The Goodish – Music Blog -

For our readers who don’t know much about Alex Dezen, he is the lead singer / songwriter for a rock band named the Damnwells.  The Damnwells started in Brooklyn back in late 2000 and have released 1 EP and on February 10th, 2009, their 3rd album will drop.

Andrew: Alex on behalf of myself and thegoodish.com i’d like to say thank you for taking the time on this Sunday evening to talk with us and offer us a little bit better of an insight of who you are and what it is you’re up to in life right now.

Alex: Well, my pleasure.

Andrew: Alright so let’s jump in, let’s talk a little bit first about the man Alex Dezen.  Where were you born and raised?

Alex:  Tenafly, New Jersey, and then when i was about 8 my sister and mother and i moved to New York City

Andrew:  And would you say growing up you came from a musical family?

Alex:  Yea my Father was a performer, he was always, kind of putting on a show of some kind.  And my Mother was a drama major in college… neither my mother or father went on to do either of those things professional, but um, there was always music, you know, my sister was always playing music… my sister and i were always playing music together, so, there was plenty of music and performance growing up in my house.

Andrew:  So how old were you when you penned your first song and do you remember what that was?

Alex:  Well i do have a pretty vivid memory of writing a song called DEFCON 4, um, which referred to defense condition for war, i think, when… which i think in the 80’s meant that everything was safe, you know, all was good, there was no nuclear war. In my mind i thought DEFCON 4 meant that nuclear war was imminent so i was writing like this punk song, DEFCON 4, and i had already fucked up the whole concept. So, that was the first song i ever remember writing, but it only had lyrics..because i didn’t know how to play the guitar at the time, so, i think i just strummed on like a guitar made out of cardboard and then sang these lyrics to DEFCON 4 with a bunch of other friends of mine who also were playing fake instruments

Andrew:  So you had a little make shift band right there…

Alex:  Yea it was just all in our minds.. you know? All born of imagination.  And then, the first song i ever wrote, like a real song, was, i think it was something about being a ghost… i think it was called I’m Just A Ghost.  And i wrote it when i was in college.

Andrew:  In college.. wow so in college is when you say you first wrote your real, in a sense, song.

Alex:  Well yeah i wrote other songs before that but they were pretty… weird.. and they weren’t songs. And when i think of a song now, or when i think of my own songs, you know i think of what i’m doing now, and that started, probably with that first song I Am Just A Ghost.  And i had written songs before that and recorded a bunch of stuff but it wasn’t… it was mostly instrumental music. I was in other bands but i don’t remember singing, i was never the singer i just kind of played guitar, you know.

Andrew:  So when did you start thinking music was something you wanted to pursue full time?

Alex:  Probably when i was in high school ‘cus i just, i really loved playing, and i loved playing guitar, i just thought it was the coolest thing in the world you know, you like walk into this room.. i mean this was in New York, you know, when i started playing music, when i started playing guitar anyways, so to go and actually rehearse you had to go to like a studio and you had to like rent time out of the, it was like a rehearsal studio… and there were all these studios all over New York City with these ridiculous names.. like “Funka’delic” studios and like um, i don’t know… “Death Defier” studios, something like that so we’d rent these rooms out for twenty five bucks an hour and just… they had all this gear there, they had like huge marshal stats and this huge PA system and so, we’d just go in that room and it was like the coolest thing in the world, you know.  It was like.. excitement preceding going into that room for rehearsal was like when you were a little kid waiting for Christmas morning, even though I’m partly Jewish ::laugh:: but what i imagined to be.. like presents.

Andrew:  So growing up, what kind of kid in school were you… were you one that was more into the drama, or sports, or both?

