TSH: What sort of expressions did you feel compelled to cover with ‘Possibilities at Sea’?

Blake: With this record, I feel like I mainly wanted to tell a lot of different stories within one body of work. To be honest, I hadn’t anticipated this direction when I set out to make the record, but I ended up having had a lot of different experiences with love, as well as wonderful adventures in the lead-up to this release. I guess this record was a way of me putting together so many of the experiences that I’ve had in recent times as I was making sense of my adventures, much like a document. Also, by the end of it, everything felt very hopeful.

TSH: You’ve previously mentioned songwriting can be quite arduous for you, but this time around you felt calm and excited...

Blake: Yeah, I felt so free and happy writing this album. In the past, it’s taken me ages to write a single song. I normally am very slow, ha! For this record a couple of the songs actually came in one sitting. But yeah, it’s never been like that for me before so that was pretty cool.

TSH: You were situated in Istanbul not so long ago. Living amongst such picturesque scenery and so much civil unrest, what did you take away from your visit to Istanbul?

Blake: My trip to Istanbul was very much a two part thing. As you addressed, the civil unrest was certainly a big part of my experience, especially seeing demonstrations and how such events were handled by their government. Having an autocratic leadership can happen so quickly and can be so crippling for innocent people. It was also quite harrowing to know that journalists were going to jail for their views. Nonetheless, I learnt and took away so much from the spirit of the people in Istanbul. To then come back here to the States and have everything happen with Trump and to see so much political turmoil was tough too.

TSH: The other side of being in Istanbul allowed you to find a newfound sense of hope and lead you to say a lot about love...

Blake: Yes, on a personal note, it was just such a wonderful experience for me to express myself with newfound hope. I had just come back from such a great adventure. I actually even tried to try to learn how to speak Turkish, which proved to be very difficult. But yeah, I also had a great love out there which ended in such a way that I feel both of us were better off for having had this love and an incredible place to be.

TSH: There’s certainly a notable shift with regards to instrumentation for this album...

Blake: Yeah, definitely. I wanted to essentially make a live album so when I spoke to Thom Monahan, who produced the album, I told him that I wanted to record everything in a few days. We did almost all of the vocals live too. All in all, we were able to achieve our aims, which was great.

TSH: What was the process like in bringing together ‘Before the Ice’?

Blake: In many ways fleshing out this song was very organic. I grew up in a place where reggae was very much the music people were listening to on the streets and in bars. Growing up in Vermont the reggae festival was a huge thing every year. I would never be overly presumptuous or try to rip someone’s style, but I think that this song is influenced by the sounds that I listened to growing up. I also have to give a special mention to Kasey Butler who played the intro and outro saxophone, which really set the vibe for the tune and made it feel transporting.

TSH: ‘Oh Anatolia’ is more of a snapshot in time for you...

Blake: Yeah, that song feels like a tiny film in my head. I wrote it after I came back from Istanbul so it’s very nostalgic of the place, the people and the love that I felt there. It’s a love song about me trying to come out the other end of a romance with my heart intact, I hope others can relate to such a universal feeling.

TSH: What’s satisfied you most when you overlook this album?

Blake: One of the most satisfying factors was having all of these disparate parts of my experiences within an album. I’ve loved and lost and made an album about these topics. I guess I’ve started to see connections and ultimately how everything can wind up in a hopeful place. I think putting oneself though these experiences of love and loss is really worth it knowing you can feel some sort of connection at the end of it.

TSH: What sort of ideas do you have in mind for the live translation of material from this record?

Blake: Right now, we’re keeping it close to what you hear on the record. The main reason for this is because I want it to feel like a continuation of our live experience in recording the album. Previously, with my band The Submarines, a lot of what we played live was with tracks, which is cool too because you can create an awesome context from the range of instruments used. However, for my solo live shows, I wanted to hear the original instruments being played together and not have any samples.

TSH: The political happenings in the States are amongst some of the issues that you feel very strongly about?

Blake: I guess we’re all struggling with so much negativity in the world. There is so much anxiety around us, especially the anxiety caused by Donald Trump. You know, I totally respect artists who feel like they don’t want to use their creative platform to talk about political things, but I am not one of them. I definitely feel a responsibility to speak out and say something about the state of our country, which is not normal. If it was up to me, President 45 would be impeached tomorrow - so many of us have had enough.

TSH: Does hiking allow you to reset when you need time to get away?

Blake: Definitely. Hiking is so beneficial for me. Also, just in general, it’s incredible how much you can get out in the natural world out here in Los Angeles within this metropolis. I normally go to Griffith Park, it takes me 5 minutes to get there, and I simply get lost in the beauty whilst I’m there. I guess just getting away at times is a way to cope and escape the constant newsfeeds coming at you at all times.

TSH: What sort of preferences do you have in mind for your future musical plans?

Blake: There are so many things that I haven’t tried myself in terms of just recording for example. I would like to do home recordings at some point. I also really hope to make a new Submarines record. For me, that would ideally be the next thing. Having gone through separate experiences with The Submarines, I look forward to rejoining and working on new ideas again.

Blake Hazard - “Before the Ice”