"Turn It Off" Blankstate @ The Den

Blankstate @ The Den in Winston Salem, NC (12/20/25)

On 12/20/2025, we at Crowd Source met with Jacob, Faye and Seth from Blankstate. In this interview I learned so much about these people that I've looked up to in the scene, from their middle school roots, to the full story of LOTUS. Talking to them gave them less of a performer light and showed us their true human sides. I was stuck for a while thinking about how I would write this interview out, but I think the only way to do justice to the things that they had to say is in a transcript form broken up into sections.

Humble Beginnings

ROXAS: Blankstate interview, 12/20/2025. Today were meeting with,

JACOB: Hey I’m Jacob I do guitar and vocals

FAYE: I’m Faye I play bass and do backup vocals

SETH: I’m Seth I play drums

ROXAS: Well I’m Roxas, I write Crowd Source and you know my photographer James. How would you go about introducing the band?

JACOB: A loud emo band

SETH: We’re Blankstate from Charlotte, North Carolina.

JACOB: That's probably my most used phrase of all time. “We’re Blankstate from Charlotte North Carolina, Thanks for coming out.” I say it every night.

ROXAS: How did Blankstate start?

JACOB: We were just playing music together when we were in middle school as friends and the grouping of the three of us just worked really well together,

SETH: If we're getting into the real nitty gritty, we were three homeschooled, middle schooled, Twenty One Pilots fans. Who were like-

JACOB: LETS PLAY TEAR IN MY HEART. 

SETH: And that's how we all started playing together. Then when Covid happened we were like, “We can't go anywhere to play our Weezer covers anymore, so we should write our own music.” 

ROXAS: What drives you all to contribute your shared passions with each other?

FAYE: Money, bitches, I don’t know. I guess it's just fun to have a creative outlet and we’ve met so many of our best friends and the people we love being around the most through shows. So yeah there's the creative side of it, but just getting to see everyone and having fun.

JACOB: I feel like as far as just doing music, I kinda can’t do anything else. I don't know, I just can’t imagine not doing it all the time. I think I would actually lose my mind.

ROXAS: So its passion project?

JACOB: Oh for sure, yeah

ROXAS: If you could describe your sound in three words or less what would it be?

SETH: “Turn it off.”

JACOB: Probably “stupid, pretentious and gay.”

FAYE: I can’t think of any actual ways I would describe our sound.

ROXAS: How old were you when you each started playing your instruments?

JACOB: It was pretty close to when we started the band.

FAYE: I was like 13.

SETH: I’ve been playing drums for real since I was 12, I got my first drum set when I was 8, but I was 8 and dumb and didn't know how to play it. Then when I was 12 I was like “Oh my gosh I need to be Josh Dunn right now.”

JACOB: I think I started playing guitar when I was 13

ROXAS: If you could tour with any band realistic or not who would it be?

SETH: Mine would be Hot Mulligan. 

FAYE: Probably the same, or Origami Angel…or like One Direction getting back together after Liam Payne died and then we get to be Liam Payne.

JAMES: All three of you as Liam Payne.

FAYE: That’d be so funny.

Blankstate Goes International

ROXAS: Ya’ll just got back from the Japan tour, how was that? 

BLANKSTATE: It was great!

ROXAS: Did y’all have a favorite venue you played at or would go back to?

FAYE: The one we played with Schizophragm.

SETH: That was in Osaka, It was called MUSIC BAR HOKAGE. It was awesome. Kinda like THE MILESTONE in Charlotte. Almost a dive bar underground venue. It was really cool. The people there were probably the most down to move around and have fun. I loved it.

JAMES: How did you guys get over the language barrier?

JACOB: For the first couple days it was a lot of google translate and just struggling and looking like dumbasses. Then for the rest of the tour we had KOU and KOSUKE from HOLLOW SUNS with us, so they were able to help us a lot from then on out.

SETH: The promoter who booked the tour was also there for all of the sound checks and stuff, so we didn't have to talk directly to any of the staff. So shout out to them because we did not know enough to communicate with them (staff).

JACOB: They were all super accommodating so it was chill. 

