| 'Night Shades' 101 with COBRA STARSHIP's RYLAND BLACKINTON. |
| Written by Shahlin Graves |
| Tuesday, 06 September 2011 20:44 |
 The first time that we try to get hold of COBRA STARSHIP guitarist RYLAND BLACKINTON to discuss the band's upcoming fourth studio album 'NIGHT SHADES', there's a record company mis-calculation of time-zones and he's left hanging. The second time around, Blackinton is un-contactable while delayed and stuck at an airport, and it's us that feel stood up. However, third time's the charm... and thus, Coup De Main finally managed to catch Blackinton's ear while he was back at home in New York City for a brief spell. Read on for our discussion of important things such as being related to a member of Westlife, 'Spinal Tap' humour, Blackinton's memories of being "super blackout drunk" in New Zealand... and a very special THIS IS IVY LEAGUE pact that involves you. COUP DE MAIN: Congratulations on your new single 'You Make Me Feel...' debuting at Number One on the New Zealand singles chart! COBRA STARSHIP - RYLAND BLACKINTON: Yeah, very cool! Thank you for that. CDM: Do you have any plans yet to come back to NZ and tour the new album? RYLAND: We just finished mastering, so hopefully we'll be on the road this fall. [We have] no plan to go yet, but it's one of our favourite places to go and hopefully we'll be there before the end of the year. CDM: Earlier this year, Cobra Starship dropped off Maroon 5's Australian tour in order to finish working on the new album. Are decisions like that quite hard to make? RYLAND: Yeah, those are very hard to make. What happened with the Maroon 5 thing I think, is that they dropped a couple of dates off the tour - I think two or three, I'm not really certain - but that meant that it would be even harder for us to go out there since it's pretty difficult to travel out to Australia, it's an expensive plane ticket and then once there, you have to fly everywhere which is a series of more really expensive plane tickets. So, we were right in the middle of writing and as much as we wanted to go and see all of our Australian fans, it didn't make sense to leave for that short a period of time, it just felt like the right thing to do was to stay on the right trajectory at home and continue finishing the record which we felt ultimately was more important. CDM: How excited are you for the release of your new album, 'Night Shades'? RYLAND: I'm very excited about it! We produced this album, we've spent a lot of time with it, and sometimes when you spend a great deal of time on something that you're creating it's so good to sort of set it free and let it go and not listen to it for a little while - and that's the point that we're at right now. So I'm excited about the reception and just excited to have completed it. We're very proud of it! CDM: Which songs are you most looking forward to fans finally hearing? RYLAND: There are some collaborations that are really exciting... one that I can give away is that we're doing a song with Ryan Tedder - that is a song that we're very proud of and a collaboration that was really cool, he's a great guy and very talented. CDM: I also noticed that The Plastiscines and Jump Into The Gospel appear on 'Night Shades' as well. How did that all come about? RYLAND: Well The Plastiscines, we've been fans of for a very long time. Actually me in general, I'm just pretty much always a fan of an all-female French band, I don't think that will ever change. We toured with them in Europe and became friends and just had a good time touring and partying with them - and we had a moment in a song where we needed a group of girls, like a big group of girls singing, so we asked them if they could lay it down and they did and it was incredible. As for Jump Into The Gospel, they're close friends of ours here in New York and [it was the] same sort of thing, we needed something extra on one of our songs to bring it to the next-level and we had Louis [Epstein] from Jump Into The Gospel come in and sing for us. So, definitely having friends around on this record was a big help. CDM: The Plastiscines also guest on the new Panic! At The Disco album. Did you introduce them to each other? RYLAND: No, I don't think so? I mean, I know that from the first time I met them that they were very big fans of that band, so I'm not sure who brokered that - it wasn't us. But I look forward to hearing that [song]. CDM: How do you think 'Night Shades' differs to 'Hot Mess' and your other past albums? RYLAND: It's hard for me to say... I spent so much time listening to it that sometimes you lose sense of what it actually is, but from a lyrical standpoint I think that Gabe [Saporta] maybe tapped into some more personal content. He could tell you better about that, but that's the way it seems. I think there's still a lot of high-energy stuff, a lot of dance music, but lyrically I think he tapped into a little bit more of a personal angle. CDM: Is the rest of 'Night Shades' similar or different to [the first to be released tracks] 'You Make Me Feel...' and 'Don't Blame The World, It's The DJ's Fault'? RYLAND: I think that it's pretty diverse and different from that. The balance of this record - and really of any record when it comes to mainstream music - is trying to create something that is right for the