Four-piece boy band Blair Gun, hailing from the corners of San Diego’s shoegaze and ‘90s alt-rock scene, is neither a tribute band wishing to experience the bygone days of classic punk rock, nor a group paving way towards an entirely new wave of music. They fall somewhere in the middle, comfortably.
The name Blair Gun ties in with the group’s political beliefs and speaks to the abrasive “joyful” noise they make –– a cultivated sound that has gone through four years of stylistic and experimental change. It bridges the eras of ‘70s punk, ‘90s heavy rock and the modern alternative sounds born out of dusty college garages today.
After the band played a set at The Aviary in San Luis Obispo on Nov. 15, they sat around the tailgate of their car under the full moon and reflected on their past styles as well as the new trajectory of experimental sound they are headed into. After the release of their sophomore album “There Are No Rival Clones Here” in June, the recent national tour that followed it and their newly-added bassist, Blair Gun knows they have finally narrowed in on a sound and aesthetic that is very much their own.
From their grungier start to their current blend of heavier beats and contemporary lo-fi acoustic fragments, Blair Gun continues to pull inspiration to strengthen their already individualized style.
Take the band’s Weezer-esque parody music video, created in support of their 2023 single “Man of the Hour.” It pulls you into the realm of an old late-night show with “Sammy Clover,” where he introduces the group set to perform: none other than “America’s premiere rock n’ roll band,” clad in blazers of classic punk-rock n’ roll fashion.
It’s a three-minute compilation of wide and tight-angle shots, much akin to those one would see in classic music videos produced in the mid-’70s or early aughts (The Rolling Stones’ “Miss You,” Parquet Courts’ “Freebird II” and Buzzcock’s live performance of “Ever Fallen In Love” on the British television program Top of The Pops).
Still, the pink, soft-filtered light that falls on Joedin Morelock (vocals and rhythm guitar), Zach Cavor (lead guitar), Jake Richter (drums) and Aston Flores (bass) in the video adds hints of subtle indie, bedroom-pop influence –– the more modern realm that surrounds the band, even if it doesn’t define them per se.
The music video was made in collaboration with New York’s Enabler No.6 Records and sonaBLAST!, based out of Louisville, Kentucky –– the companies that flew them across the country to record their debut LP “Blaspheme Queen” at La La Studios in 2023.
The advent of Blair Gun came in 2020 as Morelock and Cavore started jamming together after meeting on the musician-meetup forum BandMix. The two trusted that their mutual love for Black Midi, The Velvet Underground, The White Stripes and Parquet Court was enough proof of their musical compatibility.
Richter, a friend of Morelock’s from a recording arts class, invited Morelock and the other former Blair Gun members to play a show in San Diego where he performed with his band.
“He was just a beast on drums and it turned out the whole thing was a ploy to get in the band,” Morelock said.
“I liked their music and I was like I want to play for them. I tried to play very hard and fast to impress them. And it worked,” Richter shamelessly admitted with a smirk.
Inspiration and admiration spurred the band’s relationship with Blair Gun’s longtime friend and newest addition, Flores. He played in a band in high school, a feat the rest of the Blair Gun deemed legendary.
“He was like, way cooler than all of us,” Morelock said. “It was kind of nerve-wracking, like ‘whoa, he’s in a band,’” Cavore said.
Blair Gun seeks to be as broad and eclectic as possible, having coined The Clash’s “London Calling” the perfect example of this fusion of ranging genres and musical influences that normally wouldn’t collide.
Richter brings the modern edge to the band, integrating a medley of sounds from metal and pop-punk bands he listens to, like the more modern groups “Knocked Loose” or “Spiritbox,” along with older classics like “Foo Fighters” and “Mayday Parade.”
In moments when Richter’s heavier, chaotic energy behind the drums interjects the rest of the group’s happier, melodic major-key riffs, Blair Gun really steps into the group’s unique sound. It’s a blind spot for Cavore, he said, referencing how well each member’s styles compliment their overall sound.
Flores, the hardcore punk of the group, brings in his love for “Bad Brains” and “The Clash,” while Morelock and Cavore’s contributions reside in what they coin as the avant-garde side of rock today. Both keen on finishing songs with noisy breakdowns, the pair look to inspirations like “Deerhoof” and “Swans.”
