Part 1

Name: Bronson Arm
Members: Blake Bickel (baritone guitar, vocals), Garrett Yates (drums)
Interviewee: Blake Bickel
Nationality: American
Current release: Bronson Arm's selt-titled album is out via Learning Curve.
Recommendations: One of my favorite visual artists is Gregory Crewdson. His photographs are like stories. Surreal and dark … they feel like stills from a movie - something is going on … but you don’t know exactly what.
Another photographer I really like is Christopher McKenney. Very dark and very surreal. Creepy in an exciting way. Some of the imagery from the video for our song “Pleasure Brea” was subconsciously pulled from his work. One of those thing were I had an idea I thought was original and we worked it out and pulled it off. And like a year later I stumbled upon his instagram page … and I MUST have seen his work at some point. Because the parallels are uncanny. And he does it much better - haha!!

If you enjoyed this Bronson Arm interview and would like to know more about the band, visit the duo on Instagram, and Facebook.    



Where does the impulse to create something come from for you? What role do often-quoted sources of inspiration like dreams, other forms of art, personal relationships, politics etc play?

Inspiration or sparks of ideas come from all over the place and most often at the most inopportune times. Most often it starts with just a rhythm or guitar part that pops in my head in a sort of loop … In the shower, driving around town, in the middle of the night. No matter how excited or sure I am that I WON’T forget the new idea - I will if I don’t document it somehow … fast.

So at any given point, I have around 100 audio memos on my phone of different ideas. Some are my voice humming a guitar part, strumming an unplugged guitar, or slapping a beat on my thighs to try and get the idea down before I forget it.

Sometimes I’ll hear music playing in the next room over … but it’s kind of muffled. My brain kind of fills in the blanks and starts to get excited. Then I go into the room where the music is playing - and what I thought it was is nothing like what it actually is … then I run for my guitar or bass and jot the idea down.

And sometimes … it’s just spontaneous. For example the song “Tedious Company” off our S/T release was written when my drummer Garrett and I were attempting to hash out some of the ideas I had brought, but nothing was clicking. Garrett said something like … “Im going to come in on 4 and you just start playing something, ANYTHING. And THATS how we are going to write a song today, right NOW …. 1, 2, 3, 4 …” - And the main theme that starts that song off is what happend!!



Of course it took maybe an hour to work out the different parts and structure. But we wrote that song together from nothing, and it’s one of my favorites to play.

For you to get started, do there need to be concrete ideas – or what some have called a 'visualisation' of the finished work? What does the balance between planning and chance look like for you?

I often have an idea of where I would like a particular thing to go … or what I would want it to sound like. But it’s rare to have a fully complete song that I will bring to the table. I’ll bring parts and sections of songs that I know will work together and Garrett and I will experiment with them, rearrange them. See how it flows once drums are there. It’s not uncommon to feel we finished a song - play it out live in front of an audience and then reassess.

Bronson Arm is a very collaborative band when it comes to writing. Yes, I write the guitar parts and write the lyrics … but if Garrett isn’t feeling it - we change it. Same with his drum parts. If he’s vibing on a particular beat or pattern and I’m not feeling it - we explore other options until we are both happy. Not just happy - PUMPED. Sometimes that happens fast, and sometimes we just put an almost finished song on the back burner until we find what the song needs to be.

Like our song “Patsy Ultima.”



I think we had that song mostly written for a year before we played it out. We played it out as an instrumental without lyrics for a while. Decided to tweak it a little, and then everything fell into place. Lyrics and all.

Is there a preparation phase for your process? Do you require your tools to be laid out in a particular way, for example, do you need to do 'research' or create 'early versions'?

We definitely make demos of our songs as we write, and DEFINITELY before we go into the studio. Listening to a song while you are playing it - is VERY different from listening to it being played back to you … at least for me. When we are putting a song together and it’s almost there, we will do a rough room recording of the song. So that we remember what we were doing - HAHA - and can review it at home and see if we still like it.

Once we feel we have it dialed, we play it out … if it still feels good and people are responding to it we will demo it out as if we were recording it at a studio. Get isolated drum tracks, guitar tracks, Vocals … and sometimes after listening to that we will make subtle adjustments. Like where accents are on a beat or guitar part, or maybe the way the vocals are delivered. This all helps us come to where we feel the song is as good as it can be.

And if I’m speaking honestly. We still change stuff. You can’t help NOT to. But it’s a natural progression. And subtle. Probably not going to change the arrangement at this point. Now I don’t know if the listening audience can tell the difference. But songs change overtime.

Do you have certain rituals to get you into the right mindset for creating? What role do certain foods or stimulants like coffee, lighting, scents, exercise or reading poetry play?

I don’t have a ritual for creating music. But I absolutely have some “guidelines and preferences” before playing a show. I feel playing in a 2 piece band presents a unique set of challenges. There is no “hiding” in the mix. If I mess up even slightly - YOU HEAR IT.

