Born in Tacoma, Wash., Blaine lived in California with his mom, dad and younger sister until his parents divorced when he was just five, and his mother moved with her children back home, settling in the small town of Buckley. Though the move brought him close to his mother's family, and especially his grandmother, who cared for Blaine and sister, Lindsey, while his mother went back to school to get her degree, his father's absence was painful, made worse by promises made and broken. "He would say he would call or was coming to see me, and he never did," remembers Blaine. "It was a terrible thing to do to a kid. It made me distrust people and not believe they would do what they said they would."