ROXAS: Are you guys looking forward to more tours out of the country in the future?

FAYE: That’d be awesome. It’s expensive but I imagine we will do it again at some point. I think most likely we’ll go back to japan before anywhere else just because we have a contact, but we’d be open to doing that. I think It’d be cool to do a UK tour. 

JACOB: I really want Blankstate to go to Mexico. 

ROXAS: That would be sick.

JACOB: That would be really cool. 

SETH: It’s not that hard.

JACOB: It's not that hard at all guys

JAMES: You could literally drive there.

JACOB: Guys we could drive there we could do it right now.

FAYE: we should do the C.U.M tour. The Canada, U.S, Mexico tour.

ROXAS: Did this tour have any significance for the future of Blankstate?

FAYE: I don’t know. Monetarily we lost a lot of money, but we did gain a lot of new traction in Japan from new followers and a lot of new people streaming our music. So at least it's a start. It opened a whole new market of people listening. So I hope so. 

SETH: Yea we're getting like hundreds more streams per week from Japan than we were before. So it's cool to see it translated. 

JACOB: It gave us a lot of connections I thought were really cool. Also there were so many awesome bands over there that as I’m watching all of these sets there were so many new ideas. I'm like “Woah thats like, I could try to replicate this sound and take this concept or idea and maybe try to figure out how to use it in something that we're doing,” you know? That was really interesting. Also, just being our first thing out of the country is really crazy because it's not that long ago when I was like “No way it’s our first show outside of Charlotte,” and we were just driving to Raleigh.

FAYE: It also showed us that as long as we can have some help there with a booker or something, it's not that hard. 

JACOB: It was totally doable.

FAYE: Yeah it was doable, the language barrier was hard, obviously money was a thing we had to save up for and stuff like that, but it happened. So I guess it means that we're a lot more confident that we can do that and play in an area where we can't speak with people. It shows that you can still do it. I don’t think it's going to catapult us into being popular or something like that, but I think it's a big confidence booster that we were able to do it.

JACOB: We’re idols now. 

A Look Into The Lotus Pond

ROXAS: Favorite tracks from each release?

FAYE: From the first EP (Alone In The End), probably Say It Back. The album (The World Is Not Kind to These Things), probably Companion//9tails, then from the new EP Being Very Brave. 

SETH: From the album, I still like Jasper Never Cries, first EP Say It Back, and the new EP Being Very Brave. 

JACOB: I’d say (first EP) Reading Into Nothing, (album) //9tails, and (new EP) Being very brave.

ROXAS: So Being Very Brave for all three of you?

JACOB: Yeah.

FAYE: I feel like that’s the best song we’ve made so far.

JACOB: I agree.

JAMES: I feel like my favorite thing about LOTUS is how every song blends together so well. Basically like it's all one song almost. 

FAYE: Yeah, it's fun.

JAMES: It’s hard for me to listen to it separately, I have to listen to it all in one sitting in order.

JACOB: Yeah and thankfully it’s not too long that you can’t do that. It’s like 20 minutes.

ROXAS: What does BEING VERY BRAVE mean to you as a group?

JACOB: From the lyrical and writing standpoint, I think it's probably some of the best lyrical content that I've written. I'm just very proud of how I conveyed all the different ideas going on. There's a few different ideas happening in the song, but it's all wrapped up in the metaphor of like my really awesome stomach problems that I have. Which are real and true. So I tried to convey a lot of things that I was feeling that were not inherently physical and tangible feelings, but more internal, in the most physically tangible way I could. I was going a little crazy over the lyrics trying to get it to feel right. I wanted it to feel like you could feel everything being said in the song. It's very sensory for me.

SETH: Even from an instrumental perspective, I think Lotus as a whole but specifically that song is like, When we started writing lotus, We didnt know how to write emo music. It was such a big change for us and I think the fact that we were like “Oh were going to switch to this newer emo sound,” We didn’t really know if it was going to work. Or if it was just going to be ass. I think it's really cool that we're all still happy with it and proud of it, like just us experimenting with our sound and it resonating with a lot of people including us because it doesn’t always work like that.

