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ROCKWiRED iNTERViEWS PROJECT DNA MR. BRiGHTSiDE When a cute looking pop singer desires to be taken seriously, they either forge a rockier sound or pick up a decidedly more hip-hop styled swagger. It is a tried and true method that has made the like PINK and JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE industry giants as opposed to yesterday’s pop. Guitarist JIMMY BLECKER has been a member of the Kansas City-based alternative rock band AMADIUS for years and has decided to flex his pop muscle with his latest gig PROJECT DNA – a celebration of time honored pop hooks that eschews the grit and seriousness of his other band. The road to pop superstardom is paved with the catchiest pop-rock hooks imaginable. Despite the “don’t bore us/get to the chorus” approach, PROJECT DNA and its self-titled debut boasts stellar backing from the likes of BEAVER HOWARD (bassist for SLY AND THE FAMILY STONE), FUNKASAURUS REX on drums and BLAZE BARRET on lead guitar.JiMMY BLECKER OF PROJECT DNA TALKS TO ROCKWiRED ABOUT HiS PROJECT'S SELF-TiTLED DEBUT HAViNG AN OUTLET FOR HiS POP SENSiBiLiTY AND HiS DAYS ON AMERiCAN iDOL  iNTERViEWED BY BRiAN LUSH ROCKWIRED spoke with JIMMY BLECKER of PROJECT DNA over the phone. Here is how it went. How do you feel about your debut CD? I tell you what man, the music and the artwork on this CD were equally as important to me. I just received my final finished copy yesterday. The finished work is as visually and musically stimulating as I had imagined that it would be. To see a concept go from its birthing stage to now is truly exciting. It’s an award beyond belief. Talk about he visuals a little more. Who worked with you on them? It was my little cousin BLAZE. He’s a little child prodigy. He’s one of those guys who love doing anything and everything to expand his mind in art if you know what I mean. I love him and he’s just very gifted. He took a little DNA sketch that and turned it into this dancing DNA cartoon. The artwork on the CD has thirteen different frames of visuals on it. Talk about how music got started for you as an individual. My mother was a musical prodigy. She had perfect pitch when she was four years old and could pretty much play anything on any instrument. I used to sit on the bench with her when she would play and I would just cry when she would sing minor chords. Minor chords just move my heart. I think I have just a little bit of her talent. I started playing and writing when I was fourteen. I was self taught and had a natural ear thank God! I was able to learn by my ear. The real training didn’t come until the last couple of years. I wanted to take my music to a whole new level and really be professional about it. During that time I played many shows throughout Kansas City in a hard rock band called AMADIUS. I’m still recording with that group but PROJECT DNA is a way to put out songs that were a little too happy and poppy for AMADIUS. When we would play at weddings, people would request PROJECT DNA songs even though it was AMADIUS that was playing. AMADIUS can’t be too happy with that. They weren’t back in the day, but now that AMADIUS has gone in a different direction. We’ve got a female singer in the band now. I think everyone has a happy and a dark side to them. A yin and a yang. For an AMADIUS show, I was always too poppy and happy for a majority of our songs. I’d be making jokes everywhere. So PROJECT DNA lends itself better to the lovey – dovey, happy love songs whereas the music of AMADIUS deals with life issues and addictions. PROJECT DNA does to but we just go about it in a different way. I’m a guy that deals with issues of addiction. I’m an addictive personality. Three of the songs on the album are by a guy named ED GANEY who actually had a terrible life form addiction and lost everything but had a heart of gold. He kind of looks like a member of ZZ TOP with his big, old long beard. He wrote three songs on this album that take it to this whole other spiritual level. You’ve got thee light, poppy, happy love songs that I’ve got and then we start digging deep into some more spiritual songs by ED GEANEY like EMPTY PROMISES. Talk a little more about ED GANEY. He can’t sing a lick and he can’t play the guitar. He came into my life about three years ago. I own this construction company and he showed me these poems that he wrote in jail. He wrote some killer material about his life and love that he lost and how it was found again. When I heard his stuff, all of a sudden, music started coming into my head again. I told him that I was going to put together a new album outside of AMADIUS that would only feature his songs. I knew that it would be something powerful that would touch people’s lives. Talk about how that songwriting process works for you. I always try to come up with a catchy musical hook. It starts with the music first, a hook and melody. It’s a gift that I have – creating little melodies that stay in your head while you are sleeping. That’s a beautiful thing! When I know that I’ve got something going, then it is all about feeling. When I was younger, there was no message tied into any of my music. One of the best criticisms I ever had was from a guy in the studio. The producer that I was working with asked him if he thought my stuff was any good and he said ‘This guy hasn’t been hurt yet. He won’t be good until he’s been hurt.’ That was deep for me to hear someone say that. I was like ‘What do you know?’ He was basically saying that I hadn’t lived life yet. He was absolutely right. Six years later, I lived some life and I had been through some issues. Song number nine, INNOCENCE is a lot about me and how I was hurt. You’ll hear me crying in that song cause that was pretty much what happened. I try to take the people there on each one of the songs. Each song on the album is an emotion. You were also on AMERICAN IDOL. I was, back in 2008. I had always been kind of spiritual and was raised in a Christian household. A couple of years ago, someone challenged me to read the Bible and I was like ‘No!’ Up until that point, I think I had only read two books in my life – ‘CUJO’ and ‘JURASSIC PARK’. It’s not that I didn’t believe in God of JESUS or anything like that but when I read it all of a sudden I stood up one night and looked at my wife and said ‘I’ve got to sell our house! I have to sell all of this and we have to pursue music all of the way.’ I had a beautiful house on a lake out here in Kansas City. I’m a young contractor who has been blessed and successful in many ways. It was hard to let it all go. I put the house on the market and let me tell you, it sold in a bad economic time in one month at one of the highest prices on the lake that had ever sold. It has helped fund this musical journey. I was I the band AMADIUS at the time and I had to kick out the drummer. I had no idea where I was going to go from there and then AMERICAN IDOL came into town. PROJECT DNA wasn’t even around at that time so I made it on AMEERICAN IDOL and was on TV and everything. I was thinking ‘Here it is! This is what I’m supposed to do!’ and then I got kicked out and I was like ‘Oh crap!’ My band AMADIUS was on hold and I had no idea where I was going to go musically, I had no home and my wife was gonna be ready to kill me. She turned over to me and said ‘Let’s fund your own songs’. That was how PROJECT DNA began. BEAVER HOWARD from SLY AND THE FAMILY STONE is a big part of this. He contacted me days after getting booted off of AMERICAN IDOL. He gathered up a team of musicians with me and we put this thing together very quickly. The musicians on this recording are top class here in the Midwest. You can’t find a better group of musicians. Is the musicianship going to change with every release that PROJECT DNA comes up with or will it stay the same? There is a set group right now. I’m up for bringing more people in. I would love for it to be an orchestra of the best musicians who were all on the same page. Now I’ve got a set team that is preparing to play these songs live in a bigger way than anybody has ever heard. Right now, everyone in the Midwest is scared to book us right now because they don’t know how to handle us. The team of musicians I have are also kind of pricey – real seasoned professionals. As a musician, all you want is the world to hear your music. Are there any plans for a music video? Oh yes. I don’t do anything on the low end. I’ve got to do everything as high quality as possible. DANCE WITH ME is a song that I can’t wait to do a video for. EMPTY PROMISES is another one. Those are the only two songs that I feel inspired to do videos for. I’m talks with the KANSAS CITY ROYALS right now for having the home run song be CALLYPSO. You’re based in Kansas City which is a well-known blues hub. How do you fit in or stand out? Let me tell you the MCFADDEN BROTHERS and their whole family are the ones that made Kansas City a blues town. My bassist BEAVER HOWARD plays with RONNIE MCFADDEN and THE MCFADDEN BROTHERS. RONNIE MCFADEN has actually come in and jammed with us a few times, so I think we fit right in. I’m not blues but I’ve got the blues players playing with me. How have people responded to the music live? That’s a beautiful question BRIAN. People have come to our shows from all kinds of places and have come to us like ‘What is this! This is going to be the next thing! We can’t wait to get an album!’ Everyone digs it whether they are young or old. There is no age group that it lends itself to specifically. I can hear that. In listening to the CD it sounds as if your influences are pretty much across the board. Is this true? It absolutely is. I love music and the kinds of music that I might not have been exposed to has been introduced to me by my band so that is what they bring to the table. What would you like someone to come away with after they’ve heard this album? I want their lives to change. I want them to be filled with love and hope. That is exactly what I try to bring to the table. I’m a people person. I like to engage people but more than that, I’m a story of coming through life’s challenges. The music is all about living another day. That’s what PROJECT DNA is about. |