Alex:  Um, neither…  I played sports but only because it was… you know i was growing up in a pretty kind of suburban town in Tenafly, New Jersey. I played sports and stuff but i wasn’t very good, i didn’t hit the baseball until like the last season of little league.  And then, i wasn’t in plays or anything either.  You know everything, kind of, that i did, was just essentially, i was trying to emulate my sister.  You know, she sang, she played the piano, she was doing all these things, she was taking voice lessons & piano lessons from this woman in town.  And you know i wanted to do that, too… ‘cus i think that i had seen her in a recital, you know, her piano teacher put her in a recital, all of her students performing, and i saw my sister get up there and do this thing and i was like… i wanna do that.. i wanna get up there.  So then i started taking lessons with this voice teacher / piano teacher and then i think within a couple months she had set me up to meet with this manager and then i was going on auditions for commercials and stuff, and, i didn’t really know what i was doing.  And that was something weird because there was these kids there that were so excited about me in commercials and stuff and i was just kind of like I’d rather be on stage, you know.

Andrew:  And how old were you at that point?

Alex:  Um, probly like 8, 7 or 8.

Andrew: That’s interesting, so you would say that… that it was different for you, it wasn’t this guy who wants to be huge and be in all these commercials it was more of the.. what did you say, of the art for you?

Alex:  Um, i just wanted to… i didn’t even know what any of that.. i didn’t know what art was.  I just wanted to get up on stage and perform, that’s what i wanted to do.  I didn’t care if it was with a guitar or whatever.  I wanted to get up there and, you know, do it… the whole concept of art is still kind of cloudy and i don’t really know, is it art or is it entertainment.

Andrew:  Right:

Alex:  But i think that that didn’t even enter my consciousness until i was probably in college, you know.. but at the time that just seemed so exciting and then i remember seeing my sister do that and then myself having the opportunity to be in a recital, and then, that excitement, it’s just like… you know it’s like crack… it doesn’t really get you high it just.. you just want that… it gets you high for just a second and then you want to keep coming back to it.  Not that I’ve smoked crack ::laugh::   ..um, but then when i was in that studio in New York playing with my friends when i was in high school it was that excitement again.

Andrew:  Yea it’s kind of like a euphoric feeling and once you get a taste of it, its… i say it’s like chasing the dragon. But in a different sense, you’re chasing that euphoric feeling.

Alex:  Yep.

Andrew:  So what college did you attend?

Alex:  Bard

Andrew:  And what was your major?

Alex:  Photography

Andrew:  And did you get your B.A. in that?

Alex:  Yea

Andrew:  And in college what kind of music were you listening to?

Alex:  Oh i was listening to the most angular, you know, indie rock that there was.. it just had to be loud and… you know, mostly… just loud.

Andrew ::laugh:: Alright, lets get into a little bit of the song writer Alex Dezen.  Approximately how many songs on each album are co-written and how many do you pen personally?

Alex:  I don’t know if there are any that are co-written, um, they’re all my songs, but they… on this new record 55 pictures is co-written.  Technically we all had a little share in that song.  But i think for the most part on the songs on the records, i think 95% percent were just my songs i brought to the band and then they arranged them and played them.

Andrew:  So what made you decide to form a band instead of becoming a solo artist?

Alex:  Because i wanted to be… i wanted people to be culpable in my ::laugh:: in my endeavor.  I wanted other people up there doing that with me.  I wanted it to be a collection of people all striving towards one thing, i didn’t want to be doing it by myself…you know i wanted to be in like… a fraternity of friends playing music together.  I just thought doing it by yourself seems to counter intuitive to the idea of making music.. If i was going to do it by myself i should just go on stage with an acoustic guitar and that would be it.. but since there’s other elements to it that requires making that sound i just thought it’d work better if there other people involved.

Andrew:  From all the aspects of music, writing, recording, playing shows, touring to play shows, then you have the business side of things.. what are some of your favorite parts of it to do and why?

Alex:  I think…my favorite parts you mean like touring or whatever.. something like that?

Andrew:  Whatever part of all the aspects of music that you’ve experienced in the past, you know, five years… what parts bring you the most joy.  Is it writing, is it getting up on stage?

