Glint Interview: SXSW 2010

Winners of Billboard Magazine's 2007 Independent Music World Series, Glint has been creating a great deal of critical buzz in recent years with their ethereal, climactic soundscapes. In anticipation of their stint at SXSW, lead singer/songwriter Jase Blankfort recently spoke with Spinner about his recent European tour, Brian Eno, and his time spent on Broadway.

Describe your sound in your own words.

Organized chaos.

How did your band form?

I was playing by myself for a couple years, just me and an acoustic guitar, 'til I hooked up with this guy who wanted to represent me. My first to-do was to put a band together, so we held auditions for a drummer--I was very adamant about that, I felt that was the most significant component. We had all these auditions lined up, but the first one who came in just f---ing blew me away. I've been in love with him ever since. We moved out to L.A. to play as a duo. We started playing with a lot of different people and they just didn't click. We started holding auditions years later, and we found Alon Leventon and Dave Johnsen. The music was getting very elaborate and very dense, and it was just too much for a duo to handle. They kind of both came in at the same time, and they were godsends. The four of us recorded an EP together and went and toured Europe.

Speaking of your European tour, what was it like touring ten countries in forty days having never toured Europe before?

We had some great responses, especially from people in England and Germany. It was just when we started putting our records on iTunes and they started selling lots. We thought, "We gotta get over there!" We did, and I think it was the highlight of our careers thus far. Toward the end of the tour we did a leg with Airborne Toxic Event. They were selling out every show and it was just great. We got to put faces to all these listeners, people were following us around. It was really inspiring.

What is the weirdest thing that has happened to you on tour?

A guy came all the way from Moscow to see us in Berlin. That was the craziest thing that ever happened to us as a band.

How did you come up with your band name?

A "glint" is a bright spot in a world of darkness.

Your new EP is a pretty big departure, stylistically, from the work that precedes it. What caused that shift?

My writing has just constantly been evolving. I never really had a band that I believed in so much to be able to access these things inside me I wanted to surface. I never had the resources to pull it off. When I met these brilliant guys, the one thing they gave me was just no boundaries. I know I can shoot for anything and they're going to be able to back it up with grace.

You were raised as an actor, and have been involved with various Broadway musical productions. How, if at all, has that informed your musical aesthetic?

It doesn't, really. Maybe it did something to me as a human being, but I don't think it really affected my music at all. It definitely showed me that I have my own artistic visions I need to give some attention to. I was kind of fighting that for a while. It was a great thing for me when I was younger, being in that environment that was very creative. I was working with a lot of creative people and it began to show me the power of art.

What is your approach to writing lyrics?

It changes from album to album. 'Mode to Joy' was a journey of a person finding themselves. 'Sounds in Silence' was a more ethereal, existential record. I remember the theme was being a temporary cell in an infinite universe. After I've written a group of songs, I think, "What's the common thread in here? What's tying all of these tracks together?" There's songs that I write more from an internal perspective, from the voice that speaks to us in all our heads. But really, it varies. I don't like to limit myself. It's not something I over-analyze.

Who would you cite as being among your biggest musical influences?

I get asked this question a lot and I always give the same answer--Brian Eno. The first time I heard 'Another Green World,' it just did something to me that was so emotional, it just hit me in my core being. I needed to go into that territory. I so knew what Eno was trying to say. It spoke to me so profoundly. That also segued me into producing and creating my own sounds. I think that's also where these atmospheric qualities came from. Eno is so good at painting a picture. That's what music to me is about, painting a picture. I like to write songs through the sound of it, the atmosphere, the way the drums sound, the way the snares sound, I try to create this world for the vocals to sit in.

Do you have any musical guilty pleasures?

F--- yeah!

Do you want to reveal any?

You know, I don't think there's anything to be guilty about. Music is f---ing music.

There's an audience for any sort of music you could possibly create, and just being able to acknowledge and appreciate that. There shouldn't be any shame associated with enjoying something.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Any final words of wisdom?

Yeah, well, while we're just talking here about the music, there's so much we could say, we could talk about it and talk about it, but at the end of the day, I believe in what this band's doing and I prefer to just let the music to speak for itself. I don't want my own commentary to get in the way of that.

Right. Thanks much for doing this interview with us!

Thank you.


Kaveh Akbar is a contributor from Seed.com. Learn how you can contribute here.