Rising Stars: Meet Sky Vague of Long Beach

Today we’d like to introduce you to Sky Vague.

Hi Sky, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
As a kid I was always the weird kid. Always by myself. Ididn’t really have too many friends and was super awkward which is kind of like the recipe for an artist. A lot of crazy things happen from that point. I watched a lot of ugly things happen in the household early on. My birth father was a POS Tyrant type of dude. My mother was too strong for any of that. Strong people always get attacked by evil people and watching him attack her made me start attacking him. I think I started writing songs at this very moment because my life was kind of like a movie already. I literally fought this guy like I was an adult and he was my enemy because he really was. And like I said at this time I started writing songs in my head. I think by the time I was 12 I had started my first band. I was inspired by Prince, Prince and more Prince anything that had to do with Prince caught my attention. I started writing liner notes and album Concepts but did not actually know how to play any instruments. My mom bought me a knock-off Gibson Les Paul from on the side of the road in North Long Beach by the train tracks from a guy selling guitars from out of his van and that’s where I started learning/teaching myself to play. I didn’t really have anyone to teach me so I just started figuring out stuff on my own. I skipped the second and third grade, I went from first grade to fourth grade so I was always different from everyone in my class and in my age group. I always had something different going on than everyone else around me which ended up being kind of cool but at that time it was very hard on me. Knowing what I know now I don’t mind at all. It all got me to this point. Now this is the part I don’t like to talk about… the drugs. I was watching a thing called request video and saw a Red Hot Chili Peppers video with Angelo Moore from Fishbone in it (the Knock Me Down video) jumping around having all kinds of fun and that inspired me because I saw someone who looked like me doing what I wanted to do. Jumping around going crazy to music and then I heard the band Faith No More which was my favorite band from the first time I heard them until this very day, and I knew that’s what I wanted to do Play extreme music with no rules, no comitment to generes and no boundaries. I lived on a street with a drum Tech from a couple of heavy metal bands from Hollywood. The person I’m speaking of ended up giving me my first guitar and is still a close friend of mine to this very day. I would walk down the street late at night and hear him playing his drums one time I saw the garage open and it was like a 20 piece drum kit like Tommy Lee from Motley Crüe used to play I would always try to stop and talk to him but he would never engage in conversation. One day finally he said do I want to come inside, I did and was introduced to methamphetamines. The night I did it my first time that same guy asked me “now I bet you feel like you could take over the world, is there something that you want to do? ” I said I want to play the guitar like Prince so he told me to go over in the corner of his garage and pick a guitar I found one I liked and he told me not to come back until I knew how to play it. Well I was back the next day because that night I learned how to play the guitar! I taught myself power chords and wrote three songs (one of them I actually still play to this very day). Me being an extremist, also suffering through severe depression, I spiraled out of control with the drugs they became my best friend for the time being. Eventually I overdosed on the beach my heart stopped for 7 minutes and a lady who was visiting this country from France saved my life. She was here from France on a scholarship to be on the US rowing team for the Olympics being as she was participating in a Sea Sport they teach them a lot of different ways to help people if they’re dying she had got my heart started before the ambulance even made it there. This did not stop me from taking drugs but it was the beginning of the end of that cycle in my life I had been using drugs for about 15 years at this time I moved into her house that very day but it only lasted like 3 days she told me her actual boyfriend was coming home I had nowhere to go so I walked down the street and found a rehab. I checked in but I was still drinking and doing other things while in this place. Nowadays I actually go back every now and then to the guy who got me into the program. He said there was no beds available but he found one for me because he felt that was special and needed some help at that time I still go back every now and then and tell him (Big Rob) thank you and I would never have made it to where I am without him. Not long after I was arrested for drug-related crimes and went to prison for a few years. When I was out my grandmother was playing basketball and when I came back she was bedridden and never walked again. That and the fact that I have never been in a delivery room for the birth of any of my eight children, those two things made me decide that time was too precious to waste it on drugs I decided to become sober and not just sober but straight edge. No drugs no alcohol no cigarettes heck I don’t even take aspirin. I always thought I needed drugs to make music but now without all of that I had a different form of clarity. In this time I had learned how to play about four or five instruments just simply through repetition. I went back to school at Long Beach and Cerritos city colleges and I learned how to read music and actually know what I was doing with all the instruments I could play. I picked up more instruments very fast and now I know how to play 26 of them. At some point in time my mother’s sister’s daughter was the principal of a charter school she asked me if I knew any people who knew how to play the guitar the piano the violin and the drums. I told her I could play all of those so she hired me for both of her charter schools and this got me started in my career as a music teacher and an educator. I decided to go back to Long Beach City College to work on getting my teaching credentials because on some days when other teachers didn’t come I had to fill in for their classes and I realized I was really good at teaching and working with children. Having eight children of my own probably has something to do with this. I’m actually absolutely sure it has something to do with it because I know how to deal with children. I think I’m the absolute best parent ever my kids definitely think so. I have two daughters that actually play in one of the bands that I play in with me. My two youngest sons have also both recorded tracks with me. I support all my kids dreams I don’t tell them what to do and I’m always there for them. I figured out how to be a great father from two things. First off, My birth father didn’t do any of these things for me so what I do is exactly the opposite of what he did. You know one time when I was a small child he came over to pick me up and he picked up the glass Arrowhead water bottle (when I was little they didn’t have plastic bottles they had glass bottles they would deliver them to your house and they would put them on a little machine and it would give you water to drink) anyway he walked in and had been drinking so much that he picked the bottle up and goes “come on you little motherfucker” he walked out the door put the bottle in his front seat of his green car, put a seat belt on it (I always thought it was funny but at the same time very very real seeing him put the seat belt on the water bottle yes this is a true story) and he sped off cursing at my mother out of his car window thinking that he had taken me and me and my mom were standing on the porch together looking at each other shaking our heads. I knew at that exact moment I wanted to be the exact opposite of that person. At this moment let me mention my true dad, his name is Gene Robertson. He came along and matched my mother in energy and he was the Yang to her yang, they both took on specific roles and played their parts but here’s what my dad did… he made sure I always had someone to talk to. Even to this day he texts me every single morning. He really showed me care I had never felt before and I wanted to make sure to do that for all of my children and that is what I do to this day. I guess this interview is about me being an artist so I should say I do play in quite a few bands today and they make me very happy I play in A BLEEDING SKY with my two best friends (and my youngest Daughter often fills in as our second guitarist). Our music was my way of using the music of the Misfits and Morrissey together. Faith No More is my favorite band but I had no intentions of being a Faith No More-ish type of band though we did eventually morph into something similar to some of what they did. I also played a band called Corvus with two of my daughters and one of my students who was just too good at guitar for me to teach anymore so I asked him to be in a band with me instead and he said yes. I also play in the bands Hollywood Apocalypse Knarly World and Black Heroin Gallery.. all of whom are La bands are doing something outside of the box. These are all bands I would be listening to even if I did not play in them. Like I said I have eight Amazing children and I have three dogs… Duke, Robin and Maya (and Sedona, rest peacefully my soulmate) all which I love more than life itself.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It has definitely not been a smooth road. I mentioned a lot of the obstacles in the last section, prison was an obstacle, fighting drug addiction was an obstacle and by the way I have now been sober for 21 years 7 months and 7 days as of today. Also having multiple children’s mothers is a bit of an obstacle though it’s an obstacle I don’t mind because I’ve had to find ways to get to my kids, find ways to make sure my kids know that I love them, find ways to show each of them that they are important to me that they are the most important thing after God in the world to me and I have found a way to do that sometimes obstacles and challenges help you struggle through things struggle builds character and strength and so it’s been good going through all of it because I feel right now I know more than I’ve ever imagined knowing and it wasn’t because of books or someone telling me it was because I lived through enough to know how to do something more

