iNTERViEWED
BY BRiAN LUSH
The musical journey of MARK ALAN - and his project dubbed
ALPHANAUT - seems similar to the story of the missing-in-action
protagonist
from DAVID BOWIE’s ‘SPACE ODDITY’ – MAJOR TOM. The countdown commenced
for ALAN
around the late-eighties and early-nineties. ALAN cut his teeth in a
couple of
bands in his hometown of
Seattle
before moving
to
Los
Angeles
where he fronted the band NOVEMBER, whose spacey guitar and keyboard
sound ran
contrary to the grunge that echoed across the country from his
hometown. Upon
growing disillusion with his bands inability to make a dent in a music
landscape that was then marked by prescribed anger and flannel, ALAN
stepped
away from music and made a living importing artwork. His love for music
seemed
as if it was hopelessly lost in the blackness of space. That was the
case until
2007 when ALAN heard melodies in his head that had to be scribbled
down. Those
scribblings would later become ALAN’s second chance at making music on
his own
terms in an environment more accepting of electronic ambience thanks to
bands
like COLDPLAY and THE KILLERS. Under the name ALPHANAUT, ALAN
seamlessly
combines haunting electronics wit the warmth of acoustic
instrumentation.
Listeners were first acquainted with the ALPHANAUT sound on the 2009 EP
‘THE
LUNAR AGE. Now ALPHANAUT is back with the full length album ‘OUT OF
ORBIT’.
ROCKWIRED spoke with MARK ALAN
of ALPHANAUT. Here is how it
went.
Aside
from the music
being interesting you’ve got some great visuals to accompany it.
Thank you
Who
does the visuals?
I’m working with two up-and-coming filmmakers. The video for
NEVER BEEN TO ATHENS and also the song JENNIFER were done by a Swedish
director
named JIMMY OLIVER who is based in Los Angeles now
and I also worked with a guy named NEIL
TIMMS on the song SPONTANEITY and another song that we ware going to be
filming
soon. I was very fortunate to come across these guys.
What
is the status of
the new album?
The official release date is February 16th, but
its been floating around electronically for a while.
With
the release of
the CD coming soon, how do you feel about the finished work?
I’m really excited. I think it gets the point across that I
wanted. I wanted to combine a lot of modern elements with vintage
sounds. I
wanted the album to kind of have a retro vibe underneath it all. I
chose to
record on a lot of old gear from the seventies with all of the
electronics
bubbling around.
In
listening to what
I’ve heard, there is a certain warmth to the production.
I wanted it to have that kind warm sound to it. I decided to
mix it on an old V console rather than do everything on PRO-TOOLS. I’m
glad
that the warmth comes across.
Talk
about how music
began for you.
It is something that has always been there for about as long
as I can remember. I can remember noodling around on the piano when I
was a
kid. In high school I started working on demos. I recorded my first
demo when I
was eighteen. I’ve always been active music and had various bands
throughout
the late eighties and early nineties. I hit a saturation point where I
was
pushing myself a little too hard and putting to much pressure on myself
and as
result suffered from musician’s burn out. After that, I had decided to
focus on
other things. Back in 2007, I started writing music again. It all sort
of
flowed out uncontrollably.
In
reading about you,
it seems that your music background is more rooted in garage rock.
Definitely! You’ve got to consider that fact that I was
raised in the Seattle
area, but I had moved away before that whole scene there really started
to
happen. The music I did earlier on definitely had that sort of vibe to
it and
when I started my first band, I was working with guys that had a
similar vision
as myself and we were developing more of a retro vibe which
occasionally shows
up on this current album.
Back
then, I read
that your band at the time was trying to incorporate electronics into
your
sound at the time that that “grunge” scene started to happen.
Right.
Talk
about any
frustrations you might have had at that point.
That was when we were moving into taking music seriously and
create something that was more interesting. We were heavily influenced
by
things like ROXY MUSIC and U2 – things that were a little more
atmospheric. We
were going for sounds that eight years later would come into vogue with
bands
like COLDPLAY and THE KILLERS and things like that. We were kind of in
between
the original new wave movement and it’s second coming. It was a little
frustrating to try to have anyone take us seriously. I think those
frustrations
all came to a head and we were putting way too much pressure on
ourselves to
make it work and in the end, it all came apart.
Personally,
I hated
that whole grunge thing.
You know, it really wasn’t my favorite at the time but
looking back on it now, there are few artists that I could get into now
but
couldn’t at the time. There are few songs that resonate for me now.
I’m
not trying to
take anything way form it. At the time, I just found it so righteous
and so
American and anti-anything else. I thought it was the beginning of the
new
facelessness of rock.
Sure. Exactly! Unfortunately after about two years, it all
became somewhat homogenized and it all sounded the same so were
bombarded by a
constant stream of generic, angry young men.
You
say that returned
to songwriting back in 2007. What did you do when you were away?
I started my own business, actually. I also went back to
school. I initially went back to school to study photography because I
wanted
to be a fashion photographer – which is another passion of mine – but
in
starting my own business of importing art and artifacts from Australia
as
hobby and within a year and a half, it took over my life and as a
result I
employ several people. I was being creative in a different way and
focusing on
another side of myself. For a while there, I thought that music was
just going
to fall by the wayside. I couldn’t find any real inspiration to write.
Then one
day, I just sat down and started writing sketches and came back to it
six
months later and before I knew it, it would not stop. By the time I had
thought
everything out, I had enough material for about three albums and they
all had a
pretty broad spectrum of sound from electro pop to more ambient sounds.
I was
basically mapping everything out and figuring out how to piece it all
together
so that these sounds would make sense together. The first five songs
were on
the EP that came out last year. Now, SECOND WAVE is coming out of
orbit.
Explain
how music
gets written for you.
Probably similar with a lot of artists, sometimes the melody
comes first. I’ll write a melody and play around with it. Sometimes I
can
develop it within a short amount of time and a song structure takes
shape.
Sometimes, I’ll put a song aside
for a
year and I’ll visit it every once in a while and replant that seed in
my head and
think about it. I’m always writing lyrical ideas. Normally it starts
with
taking these sketches and pulling them along and developing them into a
melodic
structure and then I’ll apply words to it.
With
that being said,
what songs off of this album resonate for you the most and why?
I would say that SATELLITES CRASHING really connects with
me. That one is the closing song on the album. It was originally
supposed to be
a b-side then it started to develop. There is something about the
atmosphere to
it. I wanted to combine very gentle electronic with jazz so I brought
in a
friend who plays jazz trumpet as well as someone to play upright bass.
It has a
really unique vibe to me. It’s sort of the basis of what I’m using the
launch
sound for the next EP that I’m working on now.
So it
sounds like
you’re back to stay – musically speaking. Is that the case?
I think so, I’ve got this EP of five songs that I’m working
on now. There is also another group of songs for a full length that I’m
working
on as well. I hope so.
Have
you ever thought
about turning your attention toward production?
Oh yeah, I would love that. I’m hoping that ALPHANAUT will
gain the attention as a producer and parlay that into working with
other
artists. I’m also hoping to start a label and help develop artists. I
really
look forward to doing that.
What
would you like a
person to come away with after they’ve heard this CD?
I hope that they get something out of the music melodically
but inside there are lots of little lyrical messages – no that I want
to be
necessarily preachy. There are some themes on the album that are
socially
outreaching and I hope that people can find inspiration in the words.
FEBRUARY
19, 2010
BRiAN
LUSH (FOUNDER,
EDiTOR-iN-CHiEF)