Alex:  I think it’s probably… getting up on stage is definitely still, since i was a kid, that’s the most exciting part of the show, you know. And i consider the show to be the whole thing, from writing the song to making the record to getting up on stage.  Getting up on stage and performing the songs and having people be there and listening, enjoying, that just seems to be… that’s always been really amazing.  Writing songs is… you know it has a different kind of euphoric element to it.. um, you know, sense of accomplishments and of satisfaction in being able to take an instrument and to take word and melody and carve them into a song, that’s very satisfying.  But being able to get up there on stage and, you know.. and of course you can’t really do one without the other.  I wouldn’t want to get up on stage and play someone else’s song.  But getting up on stage, man, that’s the whole thing, i mean, that’s…  when we got to open for the Dixie Chicks we played in these arenas, and before we got up on stage we were all hanging out in the dressing rooms just thinking to ourselves and talking about it, you know, this is it this is like what we’ve been waiting for.  And we got up on that stage and it was like there was 17,000 people out there.  And then i thought, as i was up there, like this is kind of crazy and almost… i mean it’s just beyond anything i can really comprehend.  And then a couple months later we were doing our headlining tour and we played at this little bar and there was 200 people there to see us and that was way more exciting because you could see their faces and they were there to see you.

Andrew:  So you’re saying the bar was more exciting then…?

Alex:  Yea, the bar was way….i mean, getting up on stage and playing in an arena is like..nothing else in the world.  But you know when you show up at a bar and there was 200 people there and they haven’t… they haven’t been told to be there, they don’t.. they have other things to do and they come there to see you.  I mean that’s really exciting.  I spent most of the early part of our career opening for other bands trying to win over their fans and when we would play our own shows there was no one there so we didn’t want to play our own shows, you know, ‘cus there wouldn’t be anybody there.  And then in the last four or five years we started playing headlining shows and there was people there to see us, you know, sometimes… 500 people, sometimes more.  And that was way more exciting.  And once you got a taste for that, once you got a taste of it, you know that room full of people that were there to see you, that’s way more exciting than playing an arena.

Andrew:  So you’ve been writing, you’ve had your band, you’ve done this record, and then you get signed to a major label.  What label was that and how did you find out you were being signed?

Alex:  The label was Epic and there were several major record labels that were interested in us and they made an offer and contacted our lawyer or however it works, you know.

Andrew:  What was that feeling when you were signed… was it like “Here we are, we’ve made it.”  What was it like?

Alex:  ah, you know, it, it was….. it was a dubious….um….award.  It was kind of like, yea cool we made it… did we?  i don’t know, i never had the feeling when i was on a major record label that i had “made it.”  Only because I’ve seen so many other of my compatriots crash and burn from dealing with major labels so i just kind of for better or worse had expected that to happen, and then of course it eventually did.  Which may or may not have been by my own design in thinking that was going to happen.  But i, you know i felt proud that… it was kind of, it’s an affirmation you know when you have a big company, a big time record label saying we want to sign you, you know, we believe in what you’re doing.  There is too many, there’s just too many things at odds when you sign to a record label.  You know, Steve Albini, he’s a producer and a guitar player and a… an extraordinary… i don’t know, social critic ::laugh:: talks about when you sign to a major record label… you’re never going to make any money, you’re never going to make any fans, and if you do it’s kind of like do or die.  If you sell a million copies of a record or you don’t, it doesn’t make a difference to them.  So, i think that in the end, there’s just so few people that are gonna find success with a major record label.  But that shouldn’t mean that if you can’t find success with a major record label you can’t find success.  So, being on a major record label was.. you know, has it’s good parts and bad parts but i’m glad i am where i am now.

Andrew:  Now your band was the feature of a documentary called Golden Days, tell us a little bit about how that project came to be and what was the filming process like for that?

