by Ida Griesemer
This interview with Alex Bleeker (of the Ridgewood, New Jersey bands Real Estate and Alex Bleeker and the Freaks) took place on January 13, 2010. It will appear in six parts.
View: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5
In which Alex discusses the dynamics of the band members and the different projects they are involved in.
LL: The other thing I was curious about is how – I mean, you’re involved in a lot of different projects right now and it seems like you and the group of people that you work with are doing something unique, in that you’re sort of trading off front man responsibilities and you all take turns writing songs. I know you all back up Julian when he plays sometimes, and you have your own album, and Real Estate. What is it about your friendship dynamic that allows you to take those different roles so fluidly?
AB: I think it’s fluid in one degree, but I also think that it’s not all the same band. So there’s something to be said for that too. We have to allow whole different bands to have their space in order for it to work. I think that’s the balance that we found, but I definitely think there is a little bit of struggle in terms of like, Well, this is when I’m… and this is when you are. And maybe if we were a different kind of band then Real Estate could accommodate all of those things into one.
LL: I mean it’s hard to imagine because you really –
AB: The aesthetics are different.
LL: The aesthetics are different, but also it’s just that responsibility and that attention, being the person in front who wrote the songs. I mean, in a lot of bands that’s where the tensions arise, when one person’s in front and the other people need more of that attention but aren’t getting it.
AB: Totally. I mean, there will be times when I’ll bring a song to Real Estate practice and Martin will be like, This sounds like a Freaks song. And I’ll be like, What does that mean? You know, why can't – And, there’s validity in it. I understand what he’s saying, because that song did become a Freaks song.
LL: Did you write some of the Real Estate songs?
AB: Martin is definitely the chief songwriter. There's a couple of songs on the record that are accredited to Martin as the chief songwriter, and a few of them came out of more like, jams. I think we’re reaching a really good balance now where Martin will - he definitely has good control over the sound that we’ve all agreed is our sound. It’s something that we like. He’ll bring something maybe three quarters of the way finished to practice, or the general structure of a song, and we’ll fill it in. I like the way that that’s been happening. He’ll play something and he’ll be like, find something in the bass. And he’ll just repeat it –
LL: Can you think of a song specifically?
AB: Especially a song that’s nobody’s heard yet, that’s brand new. We’ll probably play it on the tour. We don’t even have a name for it yet. He’d just play the verse over and over again and I’d add something that I find, so we’d each get to contribute creatively. So sometimes it works like that. Sometimes he has a song 100 percent down and it’s great and I’m like, Yeah. Cool. That’s my part. That’s awesome. And then sometimes it will totally evolve. Like, “Suburban Beverage” is just a jam that we were playing together that summer that I was talking about. And then we recorded all of our practices on cassette. And we listened to it, and as loose as the structure is, we gave it a little bit more of a solid structure, and that’s a song that we wrote together because we were just jamming. And I don’t know if you’ve heard the Reality EP? It’s kind of like the companion to the Real Estate record. It just came out Mexican Summer. It’s really short, it’s like six songs, that were sort of demo-y or we couldn’t put on the record for whatever reason. Also just stuff that we were throwing around that we liked. The first song on that is just like, us hanging out in Martin’s apartment and turning the tape machine on and playing, and we were like oh, that sounds good, and we cut an excerpt out of it that we liked, and that’s a song on the record. Sometimes it works like that.
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LL: Ok. And the other times are when – you mentioned that one time when you wrote a song and Martin said that it sounded like a Freaks song and then it ended up…AB: Yeah, I mean, because he has that creative control. He has the power of veto. But we can all bring stuff to the table.
LL: Did the Freaks happen because you wanted more…
AB: I’ve been writing my own songs for a long time. And when I realized that it was possible to put a formal band together and put a record out, that was really exciting. I just wanted an outlet. And I do think it’s true that a lot of the songs on that album wouldn’t fit so well stylistically into a Real Estate set. We used to play “Epilogue” live, as Real Estate, for the first couple shows. And it was great, but we all sort of agreed, This just kind of sticks out. It’s noticeable. So the Freaks just sort of formed out of my desire to have an outlet for all the songs I had been writing.
LL: When did the band come together?
AB: Summer, I guess, was when the name Alex Bleeker and the Freaks existed. And we recorded the album in July. But some of those are old songs, some of them are songs I wrote 10 years ago, and some of them are songs I wrote two days before we made the record. So it’s kind of a mix. Sort of like what I was saying about the Real Estate album. You have your whole life to make your first record, and you have seven months to make your second.
LL: And then with Julian, that’s a whole other aspect.
AB: That’s just an honor. I see Julian as like – I hold him in the highest regard musically, out of all of us. I think we all kind of always have. There’s something otherworldly going on about him and his songwriting. It’s just super beautiful. And since high school I think we’ve sort of looked at him as – at least I have, I’ll speak for myself – he’s always been prolific. He’ll make two or three records a year, as long as I’ve known him. And they just continue to push boundaries or do new things. Often times Julian will get somewhere, and then his influence will trickle down, later. I mean, I definitely noticed a marked influence on Matt – I mean, on Julian from Matt. Which was cool to see it go the other way.
LL: The Ducktails record?
AB: Yeah. Just in terms of the fidelity of Julian’s records and his style, his guitar playing style. I think Matt had some influence on that, which is good, because it hadn’t really happened like that when we were kids.
LL: So you can see it evolving as you get older?
AB: Totally. You know, that’s a role that we fall into so easily because we did that so much in high school - just like, play Julian’s songs. He’s a good delineator. But he’s someone who - it’s not equal parts creative when you play behind him, really, which is great. You’re doing your own little variation and he’s like, play it this way. He’s super specific about his music.
LL: He has a really clear vision of what he’s going for.
AB: Yeah. Totally.
LL: He doesn’t play live that much.
AB: He does but not – well, he doesn’t live here. That’s one thing. He’s in grad school right now in Wisconsin. So he’ll have Brooklyn shows when he’s back for breaks. And that live show, playing songs off his record, that doesn’t happen very often. He had an aversion to playing songs live for a while. He would do these really beautiful improvisational sets and have somebody do a drone or a shruti box, which is a traditional Indian accompaniment instrument. It sounds kind of like a harmonium because it’s one chord. And then he would play clarinet over it. Improvisational, beautiful clarinet. Super new age-y. He did a bunch of that last summer.
LL: Did he release that ever?
AB: He should do a live record. He really should. That’s a good idea. He’s definitely got that element of like – Julian can play clarinet.
LL: Did he have that same guitar teacher?
AB: He did.
LL: Maybe Tony was more pleased with him. He could play clarinet.
AB: I think that Julian was definitely more of a star student that Matt and I were. He practiced more and he had more of the traditional theory ability. But he would be bold. Julian used to be really into Van Halen and so he’d put nine gauge strings on his guitar so he could finger tap and stuff, and Tony was like, pfffft.
LL: I had one more idea about the weather. How does the weather influence what kind music you guys play?
AB: I think it influences it a lot, actually. I’m putting out a new 7” with Group Tightener. And that’s got a wintry cover. And I think it sounds wintry. Because it’s the winter now. It’s cold now, people wear coats. I think so. I think seasons have an affect on everything that I do all time.
LL: And music is another outlet for expressing what’s happening.
AB: I like winter. It’s too long though.
View: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5
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