Interview: Saiara From Indie Band Slow-Blink

Saiara is one-half of the alternative indie band, Slow Blink, alongside Nick Brown. Her roots come from Louisville, Kentucky but she currently resides in Richmond, Virginia. Her hometown is similar to Richmond as she was accustomed to an artsy and diverse environment. Outside of music, I graduated with a BFA in Kinetic Imaging from VCU this past May. Saiara knows how to paint pictures electronically through visuals and sounds. Slow Blink just released their first project, Slow-Blink. It's a four-track EP that's a smooth introduction to their world of music.

Jay: The band started as your senior thesis project and now expanded to being a performing band. What was the senior thesis about? (video art, 3D animation, game design).

Saiara: Conceptually, a way to put my emotions into something visual and audio-wise. I was an English minor and my classes were poetry based, so my videos were always music and poetry based. Music is poetry with all the different instruments you add. You can create certain energies to amplify emotions. The videos are so important. One of our 3-D videos, Illusionary, was shown at Byrd Theater in Richmond, VA

The releasing process has been slow. it's been a learning process and our strategy is to have video content alongside the music before we release it.

Jay: How did you and Nick Brown meet?

Saiara: We met through mutual friends in the music scene. We write, record, mix, and master songs ourselves as much as we can. We’re on the production side of the music. It’s strictly collaboration for everything. Coming up with different melodies, instrument use, what effects we want, and where to fade in and fade out. The lyrics are all me, but it’s hard to say what things we both focus on because it’s bouncing ideas off each other. I ask him for his thoughts on projects all the time.

We have been jamming with Jake Potts who is also pursuing Kinetic Imaging, and we would line up our performances would be based on when we get together for practice.

Jay: What was the moment that the band decided “Hey, we should keep this going?”

Saiara: It was when we realized we were actually good with software. There is so much you can do within Ableton. My background in doing videos and sound design supplements our abilities to play instruments. Another moment was when I was in classes getting encouraging critiques from professors and classmates.

Jay: The band’s sounds are relaxing and mellow. It reminds me of background band music during an NPR Tiny Desk concert. How did the band establish their sound?