Blokeacola is Welsh-born experimental psychedelic pop project with a new album, ‘Quasars and Fluff,’ scheduled for October 6th, 2023.

As befitting the colourful, intriguing music, Blokeacola immediately stood out from the crowd, not just in quirky name alone but also due to a striking persona, in short, the sporting of a bright orange helmet and an apparent penchant for fresh fruit. William Gray is the man behind Blokeacola name and he released several albums and is currently finishing the most ambitious and exciting double album with 30 songs!

“I’m always exploring”

Would love to hear a bit about your background and how you first got interested in music?

William Gray (AKA Blokeacola): Growing up in Wales there was a lot of music at school and at home. There was the school choir and all kids were encouraged to play instruments. That combined with a lot of music being played at home ingrained in me a love of music from an early age. I can remember being picked to sing solo at primary school so I must have been able to hold a note ok, I guess. As you get older, you forge your own identity of course, and by the time I was a teen living in Yorkshire with my mum, I had started rehearsing and gigging with friends from school, playing covers, but also from the outset aspiring to write my own songs.

As your father had a band, did that inspire you to get on the same path?

Massively. I will have absorbed a lot of his experiences and influences before I can even really remember, but as a kid I can vividly remember being profoundly affected seeing him playing piano and guitar up close, and he had already embraced home recording in the days of the Atari ST so that made it seem like something that was totally normal and achievable. I would watch out the window as he went off to gig with the soul band, The Mighty Pledge, he played in for many years, and it was amazing seeing him playing to so many people at the local Monmouth Festival.

Tell us about some of the early influences?

The Beatles and lots of classic acts from the 60s, 70s and 80s came from listening to music at home and in the car with family. I carried on listening to all that great music from my parents’ generation with my friends and still do. Being a teen in the 90s brought with it an appreciation of all kinds of acts, first Nirvana the Pixies, Radiohead, et cetera, really too many to list. Basically I’m always exploring, whether it’s older music or new. I have a particular fondness for anything a bit trippy or psychedelic these days, done well, but I’m pretty open minded really. Listening to the music I make I can hear a lot in there from Beatles and Hendrix to Talking Heads, Pixies and Elliott Smith, and loads more besides.

Is Blokeacola your first project or were you part of any other projects / bands before?

I’ve been involved in lots of different things from the very first band I was in with school friends, my first pub gig playing lead guitar at just age 14. I’m nearly 42 now so it’s been a longish journey I hope will carry on. I was in a group called The Smokestacks for around a decade after I finished university in Leeds. We released a few things, toured around the UK, did live radio sessions, had a bit of interest from the odd A&R person but nothing materialised to help us take it further. When that ended I became a solo artist under my own name for around another decade, did some cool things like play a BBC radio session and got some flattering reviews but, again, nothing really occurred that was going to help me make a career out of it. I also helped friends out by playing in their bands. It was frustrating at the time, not to catch a break, but, reflecting on it now, I feel it turned out for the best. I like being at home with my family every night. I love writing and recording, but I don’t think constantly being on tour would have been for me.

What was the main idea behind Blokeacola and when was the project born?

I’d got to the stage where I felt like I needed a change. I’d thought of the name Blokeacola a while back, perhaps as a means of releasing odds and ends that weren’t going to make it onto my solo releases but came to the conclusion actually the name was too good/silly not to prioritize it as my main outlet for creativity. It felt like a way to have more fun and switch things up a bit. To have a reset and think more deeply about the music I actually wanted to make. I was ready to make something a bit more expansive and out there, and to take the lyrical side of things up a notch. I wanted to take the music seriously but not take myself or the world too seriously, if that makes sense. I can be very melancholy but I think anyone that knows me would agree I can also be quite funny so I wanted to make sure I show both sides of my personality. I saw the orange helmet my wife bought me, for riding my scooter, just lying around not being used, and put it on for a giggle. People seemed to enjoy the photos so I kept doing it. It’s a great prop because I feel really self conscious taking photos or being filmed. The helmet acts as a buffer.

Tell us about your debut self-titled album from 2020.

I think I was still kind of finding my sound with that record but I just about did enough to set myself off on the right path. The very first single ‘Make It On Your Own’ was voted a Fresh Fave by contributors to popular UK music blog Fresh On The Net and airplay on BBC Radio 6 followed. Adam Walton on BBC Radio Wales was also kind enough to play it and Amazing Radio got onboard too. Another single ‘Tsunami’ also went down well. I feel like the album is a little bit scattergun as I was pulling loops from different places to create foundations for the songs but it was a great learning curve and I was really encouraged by the positive reaction.

<a href="https://blokeacola.bandcamp.com/album/blokeacola">Blokeacola by Blokeacola</a>

What were the circumstances surrounding ‘Mango Insane’?

