INTERVIEW WITH ALEX BAND (EX-THE CALLING), 28-SEP-10

Tuesday, 05 October 2010 08:02 |

Written by Lazy Rocker & Raymond Coonen |

The inspiring sound of Alex Band’s powerful, emotionally charged voice is immediately recognizable to millions of music lovers, thanks to modern-day classics like “Adrienne,” “Our Lives” and the chart-topping hit “Wherever You Will Go,” which Billboard recently named the #1 Adult Pop Song of the Decade. They also named the song "Why Don't You and I," that Band took part in with Carlos Santana, the #5 Adult Top 40 Song of the Decade. Now there's ‘We’ve All Been There,’ Band’s solo debut (released June 29 on his own AMB label through EMI), which contains the first new material we’ve heard from the former leader of ‘The Calling‘ in half a decade.

So where’s he been all this time? “After the second album,” Band recalls, “my partner in The Calling, Aaron Kamin, wanted to do other things, and since I was already pretty much doing everything on my own, I decided to become a solo artist.” But when the powers that be at RCA insisted that he do a “supergroup” album project, Band sought and got his release, signing with Geffen soon thereafter.

Thus began an elongated project that would span nearly two years, eventually encompassing no less than five co-producers, primarily including the veteran John Fields (Switchfoot), up-and-comer Daniel Damico and engineer Tal Herzberg, with Chuck Reed helming two tracks and Matt Serletic one. Playing alongside Band, who plays guitars and several of the basslines, were some of the best musicians on the planet, including drummers Abe Laboriel Jr., Dorian Crozier and Kenny Aronoff, keyboard player Jamie Muhoberac and guitarist Tim Pierce. The renowned Paul Buckmaster (Elton John’s ’70s classics) contributed string arrangements to several tracks, while the in-demand Chris Lord-Alge mixed the album, as he’d done with The Calling. Loaded with potential hits—and strikingly cohesive despite its diverse origins—the album was completed in 2007.

Later that year, Geffen went through a reorganization, putting the album in limbo. “At the same time, Stu Sobol, my manager for 10 years passed away, which was incredibly sad,” Alex explains. “So, between Geffen going through major changes and Stu passing away, I realized then that I had to make a serious leap of faith and believe in myself. I decided that, if I’m gonna fail, I’d rather fail doing what I want to do.”

Band spent a year in negotiations and a sizable amount of his own money to buy back the album master—so you might say he’s financially as well as emotionally invested in this music. He’s spent the last year creating his label, surrounding himself with a top-flight team and partnering with EMI, which is distributing the album in the States and releasing it outright in all other territories. “I’ve finally got creative control, which is the main reason I went through all this,” he says. So now I’m starting completely over as solo artist and reintroducing myself to the world.”

LazyRocker.com had a chance to talk to Alex a few hours before his show in Cologne on September 28th. This show is part of his first solo headlining tour which will bring him in Switzerland, Austria and Germany. Alex was very open about The Calling, his solo album and his label. You can read the interview below.

Lazy Rocker: Hello Alex. First we would to thank you for taking the time to have this interview with us.

Alex Band: Hey, no problem.

LR: How is the European tour going so far??

AB: Great! Germany, Austria and Switzerland are the first European countries where EMI is releasing the album. So we are working these markets now. I’ve been here a few times earlier this year… but this is my first headlining tour in seven years! So it’s been awhile... ha-ha

LR: In 2004 we saw you also here in Cologne with The Calling. That was a great show!

AB: That’s cool! Well, I promise this show will even better...

LR: If I am informed well you wrote "Wherever You Will Go", the song that gave you world fame, when you were 16. About who did you write it?

AB: I didn’t write it for someone in particular. The inspiration came when friends of my family where married for fifty years and one of them died. The idea was “if the person who had died could write a song to who he has left behind what would he say”. "Wherever You Will Go" is written in the point of the person who is passed away.

