The Traveling Man

"I can't believe he played that last song on two strings," exclaims a new found fan of Entrance's free-form blues folk after watching Guy Blakeslee (aka. Entrance) improvise around his lost four strings during his final minutes on stage. Most exciting for Guy, however, are the negative comments he's heard second hand from friends after his opening slot for Cat Power at their stop through Cleveland's Beachland Ballroom. For Guy it means simply that his music just isn't for everyone, and really, what good music is? Entrance's songs were powerful enough and discordant enough to both alienate and endear the 1,000+ people anxiously waiting for Cat Power to take the stage. It's quite a different environment from the small bars, basements, and clubs he's played in previously both as Entrance and with his former rock groups the Convocation Of... and Day of Man as Man.

Every once in while you feel like a witness to the raw beginning of a new talent in music who's capable of speaking volumes to listeners without the aid of anything except his voice and his guitar. This is how people felt the first time they saw Bob Dylan and Elliott Smith and this is how I felt after just watching Entrance spend 30 minutes howling, singing and mumbling to a massive crowd just breaking their ears on his swampy blues dirges. The really amazing thing here though is that Guy Blakeslee is only 21 years old, yet he plays his music with the raw form and the keen sense for improvisation of a bluesman nearing his deathbed. In fact, with Guy's nomadic tendencies and love for music, he'll probably be playing these charmingly imperfect tunes till he finds himself pushing up flowers.

How many musicians do you know that can get up on stage by himself, play with such fire and intensity as to break four strings in one song and never skip a beat? Then ask yourself again, with Guy being so young, how long will it take him to be looked upon as truly great? These are the questions I asked myself after first speaking with Guy about his musical past and future and then again after watching him play. Judging by the caliber of his debut album, The Kingdom of Heaven Must Be Taken By Storm, and the abundance of admiration from his extremely revered musical peers, it may be sooner than expected.

Interview conducted live by Dan Rizer. Pictures from the Tigerstyle website.

Name: Guy Blakeslee (vocals, instrumentation)

BettaWreckonize: When did you start playing under the Entrance moniker? Were you still with the Convocation Of... at the time?

Guy: I think when I decided to start playing as Entrance was pretty much around the time that I quit playing with the Convocation Of... I had been writing some of the songs before that. I'm not sure if I really want to say too much about that. I wasn't really too happy being in that band, but I wanted to continue to play music for people very soon after that situation. I've been writing songs by myself pretty much since I started learning to play music but it really became something I wanted to actively do after playing with the Convocation Of...

BW: The music you play now as Entrance is obviously quite different than the music you were playing in bands like the Convocation Of... and Day Of Man As Man. Do you ever see yourself going back in the direction of playing in louder rock type bands again?

G: I think in the future I would potentially want people to play with again but I think I'll always want to do mainly what I'm doing now. I think it has opened me up to different instruments and ideas. I've really been doing this for such a short time I think I'd like to keep it to just myself for a while. The drummer from the Convocation Of... and I have been playing together a little bit, he and I have always played really well together and I think eventually I may incorporate him as a drummer. But I think it will always mainly just be me and occasionally bringing in other people to work with.

BW: So your idea of Entrance is for it to be a solo project with guests?

G: Well, I don't really feel comfortable telling people what to do so if I do play with other people I want it to be people that I can trust to follow me and fill out the sound. George from the Convocation Of.. is definitely one of those people and I'd like to work with others.

BW: Your new album just came out on Tigerstyle Records. How did that relationship come about?

G: Tigerstyle put out the second Convocation Of.. album so that's how I met the people that do that label. When I first started getting interested in putting an album out I sent some songs to a few different labels and Tigerstyle seemed really interested and they've been very supportive ever since.

BW: The Kingdom Of Heaven Must Be Taken By Storm is a pretty bold statement. Is there any personal significance in titling your album that?

G: (laughter) Obviously there is, but it could get pretty complicated trying to explain it. I think the phrase itself is pretty simple and resonates well without much explanation. I also can't take credit for coming up with it. It's a phrase that seems to have been around for some time now. The Nation Of Ulysses used it for one of their song titles and I know they took it from something else. I could say that that statement kind of represents how I feel towards a lot of different things with taking direct action and my own personal politics.

BW: The songs on your album are very singer songwriter oriented but they also seem to have a real improvisational feel to them. How important is improvisation to Entrance?

G: That's pretty much what Entrance is all about. I'll play some of the songs tonight and they won't really sound anything like what you've heard on the album. The songs to me are something that I will continually write and improvise over time. I like the fact that it feels spontaneous and that improvising the songs captures what's going on for me at that moment. It’s sort of a combination of regular songwriting and continuously fleshing it out and making it new and interesting. I've been playing many of these songs for more than a year and I never get bored playing them, I just know that there's endless things that I could do to improve the songs or fuck them up. It keeps it interesting for me.

BW: If you had to describe the music that you play as Entrance to someone what would you say?

G: People ask me that all the time, and I think it really depends on who you're talking to. For instance, I was touring with my friend Devendra (Banhart) and there was a blizzard so they closed the highway and we had to take a train to get to our show. We were sitting next to these older women and they saw our guitars and they wanted to talk to us about what sort of music we made and neither of us really knew what to say. But to someone like that who really wouldn't know any sort of underground music I end up saying (in a self mocking voice) "Oh you know, like Bob Dylan and the blues and folk music and stuff," but that's not really what I think it is. I don't know what I would say to someone who has a background and knowledge of lots of different types of music. I usually just say that I play the guitar and I do whatever I feel like doing. I've definitely been influenced by the blues a lot lately. That's not the only thing I play but that's been one thing I've been more and more inspired by. It hasn't been deliberate but when I play lately that seems to be what's coming out.

