In eastern Washington, a guitarist and vocalist created the band Starlab Arcada in 2017. After creating one album, the same vocalist went on to create a solo band on his own, named snailboyblaze, releasing his EP or extended play in 2023. This artist is also strangely one of the wonderful teachers at Lewiston High School.
Blaze Dugger was born in Clarkson and raised on rock music by his father.
“My father was in a lot of bands. He’s a guitar player, and he taught me to play guitar really young. That’s basically that,” stated Dugger.
Before Starlab Arcada, Dugger had a little cover band in high school as a freshman, but Dugger said, “it broke up because everyone was older than me.”
When the cover band broke up, Dugger wanted something more serious, so he created Starlab Arcada after creating the album, A Time Displacement: Icarus in 2021. For Dugger, this type of music was “pretty heavy stuff,” he said.
After a while, he wanted to make something different than metal music, so he created snailboyblaze, as a sort of passion project. Most of the music that came out of snailboyblaze was based on music that Dugger liked. This path was a place for Dugger to explore his musical talent.
During this time, Dugger also became a teacher at LHS. But why did Dugger become a teacher in the first place, rather than pursuing music professionally?
“I’m a person who likes to be comfortable,” Dugger said.
He enjoys that he gets a lot of free time as a teacher, especially in the summers, to work on his musical passions. He also said he doesn’t want to be a “starving artist,” where his only income comes from his art.
But there are other reasons why Dugger started teaching at LHS. His favorite part of the job, he said, is watching people grow, and become better, academically and socially. He loves to see people blossom.
Dugger’s music is available online on Spotify and Apple Music.