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
So even though I play in a lot of bands I am also a solo artist and have put out two albums (“Everything is Beautiful…and Nothing Hurts” and “Nothing Hurts…and Everything is Beautiful”) and one EP (“Songs About Dying”) in the last I think 6 years starting with the pandemic. I always had a home studio but when we couldn’t really go outside and nothing was open I decided to sit in my house with my dogs and record the songs that I had been writing in my spare time. I had a lot of songs that were just not particularly weird but different and they didn’t vibe with any of the bands that I was in also during the pandemic a lot of the band stopped rehearsing so it was the perfect time to cultivate my own music. And then now I perform it solo. I got an idea from this music video I watched of Trent Reznor using a drum pad and a Looper making a beat looping it and then grabbing his guitar playing a rhythm and singing over it with backing tracks this prompted me to do such a thing and it’s one of the things I love to do most these days. I love writing songs in my main band being the main songwriter putting all the parts together and being as I play in that band with my two best friends it’s easy I never have to convince them to go along with my vision because they already love me and care about me and they are two of my biggest supporters so every time I write a new crazy song they’re always down to make it work and literally it always works. In all the other bands I’m in I’m in bands with people that I already look up to musically I look up to them as artists and I share their Vision I see their vision and I share it and I’m proud to be a part of it anything I can do to help accentuate the music that they’re making that’s what I spend my whole time in that band doing with all of these different projects going on I have enough to keep busy and that’s what I need to do stay busy

What’s next?
In the future I want to do two things continue to be a great father and cultivate my family and continue to be a good musician and become a great musician. As I said I have a children I have been working hard to integrate them meaning even though the moms don’t like each other so much and sometimes don’t like me so much I like for my children to know each other sometimes I go and get tattoos with my daughters or take my sons to comic book stores or video game stores or to the skatepark. I try to get them together so that they know their siblings and so one day they can all come together and take care of me. I have four companies in mine a record company a skateboard company and two clothing companies I want to of my children to run each company that’s why I have four companies in mind I have been putting these ideas together as like a master plan for when I am older and decide to just play music in my house I know I will always be a musician I will always play music. I will always record music and I will always make part because it’s just what I do and let me say this my main plan is to be the best human being that I can and to let as many people know about God as I can and try to help save lives any way that I am needed

Pricing:

• So even though I am a teacher I teach at schools I teach at a preschool I teach at a rock and roll school called rockstars of tomorrow in Huntington Beach and I also do in home lessons at each handicap people handicapped children and children who are homeschooled but no I don’t want to put any prices in this interview that’s okay I just want people to know that I do what I do

Contact Info:

• Instagram: mybleedingsky
• Facebook: Sky Lee Vague and A Bledding Sky (seprate pages)
• Youtube: Sky Lee Vague

Image Credits
Main photo Adel Rodericks
Molly Hudelson