doug Burke:
So you don't think of yourselves as a New York band in any way shape or form? It's not a New York Sound. I mean, how would you describe your sound?
Blake Christiana:
I don't know. I mean, I guess we think of ourselves as a New York Band. I mean, that's where we cut our teeth. That's what we did. I mean, what was the amazing thing about New York is you would book a show, the promoter or whoever booked you said, "You can't book a show three weeks prior to this until three three weeks after this. You've got to give us time to promote the show. Sell tickets to your friends." It was all about getting your friends and family in so that they can make a dollar at the bar, take half your money at the door, and do it every 45 minutes. I hated that whole model. That model pissed me off. So I would just book gigs four or five days a week. Didn't give a shit. So our name was everywhere.
Doug Burke:
So you can see Yarn any day of the week?
Blake Christiana:
Oh yeah, any day of the week in Brooklyn or Manhattan. I don't think we every played at any of the other-
Doug Burke:
Boroughs?
Blake Christiana:
... boroughs. But yeah, and it would just ... People would even be, "Oh yeah, I know Yarn." They'd just seen our name on the chalkboard outside. So everybody knew who the hell we were. And we had a pretty good presence in New York early on, but then everybody moves out and nobody knows who you are anymore. Everybody grows has, kids, moves to the suburbs. So now we still play New York. We'll be there next month, but it's changed. A forever chancing city. Revolving door, that's New York City. But we consider ourselves a New York band, but we more so just consider ourselves a road band. Lot's of friends, lots of towns, lots of new family.
Doug Burke:
Good. Well, Blake Christiana, this has really been a pleasure.
Blake Christiana:
What a pleasure talking to you. Sorry.
Doug Burke:
That's okay.
Blake Christiana:
It's going to piss off our producer, right?
Doug Burke:
Wyatt.
Blake Christiana:
Wyatt. Sorry, Wyatt. Sorry about the band playing downstairs. They're just sound checking. And thanks for going mobile.