A pretty deep topic for someone who is sixteen years old ha-ha! I was already writing about that kind of stuff when I was eleven.

LR: Many people including me think that "Wherever You Will Go" is a love song.

AB: The video clip made people believe it is a love song…but that was an idea of the record company. They didn’t care what the song is about. They just wanted to make a simple video clip for MTV. "Wherever You Will Go" is definitely not a love song. There are people playing the song at their wedding but there are also people playing the song on funerals.

LR: How did it become such a big hit?

AB: The song came out right after the 9/11 disaster. So that song became a song of hope. And that fact boosted it into a massive hit in America and then it became a big hit all over the world. Worldwide radiostations still play "Wherever You Will Go" like a 10,000 times a week; it’s one of the greatest songs in music history now. In the USA it became the number one song of the decade!!! Totally crazy if you think about!

LR: Isn’t it strange that you know that you never can top that song.

AB: Well, there is no topping… I’ll never write a second "Wherever You Will Go" or a song that will become that big. There’s no way… I won’t know till ten years later ha-ha!

LR: Did you realize when you wrote it, that it ever would become such a big hit?

AB: No! No idea. In fact, I wrote that song during those years when I was signed to the label but won’t letting me make an album yet. "Wherever You Will Go" was one of the many songs I had written. I recorded a demo and the label added the tape on the pile of demo’s they had… no one really knew...

LR: Imo "II" was a great album but it wasn't that commercial succesful as "Camino Palmero". How do you feel about that album now?

AB: Well, it still was a successful album. The single "Our Lives" reached number 1 in over 15 countries… it was the closing song of the Olympics ceremony in 2004 and it was the opening tune of the Oscars in 2005. The problem was that on the day the album came out, my bandmate Aaron Kamin comes to me and said: ”I am not going to do anything involving the promotion of this album”. That pisses off producer Clive Davis so much he said “okay fuck this record”. Despite that the album sold over 1,5 million copies.

LR: In 2005 you put The Calling on hiatus. Any chance you are going to work with Aaron Kamin again in the future? Or a reunion of The Calling?

AB: The Calling was from the beginning not a band. Me and my partner Aaron Kamin hired people to play with us. So it’s not like a band broke up. When we where doing new The Calling material Aaron became less and less motivated to continue the massive success we had with The Calling. Then he came to the point that he didn’t want to tour anymore or do promotion videos or make an appearance on TV shows. In the end he only wanted to do some songwriting. I did 90% of the work on that second album alone. So I decided that I might as well been solo. So to answer your question… No, there will never be a Calling reunion… ever...

LR: Do you know what Aaron Kamin is doing now?

AB: He is not working in the music business anymore so far as I know. I don’t know what he is doing nowadays. I don’t give a shit.

LR: Now 6 years after "II" you finally released your first solo album "We've All Been There". It took a lot of blood, sweat and tears. The final track "Start Over Again" is about how frustrated you sometimes were. Were there times you thought about giving up?

AB: No, this is all I know, this is what I do for a living. There where never thoughts about giving up, more of thoughts about giving in!! I was fighting for the record I wanted to make and do the music I wanted to do. But the label wanted me to do things with Akon and Timbaland. For me stupid stuff. These were the times I thought I never going to release an album so I might as well give in. Luckily I didn’t do that… I kept on fighting till one day it became too much and said to the label I had enough. So a big 'fuck you' to you all and goodbye… and then I left. Still I had to buy back the mastertapes, that were already recorded for this album, from the label… that took sooo much time.

LR: So there was a lot of pressure of the record company to release a solo album?

AB: The pressure wasn’t to release an album but more on the creative level they pushed me into a corner. They didn’t want to see me recording the music I make. They want to record songs that were dominating the top 40 back then. I don’t want to do that.

LR: At very young age you already were into music. You got your first guitar at 8 years old, you made your first record when you were 11 and at 15 you had a record deal. What bands influenced you the most?

