INTERVIEW: Bluphoria are ready to ‘Walk Through Fire’
Photo: Bluphoria recently released their debut full-length album. Photo courtesy of Jena Yannone / Provided by Reybee with permission.
Bluphoria, billed as an alternative / psychedelic rock band, recently released their debut full-length album on a major label. The self-titled release from Edgeout Records / UME / UMG features new singles “Walk Through Fire,” “Ain’t Got Me” and “Set Me Up.”
For the band members, arriving at this point has been quite the journey. The group consists of lead vocalist and lead guitarist Reign LaFreniere, Dakota Landrum on rhythm guitar and background vocals, bassist and background vocalist Rex Wolf, and Dani Janae on drums and background vocals, according to press notes. They formed right before the pandemic at the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon, and today they are based in one of the music capitals of the United States: Nashville.
Recently LaFreniere exchanged emails with Hollywood Soapbox about their new album. Questions and answers have been slightly edited for style.
What’s the significance of the band’s name, Bluphoria?
A friend and I were talking about band names back in high school, and this name came up. That night I dreamed of seeing that name on a billboard with four silhouettes. Ever since then I was determined to start this band. The name represents a feeling. It’s the emotion you feel when having a good time at a party, but you are still depressed. Most of our songs fall in line with that feeling where we use major chords and happier melodies with sadder lyrics accompanying them.
How excited are you to have your full-length debut album coming out this year?
We are so stoked for this project to release. This album is the representation of our lives through and after the pandemic, and we feel like this release is a great transition into this next chapter of our lives. These songs go over love and loss and have really been therapeutic to me, and I hope it has the same effect on others.
What’s your plan once the album is released? Do you hope to tour the songs around the country?
Our hope is to get a tour pretty soon after! We are currently working on it and definitely plan on touring the country and sharing our music as much as possible!
What inspired the song “Ain’t Got Me”?
“Ain’t Got Me” is one of the oldest Bluphoria songs. I wanted to make a classic rock sort of song that is heavily inspired by the Beatles but with Hendrix-like energy and aggression throughout. I came up with this chord progression, and from there the song kind of wrote itself.
What was day one like for the band? How did you all get together?
Everything fell into place at the perfect time. I had originally had the project more like a psychedelic jam band and wanted to make the transition into more serious songs that I could have a career with. I met Dakota [Landrum] at a house show one night because we were the only two black kids there and probably the only two people of color. Naturally, we gravitated to each other and started talking about music. He expressed that he played guitar, and a couple of days later we started jamming.
We got a small three-piece together and rotated out a few drummers and bassists until we met Rex [Wolf]. I had been bored on my phone one day and saw he had followed us on Instagram. We needed a dedicated bassist since Dakota had been filling in. I clicked on his Instagram, and luckily for us, it was an account dedicated to cheesy Instagram filters of basses. He jammed with us and joined the band that same night. There is actually a picture out there of Rex in the crowd at one of our shows gawking at us while we were playing.
I met Dani [Janae] one day because she interviewed me for a podcast and mentioned she was a drummer. About a year later she had been hanging out with a friend of ours and became good friends with Dakota and expressed that she wanted to join our band. We needed a new drummer at the time, and the boys insisted we held a jam with her. After a few practices, we were interested in her joining us, and ever since then we have been playing together.
Is it advantageous to be a rock band based in Nashville?
I think it’s a great place to be in for a rock band mostly due to proximity. Nashville sits smack dab in the middle of many big music markets, and for that fact alone it is a great place to play shows and start tours. It was a little harder going city to city in the West because of how spread apart everything is, but here we can play with a lot of talented bands and play our music in front of a larger variety of people. Also, I have to say that the talent out here is mind-blowing. There are so many amazing artists out here. The bare minimum is to be talented, which I feel like really helps us grow as musicians and people in the community.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Bluphoria recently released their debut full-length album on a major label. Click here for more information.
