SIDELINE MAGAZINE - Belgium
From the
great Midwestern state of Wisconsin (love that cheese!)
comes Blind Faith and Envy, an electropop act comprised of
Daniel and Charlene. Both accomplished musicians, they’ve
recently released their debut album on Nilailah Records,
‘The Charming Factor.’ In an underground scene brimming with
stale, formulaic by-the-numbers stereotypes, BF/E transcends
any hint of pretentiousness with a combination of deft
programming skill and emotional, yet not overbearing, female
vocals. Including a surprising Mode cover (Shout) and
remixes by Blank, Neuroactive and label mates, Null Device,
‘The Charming Factor’ is certain to win over new fans
worldwide. The look of shock on their faces as I stood,
uninvited, knee-deep in the freezing snow outside the studio
was priceless. And so were their answers to my usual
hard-nosed questions… (By Dan Koven)
1.) Give us a brief overview on the formation of the
band, specific duties, and the meaning/rationale behind
choosing the name.
Charlene: We have been songwriting together as a team for
almost 3 years. Mainly I write the lyrics and sing while
Daniel does everything else, e.g., writing the music,
producing, mixing and mastering the music as well as
contributing his vocals as back up. And (as if that’s not
enough) he also has created and maintained our website. He
harbors most of the work and responsibility of BF/E. Our
band name comes from some lyrics I had written to a demo
track we recorded for fun some time ago. Part of the lyric
went, “there goes my blind faith and envy” and then we
couldn’t get it out of our heads! We both liked it so much
we decided it would be a cool band name.
2.) Your debut album, ‘The Charming Factor’ has been
several years in the making. What influences played a part
of its creation and what stylistic changes accompanied
progress?
Daniel: “The Charming Factor” took roughly 2 years to
complete. My main influences for this album were (mostly)
Depeche Mode, Cynic, Nine Inch Nails, and Wave In Head,
although there are many other bands/artists that have helped
me to shape my songwriting directions. Stylistically I have
written songs in almost every genre until finally we
realized our strengths in the area of electronic pop music.
Charlene: Stylistically, fortunately, we are capable of
songwriting in such a way as to keep the listener interested
with a bit of diversity from one song to the next. Most
people don’t enjoy listening to a collection of songs where
every song sounds the same.
3.) What emotions would you like new fans to evoke from
the record and what inspires Charlene’s lyrics?
Daniel: Creatively this album was written over the course of
two emotional years, so each song represents a different
time and emotion. The album is really a mix of feelings that
I know other people can relate to.
Charlene: Lyric writing has come fairly easy for me,
basically I listen to a constructed song Daniel has written
and let my subconscious do most of the work. Usually, lyrics
are accompanied by melody right away. The mood I perceive
from the music is what I draw from for lyrics and
inspiration.
4.) Tell us how you shopped your demo and how you ran
across Kristy (Nilaihah Records)? What kind of partnership
do you hope to achieve with your label?
Charlene: We shopped our demo to a lot of the wrong people
when we had our first few songs together. We were sending to
labels/industry people that are not electronic music based.
Finally we figured out that maybe we will find success if we
could locate a record label that specializes in synth-based
releases. While searching the internet we came across
Nilaihah Records. Neither of us had heard of it before, we
were impressed by how professional the website looked so we
decided to take a chance and send some material. We were
very excited when Kristy (Nilaihah Records owner) called us
and wanted to hear more song demos. She wanted to sign us
and before we knew it we got a record contract.
Daniel: Hopefully Kristy will continue to go above and
beyond in the promotion of our releases. Her confidence in
our projects helps us to want to continue to work hard at
everything we do. Good communication is very important in
dealing with your record label.
5.) What are your thoughts on the state of the music
industry, file sharing etc.?
Charlene & Daniel: File sharing hurts the indie artist more
than anyone else! In the beginning of one’s career, however,
file sharing can increase the public’s knowledge of a band
and their music…the problem is that the “file-sharing”
doesn’t stop after the artist’s first release, that’s the
kicker. The indie artist dumps mega bucks into an album, and
if time is money I think the average indie artist spends
about $100,000.00 on any given full release. Making some
money back is incentive to keep going and when an artist
continues to go deeper in debt it is no shock when they stop
putting out releases. Many people think they shouldn’t have
to pay for music, and that’s because people are used to
getting songs for free. It’s like if gasoline was free for
many years and then they started to charge again you would
be searching for how/where you can get it for “free”. File
sharing has created deep wounds in the music industry, the
industry and the artist’s may not recover for a long time.
True fans and lovers of music will buy a CD because it
confirms that you (the fan/listener) really want to be a
part of something special, and the fans are WAY MORE
IMPORTANT THAN THE ARTIST’S, as we can’t continue without
your support!
6.) What are your long and short term goals for BF/E?
Which one attribute would you want fans to remember you by
(if, g-d forbid, the band split or something…)
Charlene & Daniel: We have many goals, short and long term
goals include; increasing our fan base in both the U.S. and
Europe with our debut release as well as doing a lot of
promotion in support of the release. Also having the
opportunity to continue putting out great full-length
releases. We want to be able to help and influence others
through positive messages of hope and inspiration. If
anything happened and the music were to end (a thought that
kills us) we would like to be remembered as talented,
intelligent songwriters.
7.) Finally, what promotional activities are planned this
year both in the U.S. and Europe? Touring? EP? Remixing?
Daniel & Charlene: There’s really a lot planned, and
hopefully we will have the time to do everything that we
want to do. We plan on playing shows in the U.S. and
hopefully playing shows in Europe too. European fans of
electronic music will love this release! Europeans have
always been supportive of the electronic scene (as Europe is
the birth place of electronic music) we love you guys!
Daniel recently did a remix for Stochastic Theory, Charlene
is rapping up vocals for a Neuroactive track, and we will be
appearing on a couple of compilations coming up. Our fans
can visit our record label’s website (Nilaihah.com) to get
up-to-date information on what we are up to. Fans need to be
proactive when it comes to indie artists they like, contact
the record label, contact promoters in your area, let them
know you want to see us live, let DJ’s know you want to hear
us on the radio! We have 3 “free” downloadable tracks from
“The Charming Factor” available at (BlindFaithandEnvy.com)
take advantage of those tracks. It’s all about supply and
demand!
(Interview By Dan Koven of Sideline magazine Belgium)