Getting to Know… Blackjack Love | Interview 🎤

For our 127^th interview on The Musical Hype, we chat it up with a rock band that asserts “We don’t f**k about” in Blackjack Love.

“W“We don’t fuck about.” WOW 😮! Well, that’s pretty blunt and straightforward, Matt 😂! Azza Sergent, the brainchild of Blackjack Love, adds, “We’re rock n roll man. Turned up to 11 & just do our thing.” To quote 90’s hip-hop, “Whoomp! (There It Is)”.  Enough silliness already! Blackjack Love, a rock and heavy blues band, serve as the interviewees of the 127^th interview on The Musical Hype.  As you can tell from the excerpted responses, our Q&A was among the more colorful ones to be published on this site, and we’ve done 126 others before this! I could continue to discuss what was said but that would be utterly ridiculous when you can read it for yourself! So, without further fanfare or f-bombs (for now, at least), here’s Getting to Know… Blackjack Love: Interview #127.

Let’s get this started off right. For those who may not be familiar with Blackjack Love, what would you say makes your band distinct or unique? How do you rock the audience’s socks off?

Nick: It’s just Blackjack Love, get your dancing shoes on & deal with it. 

Matt: We don’t fuck about. 

Azza: We’re rock n roll man. Turned up to 11 & just do our thing. 

Sam: Doing 4 to the floor, good old rock n roll. 

Welp, I think you laid it out for me pretty well guys, haha! Okay, let’s explore some juicy backstories. How did Blackjack Love form and what were some of the goals or the visions you had as a band early on?

Azza: Blackjack Love has been around for a few years now, originally it was just me. I bumped into Matt in a boozer one day & I mentioned I needed to get a band together. It went from there. Sam was found in the gutter. Nick just appeared & started hanging around the studio. 

Nick: I got a call from Pete Carver saying his lad was in a band & needed a rhythm guitarist. He knows his stuff, so it was a yes before I even listened to any tracks.

Azza: The vision has always been to get out on the road. Write great tracks. Play great shows. Make loads of money & retire in the sun. 

Let’s talk more about goals. Have your goals or your perspectives changed since first starting out? What do your aspirations or goals look like now?

Sam: I wanted to join a band. Now I have 3 brothers. 

Matt: World domination. 

Nick: Goals? I’m 40 next year so, I’m just happy being in a fucking band man. 

Everybody is influenced by somebody else. Who would you consider some of your biggest musical influences and how are they influential?

Matt: The Who, Oasis, The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Stone Roses. There’s more but fuck knows, whoever floats my boat.

Sam: Duff Mackagen because when I was 14 there was nobody cooler. 

Nick: Keith Richards. Dave Grohl (proving to me you can be a dad but still be in a band), & my rock n roll Yoda – Ron Keekey. He played drums in Radio Birdman, if you know, you know. 

Azza: Mine, probably Jimi Hendrix, Josh Homme, Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield, Pharrell. There are tons. We’re a generation who had talent to look up to, not the shit that’s about now. They were/are geniuses. 

Ah, the fun stuff. What’s your craziest tour story or the wackiest thing that’s happened during a performance? Feel free to be creative.

Nick: My kids can read but they’re too young to find out. 

Sam: Drunk promotors sniffing coke whilst we played. In front of us. 

Azza: Loads man. Too much to say. Power going out. People rumbling. Guitar being thrown off the stage into the crowd, & it being caught. That was pretty fierce actually. 

Up until this point in your career, what would you describe as your favorite song you’ve recorded or performed live? What makes that song special?

Azza: Favourite song we recorded for me is “Electric Light.” I fucking dig that. I laid the guitars down with the amps set up in an indoor pool room. So that reverb on the track is where we mic’d up like 10 different mics the length of the room. 

Sam: “Before I Leave.” Playing it live is a buzz. 

Matt: “Before I Leave,” cause it’s the last song & people love it. 

Nick: Same as my brothers. 

Is there anything else awesome, cool, or left of center the world should know about you? Secret talents or surprising tidbits?

Azza: I paint some weird abstract shit on canvases. I’m trying to set a menswear label up too. 

Nick: I can do a pretty good Michael Caine & Chewbacca impression.  

Closing things out, what is Blackjack Love currently working on, promoting that you can share with us or want us to know about? We love secrets, but there’s no pressure.

Azza: We got our current single, “Before I Leave,” out now on all streaming platforms etc. We have a new single coming out in the near future. We got a load of new tracks we have to get recorded & a few music videos coming. Some new merch. Yea we got a fair bit coming up so keep your ears to the ground people.

Thank you so much for sharing taking the time to answer these questions, and best of luck moving forward.

Photo Credits: Blackjack Love, Brent Faulkner, The Musical Hype