Blind Man's Colour Interview: SXSW 2010

Posted on Feb 9th 2010 5:35PM by Natasha R. Puryear
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Blind Man's Colour features two guys from the beaches of St. Petersburg, Fla. Their debut album, 'Season Dreaming,' was released in 2009 and the follow-up, 'Wooden Blankets,' was released in early 2010. The two band members, college students attending different schools, managed to go on their first statewide tour in support of their psychedelic efforts in the latter part of summer 2009, culminating with a week in New York. Spinner recently spoke with drummer Kyle Wyss about the band and their upcoming performance at SXSW.

Describe your sound in your own words.

I would describe our sound as a mix of organic sounds with synthetic or electronic sounds. There are some artists that people obviously compare us to, but that's not our intention at all. The recordings that have been released so far are pretty old -- a lot of the stuff we are working on now is a lot more guitar-based, I'd say, than the past stuff, more electronic.

How did your band form?

Orhan [Chettri, keyboardist and backup vocalist,] and I met in middle school, in seventh grade. I was just learning how to play drums and he was just learning how to play guitar. We both were pretty much just teaching ourselves. We started hanging out, jamming at each other's houses on the weekend. Then later, in the eighth grade, we focused more on writing our own material. We did covers of Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd and stuff like that. In early high school we stopped doing other people's music and started really working on our own.

What are your musical influences?

I love Simon and Garfunkel, Beach House, Unicorns. For Orhan, he's really into a lot of older jazz music, like Miles Davis, as well as stuff like Grizzly Bear.

How did you come up with your band name?

Since middle school, we had a few names that we were sparring around, but nothing really stayed. We were always changing them, we never really liked them that much. Then in tenth grade, my brother and I were talking about how could you possibly explain color to a blind person, a person who is born blind. There is no real way to describe the color red, because they have no basis of light or color, so I took the idea of something like music replacing the lack of color for a blind person.

What's your biggest vice?

For me, I would say nothing, but for Orhan, it's smoking.

What's in your festival survival kit?

We've never done a festival before. We've usually just played one show and gone home. This is going to be a lot more hectic, so we are not exactly sure how to prepare for it. Lots of water. Earphones because loud music can get pretty loud. Lots of fruit.

What's your musical guilty pleasure?

Lil Wayne.

Beatles or Stones?

Beatles.

How has touring been different than the beach shows you were doing in the past?

In the past, we didn't have a record deal, and we weren't taking anything really seriously. We would play on the beach near our houses, little morning festivals that no one would really be paying attention to. You just go, set up and play for as long as you want. It's really weird to be out of state and playing. I wouldn't say that most people know our music already, but it's really weird to be in a totally different environment with people listening to music we wrote at home.

What's the craziest thing you've seen or experienced while on tour?

We played with another band that's on our record label called Drink Up Buttercup, and they were extremely drunk when they played. It sort of goes along with their music, which is very Clash-y and loud, and they were using garbage cans for percussion instruments. I saw some blood just offstage and a lot of drunk jokes onstage. I didn't know what to think of it. It looked like people were having fun.

You are still attending college. How many classes are you going to miss to go to SXSW?

I think Orhan is going to miss more than me. I believe he has classes on Fridays, too, but I am missing a biology test, which hopefully I will be able to make up.

Natasha R. Puryear is a contributor from Seed.com. Learn how you can contribute here.