What are your names?
Sierra Madre, Ian Nagay, Dryden Van Cleave, Robby Coe.
What is the band’s name?
Blooming Fire
How did you come up with the band’s name?
We started bouncing ideas off each other the related to the overarching message that we wanted to project to the world. We wanted it to be something that invokes inspiration, yet simple and relatable universally. Sierra initially came up with the name “Blooming Fire and the Earth Kids,” but we decided that Blooming Fire alone really popped! Essentially it means bloom the fire from within your soul to manifest you inner most desires.
What is your genre of music?
Alternative
Give us a little bio about you.
We’re all a bunch of adventure seeking, mature loving freaks who just so happened to come together to create this community based on sustainability, creativity, and good vibes! Several years ago, a mutual friend of Sierra and Dryden threw a jam party at his house in Mount Washington, located in the hills of L.A. It was that fateful early autumn eve where Sierra and Dryden met for the first time. After we shared a jam for the first time it was immediately evident that we were meant to play music together and write. We had this sense that we were musical soulmates and after years of searching for the right band fam, we had finally found each other. A couple weeks later Dryden and Sierra began writing material along with their mutual friend who ended up becoming the first drummer in the band and an additional mutual friend became our first guitar player. Soon after that Robby began playing percussion with us and we locked in a bass player. A year later we gained another lead vocalist when Sierra’s brother from Ohio moved to L.A. which meant we were brother and sister fronted! We’ve gone through quite a few changes over the years and some band members came and went. However, the heart of the group or “Core 4” as we like to say, stuck together. It has been quite a journey so far! Sierra and Ian are from Cleveland, Robby is from St. Louis, and Dryden is from Virginia.
What made you go into music?
Our musical roots come mostly from our family. We were all fortunate to have an eclectic musical upbringing which spawned the desire to become musicians.
Who are your influences?
The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Jewel, Outkast, Led Zeppelin, Neil Young, Tom Petty, 311, Perpetual Groove, Bob Marley, Mac Miller, No Doubt, Sublime, The Police, Papadosio, Lotus, Rage Against the Machine, Nirvana, Fleetwood Mac, Modest Mouse, Smashing Pumpkins, Rush, Portishead, Tycho.
Are you signed?
Not yet!
Your new EP ‘Dunia’ is set to release, tell us more about the EP.
We released our EP ‘Dunia” 3 years ago. However, we are preparing to release the Visual experience in November. Shortly after the new year we started brainstorming and decided that we wanted to put out some new content before we started recording our new music to keep the content flow fresh. We came up with the idea of creating a visual experience for the Dunia EP. The EP is 4 tracks; therefore, we envisioned the project all coming together as one like a short film while capturing the under current themes from the EP in a storyline type of approach. The overall goal is to portray the balancing act that we are all faced with when it comes to growing up in a world saturated by technology, ego, inequality, and greed while upholding the light and spiritual foundation that helps keep us sane. Essentially it is about learning where you stand amongst all the chaos and beauty in this world. The Dunia Visual EP’s story line follows the life of a teenage girl who goes on quite a few adventures which includes journeying into wormholes and transcending time and space, overcoming the adversity of social conditioning and programming, and ultimately breaking through the confines of it all finding bliss and inner peace within. The project ended up taking quite a bit of our time and energy and we captured a terabyte of footage. We filmed at approximately 22 locations and ended up capturing some of the most epic scenes in nature that we have ever been a part of. It was certainly interesting revisiting Dunia as it has been out for a few years now. However, it reignited a passion that we had for those songs as they represented an era in which there was a major shift in our band. After parting ways with two members, we didn’t know how we’d carry on the sound that we had spent so many years facilitating. It seemed like a daunting task at first, but before we knew it, we had the Dunia EP locked, loaded, and ready to record. We have evolved quite a bit musically since we released the EP, but we’re happy to have revisited Dunia to give it the visual experience that it deserves!
What is the meaning behind the EP?
Essentially the overarching theme of the EP is the duality that we face in life. Lightness and darkness. Unyielding bliss and freedom in nature and confining societal norms stifling our souls in a corporate wasteland. The theme is learning how to take it all in stride and emerge on the other side of it all, stressing the importance of living your best life regardless of the obstacles that come our way.
Who did you work with on the EP?
Doc Goldstein engineered and mixed Dunia. Doc is adjunct professor and teaches recording engineering & music technology at Fullerton College. We had that opportunity to record Dunia with him in the Fullerton recording studio which was a real treat. We got to work with his students and everyone came together collectively to help us capture everything as well as we could in that space. Doc has been around the block and has engineered projects such as Star Wars, Ringo Starr, The Temptations, Frank Zappa, and Aretha Franklin. He was such a joy to work with and dedicated quite a bit of time to the mixing process and ensuring that we were happy with the sound collectively on each track. As far as the Visual EP is concerned, we were excited to work with Nate Owens who Sierra met in Ohio several years ago. Nate also edited out ‘Magnetic Freedom’ video which can be viewed on YouTube. He ended up being a co-director/videographer/editor for the Visual EP.
| Describe each track in two words. Dunia: Mother Earth Blame It All: Groovy Soul Freedom: Corporate Wasteland Bless My Heart: Cosmic Bliss |
Will we see a Music Video for any of the tracks and if so what can we expect?
Our visual EP consists of 4 music videos that follow one story line, it’s pretty much a short filmE.
What else can we expect in 2021?
In addition to the Visual EP release, we are prepping for a fall tour which will be the first time we’ve seen the stage since early 2020 so we’re stoked! We’re going to be playing shows in California, Oregon, Washington and Colorado. After tour we are setting out sights on getting back in the studio as we have quite a bit of new material we’ve been working on and we can really see the evolution of our music coming into fruition. We’ve been talking to a few producers in the industry. Since all of our songs have a unique flavor, we are going to work with the producer that caters best to the sound we are trying to capture on each track which we are going to release as singles.
Where do you see yourself now in 5 Years?
We hope to be living it up off the grid, on our own land, and completely sustainable! Our goal is to live in a location that is close to our families back east which will serve as home base where we can recharge our souls and create/record more music. We hope to build cob houses which is natural building material made from subsoil, water, fibrous organic material, sand, and clay. We will be thriving and vibing, touring and exploring and seeing all this amazing world has to offer!
What quote or saying do you always stick by?
“When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.” – Jimi Hendrix
When you are at a gig, what are 5 things you cannot forget?
Swag/Grace
Inspiration
Equipment
Everyone’s Smiles
Energy
Do you have social media accounts so your fans can follow you?
The best link to check out is this one, come take a dive into a wormhole into another dimension for our Visual EP release! https://www.bloomingfiremusic.com/dunia-visual-experience
You can find Blooming Fire on all streaming platforms and socials here: https://www.bloomingfiremusic.com/streaming-page