ROXAS: What prompted the switch from the more indie sound to the emo sound you created for the Lotus EP?

FAYE: We had this problem where we wanted to be engaging and energetic live but then our music that we were writing wasn't, so then we tried to make our music that was quieter and slower more energetic live. Then we were like we could just write music that already sounds like that then we wouldn't have to worry about it. I don't think we could have made an album that sounded the same as the last because it would have gotten monotonous. So really we just wanted to adapt to a more live focused sound. Then also feeling like we were running into a wall of what else to make that sounded the same… but really in short we got bored. On stage and in real life.

ROXAS: Would you guys lean into other genres in the future?

JACOB: I think the most freeing and comforting thing about the switch was the way it made me feel. It gave me confidence in our abilities like, if we really want to commit and do a thing, we can make a product we're really proud of. People will come to it and follow us there even if it isn't inherently the same thing they would expect before. Which is really nice. 

ROXAS: From the album to Lotus, you can definitely see a progression in the development of your sound. It’s really interesting to hear. Who would you say have been some of the inspirations for your sound?

JACOB: I grew up listening to 3rd wave emo music like My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy. Then when we got into the scene I realized how much cool stuff is happening in emo music right now. I think it's one of the best times to be in the genre, there's so many good bands and artists doing so many interesting things like Home Is Where and Your Arms Are My Cocoon for bigger bands. One of the albums that really influenced the switch for Lotus was I Owe You Nothing by Record Setter. For local influences, there's so many like Kerosene Heights, Moving Boxes and Stress Fractures.

SETH: Leaving For Arizona, Between Two Trees. I wasn’t really into emo music before we started playing locally with a bunch of emo bands. Ben Quad is my biggest inspiration for emo drumming. 

ROXAS: Is there an overall meaning to the Lotus EP?

JACOB: Yea, the fastest way I can summarize it is, it’s like being in a cycle of being in a really terrible place mentally and surrounding yourself with people and the desire to get better. Then just by nature messing it up and having to start back at square one. That cycle was very intentional. I wanted there to be that progression but it also followed moments in my life as I was writing. It really informed the process because I could just write about where I was in my journey of the cycle. That’s why the EP is Lotus itself, because the lotus is a symbol of rebirth. The CD is the ouroboros snake eating its own tail. So the central theme of Lotus is the cyclical nature of getting better and worse. Also in the short story that “This Spiders Thread Is Mine” came from, it starts with the story being watched while looking into a lotus pond. 

BLANKSTATE’S LAST TAKE

ROXAS: Well thank you Jay, Faye and Seth for sitting down with us today, do you have any final words you would like to say to our readers who are interested in music or getting into the scene?

SETH: Just do it.

JACOB: Just fucking do it.

SETH: We got our first show by Jacob sending a DM to an emo band that came to Charlotte and asking if we could open for them.

JACOB: We had no business doing that because we didn’t add anything to their show, but we asked and they said yes and we just did it. 

FAYE: Also you’ll probably start and be bad, we were bad then we just kept doing it and got better. Following doesn't matter from the start. If you start playing shows you will get better and gain a following at some point. No one starts out with everything all figured out and I think a lot of people are scared to play because they don't have everything in a row. But the only way to do it is to do it. So try to find bands you like, make connections, try to get on shows with people you know and build relationships. 

SETH: Immerse yourself in your local scenes too. The bands that do the best right off the bat are the ones who've been going to shows for a long time and meeting people. 

JACOB: The biggest thing that I tell people is just, go to shows. It'll get you very tapped in. If you can go to shows, engage with them, have a good time and meet people it’ll be such a leg up when you're starting your own project.

ROXAS: Well said. 

Thank you to JACOB, FAYE and SETH from BLANKSTATE for sitting down with us and having such a human conversation. From the jokes, down to earth moments, slight glimpses into the vulnerability that it takes to write, this interview shed a light on not only the reality of the band, but the dynamic of how their minds work together. Having people to connect with like they do each other is so beautiful, so remember to keep good friends around you, be kind to your body and as always, Crown The Scene.

Written by ROXAS (BONES) GALLAGHER - Writer/Founder