BloNo’s local music scene isn’t just alive and well, it’s thriving.
Over homecoming weekend, I was fortunate enough to meet with local band Blind Baby during the Sugar Creek Art Festival to talk about the origins of the band and their hopes for the future.
The band formed in 2023 when Guitarist Adan Luciano posted in an online group for ISU students, looking for people interested in putting together a group.
“I’m not originally from the area,” Luciano said. “When I moved here for college I posted online looking for some people to join the group. I met both Jack and Logan pretty much instantly,” he said. “I joined another group about music appreciation, met Eli, and we had a lot of stuff in common, so it was pretty easy,” Luciano said.
Bassist and BloNo native Jack Green said that Blind Baby predated the group’s college experience.
“When we started at ISU, Adan posted to the ISU story like ‘Hey, looking for musicians. Hit me up.’ and that was before classes had even started.,” Green said.
“I moved here in 2022. I knew I wanted to be in a band the whole time, but it was hard to find the right people who wanted to make certain kinds of music,” Guitarist Eli Talbott said.
The group got their name from the album “Blind Baby Has its Mother’s Eyes” by Les Rallizes Dénudés, a ‘70s Japanese experimental noise rock band.
Playing music wasn’t new to any of the Blind Baby members.
“I’ve been playing since the fourth grade. I started at School of Rock, moved my way up, and after I aged out I was like ‘Oh no, now I’ve got to find my own band.’ But I’m pretty sure I saved their life. How often do you get a drummer reaching out to you?” Drummer Logan Noble said.
“Drummers are rare. Thanks Logan,” Green said. Green said he started playing music in his first year of high school, about five or six years ago, because the videogames he played had cool music that he noticed.
Falling in love with music at a young age, all four members had varying early influences, from “Plastic Beach” by Gorillaz to “Moving Pictures” by Rush.
“The sounds and the grooves that came out of that album are something that only best buds can do,” Talbott said.
When it comes to their sound, Blind Baby looks to bands that have a unique sound as well as the ability to reinvent themselves, like Unwound.
Each member has their own musical influences that contribute to their collective sound.
“The sound that is created between the four of us is kind of a combination of all of our influences,” Green said. “I’m writing basslines that are straight from a grunge song, Eli’s writing Bossa nova, Logan wrote a slowdance song.”
There’s no reason to limit yourself as a band to one thing,” Green said.
The group’s writing process is also fuelled by the members’ varying musical interests.
“I feel like it’s any time the inspiration strikes,” Noble said.
“One of us comes into rehearsal with an idea, or sends a voice demo, then we expand on it. Usually that’s where we butt heads the most,” Noble said.
Luciano said that writing can come seasonally, especially in winter.
“You don’t really have anywhere to be, so you sit inside and write a song about what you miss,” Luciano said.
The band expressed the difficulty of getting four full-time students in the same room for an extended time.
“A lot of the time our practices aren’t even starting until 8 or 9 p.m. – despite hanging out since six. That hang out time is so necessary,” Noble said.
The band made it clear that their extracurricular endeavor hasn’t sparked the attention of many outside of their typical circle, so their notoriety doesn’t distract from their studies.
Green said he had only been recognized by one person he didn’t know, and Noble joked that he can’t get to class without having to “beat the girls away with a stick.”
The sense of community within the local music scene manifests itself in the shows that Blind Baby plays.
Friends of Blind Baby and other local bands often put together benefit shows, including a series of shows with multiple local bands to benefit Palestinian children.
The final show in the series will be on November 15.
“Every time someone reaches out about a benefit show, we try our best to be able to make it for that,” Luciano said.
Even though the members of the band are in their third and fourth years, they’re looking forward to the future of Blind Baby.
“Despite graduating next semester, I still plan on living in Bloomington for another year or two,” Talbott said.
“I like life over here. Gonna keep going no matter what.”
“I think music is kind of inevitable for me. It’s inescapable, in a good way.” Luciano said.
Luciano and Green stressed the importance of physical media.
“If you can, get off streaming,” Luciano said. “Spotify isn’t really in our interest as artists. We don’t share any interests with Daniel Ek or any of his bald fellows. No military tech in our music.”
“I’d rather hand a CD to one person in my life, have them listen to it all the way through and feel an intimate connection to it than have someone ask ‘Are you on Spotify’, only to listen to ten seconds,” Green said.
Blind Baby has multiple shows coming up, including October 25 at Kings Crossing and November 1 at Treehouse.
lYou can follow Blind Baby on Instagram @bbh1me and listen to their music on Bandcamp.
