Roland Blackman is a 26 year old multi-instrumentalist singer/songwriter from Poole, England. A regular around the live music scene in and around Bournemouth, he has also played further afield in such international locations as Singapore, Vancouver and Brisbane.
His first online release ’The Transient,’ in 2008 is largely influenced by the travels Blackman made in the two years prior to its recording. In fact, Roland had yet to write any original material on guitar before a 6 month visit to Canada which began in April 2006.
From an early age, he has surrounded himself with music. A pianist first, Roland struggled in sight-reading, prefering to compose intead of practice. During school, he took violin and trumpet classes which led onto further self-teaching whilst also developing his vocals as the frontman of several bands in his late teens. Roland had long been writing music with bandmates although it was at this stage that he first experienced studio recordings with his first band Pulling Faces when they recorded their first EP in London summer 2002.
Following university, he fulfulled a life-long ambition to travel and it was here, having taken with him a guitar rather than an mp3 player, that Roland began to teach himself guitar, writing his first song ‘This Effect’ amongst others. These songs were gigged and recorded as ‘The Transient EP’ and distributed for free at subsequent gigs as well as online in a Myspace music profile. Another trip, this time to Australia in 2007 provided the inspiration for the song ‘The Castle.’
In the short period of time that Roland has written these songs, he has acquired a growing number of fans all over the world through live performances and social networking. May 2009 was the online release of the follow-up album ’Horizonte.’
His ambition has brought him now to Melbourne, Australia where Roland is pushing himself as never before to promote his unique sound and begin work on his third studio album. Watch (and listen to) this space in 2010!
