We recently connected with Blake Mickens and have shared our conversation below.

Blake, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

Songwriting is a skill that comes with practice and experience. I wrote my first song when I was 13 years old and I really didn’t know what I was doing. I was simply trying to emulate the music I was already listening to. I think the more songs I wrote, the more that I lived, and the more music I exposed myself to, the easier It became to write. There is no shortcut to writing and learning, there is no way to speed up the process and I think that is what’s beautiful about it. You just learn to find your voice and you keep doing it every day. The songs I wrote two years ago aren’t the same songs I wrote two days ago but they’re both me and they’re both part of my journey.

Blake, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am Blake Mickens and I (in order of importance) play bass, write songs, and sing for the St. Louis based emo/punk rock band Inches From Glory. I’ve been playing music since I was about 7 years and would say its something that’s really important to me. I started learning to play the drums in an after school program when I was in first grade and then moved to bass when I was about 12. I went to college for music (specifically Jazz Performance) and have been performing in a professional capacity in many different groups since then.

Inches from Glory began as a way for me to get into writing songs. For a long time it was just me writing and recording stuff in my bedroom. I grew up listening to a lot of punky emo stuff (Descendants, Rise Against, Title Fight, Such Gold, Touche Amore) and so that’s just what I ended up writing. Later on our drummer Marty and guitarist CJ got added to the mix and I think the music shifted in a good way. Its come to represent everyone in the band a little bit more as musicians, even if I’m still like 80% of the creative force, everyone’s voice can definitely be heard musically. Over the years we’ve learned how to be a band together and done a lot of cool things in the process. We’ve gotten to open for some pretty big bands, gotten to tour, and made lots of really awesome songs that we’re very proud of.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

I think a lot of people do not realize that simply being present at shows/artistic spaces and introducing others to smaller artists does a lot. In times when the internet is saturated with thousands of “content creators’ fighting over the 3rd place spot, showing up in the real world for artists and creators that you care about is worth more than any like, follow, or comment could ever be. Being able to give that artist the ability to share their work and see that reaction in real time is a deep and meaningful experience that isn’t replaceable. People showing up to an event as shows the venue/host that “this person’s work means something to a lot of people, we should continue to platform them and encourage other to do the same” which can really help build careers for artists! Showing up means so much more than people think.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

I would say there’s two specific goals for me and those are self improvement and stability. I always strive to be better at playing the bass than I was a week ago. That doesn’t always happen and I’ve definitely fallen into plateaus in my journey but that’s never stopped me from having the desire to improve and i always try to find a way. As far as stability I really mean that from a financial standpoint. Making art is probably the worst way to have a stable living so if you’re looking for that I’d encourage you to look at other ways to make money. I am unfortunately fully and unabashedly dedicated to my craft and have decided any other way of living would be devoid of meaning and purpose. Because of this, I’ve been in a constant state of searching for the next thing for YEARS. I feel like in the past year or so I’ve finally gotten to a point where life has been consistent enough and I have enough going on creatively that I’m not worried about if I’m gonna be able to pay for my existence month to month and that’s a really good feeling.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://inchesfromglory.bandcamp.com/album/it-only-gets-better
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/inchesfromglory/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/inchesfromglory/
• Twitter: https://x.com/inchesfromglory

Image Credits

Kylen Lunn