Alex:  My friend Chris Suchorsky had asked, when we were recording Air Stereo, if he could come and video tape us.  I said sure, you know, and then he was just there, we were in the studio- this is when we were with Epic-… and he was like “hey let me come on the road with you guys” and we were like okay cool.  And you know everything was going really well at the time, we didn’t even think about the fact that he was there capturing anything particularly bad.  And then when we got dropped, he was there.  And then i really realized that this could potentially be the only document of this whole thing.  And so i told Chris you know that we got dropped and he’s like well I’m just gonna keep filming , if you don’t mind.  And i was like “No, man, sure, keep filming.”  And so in the end we wound up with this document of that whole experience which i am eternally grateful for having.

Andrew:  Right.  Okay so, after all this happened, you were living in L.A., i think.

Alex: Yeah

Andrew:  Was there a point to where you thought about giving up music?

Alex:  Yeah and i did.  Which was the best.. it was the best decision I ever made in my life.  I gave it up, for maybe a couple years even.  You know i didn’t really play much guitar, i didn’t write any songs, i just put it away.  And it was because i felt so, i don’t know, i felt like i had kind of been taken through the meat grinder, so i just put it away and i did other things.  And doing those other things helped me to be able to understand why music is important to me.  I had to go back to the reason why i started, you know.  And in the documentary, Wes, my manager, he’s interviewed at the end of it… and he says “you know a lot of people lose sight of why they did this in the first place.  You get signed to a major record label, you start going out on tour, there’s all this pressure, and you forget why you’re doing it.”  And i had completely forgot why i was doing it.  And then when i realized that all the reasons that i was doing it were not my reasons i just said well fuck it, this is not for me.  So then i came back to it a couple years later, and i went in to make this new record.  And i think maybe for the first time it felt like, yeah, yeah this is what I’m doing this for.

Andrew:  I want to get to the album, and that’s coming up here shortly, but real quick before that, let’s talk a little bit about you being on tour.  First off, you’ve gotten married recently, correct?

Alex:  Yeah, it’s been almost two years ago now but, yeah, fairly recently in the scheme of things.

Andrew:  How do you find married life, my friend?

Alex:  I think it’s fantastic.  I highly recommend it.  Even if you’re not in love ::laugh:: ..No i am.   Get married!  ::laughs::.  Getting married was great, and my wife has been instrumental in helping me learn to understand what’s important.  I think when i met Angela and decided in my mind that i wanted to marry her, everything became very clear, you know.. everything that had previously been foiled together in this mess, you know of fans, life, love, all that stuff.. just kind of separated, you know like oil and water, just kind of moved out of the way of the other things, so, definitely really great.  And also just having someone else’s life to live every once in awhile when yours gets too complicated, is always nice.  Just kind of be like what’s going on with you, how can i help you, you know, i don’t want to deal with mine.

Andrew: Yeah.  Well, when you were with her you were doing some touring and i read some of your blogs that talked about being away from Angela while she was back home, working.  What’s that like, when you are in the type of life you are in and then having to spend a good amount of time on the road.  How do you… do you still get the enjoyment from playing, or is there a piece missing?

Alex:  Yeah, you do but it’s, you know, being away, i mean it’s pretty scary because you don’t know what’s happening back home, you don’t know what you’re missing.  You don’t know if she’s upset or if she’s lonely and.. and there’s nothing you can do about it, so you just….  And the chances are that she’s probably all of those things.  Dan Layus who’s the songwriter for Augustana, when we were on tour with them he was about to get engaged, his girlfriend had just gotten pregnant, and now he has this wonderful child…and he’s always saying how being on the road is this frightening thing because it’s like your family, they’re all at home, living their life without you.  And it’s scary for a number of reasons.  One of which is for selfish reasons, it’s “What are they doing without me?”  You know, “What are they enjoying without me?”  And then the other one is worried about just being forgotten, kind of, you know.  Or for someone to become comfortable with your absence, that’s probably one of the most frightening things in the world.  Being on the road, when you’re married or when you have kids, you know can be scary.  But it’s also very nice because you’re living with someone sometimes you want to get some time apart from them.. ::laugh:: so there’s no better excuse than to say “hey, gotta go on tour for a month or whatever, you know.. see ya later!”  ::laugh::

Andrew:  Kind of a double edged sword there.

