Rock Publication [link]

Bleu burst on the Boston music scene in December 1999 with his debut album, A Bing Bang Holidang, a seasonal charity record benefiting the Boston Institute for Arts Therapy. Featuring special guest appearances from local friends and musicians--including Dicky Barrett (The Mighty Mighty Bosstones), Kay Hanley (Letters to Cleo), Ryan Miller and Adam Gardner (Guster), Bill Janovitz (Buffalo Tom), Jason Kendall (The Amazing Crowns), and Dave Farrell (Rubyhorse), A Bing Bang Holidang spent that holiday season comfortably situated in the Newbury Comics Top 60 while finding itself added into active rotation on many local commercial radio stations. As 1999 came to a close, A Bing Bang Holidang was one of the northeastern seaboard's largest selling independently released albums of the year. Bleu sings songs in olden, tuneful styles but with new sensibilities. His songs rekindle thoughts of George Harrison's naked pop-rock of the 1970s, of E.L.O.'s booming choruses, and of Queen's dramatic pauses and harmonies. His "Do It All Again" would have fit right in the mouth of no less than the late Roy Orbison. That said, Bleu's songs sounded fresh, not outdated; fit for adult-pop radio, not classic-rock prime time. And few singers hit so many notes with the all-out courage that Bleu breathed into the heartbroken waltz of "You Know, I Know, You Know." The song is my favorite pop slice of 2003 so far. A versatile and charismatic performer, Bleu might appear fronting his full-on rock band or as a solo artist with his electro-acoustic conceptual "e-band," which has been described by the Boston Globe as "a spare, affecting solo performance where Bleu's voice and guitar are accompanied by a miniature cadre of samples, loops, and effects." Bleu has opened shows for Train, Five For Fighting, John Mayer, Ben Folds, Bon Jovi, Midnight Oil, Duncan Sheik, Howie Day, Ours, Jump Little Children, Chris Whitley, Will Hoge, Ric Ocasek, and others. In addition to his "Spider-Man" track, Bleu's music is in demand in the worlds of both television and indie film. His track "The Waiter" can be heard in "Lovely & Amazing," the hot new indie comedy from director Nicole Holofcener ("Walking & Talking") while four of Bleu's songs have been used on MTV's "Real World" and "Road Rules."

Q: So where are today?
A: Bleu: San Diego right now. I'm actually going to do some cooking on a new TV show. It should be pretty fun. I'm actually looking forward to it. It's a weird show. Fox has a new network coming out. It's like Fox Extreme Network and they have this show where they pair musicians with people. It should be fun. I'm actually cooking for a bunch of surfers and skaters, so I can't imagine a more Californian type experience.

Q: Great. So besides a Musician you're a Chef too?
A: I like to cook, it's like my hobby.

Q: What's your specialty?
A: I don't know. I make a lot of sort pan-Asian type of thing. That is what I like to do the most, but I really just do it as a hobby, so it's fun to experiment with all kind of different stuff - new recipes.

Q: Good going . Hey, I was listening to your new CD "Redhead." cool name!
A: I just thought the redheads needed their due.

Q: Good tunes. I didn't get a chance to listen to any of your previous albums; you had a song called Headroom?
A: Yeah. That was my last record. My first record was actually a Christmas record, which was fun - goofy - but fun.

Q: It looks like you're pretty popular in Boston. Is that where you're located?
A: Yeah. I live in Boston. Actually right outside of Boston - Brighten, which is kind of first tier suburb. A bunch of us in the band all live there. It's great. I love Boston actually. I don't miss it right now.

Q: Is it Snow today?
A: Is it about as bad as it had ever been since I've been there. When I left, it got even worse. So, it was thank God we're out here in San Diego.

Q: San Diego is always awesome.
A: I've actually never been there, so I'm kind of looking forward to seeing the area.

Q: It's really resorty. Palm trees and the whole. works. Up here in San Francisco, we have the fog today. But the air is nice and cool.
A: Cool, I'm looking forward to coming up there too. I love San Francisco.

Q: There's always something to do out here.
A: I've only played out here one time, but it was an awesome experience. I played at Bimbo's, which is a doubt the nicest club I've ever been to in my life. The way they treated us and treated me was nice, but the club itself was just mind boggling. I was totally in awe.

