It should come as no real surprise that someone as artistically upfront as Blake Ruby had an entry into the arts that felt equally as storybook – or High School Musical – quality as his music does. Ruby described the moment he knew where his heart lied.
“I played lacrosse in high school, and there was one game where the school jazz band concert I was drumming in got scheduled the same night as a playoff game, and it was one of those moments like ‘you have to pick one,” Ruby said. “And I picked the concert over it, and no one was really happy about that. That was the moment where I kind of realized what was more important to me.”
Instead of pursuing a career in collegiate athletics, Ruby would then go on to tour Belmont University, the only school he visited and the one he graduated from in 2020. Ruby, now 24 years old, has been surrounded by music his entire life. He grew up playing in his grandparents church band, played for Maryland collective Red Couch in high school and recorded his first ever EP “Not I” in his Belmont dorm room with friend Chris Donlin. It should, by now, be safe to say that Ruby made the right call on that fateful gameday.
Ruby signed his first publishing deal with Black River Publishing three months after his college graduation. After five years of making Music City his mainstay, Ruby has returned home to Westminster, Maryland to focus on his wife, newborn child and new puppy, Mowgli. For Ruby, it’s a homecoming that’s felt like it’s been a long time coming. More than that, it’s given a new perspective for an artist whose main concerns lie in personal growth rather than the external.
“One of the things that’s so great but also kind of depressing about Nashville is it’s such an ‘industry’ town,” Ruby said. “Like everyone you meet or go get drinks with is in music, or they’re in A&R or a producer. And that’s cool if you’re really trying to grind it out and be competitive, but one thing I realized coming home is how important creating is from the perspective of being a lover of music and not just because you’re surrounded by the industry.”
Ruby’s goals in artistry are ones that are far less littered with gold records and interviews on late night television than some of his contemporaries. As signified by his return home and into music scenes that value showmanship over streaming, it’s the liberty to become something true to himself that Ruby values the most. If asked for an artistic bucket list, the top of Ruby’s would simply read “being creative.”
A pure approach to your craft doesn’t make you immune to hiccups, however. For Blake, they came in the form of a mishap with the release of his newest single “Our Bed.” The track was released on Jan. 27, but in Central Time rather than Eastern. While that doesn’t sound like the direst of issues, it caused Ruby and his team to continue and promote the track a week after its release due to its ineligibility to be considered “new music” by streaming platforms until the following Friday. For Ruby, the instance was one that deflated what he saw as a new crown jewel in his auditory display case.
“So many people were texting me that night asking where the song was,” Ruby said. “And that’s definitely not the only reason, but I thought that one was gonna hit way harder, and people would say it’s my best work yet. I think it’s my best work yet.”
The Beacon covered Ruby’s newest single in an article. Ruby, now two years married, is always bringing new insight into his favorite emotion – love. In 2019, he released “Bless You.” A track that, in Ruby’s words, capitalizes on that feeling you get when someone loves you, even if you can’t even bring yourself to do the same. After three years those feelings haven’t seemed to sway in any particular direction, but rather reinforced by an outlook of a love more permanent.
A lot of Ruby’s catalog could simply be boxed into a package simply labeled “indie pop,” but as with any post-internet artist, there’s more to it than that. Jazz influence peppers his production, the prose and cohesiveness of his lyrics almost feel akin to country music’s songwriting, yet it still feels too soon to predict what that overarching sound will be, even for the singer himself.
“I mean I’m never one to chase a trend, like if there’s something I think is cool I’m gonna make it,” Ruby said. “I’m never sitting around saying to myself ‘okay, whats popping on TikTok?’ or whatever, I try not to let outside forces influence what I’m making at all.”
Ruby’s new single “Love You,” was released on March 10. The singer says it’s probably his most pop-influenced track on his upcoming album, which should be seeing its release this summer. He cites Tears For Fears’s “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” as an influence and artistic relative for the song. If it’s as creatively honest as any of his releases thus far, listeners can expect that uplifting tenor to only solidify the journey he’s had so far.
