Today we’d like to introduce you to Blaine Counter.
Hi Blaine, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today.
My name is Blaine Counter. I am an electronic music producer, DJ, and composer. I perform and publish under the name Graffick. I am a multi-instrumentalist who is mostly self-taught. My music borrows influence from a range of musical styles and genres such as lo-fi hip-hop, downtempo, electronica, deep house, world music, and jazz.
My musical journey started when I was a kid. I grew up in San Francisco in the Haight Ashbury area – right on Stanyan Street next to Golden Gate Park. My grandparents had this big old dusty grand piano. It was out of tune, and nobody played it, but I was fascinated with it. Any chance I could I would bang on the keys or peak inside at the strings and hammers. I wanted to know how it all worked.
My Mother would play music all the time, and when I was a kid, she was listening to mostly rock and roll: Tom Petty, Steve Miller Band, Billy Idol, Robby Robertson. One day she brought home a new tape she had bought and stuck it in the cassette player. The sounds were harsh and loud, electric and jagged. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, but I liked it. My little mind was being ripped wide open; the experience was very visual. The tape was Pretty Hate Machine by Nine Inch Nails – still one of my favorite bands and influences today.
In junior high school, I couldn’t play any instruments, but I got a free PC through some school program giving out free computers. The main purpose was to get kids on the internet, but I discovered the computer had a voice recorder and I kinda got obsessed with it. I got one of those shitty computer microphones and started making these weird little recordings, really just playing with sound. I was speeding things up, slowing them down, and reversing them.
High school is where I learned to actually play an instrument – the guitar. At first, I hated it, and I wanted to be transferred out of the class, but after learning a few songs and making some friends I decided to stick with it. This was the early 2000s, so Napster and Limewire were around. With my free PC I came across some music software, A detailed audio editing program called Cool Edit Pro, and a funky little beat-making program called Fruity Loops. I taught myself how to use the programs, and I started making tunes. Some of them were more electronic and synthy, some of were more rock and roll or punk, and some were a combo of everything. I just kept diving deeper in the process, trying to write as much as possible and learning more about the programs.
Over the years I had played in some bands, tried my own hand, and being a singer-songwriter, the whole time still making these electronic songs in my bedroom. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with them, just that I wanted to keep making and performing music. It was in 2015 when I was 25 that my life got turned upside down. On the way to a friend’s house after work, I was in a near-fatal accident while riding my bike – I was run over by a semi-truck. The accident left me with a crushed pelvis, broken bones all over my body, and a temporary inability to walk. It took the better part of a year to recover, and fortunately had plenty of support from friends and family, but it was a dark time. I was depressed, insecure, and lost. It was during that time of healing that I dedicated my life to music. Art and music helped pull me through that period and gave me something to look forward to every day. It became a source of healing.
Now I live in San Diego where I continue to create music and art. I have released several albums under the name Graffick, have composed music for commercial applications, and have a regular gig as a DJ at a local coffee shop. Music continues to be a source of healing for me, and I hope my music can be healing to others in some way.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It has not been a smooth road! And I am actually thankful for that. It has been a long and rough journey of learning as you go. Especially with the way that technology, culture, and business models have changed over the years. In my youth, I dreamed of being a rockstar, and I wanted everything that came with that lifestyle. Over the years I’ve realized how naive I was and how difficult it actually is to find the sort of success I was looking for in the music industry. So, one of the biggest challenges has been learning how and when to adapt. There is so much talent out there, and it seems like kids today, or rather people in general, are embracing creativity in our culturmore as whole. TikTok is a great example of that, there are so many people of all ages and from all walks of life getting creative on this app. All that is to say that now, with a world so saturated with creativity, with so many people hungry to make it, you really have to make sure you’re working hard and working smart to get where you want to go. And sometimes, that means changing plans completely, or doubling down and pushing through on your vision, or even creating a new path for yourself. It’s a big enough world; there’s room for everyone.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I think of myself as a visual artist before a musician. Drawing and painting were actually my first early skills. So I try to apply the ideas of visual art to the sounds and compositions I make. My music is mostly instrumental with bits and pieces of vocals sampled in the tracks from time to time, so it’s important to me that the music tells a story and that the sounds you are hearing can become characters or places in that story. I want my listeners to see the music.
What makes my music unique is that way I utilize and manipulate sounds. One of my favorite things is using one sound in a bunch of different ways; stretching it out to make a longer sound, speeding it up to make it shorter, chopping it into pieces and rearranging it, pitching it up or down to get a new feeling or emotion. Sometimes I’ll do all to those things to one sound and use them all in a track. It keeps things interesting. It’s like recycling a plastic bottle over and over again until you get something completely new from it. I do this a lot with found sounds. If I hear something interesting while I’m out, I’ll record it on my iPhone or my digital recorder, then I’ll take it home, chop up the recording into bits, and make drums or percussions or whatever out of the material.
What sets me apart as a musician is my ability to be flexible in my productions. If I’m feeling like making a slow head bobbing hip hop beat, I’ll do it. And if I’m in the mood for a four-on-the-floor house track, I’ll do it! I like having a range of influence and technical skill. The real fun is blending it all together to get something completely new – that’s where the real meat of creativity lies for me.
What do you think about happiness?
I swear, I ask myself this question daily! Someday’s are harder than other to find an answer. What makes me happy is mostly animals and nature. I have a deep fondness for pretty much every critter, insect, mammal, bird, fish, etc. I used to take care of cats and kittens as a child, and I learned a lot about how to treat and care for an animal during that time – all the way through adulthood, really. Animals make me happy because they are beautiful in every way, and they have an understanding of the world around them that has been long forgotten to humans. They have simple wants and simple needs. They are happy fulfilling their existence without greatly damaging the planet and those they disagree with.
Pricing:
- DJ Services – $100 an Hour
- I’ll write you a short composition – $100 flat rate
- Commercial Work – price varies
Contact Info:
- Website: www.graffickmusic.com
- Instagram: graffick
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/graffickmusic
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/graffick
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/graffick
- SoundCloud: soundcloud.com/graffick
- Other: https://tinyurl.com/GraffickSpotify
Image Credits
Brendan Cleak