Q: That is a very nice and famous club. That's Chris Isaak's club.
A: Really. Cool.

Q: You've been at this since '99? Is that when you got started?
A: I guess it depends upon how you look at it. I've been sort of playing out like sort of semi-professionally really since '96. I have another band in Boston for about a year and a half, so it's really more of a collaborative type of thing. Not that the current band isn't. So that whole thing kind of fell apart, and then I sort of regrouped and made my own album and ended up making that goofy Christmas album which sort of got some good press and interesting reviews and developed a little base of fans that way. So, yeah, '99 was my first release.

Q: All those guys on that album, did you collaborate with them personally, or did they add their tracks on later for the 12 Days of Christmas?
A: Yeah. Dicky Barrett, actually I did his vocals at his house, but everybody else who participated on that tract, actually came in and did their vocals in one day in the studio. So, it was a super cool experience. The only thing I regret is that we didn't have videotape of the whole thing. We took good pictures of the whole experience, but I think as long as I live, no matter what I do, that will always be one of the greatest musical days that I've ever had to get to produce all these great Boston artists and do this cool thing for charity and see everybody kind of get together and have fun and come together. It was like a music community. It was pretty awesome.

Q: It's a great group of guys here. In fact I have been following Ruby Horse's career - David Farrell?
A: Yeah. He's a great guy. Those guys are all a bunch of wacky Irish guys. They have fun times.

Q: When I interviewed them they still had thier strong Irish brogue.
A: Oh for sure, they're all right off the boat as they say.

Q: Now you wrote a track for Spider Man?
A: Yeah. That was a great opportunity. It was great to be associated with that movie.

Q: What's this MTV Real World. Did they have some songs from you that they played in the background?
A: Yeah. I don't think it's that's that notable of a thing necessarily. I don't think the best music on MTV is playing on the background. I think it's true actually. I know a lot of people who have had songs on both of those shows and other MTV shows. They use a lot of entry bands for their background music on all those shows. They happened to use a lot of mine; they used six of my songs on those two shows. I don't hardly watch them, so I actually. like the very first time they used one of my tunes, I tuned in and checked it out and it was semi-exciting and I'm definitely not a fan of those programs. It was interesting. I don't think anybody really notices, you know what I'm saying. It was still cool.

Q: When I went on your website, there was a song called Terrible Secret. Was that a single?
A: No that was a track off of my album, Header - my Indy album. Yeah. Kind of a band favorite.

Q: It also said these kids in France had a contest going on with it?
A: Oh you're checking out the web site. No, one of our fans is English as a second language teacher, and she played that song for her students and asked them to write essays on what they thought the Terrible Secret was. So, we posted those on the web site.

Q: I thought that was interesting that you were hitting the European market.
A: Actually, it was kids from all around the world. It's actually pretty interesting to reading their responses. Some of them are definitely ethno centric and you can kind of tell by reading some of them. You can kind of guess where the person was from. There were definitely some funny misuse of the English language on those essays.

Q: I like your CD - you're just straight up rock and roll. I really appreciate really good music like that. Did anyone ever say you sound a little bit John Lennonish?
A: Yeah. I hear all kind of things. I think everybody wants to say that you sound like somebody or other. I think the most common things that I hear are Queen. I hear that all the time. And I hear Todd Rundgren, Cheap Trick, Big Star, a lot of those power pop bands most often. Though I have certainly gotten a lot of John Lennon comments hear and there. Especially I think when people see the live shows, because they see big sideburns, and they sort of had big sideburns at one point in his life. So, maybe in way I could look like him from stage, so people sort of make that association. The one thing I am always psyched about is that nobody ever says that I sound like a band or an artist that I don't like. So, nobody ever says you kind of remind me of Creed, or whatever. So, I don't mind the comparisons.

Q: . Was there any particular song on here that the radio grabbed?
A: The record isn't out in stores yet, so the release isn't until May. But, I suppose at that time, they'll start working towards that. That's sort of grass roots type of approach with all their artists, so I think they sort of have something in mind. There's actually going to be a couple of songs added to the record when it's in stores in May and I think they may have one of those songs in mind, but they sort of also going to play it by ear and see if anything pops it's head up before then.