Alex:  Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Andrew:  Just a few more questions on being on the road.  On a good tour, when you have a good line up and you’re moving from spot to spot how many shows on average do you play a week?

Alex:  Anywhere between 4 and 7.

Andrew:  And out of those shows how many do you personally feel are good shows and how many are not so good shows?

Alex:  I think they’re all good.  Sometimes it doesn’t feel like they’re good when there’s pressure, you know, when you’re opening up for someone and you feel like you didn’t connect to the audience.  It’s a very difficult thing to do, i mean it’s probably the hardest work in show business, showing up at a club and having to perform in front of five hundred, two hundred, a thousand or seventeen thousand people who don’t know who you are and don’t care, and having to get up there and try to win people over, i mean it just sucks, it’s the worst.  And so that usually, when you’re up there for that little forty five minutes or half hour, and you walk off stage and you’re like what happened, what just happened, did we do anything productive, did anything come of that?  So those shows can be kind of gut wrenching.. But when you’re playing you’re own show and there’s people there to see you i don’t think any of those shows are ever bad.  Even if you mess up a song, who cares, you know, people are there to get an experience, people are there to have that experience of being able to see the flesh under the guard, being able to see your human side.  But when you’re opening up for someone if you mess up a song you’re screwed… and that pressure can really eat away at you.

Andrew:  So if you do that, you’re opening up, and you feel like, you know you just feel like it wasn’t up to par, whether you bombed the show or it just wasn’t that great and you walk back stage or you’re back in the van and it’s… does it eat away at you and if it does what are some things you do to.. do you just push it to the back of your mind and say there is another show down the road or, is it hard for you to get over a poor show?

Alex:  It’s hard for me to get over a poor show.  It wasn’t as hard for other people in my band to get over it.  You know Steve, the old drummer in the Damnwells was always optimistic about everything.  And thank God for him… we’d play just an objectively horribly show, i mean, from anybodies perspective it was a bad show.  We didn’t get any of the audience, the songs were sloppy or whatever, or i forgot a lyric and Dave messed up a solo and Ted forgot a bass line and Steve would just be like “I thought it was great, i thought it was a great show.. that’s a great show, we’re a great band, you know we don’t have to..when we mess up or when we’re not 100% we’re still 2000% better than everyone else.  So that was good, for him to be there, you know, defended us.  And i think we were all grateful to have him there to do that.  But for me after a bad show, what would i do?  I don’t know, probably just drink ::laughs:: complain, and then, you know, move on.  You don’t really have a lot of time to ponder, you just have to be… ‘cus you’re in a van, you’re at the club, you’re sound checking, you’re scarfing down a meal and then you’re in the club playing and then you gotta load out, and then you gotta drive, so there isn’t a lot of time to sit around and ruminate.

Andrew:  Alright well let’s talk about this new record, my friend. It’s coming out tomorrow, February 10th, what is it called?

Alex:  One Last Century.

Andrew:  How did you come up with he name?

Alex:  ……..it just seemed to encapsulate, i don’t know, how i felt, when i was writing that song which was in the midst of coming to terms with music and what it meant to me.  And i felt like maybe the worlds going to end but we still have this last kind of hurrah, and then i thought well maybe that hurrah should be for like a month, and i thought maybe that should actually be a couple years, and then i thought well maybe that last chance should last a century, you know? and it just kind of made me think, about things like that.

Andrew:  And you’ve had some band members change in the band recently.