AB: It was mostly what my father was playing around the house. He was a music lover so I was growing up listening to classic rock. Like The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, Queen, Pink Floyd... bands like that. I still love to listen to these bands. When I got a little older (I am from the 90's generation) I started listening to music from Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Bon Jovi... The last years I was listening to Coldplay, U2… and newer bands like Kings Of Lion, OneRepublic... My kind of music… emotional, melodic, guitar...

LR: Can we find these influences back on the new album?

AB: Yes… I think you hear U2 influences for sure. That is my favourite band of all time! But if you listen to the last track on the album… you hear a Coldplay sound in the instrumental part.

LR: "We've All Been There" is full of great and also very personal tracks. Which one is your favorite and why?

AB: It changes from day to day. The last months before the album came out I added some newer songs. Those I love more because they are newer…. makes sense doesn’t it ha-ha. But if I have to make a choice I would say "Please". For a songwriter I am most proud of that one. It is one of the best songs I ever wrote.

LR: Will it be on the set list tonight?

AB: Yes… and we are going to play some The Calling favourites, my hit with Santana "Why Don’t You & I" and many songs of the new album… including "Please"

LR: What are the biggest differences between your albums with The Calling and your solo album?

AB: I think I’ve grown up a little, more experienced and I don’t have a songwriter partner anymore. I am able to do whatever I want. With this album I want to do big orchestration, I want it to be cinematic. Adding stings sections to songs, adding loops and overdubs. Things I never could do on a The Calling album. A song like Adrienne is a very teenish song. On this album the messages are bigger.

LR: A few weeks ago I attended a great show of Ed Kowalczyk, the ex-vocalist of the band Live. You did a tour with him a few months ago in the USA. There are a few parallels between you and him. For example you both released your first solo album in 2010 and you both have great skills when it comes to songwriting, even with simular subjects. How was that tour and did you guys have a chance to talk to each other? Maybe some song-writing together...??

AB: Touring with Ed was great. I’ve met Ed Kowalczyk a few years ago during the recording of this album. The label were having me writing songs with everybody, because they thought these songs what are currently on the record weren’t good enough! I have also written with Diane Warren. But no single song what I wrote with someone else

was as good as the material I had written myself. Ed is one of the many people I wrote with. He is a friend of mine.

LR: Can we expect any of these songs on a future album. B-sides maybe?

AB: Ha-ha! No, I wrote and recorded just one song with Ed and the song with Diane Warren was immediately throwed away! In that period I wrote 200 songs, I think you will never hear them.

LR: You throwed away a song from Diane Warren??

AB: Yes, that was rubbish. She has written amazing songs but she has also written some bad songs… ha-ha...

Alex_Band___We__ve_All_Been_There__Official_Album_Cover_.jpg

LR: Now you got your own label AMB records. Are you also going to release other artists on your label as well?

AB: Yeah! Well, now I don’t have the time but in the future I will contract other bands on the label. We found already a few acts we really like. I don’t have time to concentrate on that till next summer... No, not even then. I’ve been working to promote this album for the last eight months and it only has come out in three countries! So now the rest of the world has to follow soon... I think I’ll been done over one and a half or maybe two years from now. At the end of the day it is all about making money. Try to make a profit. In the USA the second single called "Without You" is now breaking into the top 40. So we must go back there to do some more touring.

LR: Was it hard to start your own record label?

AB: I invested everything in my own record label. I sold my house, I sold my cars, and I invested all of my money… so now I personally have to get into the green ha-ha... in America... that is not here in Europe. Here is EMI distributing the album so I don’t have to worry about spending all my money...

LR: What kind of boss will you be for your artists?

AB: Ha-ha… a good one. That takes care of his artists. Don’t push them in the direction they don't want to.

LR: Alex, seems our time is up... once again thanks...

AB: No problem, enjoy the show tonight.

Click HERE for the concert review.

Photos taken by Ovide Nijsten.

WEBSITE:http://www.alexband.net/

MYSPACE: http://www.myspace.com/alexbandmusic