Q: Are they talking video?
A: Who knows. Maybe.

Q: It's pretty standard thing to a lot of music nowadays.
A: It's still a ways away. There's certainly no talk of that yet. But that's something I'd love to do at some point. We actually put together a little amateur video for Hollywood and I think we're going to have that on the website at some point. We'll probably give that to some of the independent video shows and that kind of thing.

Q: Did you write some songs for an independent movie?
A: I had a song in Lovely and Amazing which was a great movie. Nicole Holofcener, she also did Walking and Talking, which was also another great movie. But Lovely and Amazing actually did very well. It got amazing reviews, won some fantastic awards. It did pretty well. But it was really great to be associated with it because I actually thought it was quite a good movie and it was cool the scene that they had the song in. It was sort of used in a really cool way and I thought that was pretty exciting to be able to go to the theater and see that, it was definitely a lot of fun. That movie had Dermot Melroney and Catherine Keener and Emily Mortimer and who's that kid from Donnie Darko. There's Catherine Keener, Emily Mortimer and Brenda Blethyn, she actually won an Oscar for best supporting actress a while back. It's good. It's a good movie man. I definitely would suggest it. I just got it on DVD a couple of days ago. The video stores are offering it. So, I can rewind my little part over and over again. I love being associated with movies.

Q: That's a great starting ground for a lot of movies. People hear the song in the background and say who did it and wait around for the credits in the back.
A: Especially a thing like Spider Man, big Hollywood movies like that, they push the shit out of a soundtrack. A great way to get exposed.

Q: So what's you instrument of choice?
A: Oh no I play electric guitar, keyboards. I actually played all kinds of stuff on the record. I played drums on one track. I played a lot of keyboard. I played electric guitar on all the tracks, all the acoustic guitars and some other weird unknown instruments as well on a lot of the stuff. I played electric guitar when I played with the band. When I do solo shows I play acoustic guitar.

Q: Have you done the radio shows yet?
A: I've done a few in Boston, but like I said, we won't do a lot until the record comes out. I imagine I'll being a lot more of that once that happens.

Q: Almost once a day, there are two radio stations - one's called Alice 97.3 and one called KFOG. They would really like your music.
A: Yeah. I keep hearing great things about KFOG. My manager's from the area and he reminisces about that station. He always listens to it when he's in the area and stuff like that. So, I think it's one of the last stations that still takes a risk from what I understand.

Q: You're going to be in Anaheim on the 4th?Where have you toured before?
A: Actually we've done quite a bit of touring. The longest tour we've done so far was a month and we went out and did Pufi Ami-Yumi's First National Tour (sp?). They're one of the biggest acts in Japan and I actually love them. They're an amazing pop group. It was great. Sold out shows every night all across the U.S. and two shows in Canada and you know it was all Japan people - 80% to 90% Japanese people at all the shows. So, it was an interesting crowd to play, but they were very receptive to our music and really cool people and we sort of developed a nice camaraderie definitely with the folks in Pufi Ami-Yumi. Actually Yumi is going to be here on the 1st. She's coming to sort of soak up the English language and American culture and I'm looking forward to seeing her in a couple of days here.

Q: That's what I like when I interview the musicians. They can turn me on to people I don't know. There's just so much going on out there.
A: Oh sure. They're a lot of great Japanese pop out there if you don't mind the language barrier.

Q: So you're writing songs all the time?.
A: I like to write and I like to have fun. Recording in the studio is probably my favorite thing to do. I love performing live as well, but I get unbelievably jazzed in the studio and so it really was a situation where I had a producer who didn't need a lot of planning to make things happen and he was really willing to sort of take risks and do things on the fly, so if I had a new song he would be just like - let's do it. So we ended up recording just oodles and oodles of material that didn't make the record and even outside the realm of doing stuff for the record, I've recorded material just for fun and some of that turned out good enough so that we could've put some of that on the record and ended up not doing that, but I'm hoping even some of that stuff will come out as a B side of the track with just some other power poppers out there. So, it's disappointing in a way because you wish you could I could get them all out there. But it is nice to have an embarrassment of riches as it were. It's nice to have a lot of stuff to choose from as opposed to not enough.
Thank you keep on Rocking

- Randy Cohen (2003)





Starpolish [link]

William James McAuley III, known to the world as Bleu, jumped onto the Boston music scene with his 1999 debut album, A Bing Bang Holidang, a holiday charity record. Showcasing original tunes, old seasonal favorites and an impressive array of guests, the album quickly became one of the northeastern seaboard's largest selling indie albums of the year.
The fall of 2000 and indie label Lunch Records brought the release of Bleu's first all-original solo album, Headroom, to extensive critical acclaim. Generating much buzz among the major labels, Bleu closed out 2000 by signing with Aware/Columbia.

