In a way, Denny Blaze’s music career was an overnight success almost 20 years in the making. His music video demo “Average Homeboy” has exploded into one of the most popular videos on the Web since being dug out of a closet and posted by an MTV employee. The video, complete with an introduction explaining he was in the studio “smoothing out” his rapping, shows the Ohio-native shooting hoops, making his bed, washing his Chevy compact car and otherwise going about his ’80s middle-class life.
After getting a boom box as a teenager, he opened his ears to all types of music. The Newcleus song “Jam On It” became his favorite. During a phone interview he stops to rap a few lines from the seminal track.
“I got to that line, ‘rock the nation,’ ” he said. “I want to rock the nation, so I started making up my own rhymes. I went to Radio Shack, got a Casio keyboard and a microphone, and plugged the microphone into the keyboard. In one shot, I just kind of freestyled ‘Average Homeboy.’ ”
Blaze decided to make a video for the song, which he sent to Capitol Records, Warner Bros and MTV in hopes of making it big. No such luck at first.
“Turns out 17 years later there’s an Internet,” Blaze said. “Somebody posts my very first demo online, and it catches a craze, turns into a viral video and it’s all over the world now. That’s where I’m at now.”
But musicians today don’t have to fight for the attention of record companies, he said, because they can tap directly into the networks of MySpace and YouTube users.
“You can be your own record company these days thanks to the Internet, because you can reach the whole world,” Blaze said. “It’s kind of lowered the value of record companies, I think.”
He supports the free flow of information on the Internet.
“I think there should be regulations as far as the extreme vulgar stuff like child pornography. But as far as freedom to post your music and uploads and downloads of your stuff, I think it’s just a great concept of communication throughout the world.”
For a 9-to-5, Blaze works as a freelance video producer.
“My dad used to be in video production, and I used to ride the school bus to the TV station. I learned how to run a TV camera as a little kid,” he said. He worked at several TV stations and for the Cleveland Browns before going “100 percent freelance.”
He kept working on his music on the side, keeping the dream of making it in the music biz. His tunes are available on his Web site, dennyblaze.com, and on the iTunes Music Store.
Today, Blaze is vying for position on VH1’s “Web Junk Presents: 40 Greatest Internet Superstars” which airs Friday, March 23. The show highlights the Internet’s icons, from “most downloaded woman on the Web” Cindy Margolis to a short-tempered Winnebago pitchman. Fans can vote for their favorites – where else? – online.
“I’m glad to be on it. It’s not something that I can control; It’s because of all of the average homeboys and homegirls that have downloaded my video,” Blaze said.
He’s already headed to New York to film an interview and rap in Times Square.
“It is ironic that when I first made my video there was no Internet,” Blaze said. “But nowadays, thanks to technology, my stuff got out there. ‘Average Homeboy’ is out there.”