Also it can be difficult to find spaces to improvise. Most the material is very planned out. I can’t let the bass player thump on a simple groove while I explore a vibe … cause it’s just me and the drummer. We find ways to have fun and allow room for spontaneity, but even then it has to be relatively planned. Like, “Hey, on this song I’m going to do an extended intro … when Im ready to dig into the song I’ll give you THE LOOK” or something like that - HAHA!

Back to the original question …

I will avoid eating a meal a few hours before a show.
I will drink a lot of water during the day before a show.
I will put on a fresh pair of socks and boxers when I get to the venue.
I will brush my teeth and put on a fresh coat of deodorant when I get to the venue.
I will typically have 1 cocktail maybe 30 minutes before we go on stage.
I will meditate or attempt to clear my head for a few minutes before we go on stage.
I will also do some jumping jacks and stretch my muscles to get blood flowing and loosen up before we go on stage.
I will empty all my pockets before I go on stage.

Basically I want to feel fresh, clean, and focused. Maybe I haven’t washed my pants or shirt in a day or two since we are on the road – HAHA … But I want to “FEEL” fresh and clean. I want to be well hydrated - it drives me crazy when I’m subtly dehydrated and desire to take a sip of water between every song. So if I drink a lot of water in the morning and afternoon I can make it through a set and hardly drink any water on stage.

I don’t want to feel bogged down by a heavy meal. I want my head to be clear but I also enjoy a cocktail before a performance to loosen up. And I want to hit the stage at full throttle. I want to be physically limber, loose, and warmed up.

What do you start with? And, to quote a question by the great Bruce Duffie: When you come up with a musical idea, have you created the idea or have you discovered the idea?

This is the first band I have played guitar in … or baritone guitar in rather. I have played bass guitar and drums in all the previous bands. So sometimes I have a rhythm part or a drum beat in my head. And I’ll mentally start coming up with guitar parts to go along with it. Sometimes it’s just a droning pulsing tone I hear in my head that needs music written around it.

And yeah - sometimes it feels like a muse just whispered something in my ear, because it’s a REALLY exciting idea that came out of nowhere and isn’t like what I normally come up with. I often get ideas from listening to genres of music that Im not really familiar with. I might randomly hear a bit that my brain catches - and think “Now that little tid bit is cool. They should have taken that and steered it over here and let it ride for a bit” HAHA!

I wrote our song “Hard Pass” after watching an old Melvins live video on YouTube. It looked like a DIY space and it was hard to tell what was going on but I think there was a power issue. The bass players rig cut out. Lights went out. And the guitar tone turned sickly abrasive. But King Buzzo kept on playing. And he was only striking 1 maybe 2 notes repetitively in an aggressive manner. Until eventually the lights and bass guitar came back on.



It moved me. So I am often picking up on unintentional things. Reshaping them, and trying to make something new.

[Read our Melvins interview]

When do the lyrics enter the picture? Where do they come from? Do lyrics need to grow together with the music or can they emerge from a place of their own?

The music and instrumentation always come first for me. I will mumble out vocal parts while I’m writing a song. I slowly figure when and where the lyrics will be. What type of space they take up. The cadence and tones. For me the way the vocals are expressed and the space they take up syllable wise comes first.

So I start with nonsensical mumbles. And things start to stick. Words get formed. I discover what the song is about … how it makes me feel. What I want to say. It’s not uncommon for the final lyrics and exact words to be written the day before we go into the studio … or minutes before I do the vocal take of a particular song - because I will have a variety of versions of a verse or chorus and will have difficulty picking THE ONE.

So I tend to put it off until the last possible second.

What makes lyrics good in your opinion? What are your own ambitions and challenges in this regard?

It’s a serious challenge for me. Tell me what to sing and I will belt that shit out. But when I am responsible for the words, when I am the creator … it feels like a big responsibility. So I am very particular.

I admire folks who tell a story or narrative … but that’s not me. I think my music is more about feelings that are generated with the sound, rhythms, and expression. Our songs lyrics are rather sparse. So I have been attempting to make sure each collection of songs has a couple that maybe … aren’t vocal centric - but at least have enough content for the listening audience to engage with and connect to.

Our song “His Ilk” is a longer song with a recognizable chorus section that we repeat 3 times. I noticed that during that song we always have a group of people front and center shouting the lyrics back, pounding their fists on the stage, etc. And that stands out to me.



Not every person can play guitar or drums. But most everyone can speak. So the majority of the audience can really engage with lyrics … which sounds obvious saying it out loud. But I'm talking on a shared experience level. It’s not socially acceptable for members of the audience to be playing air guitar or air drums during their favorite part of a song. But it’s TOTALLY acceptable for them to shout along with lyrics. So … I am trying to be more aware of that.

I'm not jamming lyrics for lyrics sake into every song moving forward. Just challenging myself to be aware of when it’s appropriate to do so for a particular song. Give myself the allowance.