Teaming up with producer John Fields, Bleu recently released his major-label debut, Redhead, an eclectic collection of power-rock/pop tunes.

After a July show at The Knitting Factory in New York City, Bleu spoke with StarPolish associate editor Tracie Galinski about signing with a major, his new album, Redhead, bringing his music to new audiences each night, and how anything can be accomplished if you're willing to work for it.

STARPOLISH: Why did you choose to put out a holiday album as your first album? How did you form the roster of guests (members of The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Guster, Letters to Cleo, Buffalo Tom, Rubyhorse and more) on that album?

BLEU: Honestly, it just kind of came together -- sort of by accident -- but we had some foresight and planned out a happy accident. I kind of got bored and really frustrated with what I was trying to do in music at the time -- this was actually a year before we put out the holiday record. So I just said, "Fuck it," and did a holiday EP as gifts or giveaways or whatever. One of the local radio stations liked it a lot and started playing one of the songs a whole lot -- just during Christmas time. Everybody loved it. My family really liked it, and actually, my manager, much to my surprise, ended up liking it a lot. I thought he would be pissed because I wasn't concentrating on the stuff I should be doing, but he ended up liking it a lot. We sort of came up with this plan of, "What if we really took this all the way -- just did this big ridiculous record for charity? We'd probably get a lot of press, do a good thing for a great charity (The Boston Institute for Arts Therapy) -- we'd probably get a lot of people involved, and it's not a big deal." We thought this might be a good way to introduce me to the Boston music scene because it's a goof, when it comes right down to it. I mean, there's certainly serious music on it, but it's very eclectic and it's very fun. You can do whatever the fuck you want [with a holiday album] -- I mean, as long as they're all holiday songs. I did a house song, I did a straight-up jazz standard song -- I did a couple of those. I did an almost punk-rock kid song (Snow Day) that actually ended up on the For The Kids record (2002 compilation benefiting VH1's Save The Music Foundation). Because the whole record (A Bing Bang Holidang) was for charity we thought, "I bet we can get the rights to some weird samples." I'm really into Bing Crosby, so we got the rights to these Bing Crosby samples for free. It just occurred to us that, "Hey, if we do this record for charity, we could support a great charity and also get a lot of attention..." and I'm all for taking the path less taken. It's like, "Well, why couldn't you do that? Why couldn't you release a holiday record as your first CD?" And it worked out.

As far as putting the people together... some people were specifically interested because of the charity, some people were friends, and then some people decided to get involved because they heard other people were getting involved. It's one of those things that just kind of built. Actually, believe it or not, Steven Tyler (Aerosmith) did agree to do it, but he was in Japan or somewhere on the particular day we were recording it. And we got free studio time to record it, so we could only do it on that one day. I still recount that as one of the most thrilling single days of my entire life -- getting to work with all those people. We recorded everybody in one day; it was amazing. It was like the Boston "We are the World", except a lot more debaucherous. It was fun.

STARPOLISH: Why did you choose to work with producer John Fields (Glen Phillips, Semisonic, Dovetail Joint) for your recently released album, Redhead? How did the two of you meet?

BLEU: I liked some of the people that he had worked with, some of the work that he had done. And more than that, I liked the music that he liked. Also, I was dead set on working with a consummate musician -- somebody who was a really, really accomplished musician. I don't know anybody who's a better musician than him. He plays every single instrument better than anybody else I know. We definitely have some different ideas about how you should produce a record, but I think the push and the pull of our relationship is what shaped the record. It was great working with him.

STARPOLISH: You told Billboard, "[Redhead] will feel more like a solid entity than a collection of oddities." How did you approach the songwriting process for Redhead, and how, if at all, did it differ from your approach to writing Headroom?

