Blake Mills never intended for his solo projects to take him anywhere, but his 2010 album Break Mirrors has somewhat slowly but surely changed those plans. Already well-known as a producer and studio musician, Mills decided to see where his record would take him for a while. He recently talked to Diversions Editor Allison Hussey about what his music means to him.
*Diversions: *Break Mirrors has been gaining a lot of attention lately. Were you ever expecting it would get this big?
Blake Mills: No, not really. I didn’t really expect anything of it. Not because I wasn’t proud of it, but just because the intentions of making it weren’t geared toward what to do with it afterward.
They were just simply to make it and to benefit from that process in a therapeutic sense.
So the aftermath, I kind of tried to keep from designing too specifically, and take opportunities as they come — to come play a show or whatever.
But the life that it’s had is kind of largely its own, its own design, without a whole lot of fucking about.
*Dive: *What’s been your favorite music project so far?
BM: I don’t know if I could say if one has been a favorite over the other . It all feels like kind of part of the same story or the same experience.
Making the record was something that I was proud of myself for doing, but for a long time it wasn’t the focus of what I felt was — like, the career aspect of music and producing or playing with people, the solo stuff was a little more like a self-serving side of it.
Now, it’s great to be able to incorporate the solo stuff in the context of working with, playing for other artists or even producing somebody.
Like, if I’m working with somebody based off of them hearing that record, and they liked something about it, that’s what they’re bringing me in for, to incorporate some of that there — it’s cool.
It’s definitely encouraging and definitely makes me feel like I made something that wasn’t just beautiful to me. Someone else responded to it as well.
That’s my favorite aspect of doing all this, is feeling like I’m making something beautiful and that somebody else sees it as such. When that happens, it sort of gives you a diverse sort of feeling, like, “Oh, there’s hope! There’s hope in the world!” It’s a similar vibe.
Dive: It’s like, you don’t always need that affirmation, but it’s nice to know you’re not crazy.
BM: Yeah. It’s like something you think is really funny. You know it’s really funny, and when you tell it, even if somebody else doesn’t get it, you think it’s funny.
This whole thing’s just a big joke. It’s just a big inside joke. And if other people get it, then great. If not, great. It’s okay.
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