We recently had the chance to connect with Lance Clair and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Lance, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day to share your story, experiences and insights with our readers. Let’s jump right in with an interesting one: When have you felt most loved—and did you believe you deserved it?
I felt the absolute most loved on the day of my wedding, when I was on the stage during the ceremony. The best male friends in my life stood behind me, and the best female friends in my life stood behind where my wife would soon stand. As she came down the aisle with her parents and her family watched, my family watched, all of our friends also watched in their seats – it was that moment that I realized the most important people in my entire world are all in the same building. I know that’s probably way sappy for starting an interview but hey! We out here!
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
My name is Lance Clair and I’m a music producer, audio engineer and music instructor. I produce and perform electronic music under the alias Blaqout (@BlaqoutDubstep everywhere) and I’m the owner of a brand new app I just launched called Ascendry (@AscendryApp everywhere) that aims to allow people to learn from Billboard-charting, RIAA Platinum-certified pros in the music industry on-demand.
Electronic music has always been a huge passion of mine ever since falling in love with the genre via artists like Caspa, Rusko, Benga, Coki etc. – the music I make fuses a lot of elements from metal and rock into dark, aggressive themes and it turns into a high-energy, aggressive set that serves as just a cathartic experience all around. I’ve released on the labels of Excision (Subsidia), Bear Grillz (Rude Service), Borgore (Buygore) and a handful of others but these days I stay pretty independent because that’s just the most straightforward way to do it in my opinion. It’s what I teach my students to do, so I feel like it’s most appropriate to lead by example.
I’ve taught over 100 students across the United States, clocked over 10,000 hours of one-on-one instructing and that’s because early on, I fell in love with it. It’s one thing to do a project for yourself and be appreciated or recognized for it, but it’s another thing altogether when you teach someone how to do something and they go something cool with it. Several of my students have gone on to get hired at studios, sign to labels, land residencies and management deals and more and I jokingly say we’re slowly-but-surely building a small army of musicians to take over the world!
Ascendry.app is my latest project and I started building it because the school I taught/wrote programs for unfortunately shut down in July, leaving mentors like myself and the students we taught completely in freefall. The school fixed the credibility issue that music production schools have where if it’s inexpensive, it’s probably not taught by someone who knows what they’re doing but in fixing that issue, the price of the programs were sky-high. I’m talking $12,000+ for 6 months of education, it just wasn’t viable for most people in our current economy. With Ascendry, we literally have Platinum-certified and Billboard-charting mentors that have worked with all the major labels, toured with some of the biggest acts and even worked with top-of-the-line entertainment companies who are just ready to teach students. Ascendry makes it as easy as creating an account and just booking it and I’m stoked to be launching it.
Great, so let’s dive into your journey a bit more. What did you believe about yourself as a child that you no longer believe?
There were a ton of negative influences in my life growing up, primarily in elementary and middle school. I was the weird kid with the ADHD problems, always acting out and all that. Lots of bullying, lots of bad energy and it spiraled into depression and anxiety to the point where I genuinely didn’t think I was ever going to amount to anything. I thought I was an inferior person that would never accomplish my dreams and that’s what I no longer believe. I wish I could go back to that version of myself and just tell him everything’s going to be okay and it’ll work out but knowing that can’t happen, I hope that my story can give some kid hope that they can go out and achieve their dreams. If it happens even one time, that’s great.
What did suffering teach you that success never could?
Suffering taught me that success can always go away. Suffering taught me to never get too comfortable because you might have a major blow coming that you can’t even see until it’s too late. Success will teach you that you can receive gratification for the things you work for and earn but without suffering, you never truly get how valuable a win is. If there were no such thing, we wouldn’t appreciate the good things in our lives.
So a lot of these questions go deep, but if you are open to it, we’ve got a few more questions that we’d love to get your take on. What are the biggest lies your industry tells itself?
The music industry tells itself that success is linear and once it stops, you’re done. THAT IS NOT TRUE! As with many things in life, you can have ups and downs concurrent with one another. You may have good months, bad months, great years where you “blow up” for a while and then a whole year where nothing happens and you’re stagnant. I think it creates a sick dysmorphia where musicians can’t really tell if what they’re doing matters, or if they’re done for and they don’t even know it yet. The truth is, it’s a rollercoaster where you might be up sometimes and down at others. If movies and television shows properly depicted this, I think we’d have happier creatives in the world.
Okay, so before we go, let’s tackle one more area. What are you doing today that won’t pay off for 7–10 years?
I’d say building Ascendry.app. It literally just launched yesterday officially and while we have a decent amount of student accounts signing up to learn from a decent amount of mentors, I know it’s going to take a tremendous amount of years to officially build into something that’s substantial enough to satisfy my hopes for it. I want Ascendry to become a revolutionary app that makes music education (and eventually other facets of education) affordable and accessible to all of society and I think that’s going to take a ton of years to build.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.ascendry.app
- Instagram: http://instagram.com/ascendryapp
- Twitter: http://instagram.com/ascendryapp
- Facebook: http://instagram.com/ascendryapp
- Other: @AscendryApp everywhere
@BlaqoutDubstep everywhere
Image Credits
Devon Dubree – Dubree Digital
Noah Neace – Frame Focus Creative
