Andrew Blair has a lot on his mind. The former God Among Men and current 33 Degree guitarist has opinions about everything from the state of the music industry to the Las Vegas music scene to the right way to achieve success to Linkin Park. He's got plenty to say about that particular Southern California rap-metal outfit.
"They are a giant karaoke machine, like most artists now," says the one-time Vegas resident, now based in Los Angeles with his new band. Having been through the major-label wringer, with a demo deal for Columbia Records that ultimately led to his earlier band's demise, Blair has a somewhat jaded view of the way bands are packaged for mass consumption, and he singles out Linkin Park as "the epitome of what's wrong with the music industry. There is nothing intricate or interesting or innovative about anything they do."
Linkin Park aside, Blair and God Among Men did go through Behind the Music-style hell after leaving Vegas for Sacramento a few years ago. Set up for development with Columbia, they encountered every music business horror-story cliché you can imagine: label interference with their sound, producers who didn't understand their music, even an attempt to take front woman Liz Adkins away from the band and turn her into a solo artist. "After a while, we didn't even know how our own songs went anymore," Blair says. It took the breakup of the band to get out of the contract.
Blair and Adkins took time off from music and moved to Los Angeles, where they eventually hooked up with drummer Andy Mackenzie and single-named bassist Jesus. They began writing songs in the God Among Men vein (which is something like Tool fronted by Fiona Apple), but with a bit more complexity, stretching tunes to eight or nine minutes and playing in odd time signatures.
Older and wiser, Blair and Adkins have returned to Vegas a handful of times with 33 Degree, but this month's show at the Cheyenne Saloon represents a full-on assault on their former home base, with 35 radio ads running on X-treme Radio, street teams handing out flyers, and a sponsorship by that beverage of champions, Jagermeister. The band plans to play the last Saturday of every month at the Cheyenne, performing as frequently as a good many actual local acts.
"They expect to make 100 flyers, get their friends to come, play a show, and they're done," Blair says of the typical Vegas band. He's out to show some of the young-'uns how it's done, schooling newer bands on promotion and sponsorship, and even contributing pointers to local music 'zine Smash. 33 Degree is all about alternative marketing, with little interest in pursuing a major-label deal, or even in putting out a full-length album. They plan to release a set of five three-song mini-albums that will sell for $3 each, and to offer downloads. Blair isn't worried that his band will have difficulty reaching the average music listener. "If a fan goes to Target and can't get our record, and therefore doesn't buy it, and doesn't go out to local shows, then I don't really want that person as a fan," he says.
At the same time, the band is not hiding in a corner; they're simply pursuing their passion in different ways. "Tons of my friends are signed right now, and I couldn't tell you one of them that's happier than I am," Blair says. He'd rather take money from a company like Jagermeister than from a label that will stick its nose in everything his band does. "Jagermeister's never once told us how to change a song, how to dress, how to act, how to change lyrics the way labels did," he points out, cutting off any criticism of accepting corporate sponsorship.
What's most impressive about Blair is the amount of enthusiasm he's retained for his music, even after years of people telling him why it wouldn't work. His main concern is simply to bring 33 Degree's intelligent hard rock to the masses, while circumventing as many people as possible who are standing in the way. "I just hate the fact that you have thousands of artists, millions of fans, and literally, in LA, like 50 people, what I call the gatekeepers, that hold back the music from the millions of people who want it, to the thousands of artists who produce it, and it's like, 'Why?'" he asks, with a real sense of urgency.
It's that urgency, that drive to create, that will keep 33 Degree going even if they've got to spend all their own money on promotions and hold down day jobs to keep the band alive. Their belief in their music as more than just a commercial product is unwavering. "Music can be art," Blair says, "but maybe not on a major label."