BLEU: [Creating the feel of Redhead] didn't have so much to do with the songwriting process as the production. And I will say that I think we failed miserably at that goal [of creating a solid entity], but we made a great record anyway. I don't think it is any less eclectic than Headroom, and I think after this I'm just resigned to making unbelievably eclectic records, (laughs). That's what I do. No matter how much I try not to, that's just what happens -- and that is kind of the same answer for the songwriting process. I don't really have a songwriting process. A lot of the songs have themes of regret. A lot of them do come from personal experience, but a lot of them don't. Actually, more [songs of personal experience are] on the first version of Redhead than there are on the second version of Redhead. We did end up leaving off some songs that didn't fit "the theme" of the record and I think there is a cynical theme -- a cynical, regretful and, I hope, heart-on-the-sleeve kind of honest theme to the record. But I just write for fun, so it's different every time.

STARPOLISH: Aware Records (John Mayer, The Thorns, Alice Peacock) is a label that a lot of artists want to sign with these days. How did your relationship with them come about?

BLEU: By pure coincidence, a bunch of people all approached them about me at the same time. So, they [became] interested and there were a couple of other people interested, but nobody really willing to jump. I really credit Gregg Latterman, the president of the label. When he sees something that he likes, he doesn't hesitate. He doesn't wait to see if other people like it; he just goes for it. Aware did [go for me] and I'm very happy to be with them.

STARPOLISH: Will you talk about some of the differences between working with an indie (Lunch Records) versus a major label (Aware/Columbia)?

BLEU: It's not that different, there are just more people involved. Aware still gives you a lot of freedom. There are definitely a lot more cooks in the kitchen.

STARPOLISH: Did you have any reservations about signing with a major?

BLEU: None. That was always my goal; I've always wanted to reach a wider audience and at least approach the things that "a major label potentially has to offer".

STARPOLISH: How do you go about choosing a management team, and what have you learned from your experiences with the different companies you've worked with?

BLEU: You need to work with somebody who absolutely, 100 percent believes in you and will do anything to forward your career. You do not need to be working with somebody who has a lot of power or connections. Work with somebody who is bright, who has some experience... In my personal experience, you really want to be working with someone who really, deep in their soul, believes in what you do and would do anything to make sure that other people know about what you do. Pete [Galli] (Galli Management) had a few very mild connections when we first met. We were both very young, but he stuck with me. He learned as I was learning. We came up together. If you find the right person, I think that's the ultimate situation. A lot of the great artists of all time have a great manager behind them who's been with them from the very beginning of what we see as their career. Those were always people who had very close relationships, and I think that's very important.

STARPOLISH: What kind of impact do you feel the Bleu reps and the Aware reps have had on getting your music out to new ears?

BLEU: It's huge. Word-of-mouth is the absolute best advertisement. Everybody says that. Actually, I just read a book all about that recently (The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell) and I believe it more than ever. I'm much, much more likely to really believe in something if a good friend who I trust tells me about it than a commercial, ad, or even review tells me about it. It's invaluable.

STARPOLISH: When playing the first slot of the night, how do you approach playing to a crowd that may be unfamiliar with your music?

BLEU: Basically I try to get them to pay attention without pissing them off; that's the philosophy. There are a lot of different ways to go about doing that, but that's essentially what it comes down to. You want to draw people in. There are definitely certain techniques to doing that without them paying attention to you because they're mad at you. It's a very fine line, actually, (laughs). We've opened up for a lot of different kinds of bands, too, so it's different with everybody's crowd. The onelinedrawing (tour-mate 7/2/03-7/9/03) crowd has been amazing. Really cool.

STARPOLISH: What sets the mood for your live shows?

BLEU: A lot of it, honestly, is the crowd. That's kind of a clich?, but there is a symbiosis there. There's kind of a conversation that you have with the audience and if they're really giving a lot, you can give a lot and it can really work. If you're giving a lot, sometimes they'll give a lot back, too. It's weird. Sometimes I honestly believe it's cosmic, it's just tapping into something, cause there are definitely some nights where it's like, "How did that just happen?" or "Why did that just happen?" Nothing about this circumstance would make you think that this amazing experience that just happened should have happened. Some nights you think it's going to be perfect and it's just -- *raspberry* -- down the tubes. It's a fucking crap shoot. It's a crap shoot.