fans and also trying to create something that can bring you to a bigger audience. And so, we have sort of both levels of that. Some of our diehard hardcore fans maybe might hear a song like 'You Make Me Feel...' and think that [the album] is only going to be all about club-bangers, but there's something for all of us on this record, I believe. CDM: Do you have a favourite song? RYLAND: My favourite song on this record is called 'Anything For Love'. We were lucky enough to get the legendary Arthur Baker to mix it for us. Arthur Baker is responsible for a lot of the early Afrika Bambaataa and New Order stuff and he created a distinctly downtown New York City dance-sound in the eighties and we wanted to try and channel some of that. So we were able to get him on board and that's why that song is my favourite. CDM: Which 'Night Shades' song are you most looking forward to playing live? RYLAND: Gosh, I haven't even begun to think about it. Probably the same song, 'Anything For Love'. CDM: What was your favourite part of the album to record? RYLAND: Recently we got to lay down - [actually] right at the very end of the process, I should say - we had to record piano and the piano at my house is way out of tune because of the heatwave here and we were able to rent some time in Electric Lady Studios which is where Jimi Hendrix famously recorded some of his records and it's just one of the most impressive studios. They had a really beautiful Yamaha piano and great mics and a great mixer and recording the piano for the record, that was my favourite part. CDM: Whose idea was it to release the viral video for 'Don't Blame The World, It's The DJ's Fault' with the eggplant wearing a pair of sunglasses? RYLAND: That was me and Gabe! Do you know what nightshades are? Nightshades actually have nothing to do with sunglasses at night, nightshades are a group of vegetables which only flower at night, for example tomatoes and eggplants are considered nightshades. For hundreds of years people considered them to be poisonous, but only recently did they make it into the culinary world and similarly, a lot of this record was written and recorded at night, and so we felt a kinship to the nightshades. CDM: Why did you decide to release 'You Make Me Feel...' as the first single from 'Night Shades'? RYLAND: It just definitely sounds like the first single. There's no real science to it, you just kind of go with what feels like will make the best impression right out of the gate. We have some songs that I'm very proud of that aren't suited to be a first single, but mostly it's just marketing label bullshit type-of stuff. CDM: Your girlfriend Kristen does a spot of foot-modeling on the 'Night Shades' album cover... how did that come about? RYLAND: Well, we were working with Kai Regan - the photographer and the director who did the 'You Make Me Feel...' and the 'Good Girls [Go Bad]' video and the 'Hot Mess' video [too] actually - and we had this image of a girl in a high-heeled shoe stepping through a pair of sunglasses and we just needed a girl with a nice leg. <laughs> And so, my girlfriend was thankfully available and as you can see she has a tattoo on her foot which we at first said: "Well we can just digitally remove the tattoo if we need to..." But we ended up keeping it which is cool. So, she made an appearance on the album cover from the knee-down, I believe.  CDM: In 2013 it will be Cobra Starship's ten year band anniversary! What remaining things on your bucket list would you like to have crossed off by then? RYLAND: There's still so many parts of the world that we haven't had an opportunity to tour in and we hear from a lot of people over Twitter - and I don't even understand about how all the politics work and how you can get invited to play somewhere, because a lot of people just think that we can sort of decide wherever we want to play, but there's so much more that's involved in that. We've never done Italy, we've never been to Greece, we've never been to Spain... we've only been to a few parts of South America, I would really love to visit all of those places and say that I've been virtually everywhere... Russia, for example... I'd like to go to all those places before the band is through. CDM: I know that your Japanese fans really appreciate you wearing a Japanese flag t-shirt in the 'You Make Me Feel...' music video... RYLAND: Yeah, it seems like a no-brainer to me. I wanted to... obviously, the devastation in Japan was a big deal all over the world and this company 'Opening Ceremony' made this shirt with just the Japanese flag and all of the proceeds from the shirts went to the cause... and I just thought it was kind of a cool way to let all my Japanese fans who - not to pick favourites here, but Japan is my favourite country to visit and favourite country to tour and vacation - that was just my way of trying to say "Arigatou gozaimasu" to all of them for being strong and getting through this tough time. CDM: What is your favourite Cobra Starship memory of all time? RYLAND: I met Snoop Dogg. That was it, that was the big one. We were on TRL and Snoop Dogg was on TRL and I just got to chill with him for a little bit. That was incredible. That, or Paul McCartney. We met Paul McCartney, same thing. But those are the two big ones, Snoop Dogg and Paul