Mal Blum is a songwriter and musician who plays folk-punk style songs. They generously sat down with me during their show at Sunnyvale in Brooklyn to talk about their creative process, their relationship with their fans, and mental health.
Having started writing poetry as a kid and songs shortly after, Blum has had much time to develop their style and figure out what works for them creatively. On their changing process Blum says, “I started writing music when I was a kid because I needed a creative outlet because I was hurting, and so as I get older it’s a process of figuring out how to write and create art not just out of necessity but with a practice.” In describing how this change manifests, Blum illuminates, “It’s a little different now because I try to be more intentional in terms of the music aspect, writing melody and song structure… but still sometimes I’ll write a poem and cherry pick lines out of it for a song.”
I asked Mal about how they see the relationship between their mental health and their music. They responded with this beautiful description; “On the one hand, music is really good for mental health lows because it gives you a creative outlet, it gives you an opportunity to connect with people who are like you, which is a big reason I started playing music in the first place and it gives you an opportunity to focus on something that isn’t how you’re feeling. On the other hand, mental health stuff makes certain aspects of this job really hard. My unique mix of ADHD, anxiety, and depression make it such that opportunities will come in on a day that I’m not feeling well and it will just drop by the wayside or like self-loathing has kept me from advocating for myself in ways that I feel that other people are good at and perhaps that has cut me off at the pass in some ways. And also, [the music industry] is a very ego driven, difficult, business and industry that doesn’t have a lot of room for people like me in a lot of ways so if your ego takes a hit then that affects how you feel about yourself and that affects how you're doing, so it’s a whole self-feeding beast.”
When asked about the need to talk about the hard things about mental health, gender and sexuality, and relationships Blum answers, “I feel like at this point if I don’t talk about this stuff, then what am I doing. I did have that thought for while that if I‘m not unhappy, how will I ever make music but that’s a myth.” Blum elaborates on the importance of self-care and the falsity of creation only coming from pain, “I think people should just take care of themselves and not make themselves suffer just because they think their art will be better. Because you know what, maybe your art would be different, maybe it would be happy but you know that would still be you then and it wouldn’t.”
This availability often happens at live shows which Blum says they like to talk a lot at while onstage when they play solo shows, bringing a great sense of connection with the audience who often become very participatory. Similarly, “with the band it’s really fun to play off each other and have a good time with your friends” although Blum seems to miss the freedom to riff and tell jokes when they play with a band.
Like live shows, music videos are incredibly collaborative. When comparing the production of their most recent music video for “Reality TV” to their past videos, Blum raves that “that one was so fun because basically my friends, Carly, Kip, and Robin, were like ‘Hey we wanna make a music video for you, we’re gonna do something really cool and take care of it all so you just need to come to LA” and “usually a music video has like one director and me, so it was cool to have like a whole real production.” They go on to joke that a cool thing besides getting to spend a day on set with friends, was the craft services provided by Blum themself.
Check Mal Blum out across the internet on these platforms (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook) and buy their music!