STARPOLISH: You play shows solo as well as full-band. In what ways do you adapt your performances to accommodate the number of people on stage?

BLEU: Obviously the songs are totally re-worked when I do them solo -- they're totally different versions. I definitely tend to interact more directly with the audience a lot more in the solo shows. When I'm playing with the band it's more of a rock thing and I'm interacting more with the band members than I am directly with the audience. They're two very, very different things and I like it that way.

STARPOLISH: How did you form your touring band?

BLEU: [My band is made up of] different guys that I met around the scene. Actually, my keyboard player is an old high school friend who I just dragged into the mix, and there are different guys from other different local bands, or friends of friends -- all that kind of thing. I think it's the same way everybody finds a band, mostly -- except for Motley Crue -- they put out ads. People do that occasionally, but not usually. It's [usually] like, "Oh, I know a guy. Blah, blah blah..."

STARPOLISH: Do you have any pre-show rituals?

BLEU: Yeah, definitely. I meditate. I warm up my voice. That's about it, but that takes up a lot of time. And I focus. I didn't used to do that stuff, but I think it helps.

STARPOLISH: Why did you start?

BLEU: I had to. To stay sane and maintain.

STARPOLISH: Tell me about the SHCCC (Slap Happy Celebrity Clap Choir) -- how did that come about? (The SHCCC is a 30-piece choir that performed with Bleu during the Redhead release parties in New York City and Boston. Each city had its own choir.)

BLEU: It was kind of a pipe dream. Every time I do a group of recordings, I try to get a group of people together to sing. I had this one tune, "Nobody Calls It Rock and Roll Anymore", that was never on an album, but we recorded it as a sort of Queen tribute and it had all these crazy background vocals on it -- Queen-esque style background vocals -- and I always wanted to try that live. I don't know... I just said, "Fuck it! I'm doing it!" Everybody was like, "You can't do that," and I'm like, "Fuck you, I can't do that!" There were definitely some naysayers. Honestly, it was probably the most rewarding musical experience I've ever had in my life. It was unbelievable. The Mercury Lounge show (6/21/03) I did with the choir was the best show I've ever played in my entire life. It was unbefuckinglievable. I wish we had video taped it. There are some still pictures, but... [The show] was thrill beyond thrills. Having all those people there singing -- 30 people at a tiny little club like that! -- it was just incredible. I'll never, ever forget that for the rest of my life. Not that you could even imagine forgetting it, but I'll always remember that as one of the best things I ever got to do in my life. It was fucking amazing; it was totally amazing!

STARPOLISH: What's appealing to you about a choir?

BLEU: There are a lot of things that are appealing about it. I just think group singing in general is really good for the soul. It feeeels good doing it. Other than that, I like organizing and doing big, ridiculous things. Honestly, I really enjoyed every aspect of it. I enjoyed rehearsing with them, the camaraderie of hanging out with them, getting to know these people... It really got me more excited than I have been about doing shit in a long time and I hope it continues. It was really hard, it was a lot of work and it's not the kind of thing you can do all the time, but I have a master plan. I want to do it a lot more. It was thrilling.

STARPOLISH: You've just re-released your third album [Redhead]. Where do you want to take things from here?

BLEU: I want more people to find out about the music. That's it, pretty much. I want to get the music out to as many people as can be into it. I don't want there to be people out there that might possibly be into it and don't know about it. There's a lot of hard work that goes into that, but we're trying our best. Step by step.

STARPOLISH: What are the biggest challenges of doing what you do?

BLEU: Maintaining your health, sanity, relationships...

STARPOLISH: Taking into account everything you've experienced with your career, do you have any advice for musicians who are looking to find their own paths as "up-and-coming" artists?

BLEU: Don't be afraid. Don't let people tell you that you can't fucking do shit cause if you work your ass off, you can do it. Just don't be afraid and don't fucking be cool. Everybody's trying to be cool, you know? It's such a load of crap! Seriously, there's a real emphasis on style and attitude now and I think that sucks.

- Tracie Galinski (August 5th, 2003)