Douglas Blum hails from Kelso, Washington. The youngest of seven, he was fortunate to be surrounded with a plethora of musical influences, from Eddie Arnold to The Who. Doug’s formal musical training started at the age of ten, when he took up the trombone, switching to the bass trombone in his high school years while playing in the school jazz band, and continuing his musical training at Lower Columbia College playing in the jazz and symphonic bands. He continued to play in the Lower Columbia Symphonic Band, until he lost his will to continue after a nasty orchestral accident, where he learned the valuable lesson to never argue with an alcoholic. You will always lose.
Doug taught himself how to play guitar at the age of sixteen, and then taught himself the bass at eighteen. Soon after, he joined a rock band that had an identity crisis, and subsequently changed its name more times than we would possibly have room to list here. While trying to recruit a guitarist for the band, Douglas was inadvertently acquired by the band of the guitarist he was trying to recruit. That band included Eric Richards and Ted Clark, who happened to be looking for a bass player/singer, and he happened to fit that bill, so to speak. Soon after, Doug asked his old pal Patrick Storedahl (they met in LCC’s jazz band, by the way) to join, and so the seeds of Just Plain Bill were planted (after a few more name changes, of course). Although he considers himself a jack of all trades and master of none, Douglas does have a passion for all things strings, teaching himself how to play dulcimers, sitars, etc., and also likes to take an occasional turn at percussion on the studio recordings. His greatest musical love, however, still lies with mucking about in the lower realms of the sonic spectrum and sharing the songwriting bit in the band.