Lasting love is not easy to find.
Take it from Maple Ridge musician Cam Blake who just released his third EP called Fast Love.
Released on July 30, the EP has five songs on it, all around the theme of relationships that didn’t pan out.
The first song on the EP is called So Hard to Watch, about knowing something bad is going to happen but not being able to do anything about it.
Head On Collision, another song on the EP, is an extension of So Hard To Watch, said the 19-year-old artist.
“It’s basically explaining the aftermath of a bad relationship,” said Blake, noting that last line of the chorus is, “My life’s like a head on collision,’ again about knowing something bad is going to happen, “you can see it right in front of you know it’s going to happen but you can’t really do anything to stop it.”
Blake’s favourite song on the album is called It’s Easier.
“A classic break-up song I feel like,” said Blake.
“It’s looking back at it and thinking about everything and just trying to have empathy for the person that you were with before. and how it ended badly but you will always have space for them in your heart,” he continued.
Blake originally started writing music and singing when he was only eight years old. He started by writing his own rap music in Grades 8 and 9.
However, his music only started taking off when he joined the Samuel Robertson Technical School of Rock in Grade 10. By then he was more into rhythm and blues and eventually gravitated towards hard rock and psychedelic rock.
He describes his music now as alternative indie rock with a 70s psychedelic influence.
Blake’s first EP City Slow is the first time he did all the mixing and recording on it himself. He only released that one to SoundCloud.
His second EP called Abyss is the one, he says, he put the most time into. The EP revolves around the love story of two teenagers, who in Grade 11 have an incident with a teacher that gets them expelled. The teacher tries to extort sexual favours from the girl in exchange for being allowed back at the school. When the boy finds out he cuts the brake lines on the teacher’s car. While walking home after cutting the brakes, the teacher gets into the car and ends up hitting the boy, killing them both. When the boy enters the afterlife he finds out that the only way he can communicate with people who are alive is through the ears of the girl.
“The entire EP is a conversation between these two from different point in the story,” he said, adding that the storyline is not necessarily fully explained within the songs on the EP like it is in his head.
Blake is also in the band Strange Ways as a singer and guitarist, that was formed during his time at SRT and says they will be melding together to play live gigs.
In addition he is a singer and guitarist in the local band The Oakstones and a drummer in his friend’s band, Jack Williams Bookclub.
Throughout August, Blake also put out three live songs recorded at Blue Frog Studios in White Rock.
So far Blake’s songs have been created using electronically recorded sounds in the program Logic Pro X.
He is currently working on a full-length album that, he says, will be all live recordings. He is hoping to release the album next year.
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