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 6
In which Alex confronts the confusion of having critics who are also friends.
LL: Do you have moments when you have to take a break and step away and say you’re not going to look at music blogs this week?
AB: Yeah, I mean I don’t – I do – I’m not a big blogoshere person. I have an awareness of it. And that’s what’s strange too - these people become your friends. There’s a community composed of not only musicians but press people, or whatever…
LL: I was curious about Chocolate Bobka, specifically. Did you know him before?
AB: No! But we gchat everyday, you know, McGregor and I.
LL: Because he started writing about you guys?
AB: Yeah. He started coming to a lot of shows and we started reading his blog. I think his blog - I’m not really sure, but I think his blog has grown a lot in the past year also.
LL: It’s one I find myself going back to a lot.
AB: Yeah, I mean, as a person writing for a blog, are you inspired by McGregor?
LL: Definitely. And the fact that he ties it together with curating shows too, that he’s involved in that way, is definitely inspiring to me.
AB: Yeah. I mean I think he’s great, and I really respect him as a person and what he does. He’s definitely a huge figure in whatever’s happening in Williamsburg right now, and New York City. But that gets confusing, because what if we put out a record that McGregor hates?
LL: Right. Are you still friends?
AB: Yeah. And isn’t he obligated as a person of the press to be honest about it? But is he obligated as a personal friend to keep giving us positive press? I’m not sure sometimes, what my relationship with him is. I find that we definitely are friends, and I want to consider him my friend, but I think that he recognizes these things too and often has to separate himself, because that is the nature of our relationship.
LL: Because it comes back to - that’s how it started.
AB: Yeah. As a critic. It’s weird. Because we were just at a bar the other night and I was like, I like that we’ve become friends. And I know that that is true because I consider him a friend of mine, we have a good relationship, a friendship, but I could tell that he was hesitant to confirm it. He kind of looked at me and was like, yeah. Because that’s the nature of it. For both of us. And that sucks.
LL: I’m wondering if that’s still possible. Can you be friends and also have someone –
AB: I mean, we are friends.
LL: Right, I know. I guess it’s just – there has to be a lot of trust involved. Even among your band members, or the different projects that you work with, it’s still such a delicate thing. Looking at it like, Alright. We’ve known each other for so long. Obviously we’re really close friends with really strong ties, but even with those people I’m sure it’s tricky to be able to have a conflict about your views.
AB: Totally. I mean, I think it’s safe within our community. People are gonna be honest with each other and it’s nice, but then I definitely have – it took Julian a long time to come around to my record because he was self-conscious about his playing on it. He was sort of critical of it when I played it for him, and that really hurt my feelings in this way, but I appreciated his honesty.
LL: When you played the Freaks record?
AB: The Freaks record. After I finished mixing it. I mean obviously I shared it because he played on it, but –
LL: He was being sort of hard on himself?
AB: I think that’s what it became sort of about. Because his playing is featured really prominently in a way that he doesn’t normally play, you know, that sort of raw shredding.
LL: “The Shredder.”
AB: Yeah. And he later wrote me an email about it, and was like, I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry about the way I reacted to the record this summer, I think I was self-conscious about my playing. But, definitely, it can be intense if you bring something to the table and people aren’t immediately complimentary. But it’s also – I wouldn’t trade that immediate community that we have to share our music with each other.
LL: Yeah. How did you react to that?
AB: It made me upset! I wanted him to like it, but I also knew that I really liked the record and I didn’t want to change it. So I just stayed strong.
LL: You felt good about it.
AB: Definitely. And then I sent it to Ari from Underwater Peoples and he was really excited about it and said that he wanted to put it out. Outside reactions were strong, so I just trusted them. Yeah, when it’s something about friendship – you can be friends with someone when they don’t like your album – and definitely, Julian’s someone that I really, really respect.
View: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 6
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