I think by this album I had a clearer idea of what I wanted to do. I made sure the drum sound was more cohesive for example which I think makes for a record that gels better. It was quite miraculous how that album came together. I sat and wrote the songs one by one as they appear on the LP. In that order. It all just worked. I think maybe the album I wanted to make, this kind of 60s sounding thing, had been rattling around in my subconscious for so long, it just happened. I came to the conclusion all the tracks were potential singles, in this age of Spotify, so I decided to put them out as single songs first to generate more interest and followers. It helped me build up more of an online following and because my day job was very flexible and free and easy at that time I was lucky it was a good time to throw everything I could into the online promotion side of things. I was happy in my day job and in my home life with my wife and son, with a baby daughter, born as I was wrapping up the record, the icing on the cake. We had finally managed to buy a family home after ten years in China and were excited about moving in. It felt like everything was finally coming together. Looking back on that time it’s a candidate for the happiest period of my life so far.

<a href="https://blokeacola.bandcamp.com/album/mango-insane">Mango Insane by Blokeacola</a>

I’ve been also really enjoying ‘Wig Game’

It’s interesting looking back on that release now. During the campaign for all the ‘Mango Insane’ singles, things were taking a turn for the worse. The background had of course been the global pandemic which had seen us feeling more and more isolated in China not knowing when we’d be able to see friends and family again. But during this time the school I worked for went out of business and stole wages I’m still trying to get back, and there were delays finishing work on our new apartment. Suddenly I found myself in a new job with a much more demanding work schedule and we had to find somewhere else to live very quickly, whilst we waited for our home to be ready. The place in question turned out to be full of cockroaches. All of this I could have coped with but we had also found out my son has Stargardts, a rare genetic condition which means he is losing his eyesight. I started to feel like people really were about to watch a man-go insane. By the time we finally moved into our new home and I made ‘Wig Game’ I think it was inevitable it was going to sound less upbeat than the previous releases but I’m satisfied with the fact I managed to retain my sense of humour be it somewhat dark and deadpan. I’m glad you’re enjoying it, making it a cathartic experience and the start of hopefully better times, settled in our new place with a space for making music and a new preamp to improve the fidelity somewhat. ‘Taste the Brainbow’ off that EP has been doing particularly well on Spotify. More important than the music though there are promising developments in medical science that make us hopeful one day there might be treatments that can help our beautiful boy.

<a href="https://blokeacola.bandcamp.com/album/wig-game">Wig Game by Blokeacola</a>

You just recently released ‘Jupiter Eats Planets’. How much work went into it?

That’s a pertinent question because there are two answers really. In one way, a lot of work went into it. There was a conscious attempt to stretch myself when it came to the instrumentation and arrangements. For example the slide guitar that comes in on the title track, the layered vocals on ‘Bespoke Potato’, and the different sections on ‘Become the Rings of Saturn.’ But in another way it was quite a short burst of creativity and an EP I sent to the mastering engineer as soon as I could, without agonizing too much over final mixes because I felt like I needed to get another release out there quickly to keep some momentum going while I worked on another album.

<a href="https://blokeacola.bandcamp.com/album/jupiter-eats-planets">Jupiter Eats Planets by Blokeacola</a>

What are some future plans?

I’ve finished a double album which I’m awaiting the masters for. It’s 30 tracks and I’m really proud of it. I know in this day and age it’s a lot to ask for people to listen to that many songs in one sitting but really I did it for me. I felt like I was at a point where I could probably accomplish it. It just felt right and it’s something I’ve always wanted to be able to pull off. Plus it seems like there are plenty of standout songs on it to satisfy the one track streamers as well as the Bandcamp crowd.

I’m hoping to release it in the autumn. In addition I should mention I started making music with an old school friend and bandmate. The project is called Shrube and it’s still quite psychedelic but it’s more instrumental. It’s an interesting approach because across an album when a more traditional type of song with vocals appears it has a different kind of impact.

What else currently occupies your life?

A continual feeling of exhaustion! I teach English in China and have taken on a lot of classes in order to pay the dreaded mortgage. My daughter is an absolute delight but she’s very tiring with it, as you’d expect from a three year old. Life is busy and I’m constantly worn out but I try to remind myself how lucky I am to have a decent enough paid job which provides a lot of joyful moments having fun with kids, a wonderful family, and something precious which is just mine to focus on, my music, because you never know what’s round the corner. I’m trying my best to be present and to enjoy every moment I can despite this being very challenging when you’re an Everton fan.

Let’s end this interview with some of your favourite albums. Have you found something new lately you would like to recommend to our readers?

So many I could mention. I’m going to go with Novelty Island and BC Camplight as they are two newer acts that I feel fit into the modern psychedelic pop category quite neatly. Both recently released albums your readers might well enjoy. And, of course, I’m very excited to hear all these reissued old recordings by my dad’s group The Great Crash, you covered so wonderfully.