Three days into the Cartel Tour, we sat down with David Blaise of This Providence at School of Rock. We learned about the difference between the US and UK crowds, how David broke his collar bone, and about the time he and his friends faked a kid’s death…

Christine: First, introduce yourself and what you do in the band.
David Blaise: I’m David Blaise and I play bass for This Providence.

C: Tell us a secret about each of your band members.
DB: Okay, I’ll start with Dan. Dan isn’t really Australian… that’s a lie anyways. Gavin, I think Gavin is scared of the dark. Andy misses his dog more than anything else and then me, we’ll save that one for later.
-laughs-
C: If you think of one just—
DB: I’ll just blurt it out in the middle of a sentence.

C: How did you come up with the band name?
DB: The band had a different name before I was in the band actually, but they were looking for band names and a fan actually mentioned ‘This Providence’ and the guys liked the meaning of it a lot and it’s kind of like a poetic way to say a ‘this is our destiny’ kind of thing. Like, ‘this is our providence.’
C: So a fan came up with that?
DB: Yeah, a fan came up with ‘providence’ yeah, and we just put ‘this’ in front of it.

C: That’s really cool actually. What was your best of funniest childhood memory?
DB: Childhood memory? Wow, there’s a lot.
C: Is there something that you did that was funny, or embarrassing even?
DB: Well you know what, this isn’t the best one. But the first thing that comes to mind is that I was rollerblading and I was young… yes, I used to rollerblade, I was probably like nine. And I was rollerblading with my sister and we were just joking around, like play fighting and she pushed me down this hill and I didn’t know how to catch myself and I fell down and I broke my collarbone.
C: Oh my God, that literally happened to me. My friend pushed me down a hill and scratched my knee really bad.
DB: You scratched your knee… and I broke my collarbone! -laughs- But it’s all the same.

C: What was your favorite TV show as a kid?
DB: Probably Batman, the cartoon version.
C: I don’t think I’ve ever seen that.
DB: Or something like Animaniacs or something like that when I was a kid.
C: I thought that was new?
DB: No, I was probably like twelve or something at the time.

C: Do you have funny stories about high school?
DB: Hmm, nothing really funny happened in high school. This is a long one but we kind of just joked around with our friend, this is not good, but we made this fake news article in CNN. We like, took the template of it online and did like ‘Current Stories’ and ‘Local Stories’ and we said our friend died in a car accident—
C: That’s awful!
DB: -laughs- So anyways, this kid, we spread it around or whatever, and this kid was doing current events or whatever—
C: Did he know?
DB: Yeah, he knew it was this big thing that people started spreading around that this kid in our high school died and so anyways, at this current events class that I wasn’t in but a few friends were, they said ‘Oh yeah, I heard this kid got killed in a car accident’ and my friend, Steve, just kept cracking up and everyone just kept looking at him like ‘What’s going on dude? Why are you laughing at this guy? He died’ and Steve’s like, ‘Just look, he’s right there. Know your classmates.’
C: Oh my God, did that go on for a day?
DB: It only went on for probably like, two days. There was no consequences or anything so I got off alright.

C: That’s good. What do you miss most about home?
DB: Just family and my bed and my dog.

C: What old job did you have when you were younger? Like, did you work at a mall or a restaurant?
DB: I worked as a lifeguard for a little while actually and it was pretty dull.
C: That’s probably the easiest job, like you just sit there and nothing really happens.
DB: I was actually tan, too, which is suprising when you see me now. But yeah, I was a lifeguard for maybe a year and it was not exciting, it was really dull and I think the deepest [the pool] went was 6 feet in the wave pool or whatever and it was for a hotel and it had a lazy river and a wave pool and yeah.
C: Did you save anyone?
DB: I had to jump in for this lady because she was just an idiot. It was a lazy river which is like 3 feet deep and she was on a tube and she slipped out of the tube and her feet were still caught in the hole and she was crying and she didn’t speak English and I was like ‘Oh no’ and she was maybe in her forties, like not old old but yeah, it was weird. I was trying to tell her ‘Put your feet down, it’s fine! There’s a little current but it’s not gonna sweep you away.’ So we just blew the whistle and like everyone comes and makes it a bigger deal than it is. But that was it.
C: Did you have to train to do the lifeguarding thing?
DB: Yeah, it was like a few months of training. Actually, Eric Halvorsen from A Rocket To The Moon was one of my co-workers.
C: Did he save anyone?
DB: No. I think we all had that job for less than a year just cause it was kind of a joke and we all just got sick of it.

C: Do you have any secret talents?
DB: Um… no. I can tell time.
C: Me too.
DB: And I can read minds like Sookie from True Blood.

C: What is your biggest pet peeve?
DB: I wasn’t prepared for these questions. Well, I was actually thinking of this earlier but I think for me it’d be people that are extremely defensive. It’s kind of annoying.

C: Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
DB: I hope do be doing music. If not a band, then still just writing and playing. I want to get into more art soon, I was doing graphic design for a little bit before the band and I hope to start that up again soon.

C: What is your favorite show that you’ve ever played? What made it different than any other show?
DB: Probably one of the last shows of the Hush Sound tour we did back in ’06. It was my first tour and it was a sold out tour and it was at Chicago at the House of Blues. It was kind of like just a surreal thing for me, like never touring before and that was my last show of tour and I completed it. Other than that, another one would be Paramore in the UK. We did a few shows with them and Anberlin. That was huge and insane.
C: Is there a difference between American crowds and them?
DB: Absolutely. Honestly, the UK crowd pays attention more and if it’s good music they kind of like to enjoy it and just go crazy and have fun and they’re not really there just to meet the bands so much as to just listen to them and there are some people like that and it’s fine. They’re not that crazy. There’s some crazies here but it’s still okay.

C: Are there any big plans for the band coming up that we should know?
DB: Just touring, but I can’t really talk about what tour’s coming up. But it’s a good one!

We’d like to thank our good friend Lindsay for taking the time and transcribing this interview for us!