Blair Gun finds lyrical inspiration along the pages of the great beat writers too; the experimental stream-of-consciousness prose of Jack Keroauc, Allen Ginsberg and specifically William Burroughs’ “Naked Lunch” are the kinds of writing that have strength as a whole entity, rather than because of a single, explicitly significant line.
Blair Gun has been compelled to carve space in the musical arena of this current post-punk, postmodern era, having created tracks like their debut 2022 single “Lemondrops” or “Death Wish” which blend their love for classic ‘60s pop and ‘70s hard rock. After narrowing in on a sound and aesthetic on par with their diverse influences –– think Smashing Pumpkins, Fugazi, Sonic Youth and especially Wire’s “melodic but angular, weird chord and tempo changes,” as Morelock coined them –– Blair Gun’s work quickly rose to meet the sophisticated edge they were going for.
The maximalist energy the band channels makes for a discography of songs that surpass the allure of simple power chords. A focus on tight, fast tracks packed with as many notes as possible, Blair Gun revives that rapid-fire energy of those bygone days of garage punk shows in the early ‘60s every time they play in front of their Southern California-hailing fans.
The four-piece centered themselves in the surf-rock-heavy, SoCal music scene from the beginning of their conception, with the ‘90s alt-rock revival materializing throughout their hometown San Diego streets as some of their foundational roots.
“There’s a wonderful history of noisy, experimental kind of ‘90s grunge, post-punk stuff that happens around a venue we’ve played a bunch of times called the Casbah,” Cavore said about the local San Diego spot.
This cyclical nature of resurfacing eras and cultural renaissance in modern up-and-coming groups is a fiery source of energy that keeps the wheels of Blair Gun spinning. Just in recent months, the band graced the stage of Teragram in Los Angeles as openers for “Nada Surf” and played a show at Non Plus Ultra with bands Thin Veil, Shock Therapy and San Luis Obispo locals Couch Dog.
Following the back-to-back shows at San Luis Obispo’s Aviary and Delores Co-op in Santa Barbara, Blair Gun prepared for the 12-band music festival “THE GUN SHOW” which took place Nov. 23 at Che Cafe in San Diego.
Their month-long, national “Clones Across America” tour beginning in early June, which Morelock and Cavor booked entirely themselves, broke the band out of the typical San Diego scene –– an environment they acknowledged is pulsating with youthful experimentation yet full of smaller bands like themselves who get stuck in it and struggle to grow.
Flores, having not joined Blair Gun at the time of their tour, said seeing them go across the country was an inspiration for not only his band at the time, but other bands circulating the San Diego music scene.
It could have been the night playing to a small audience at Vino’s Brew Pub in Little Rock, Arkansas that the band knew they were expanding their reach. Or maybe it was the night in Colby, Kansas, spent on a farm in the middle of nowhere in what the band described as a little silo made of sheet metal, with cows grazing nearby.
It was this tour that allowed Blair Gun to set forth upon uncharted states for them, like Texas and Tennessee, and small college towns like Fort Collins, Colorado, leaving traces of their unique sound in the various venues they played before looping back to California to end their musical pilgrimage in the regular stomping grounds of San Diego and L.A.
“There are no rival clones here” reads Blair Guns’s sophomore album title; the harbinger of that 11-song amalgamation, which ranges from hard-edged melodies, addicting bass lines and at times, softer looks into the band’s storytelling abilities and lyrical composition.
The frenetic punk energy of tracks like “ACDC” or “Bug House” synthesized with the rootsy, bluesier sounds of “Don’t Think” makes for an interesting contrast that the group has always admired. Take for example their highly-revered musical influence, “The Gun Club,” which was a fixture from the L.A. underground punk scene that emerged in the late ‘70s and paved the way for a unique blend of rockabilly, pop, jazz and hardcore punk.
“I always viewed it as a sort of uniting term,” Cavor said of their latest release’s title. “Despite our differences, our similarities, whatever, we are sort of all in the same boat.”
Blair Gun is an individual entity among the masses, who at the core, are all pursuing the same goal and common good. Morelock reiterated this sentiment aloud to the group, back outside The Aviary in San Luis Obispo, as the loud sounds of the next band filtered out the back door and into the dark night.
Soon the four headed back on the highway, shuttling themselves with that same fervent passion for music they came to town with, on to their next gig in Santa Barbara.