Alex:  Yeah Steve and Dave left the band in 2006 and 2007 and we’re all on good terms and we’re all very friendly.  It just came to a certain point where Steve has a kid and is married and his priorities changed and for the better, you know he needed to get to his family and kind of just take care of his life.  And Dave, too, Dave.. I think we were all just a little burnt out at the time, i mean, after what i feel like we’ve been through, at least from our perspective, it just was a miracle that we were standing, that we were even alive.  So, i just think it got to a certain point where we were like you know what, we gave this our best shot, maybe we’ll come back to it in a couple years, but um, we’re gonna have to go our separate ways.  And then i thought to myself i don’t really want to go my separate way, I’m, I’m just me.  And Ted was like “Yeah i want to keep playing.”  You know we obviously can’t tour in that same way we were doing it before, we were playing a hundred and fifty to two hundred shows a year, you know? But i still want to make records and play shows, so, i see no reason why i shouldn’t, more importantly, you know… i mean if i couldn’t do it anymore, or if there was no one who cared, then yeah, maybe i would say yeah, forget it i won’t even bother, but, it just seems like there’s still an audience and there’s people who want to hear the music so i’ll keep making it.

Andrew:  Yeah and i think there’s a lot of people out there, including myself, and many people that i know, that, are very very pleased that you decided to continue and that there’s this new album coming out. This is the third album.  Going into this, how was your mindset different going into record this album out of any other?

Alex:  My mindset going into this album was i want to make a record and i don’t want to worry about any other element except making the record.  I don’t want to worry about wondering if the record labels going to like it, i don’t want to worry about… i don’t want to put any pressure on it, you know, i have these songs and i just want to make a record.  I’ve been making records for the last seven years or so..and i thought to myself, maybe i should just make another record.  So i went in, i talked to Wes my manager and i said “I want to make a record.”  And he said “Okay.”  I said “I want to make a record and i don’t want to be bothered with all the stress and nonsense that we have been bothered with in the past.  He said “Sounds like a great idea, sign me up.”  So we went to Oxford to record a bunch of tracks at this friend of ours studio there and just kind of kept it real, one or two takes for a song, and you know just tried not to take ourselves so seriously, worked hard, and just tried to make a record that just reflected where i was.  Which is not where i am now, not where i was before, but where i was then.  So that was my mindset.  You know when i went in to go make Air Stereo my mind set was… i mean i didn’t know it, i mean i knew what i wanted it to do, i knew what i wanted it to sound like, and i knew that i wanted it to be big and i knew that i wanted it to be bold… and i think i got that, but I’m not sure if i wanted it to be big and bold because that’s what i wanted, or if that’s just what the pressures and the people around me said they want.  So it’s hard to balance those things.  But this record, there is not a song on this record that i don’t feel is… you know every song on this record i love.  I think every song on this record sounds exactly the way it should.  And occupies the exact perfect amount of space. Some of the songs on Air Stereo took up too much space, some didn’t take up enough.  So i feel like all these songs are perfect in their inner elements… not the songs themselves but the way they are together.. this is the way they should be.

Andrew:  And you’re giving this album away for free, just spreading the word and your songs and just sharing it with everyone who cares to listen, which i think is phenomenal, where can fans find this album and why did you choose to release it this way?

