Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Blapsmith. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Blapsmith, looking forward to hearing all of your stories 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.
I pretty much taught myself from the jump. I had a few bass lessons in high school, but that was after a few years of teaching myself and playing with friends. Other than that, I’ve really had no formal training for production or DJing other than YouTube University. Definitely learning about sound selection and listening to vastly different styles and subgenres of music was super essential for me. The biggest challenge was really just weeding out the BS, the downside to learning from the internet is sometimes you end up listening to people who really have no idea what they’re talking about, or their goals are so different from mine that the information doesn’t apply to me.
Blapsmith, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I’m Hank, I go by the Blapsmith (@blapsmith), and I’m a bassist, producer, engineer, and wedding DJ.
My production style is what happens when Parliament meets Nef the Pharaoh. Or Pink Floyd meets Dr. Dre. Remi Wolf meets NFAK. I love taking influence from everywhere. processing that through my weird lens of music, and making space for any rapper or singer to create their sound within my world.
The work I’m most proud of right now is definitely my band Heaping Teaspoon (@heaping_teaspoon). We’re a 6 piece hip hop fusion group and building our sound together and playing shows has been so fun. Everyone in there is a killer, so much better than me but I’m tryna learn as much as possible. We’re from all over the place, with members from El Paso, Philly, Northern California, and San Diego, and our sound is a reflection of that.
Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?
Okay first off I don’t think there’s such a thing as “non-creatives” I think everybody is creative it just might not be within painting or music or whatever. You can create anything in any situation, and almost everyone on the planet does some form of creation. But that’s beside the point.
I think what most people don’t really understand is the weird dichotomy of the stage of my journey I’m in right now. Like my band and I will throw a crazy ass event, or go up to LA and hit the studio, or produce a killer song, and the high is insane like it’s pretty much the happiest I’ve ever been. And then the next day I’m shoving Q-tips up people’s nostrils working as a COVID tester or on a pizza line in ocean beach to pay rent. Not that either of those jobs is that horrible but it feels insane. Like I’m really living two completely different lives. Soon I know that’ll merge into all music but it’s weird right now.
Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?
For sure. There’s a few I use daily, on the production and bass side. Some are free, some are cheap, but all are insane value.
YT channel for real music theory: Open Studio
YT channels for producers: KennyBeats and Timbaland are the best
free VST: LABS by Spitfire Audio
Free/cheap drums: THE KOUNT. GO FW HIS STUFF IT’S INSANE. JUST LOOK HIM UP I SWEAR
go-to plugins (wait for the sales): Waves RBass, CLA-3A, brainworx Shadow Hills Comp, Fab Filter Pro-Q 3, Bluetube Saturator
However, no resource can replace 10K hours of practice. Learn, listen, and keep going. I been doing this for 10+ years and it just got good in the last two.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.heapingteaspoon.band/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heaping_teaspoon/?hl=en
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eLQx9KHinc