When Alex Dezen of The Damnwells stopped by the studio and played a few songs off his new LP, Nobody Listens to the Band Anymore, he completely took the air out of the room. The songs are resonant and lyrical and full of story. And to hear the songs this way, with no other instruments, with no fuss, just a writer and his guitar...well, it seemed to reveal even deeper layers in the music.
After we filmed our session, we worked with Alex to get a copy of Werewolves out in support of the record release. This release was prior to the full SerialBox Presents session, so we're re-releasing an updated video here along with audio versions of the other four songs that we tracked...
Ryan Booth caught up with Alex at SXSW to chat about the new record, the particulars of crafting a song, and how songwriting can be like returning the favors that other musicians have given you with their music...
RB: So tell me about the new record. How long in the making is this album for you guys?
AD: Well we started making it at the end of 2009, so we've been making it for a long time. I was in graduate school, so I didn't really have time to devote 100% to making it. It was kind of a weekend thing or when I wasn't teaching or in class.
RB: Is making an album a pretty enjoyable process for you?
AD: Sometimes it can be really stressful, but usually it's pretty enjoyable. I love to be in the studio for hours and hours chasing down ideas and making interesting sounds. The only times it's not enjoyable is having to wait. Waiting to get mixes back, having to make a bunch of comments, waiting for changes. It can all get a bit daunting.
RB: So, how long have you been playing as a band?
AD: The Damnwells have been around since 2001, so going on ten years now.
RB: How have you seen things grow and change? Do you think The Damnwells in 2001 would recognize The Damnwells in 2011?
AD: No way. If the past Damnwells bumped into the future Damnwells and we did recognize each other, it would mean that we weren't evolving. It'd mean that we were just circling the same prey. We've grown, we've evolved, and hopefully we've gotten better. We've lost members, we've gained members, and we've lost members all over again. It's like a marriage in a lot of ways. But then again, I don't know if past Alex would recognize present Alex if we ran into each other anyways. It's just the natural progression of doing anything, of being alive.
RB: Do you feel like there is a common thread between the two? Is it something you could pinpoint or is it just a vague familiarity?
AD: No, there are probably lots of common threads. Some common ideas or lyrics or concepts… I sing a lot of songs about love. I sing a lot of songs about the confusion of religion. I guess those might be some common threads. Hopefully those ideas have become more clear. Or at least they've gotten more interesting in the way they're presented. (laughter)
RB: As a writer, would you say that you're more of an inspiration guy or more of a discipline guy?
AD: Probably purely inspiration. I don't really have much discipline when it comes to writing songs. When I'm writing fiction I have a lot of discipline because when you sit down to write a story or a book the last thing you want to do is write a story or a book. You'd rather check your email, or really anything other than write. Discipline is what gets you through.
When I'm writing a song, I can't just sit down and force myself to write one. It feels like the stakes are much higher, because it has to come out of my mouth. So I guess it's a little bit of both. Inspiration will strike, and I try to be as "disciplined" as possible. But I don't think of it as discipline because I really enjoy sitting in my house for like seven hours working on a song, recording parts, adding harmonies, adding different layers. I find it incredibly enjoyable. I can forget about the constant, overarching anxiety of being alive, you know? I just sit there working and I don't have to turn on the television or pick up the phone. I don't have to talk to anybody and I don't even have to put on pants if I don't want to. (laughter)
RB: Tell me about the process of working through the song Werewolves.
AD: That song was particularly hard to write because of the way the phrasing of the verses work, it requires a lot of words. I had this chord progression in my head and then I had this idea for the phrasing, you know "Come on let us, da dumm, dumm, dumm." It just needed a lot of words, but a lot of the words I was writing sounded ridiculous. It took a long time to find the words for that song to say whatever it was saying... Then eventually it got so that I'd re-written the chorus a bunch of different times. I'd change the music and the phrasing and the melody of the chorus. I finally settled on dropping down to what would be the Bm, because it's a lot of major chords otherwise. It seemed to open the song up in a way that solidified the concept in the chorus, this "come and let her hear the werewolves if she wants to," and that made it a little bit easier to go back into the verses. I couldn't tell you specifically what that song's about, just that it took a long time to put together.
SerialBox Presents: THE DAMNWELLS from The Serial Box on Vimeo.
RB: When you finish a song, do you feel like it's yours? Or does it kinda feel like it becomes something you don't necessarily have ownership of?
AD: After I write a song, I usually listen to it 3,000 times because it's this thing that I've created, you know? It's this precious little bundle of sonic joy, so I'll listen to it a lot, get sick of it, and then it'll naturally find its way into the catalog of unused songs or songs that are kind of waiting to put on to records. What's nice about that is that if you play it a lot at first and kind of obsess about it, then you can become desesnitized to all the subleties of it so that you don't want to listen to it at all. Sometimes you'll go three years without hearing that song again. And then when I put it back on, I'll be brought back to that original moment. Like everything's fresh again. And if it isn't fresh again, that's when I know it's probably not a good song.
R: What do you hope someone who hears you play live or listens to the record in the car takes away from the interaction? In other words, is there something that you're really trying to say?
AD: I don't know if i'm trying to say any one thing, but I definitely want people to be moved. Moved to love or moved to hate or even to change their frame of mind, if only just for a moment. Because for me, that's what music does when I listen to it. I guess i'm just trying to return the favor the other songwriters and other bands have given to me over the years.
I think you can say things in a song that you can't really say in normal conversation. There are so many great, different ways of saying things that get down to the heart of the matter really, really quickly. I was just listening to a Butch Walker song the other day and he says, "I have to fill my lungs with smoke, just to get things off my chest." That's beautiful. And yet somehow that also makes perfect sense.
There's things you can do in a song that you just can't do any other way. Sometimes it's just a moment. I do believe in music's transcendent power and I believe that it can be a force for something good, even if it's not necessarily a good song.
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CREDITS:
Music by:
Alex Dezen
Music performed by:
Alex Dezen
Cameron Hammon
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Directed by:
Ryan Booth
VISUALS:
Cameras:
Micah Bickham
Ryan Booth
Neil Sandoz
Trae Stanley
Edited by: Ryan Booth
Graded by: Ryan Booth & Cody Bess
Illustration by: Andrew Shepherd
Photos by: Ryan Booth
Artwork by: Scott Erickson
Album Artwork by: Tyler Swanner
AUDIO:
Engineered by: Casey Graham
Mixed by: Jay Snider
Mastered by: Daniel Karr
Production Assistant:
Matt Hammon
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AUDIO ONLY VERSIONS**
**works in iOs devices