BW: When did you start getting turned on to the blues and what got you turned on to it?

G: It's actually been only recently that I started getting really interested in blues music. When I started playing by myself I started searching out different solo artists to discover a wide range of styles of songwriting and its' possibilities. But there was something about blues music, especially old blues, it's pretty much the root of where... you can't really say that Blink 182 has anything to do with the blues but they evolved from rock music which in turn evolved directly from the blues. It would be hard to think of much modern music, especially if it's any good, that doesn't have some lineage that traces back to the blues. All American music especially has it, using Western scales, certain structures and rhythms and melodies that are used today are all directly related to blues music.

BW: Do you feel as though you are helping to take music back to that raw form that the blues had so many years ago?

G: That's what I hope to do. I mean a lot of the early blues that I am into just sounds so raw that it's punk to me. (laughing) It's one guy completely flipping out basically. There's so many things that I've listened to my whole life that isn't blues music but there's a certain fire and passion there that I want to combine these influences into something that's raw and direct.

BW: You seem pretty young to be playing music that sounds this mature. Have there been any instances or events in your life that have put you in a place to want to create this kind of music?

G: It's funny that you say it's mature cause I feel that it's pretty naive and childish in a way. Most of my friends my whole life have been older than me and I haven't known too many people my age that I could really relate to at all. I guess being around people my whole life that knew about things that I wasn't old enough to know about has made an impression. I don't know. I've also just been playing music. I mean if someone were to ask me what I do with my life I would tell them that I play music and I travel around, that's what I do. Even before Entrance I toured with my bands constantly at a pretty young age and I got exposed to a lot of crazy shit. I just always seemed to find myself finding more in common with people who were older than me.

BW: You do a Skip James cover and a Bob Dylan cover on the album. What other musicians, artists, authors have inspired you?

G: It's hard to say exactly who has inspired me but I do cover a couple Skip James songs, a Bob Dylan song, Leonard Cohen, Robert Johnson, Iggy and the Stooges. Iggy Pop is actually one of my main inspirations, his whole approach to everything is very influential. Not that I could ever be anything like him, but I like how he just goes for it all the time unrelentlessly.

BW: As you mentioned earlier you just finished up a tour with Devendra Banhart and you're now touring with Cat Power. How have those tours gone so far and how would you compare and contrast the two tours?

G: Well, there have been some major differences between them (laughs). When I was touring January and February (2003) with Devendra it was just he and I and my brother Coleman and our friend Tommy. It was just the four of us riding in a van together for six weeks and we were just staying at people's houses and sleeping in the van and driving really really far. A lot of the shows went really well, way better than I expected them too, and they were usually in a really small, crowded place. The first show of the Cat Power tour was at Irving Plaza to a crowd of 1,500 people.

BW: Oh wow. It's usually just you up on stage too isn't it?

G: It's always just me.

BW: Did you feel any additional pressure of it being just you playing in front of a crowd like that coming from a full band background?

G: Yeah, I mean coming from a band, especially a loud band, it's pretty easy to hide behind a wall of noise and not let yourself feel vulnerable. Playing in front of that many people was definitely new to me. I'm comfortable enough though that I can kind of tune out the fact that there are that many people listening to me. In a way I am more responsible on stage now since it's just myself up there and I am the sole source of the sound, but at the same time I'm not responsible for anyone but myself. I don't have to follow anyone and no one has to follow me and I can fuck up and no one else is going to get thrown off, and it happens sometimes where I'll forget the words or a part of a song and then I can just kind of make it up as I go along.

BW: Do you think that this is a more natural way for you to play music?

G: At this point I think it really is. Right now it's just sort a part of my daily existence, I don't have to arrange to practice with other people or have a bunch of expensive equipment. I can play whenever I want to. If I want I can just pack up my guitar and go on tour on a train, it's really simple. It's sort of this overly romanticized idea that attracted me to blues music in the first place. Even though I'm a white kid in the year 2003 I still feel I can relate a lot to that sort of lifestyle. I like the idea of me traveling around the world with just my guitar and a backpack. I feel like I am becoming part of a tradition that's over a hundred years old. It's just so simple.

BW: So is Entrance something you can see yourself doing for a long time?

G: I think so. I didn't really think too hard about choosing a weird name or anything and now that the record is coming out I think people are starting to think of me as Entrance (laughing), I'm starting to think it's a little strange now. I know I will be making music for the rest of my life, I don't know if it will always be called Entrance, though I'm pretty comfortable with the name that I chose. It seems kind of pretentious in a way if you think about it, but you know, Cat Power isn't Cat Power or Will Oldham is called whatever he chooses to call himself. I like the way Will Oldham changes his name when he feels like it. I don't know if I'll go by Entrance forever but I know I'll be
making music.

BW: I understand you have a split album or a collaborative album coming out soon with Devendra Banhart.

G: We've been working on some music together and we're going to put out sort of a collaboration, but we've both been really busy with touring lately so we're probably not going to get a chance to record it for a while. But there is something of a plan to put out a record together. On our tour together we'd end each night by having everyone come up on stage together to do a sort of extended "jam session" sort of thing and cover songs and make up our own lyrics and that's where the idea came from. For this album we're really going to work together and write some songs and see what comes from our two very different styles.

BW: Is there anything else in store for the future of Entrance?

G: I am definitely going to try to tour Europe when I can. Devendra and I are talking about going over to Japan sometime. That's what's great about this being one person is that touring is like going on vacation and I pick where I want to do it. I think my plan though is to just continue doing what I'm doing and trying to find the right pace to do it at and enjoy it fully.