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Truly Barely

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Barely Blind drummer Will Smith put me on hold while he convened with band mates after I asked him if anything funny has ever happened to the pop-punk quartet while on the road. He returned a few seconds later and began with, “This is a good one.”

The band, which has spent the last four years touring all over America, was crashing at “some girl’s apartment” in Cleveland, Ohio. The band was under the impression their host had to leave the apartment early in the morning. When they awoke, thinking they were alone, they began “screaming vulgarities” and obscenities.

“Little did we know ole girl is in her bedroom the entire time,” Smith said. “She heard everything we said. Some of it involved her, some of it didn’t.”

The band was able to mitigate that situation but then their host asked where her cat was.

“We go into her bathroom and the window is open,” Smith said. “We were 35 stories up. Easy.”

Moments like these exhibit the youthful nature of a band that has matured (somewhat) since the group of Port Neches-Groves High School students formed in 2003.

Their tastes and skill in music has matured as well. Drummer Will Smith took the time to talk about that and the band’s upcoming plans.

Q You play a lot of shows all over the country. Do you still play a lot in Southeast Texas?
A We do the best that we can to make our shows, the ones that we do, count. We’ll do one every couple months, but when we do, we try to make it as much fun and as big of an event as we can.

Q Who are you listening to nowadays?
A These days, we are all a lot older than we were when we began, so our musical taste has evolved. We listen to everything from Bright Eyes or Phoenix to Blink 182. That’s where our roots kind of come from. A lot of Led Zeppelin, just kind of your typical deep-rooted rock bands.

Q It’s music festival season. I’ve gotta ask what are some of your favorite festivals?
A We’ve done South by Southwest and that’s a lot of fun. I think people get a kind of a skewed view on what exactly South by is but we have a lot of fun. It gets crazy. You meet a lot of people from all around the world that are involved in not only the music industry, but in bands, the film industry. So that was a blast every year that we’ve done it. This past summer we did Warped Tour and we loved playing it. The only thing is that it rained the entire day. I’m not talking just a little drizzle, it was an epic downpour. But we still played while it rained and a lot of people turned out and we still had a good time.

Q You still had a good time playing while getting soaked?
A Well sometimes, when everybody’s wet, they pretty much accept the fact that they are all in it together. When that moment happens, I’m sure y’all aren’t going to print this but, everyone is like ‘(expletive) it.’ Everybody just goes after it and has a good time. I just remember looking out and seeing that everyone was as wet as me but was just as happy as me to be there. That made me feel great about it.

Q So you guys are heading out to Los Angeles to record a full-length album?
A We’ve spent the last four years of our band on the road hard or off the road for small amounts of time. We released those two EPs. We just felt like after being a band for eight years that it was finally time that we hone in on what we have and create a full length record and present it as Barely Blind. It has always been EP tour, tour, tour, EP and that’s just a small amount of music to hold fans over. We are going to go there and try to develop our name even more.

Q Have you guys started writing for that project?
A Oh yeah, we’ve been writing ever since we strummed the last note of our EP. Some parts will stick with us and some parts will fade away. We are just kind of going to slowly but surely come up with as much as we can for it when we put it all together.

Q You mentioned that your musical taste has evolved earlier. Do you think that is going to show in the record?
A Without a doubt. We released two singles recently, just to give to people. We released a song called “Nature of the Beast and a song called “Looking For Love.” Both of those were recorded in Pennsylvania with a buddy of ours, and we just kind of wanted to give people an idea of what we wanted to do and the direction of our band.

Barely Blind drummer Will Smith put me on hold while he convened with band mates after I asked him if anything funny has ever happened to the pop-punk quartet while on the road. He returned a few seconds later and began with, “This is a good one.”
The band, which has spent the last four years touring all over America, was crashing at “some girl’s apartment” in Cleveland, Ohio. The band was under the impression their host had to leave the apartment early in the morning. When they awoke, thinking they were alone, they began “screaming vulgarities” and obscenities.
“Little did we know ole girl is in her bedroom the entire time,” Smith said.  “She heard everything we said. Some of it involved her, some of it didn’t.”
The band was able to mitigate that situation but then their host asked where her cat was.
“We go into her bathroom and the window is open,” Smith said. “We were 35 stories up. Easy.”
Moments like these exhibit the youthful nature of a band that has matured (somewhat) since the group of Port Neches-Groves High School students formed in 2003.
Their tastes and skill in music has matured as well. Drummer Will Smith took the time to talk about that and the band’s upcoming plans.

Q You play a lot of shows all over the country. Do you still play a lot in Southeast Texas?
A We do the best that we can to make our shows, the ones that we do, count. We’ll do one every couple months, but when we do, we try to make it as much fun and as big of an event as we can.

Q Who are you listening to nowadays?
A These days, we are all a lot older than we were when we began, so our musical taste has evolved. We listen to everything from Bright Eyes or Phoenix to Blink 182. That’s where our roots kind of come from.  A lot of Led Zeppelin, just kind of your typical deep-rooted rock bands.

Q It’s music festival season. I’ve gotta ask what are some of your favorite festivals?
A We’ve done South by Southwest and that’s a lot of fun. I think people get a kind of a skewed view on what exactly South by is but we have a lot of fun. It gets crazy. You meet a lot of people from all around the world that are involved in not only the music industry, but in bands, the film industry. So that was a blast every year that we’ve done it. This past summer we did Warped Tour and we loved playing it. The only thing is that it rained the entire day. I’m not talking just a little drizzle, it was an epic downpour. But we still played while it rained and a lot of people turned out and we still had a good time.

Q You still had a good time playing while getting soaked?
A Well sometimes, when everybody’s wet, they pretty much accept the fact that they are all in it together. When that moment happens, I’m sure y’all aren’t going to print this but, everyone is like ‘(expletive) it.’ Everybody just goes after it and has a good time. I just remember looking out and seeing that everyone was as wet as me but was just as happy as me to be there. That made me feel great about it.

Q So you guys are heading out to Los Angeles to record a full-length album?
A We’ve spent the last four years of our band on the road hard or off the road for small amounts of time. We released those two EPs. We just felt like after being a band for eight years that it was finally time that we hone in on what we have and create a full length record and present it as Barely Blind. It has always been EP tour, tour, tour, EP and that’s just a small amount of music to hold fans over. We are going to go there and try to develop our name even more.

Q Have you guys started writing for that project?
A Oh yeah, we’ve been writing ever since we strummed the last note of our EP. Some parts will stick with us and some parts will fade away. We are just kind of going to slowly but surely come up with as much as we can for it when we put it all together.

Q You mentioned that your musical taste has evolved earlier. Do you think that is going to show in the record?
A Without a doubt. We released two singles recently, just to give to people. We released a song called “Nature of the Beast and a song called “Looking For Love.” Both of  those were recorded in Pennsylvania with a buddy of ours, and we just kind of wanted to give people an idea of what we wanted to do and the direction of our band.


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