Alex:  We partnered up with paste magazine, which is a really great music entertainment magazine… and we partnered up with them and they’re offering it for free download from their website, so you literally just go to pastemagazine.com/thedamnwells and download the record.  I don’t know how long it’s going to be up there, it’s kind of a hand shake deal, it’s not like there’s anything to be worried about, you know, just giving away a record, you know ::laughs::  …it might be up there for a couple months or it might be up there for a couple weeks, i don’t know… but we’ll continue to give it away.  And why?  I think, you know, for me i guess because I’ve been thinking about this for so long, just kind of pondering over the idea of giving away a record.  It just… there’s some practical reasons and some philosophical reasons, i won’t bore you with the philosophical reasons as much.  But the real practical reasons are that i just want people to hear this music, i don’t want them to have to check the context of their wallets to see if they have enough, i just feel like there’s other things people can buy… people can come to the shows they can buy t-shirts, when we make some more, and do all those other things.  There’s also licensing opportunities for writers and people who make music.. and there’s other ways to create income… and i think that having to sell records, sometimes it works sometimes it doesn’t.  And i just feel that right now in my life i just don’t want people to have to bother entering into this tracutual agreement with a third party to get this music that i made, and anything, anything, that gets in the way of that, just, it’s gotta go.  Especially for this record, i just wanted to get this music out there.  And i felt like i just didn’t want to have to go through the whole process of waiting six months for the record label to find a slot for it on its release schedule.  And i didn’t want to have to wait for the long and tired “sit up” that record labels go through before the record comes out… i just want the record to be out there.. just go, go listen to it.  And I’m hoping that this will bring the music to people who previously maybe, didn’t want to hear it, or just thought it was part of the noise.  I don’t think this is part of the noise, you know, i think this is good, so i just want people to hear it.  And the more philosophical reasons are just because i kind of feel like when you work so hard on something, sometimes, you know, it’s just better to just give it away and say “here.”  Just to kind of relinquish control and just say “I’m just gonna give this up.”  I think people have this false idea that the harder you work on something the more that it should be worth.  It’s really the work that you put into it, the labor, that is wonderful.  That’s kind of why you do it, for the process of being able to sit down and make songs or do whatever you do.  So at the end of the day when it’s done how do you put a price tag on that, you know, it’s priceless, so I’m not even gonna bother, I’m just gonna give it away.

Andrew:  Well i admire that and i think with where the industry is at right now and how everything is turning over a new leaf and people are trying to find new ways, i think you might be on the forefront… And to do that you have to be pretty selfless, and i admire that.

Alex:  Well thank you.

Andrew:  And now, we’ve just got a couple more questions, real quick, what kind of touring can fans expect for the rest of the year, i see that you have a few dates set up and.. more of the east coast, what are you going to be doing with touring?

Alex:  We’re going to play a few scattered shows.  We’re playing in New York in April and we’re playing in Boston and Arlington Virginia in July.. i expect there will be some more dates over the summer.  We’re going to South By Southwest and playing a party or two in March.. so we’re going to do kind of what we can, you know, ‘cus i have a job, my wife has a job, and so this is not everything we do, we have other things kind of going on, so, but i think there will be some more shows this year.  And it also depends if… i don’t know, i mean, i just kind of feel like you set your ships out to sea and whichever one gets to shore first make sure that’s the one you’re on.  You know if this record winds up reaching a lot of people then maybe we’ll… maybe we’ll go out and perform for those people.

Andrew:  Alright, last but not least, my friend, after all your experiences, and coming into the game, the music industry when it’s going through such a change.. what advice would you give to up and coming up artists who are playing coffee shops and… just dreaming of a life to where they can write, play music, not necessarily going big and being some star, but just to where they can play… what advice would you give to them?

Alex:  God.. i mean there’s so much advice to give, really  ::laugh::… look both ways before you cross the street ::laugh::  …i would say don’t be afraid of failure.  At the writers workshop in the last year it’s something that I’ve come to understand and kind of really accept and devour.. this concept of failure being, contained within it the promise of discovery and learning.  So if you can learn to be at peace with that it will help you learn and discover more about yourself and more about what you’re doing.  And i believe that maybe even that’s kind of what life is all about is, just learning, and discovering, so I would say don’t be afraid of failure.  And try to keep that excitement that you feel the first time you pick up a guitar, the first time you write a song, the first time you get up on stage… try to keep that in mind when you’re five years down the road, you know, eating beans and rice and playing in front of no one.  You just have to keep it in your sights, ‘cus it’s out there, you just have to, kind of get through the nonsense, you know?  The melody’s out there, you just kind of have to hear it buried the noise.

Andrew:  Okay well on behalf of myself, and thegoodish.com, I’d like to thank you for taking the time to hang out for a little bit and share your insight on yourself and all the things that you’ve been through in this industry.

Alex: Cool, thanks.

Interview by Andrew Blake

some Links :

pastemagazine.com (download the new  album FREE on Tuesday Feb 10th 2009)
thedamnwells.com
www.myspace.com/thedamnwells

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