On any night in Dallas, The Blue Line is likely performing at a local venue or a stage they’ve created for themselves. Comprised of brothers Michael and John Rodriguez, The Blue Line has become a fixture at open mic nights and local arts festivals. The bros also go busking on the streets, sharing their alternative pop and R&B sounds with the city.
Michael and John’s love of music runs in the family. Their passion began when they were kids, as John recalls that their home was “filled with guitars” as they were growing up.
“My dad played guitar, my older brother played guitar, and I just picked it up one day and started hitting it like a drum,” John says. “I did that for about a year — that was when I was like, 5 or 6 — and then I realized I can actually put my hand on the fret, hit a string, and hit a note. After that, it just took off. I just went crazy with guitar tabs and learned all I could.”
For Michael, the journey was a bit different. He remembers receiving FL Studio production software as a Christmas gift from his and John’s older brother one year. “I would mess around with [the software], and I knew John had original songs,” Michael says. “I would beg John to record his songs. And it was shitty because I didn't know what I was doing, but we still got them recorded, and it was cool because they're about his actual real-life experiences.”
The songs in question were recorded under an alias shortly before the brothers adopted The Blue Line stage name. But they say these “lost files” are still available on Spotify. As the guys grew older, they learned how to mesh their styles—John’s folksy sounds and Michael’s pop and R&B vibes.
Michael began fine-tuning his beat-making craft during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic while attending the University of Houston. John, the older of the two brothers, was still in Dallas then, and Michael would send beats to John, seeking his instrumental and lyrical prowess to elevate the tracks.
The guys create music by using a similar process today. They lay the foundation for the beats in their home studio, then add some instrumentation and vocals when they cut tracks at a professional studio, their favorite being The Kitchen.
Their love of East Dallas and childhood memories inspired their stage name, referencing a DART path that moves through their Garland hometown into Dallas.
“When we were really little, my mom would go to these political rallies, and she would drag us as little kids,” Michael recalls. “Sometimes, we’d go to the zoo on a good day. But we'd always take the blue line.”
Their latest single, “Cigarettes and Brandy,” features Michael tapping into his emotional side, with John delivering a groovy guitar bridge. Over a punchy percussive loop, Michael laments reaching a point in a relationship where he knows he might end up disappointing someone.
“My bark is louder than my bite / There’s no need to move sit tight / Put my feelings in the light,” he sings on the song’s intro.
“It’s about not being able to express yourself to somebody,” says Michael, “like getting in a situation where you know it's not gonna work out, but you don't want to let them down.”
“But when you’re faded,” John adds, “it might sound like a good idea to just use whatever vice you have and loosen up.”
The guys aren’t hesitant to shy away from those raw emotions. Another song, “ik u care,” features Michael refusing to let go of love, hoping the feeling will return. “I know you care / You're driving out my life, but I know you're there / You're just a call away but I never dare / Can't swallow up my pride, no I'll never change my mind,” he sings on the song’s chorus.
The song, which has become a favorite at curator Janna Wilson’s “The Love Mic” series at Sundown at Granada, was inspired by the end of a relationship Michael went through in college.
“Basically that song is about this girl that I was dating my last year of college, and we broke up right before she went to study abroad,” he says. “I was in my apartment, so I was like still in Houston while she was [abroad]. I was super sad about the breakup, and I was basically doing everything I could to stay healthy. I was playing basketball — that was my favorite thing to do at the time, still is — but I was working on the song, and I’d just write the lyrics about exactly how I was feeling.”
With catchy bops and an unmatched work ethic, The Blue Line is bound to be everywhere this summer. The brothers performed at the Deep Ellum Arts Fair and the Dallas Arts and Music Festival earlier this spring.
The guys are also sitting on a ton of new music they plan to drop in the months ahead, teasing a project set to arrive soon.
“I like the idea of releasing an album, but it seems like you want to give each song individual attention,” John says. “And we can still find a way to do that while releasing an album. But yeah, I think an album is definitely in the works in the next couple of months. So stay tuned.”
