What is your creative process when making music?
We start with a basic idea and develop it until it’s 80% complete, then we start to record it in the studio and without fail the songs create a life of their own. The studio is an instrument in itself.
Who would you most like to collaborate with?
Dean Wareham of Galaxie 500. He’s always been an inspiration. I saw him again recently at Rough Trade in Liverpool…..supernal!
Have you ever taught or mentored another musician?
I wouldn’t see myself worthy. I have so many technically bad habits in musicianship. Maybe that’s my forte?bTeaching yourself is a good thing, even though it takes so much longer, you can end up developing your own style naturally.
Do you prefer to work alone or collaboratively?
Blindness & Light are a collective of about 12 musicians. Collaboration makes us what we are. This creates
a lot of variety in ideas. It is good to get a basic idea together with acoustic guitar and vocals before getting everyone else involved but having the input of others is vital for us to keep things fresh.
How do you nurture your own creativity?
I think that having the time to read a lot in a fairly remote place is a good start. I wouldn’t want to just band down a load of hook lines that mean nothing. I live in a holiday village on the Isle of Anglesey. This goes from mad busy in the Summer to stormy and bleak in mid-Winter. People watching is always a good
inspiration. The rest of Blindness & Light are spread out across the UK and others are in Japan and
Argentina. 95% of the lyrics come from Colin on Anglesey though.
What is your proudest accomplishment as a musician?
Releasing our 1 st single, Chains, used to be it but now I’d say the release of our 2 nd album a few weeks ago, on coloured vinyl, is now what we are most proud of. This album is a big step up from our debut album and we produced it entirely by ourselves. It’s available on Bandcamp
( https://blindnesslight.bandcamp.com/album/i-dreamt-i-had-insomnia ) and also selected vinyl stores: Vinyl
Exchange, Manchester; 81 Renshaw St., Liverpool; Mudshark, Bangor ; Noise Annoys, Abergele; VOD,
Mold; Hot Frog, Runcorn.
Who/How Came Up With The Band Name?
Joy Division’s track Atmosphere was initially released on the French label Sordide Sentimental as an art
package called
Licht und Blindheit, which translates to Light and Blindness. We decided to swap it round. In fact Blindheit
und Licht is etched on the run-off of our 2nd album “I Dreamt I Had Insomnia”.
What would you be doing right now, if it wasn’t for your music career?
I think we’d all be doing different things but for me (Colin M Potter, singer/song writer/guitarist) I’d probably
pursue my interest in environmental research, especially plant biochemistry and beneficial components
provided by Mother Nature. Here’s a paper I did a few years ago https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9717/9/5/824
…… a bit dry really, couldn’t really put music to it. Song writing is so different.
What is the most trouble you’ve ever gotten into?
Ahhhh recently we had loads of trouble with LANDR and Spotify. Some stranger in some far off place put a
load of artists, including us, on some playlists and went on to illegally inflate the streams with bots. The
artists were in no way involved but still got punished…..we had all our tracks taken down on all streaming
platforms!! We had to fight tooth and nail to prove our innocence and eventually had to re-release our entire
back catalogue including 2 albums. I hope the fraudsters get caught ….somewhere in Texas apparently. Try
and use SoundCloud and BandCamp if you can, they treat the artists better for a start.
What’s next for you?
We’re in the studio recording our 3 rd album at the moment which will be out sometime in 2026. We’ll be
releasing 3 singles between now and the end of the year, starting with Shards next month.
What is one message you would give to your fans?
We’d love to break even. That’s a hard to do as an emerging artist. Please buy our
merch….. this is what keeps us going. Thanks for reading!