McCartney. CDM: What's your favourite thing about each of the other members in Cobra Starship? RYLAND: Boy, that's a tough question. I like them all for different reasons... <laughs> Let's see... it's pretty much the same thing for everybody, which is that I admire everyone's sense of humour. If anybody in this band didn't have a sense of humour it would be really rough - but Nate [Novarro], Victoria [Asher], Gabe and Alex [Suarez], all of us we're really good at not taking anything too seriously and keeping things in scope and not getting jaded and not getting full of ourselves, and just sort of... the big barometer for me is that the day that 'Spinal Tap' isn't funny to me anymore, is the day that I don't deserve to do this anymore. But thankfully, it's still one of the funniest movies to watch, and as a band, you find yourselves in those situations all the time. So, I'm thankful that all the other members of the band have great senses of humour. CDM: Are there any plans for a second This Is Ivy League album anytime soon? RYLAND: Yeah! Unfortunately because of how busy we've been with Cobras, Alex and I haven't had that much time to focus on This Is Ivy League, but we have tons of songs that are already recorded, but we just don't have the time at the moment to devote to releasing a-whole-nother... it's getting to the point where we're thinking maybe we'll just put it online and give it away, just to put it into the world as it were... but we've been pretty tied up this past year with this Cobra record. CDM: Let's make a pact okay? If 'Night Shades' debuts in the Top Five on the New Zealand albums chart, then next time you tour here, This Is Ivy League has to somehow play a show, okay? RYLAND: If the album debuts in the Top Five? It's a deal! CDM: I'm holding you to this okay? RYLAND: Fair enough. It's a deal, I promise, I won't forget. CDM: True or false? You are Shane [Filan] from Westlife's second cousin? RYLAND: Oh! True, actually. Shane was in another band when I was really young, he was in like another boyband, I can't remember what it was called... I think it was called like Also One [I.O.U.], or something like that? My Grandmother would give me his CD and tell me: "You have this cousin in Ireland who is a musician and you're a musician and so maybe you should listen to this..." <laughs> It wasn't really my thing, but some years later I got another CD from my Grandmother and she said that they were pretty much a big deal and sure enough now they're like internationally boyband huge, so it's pretty cool. We haven't actually even met, you know, he was in Ireland. That's another thing I should put on my bucket list! I should try to meet him, I'm sure it would be fun. CDM: If you could be any 'Harry Potter' character, who would you choose to be and why? RYLAND: I like Ron Weasley a lot. I think that he is kind of an under-stated character, but he's always taking the fall and in all the movies whenever there's something dangerous that needs to be done, he always offers to do it because he knows that Harry is 'The One' and Harry needs to be the one that goes on and kills Voldemort. I don't necessarily know if I'm that way, but I admire him for being that way. CDM: Now to end off on, I have a few questions submitted by fans for you to answer... What is your favourite New Zealand memory and why? RYLAND: When we were [last] in Auckland we DJ'd at this bar called Cassette and it was a really cool club that we got to play a lot of cool music, we got to play all of our favourite music, and it was after a great show and the crowd was so cool and everybody in New Zealand is so beautiful. Everything about the night was so perfect, I got super blackout drunk and stayed out all night and then missed my plane the next morning, and that's the only plane that I've ever missed. I had to take a plane later and in the cab on the way to the airport I heard the Kids Of 88 remix of 'Hot Mess' and I was just like: "YEAH this is a great country!" <laughs> CDM: Do you still wear red socks everyday? RYLAND: I do! I do, I can't stop. I'm too worried that if I stop now, everything will go to shit. Because as soon as I started doing it, everything started getting great, so it's a superstition at this point. CDM: Who or what, did you have posters of on your wall when you were growing up? RYLAND: When I was a kid I had a poster of Hulk Hogan the wrestler - the Hulkamania poster where he was ripping his shirt off <laughs> - and growing up in Massachusetts, Doug Flutie the quarterback for the New England Patriots was a big deal, so I had a Doug Flutie poster also. CDM: Do you ever get sick of people telling you that you look like Guy Ripley? Clearly the two of you are nothing alike... RYLAND: Yeah! I do get a little sick of it and a little offended... but, you know... C'est la vie. CDM: When was the last time you heard from Guy Ripley? RYLAND: He was in our video, so he was on the video shoot - that was about three months ago. CDM: How should Cobra Starship make people feel? RYLAND: Hmmm... Cobra Starship should make people feel like a natural woman. CDM: Lastly, do you have a message for your New Zealand fans? RYLAND: Yeah! I hope that we're able to see you guys before the end of the year and I look forward to blacking out again and missing my flight. |
