About a year a half ago I saw Yellow Alex and the Feelings perform at an art opening in Hollywood. From the moment their performance began, I was completely enthralled by the high energy group. Their timeless funk and soul inspired sound was perfectly married to choreographed dance moves and positive vibes. In the current music climate, it was refreshing to see a band put so much thought and detail into all of the individual aspects of their performance. The show stimulated a multitude of the various human senses and emotions. It was one of the best live performances I had ever seen. Recently, I used the vortex of social media to connect with Alex Gedeon of Yellow Alex and the Feelings. The result was a sit down in Silverlake to discuss himself and the group.
TNC: What influenced you to pursue music?
Alex: I first started playing guitar when I heard the bass line to Under the Bridge by Red Hot Chili Peppers at the age of 10. I could see Flea's fingers moving in the video, and it became very clear to me that I was responding emotionally to the bass.
So I got a guitar because it was cheaper than a bass, and I started using just the first four strings. I got the book to the album BloodSugarSexMagik and began learning all of the bass lines on the guitar. I was like "wow this is so funky and cool", and I was done getting a handle on that by the time I was 12 or so. So then I started looking at the guitar parts, and I started seeing how simple the guitar parts were and realized this is why the bass lines sound so good -- because John Frusciante is only playing one note.
Then I became really fascinated that Flea was this wild and in-the-spot-light superstar, but there was this other guy that was, in my mind, putting all of the emotional color behind what was happening. I thought that was the secret to why it sounded so good. My fascination was how one sound supports the other sounds in an arrangement. The supporting actor makes the lead actor more interesting to watch. This is a selfless function in music-making and it is endlessly fascinating to me.
Other influences are Jimi Hendrix, Prince, Depeche Mode, Nile Rodgers & Chic, Talking Heads, and Brian Eno.
TNC: What Other Instruments do you Play?
Alex: Guitar is really my instrument and the only instrument I can communicate through. The other stuff, such as the keys, I can fake. My main thing is writing bass lines, but I still don't really have the strength to play bass properly.
Photo courtesy of Koury Angelo Photography
TNC: Could you talk about forming your current band Yellow Alex and the Feelings and what you were looking for in the members?
Alex: I had played in a band in New York called Trick & the Heartstrings, and we were doing pretty well. In 2007, I left that band and it was kind of a dramatic split.
I moved back to LA and had kind of a rough year sleeping on my mom's couch and trying to get a solo project together. I had all these label people that had been interested in my band. They were interested to see what I could do by myself. So I started recording by myself, but I didn't realize that I had put myself into a tremendous pressure situation with worrying about what these people with money are going to think. I was still making good stuff but it was coming from an askewed place emotionally.
But I eventually made the demo, and it was great. It was called Emotionals, the first EP I put out by myself. I mixed the whole thing in the parking lot of Ralph's supermarket on La Brea and 3rd. I would get off of work as a bartender and start mixing at 3 AM in my mom's car. I would plug my computer into the audio input of the car and just blast it until the sun came up. I finished the album and it didn't get quite the response that I wanted. This was because before I left New York, my band had crazy momentum and that's really what the label people were attracted to. I didn't understand that. So I had sunk a lot of time, money, and effort into this project and I was a little artistically heartbroken. After that I didn't really do anything for about six months.
Finally, I felt like performing again. I had this very deep sense of purpose to give myself another chance to feel what it was like to make my own music and share it in front of people. In terms of attracting the people I wanted to work with, I just tried to make the most obvious and visceral decisions with people. My friend Daniel, the ex-bass player in my current band, was one of the initiating forces of the band. From the original line up, it is just me and the two singers. Kim, the keyboard player, came in shortly after and our drummer and bass player joined this past year. It has really only taken shape this past summer.
The main purpose of doing this was not to on focus how things looked but how things feel. I wanted to create a certain type of feeling and energy in the audience. It's all about wanting to connect with people in a specific type of way in a performance setting.
TNC: Is creating that feeling with the audience the driving symbolism behind the name of the band?
Alex: Yeah! As an emotional thing but also as in "everything you sense that is not coming in through your eyes".
TNC: Earlier you alluded to funk being a large influence on your sound. What genre would you place your music in?
Alex: If I was forced to pick one genre, I would pick Soul. I just like the name. It is the best genre name out of all of them. The soul is the non-material part of your self.
I like pop music from all eras and even today's pop music. I like the song writing in pop music and the catchiness and hooks. I like the simplicity of it. This is why I like Depeche Mode and Madonna. I like female pop singers like Gwen Stefani. Things that connect to the 14 year-old girl inside of me.
Sometimes I think of a catchy chorus as sort of an emotional cheap shot. That is the phrase I always think of. It's like "go on and take a nice sucker punch to my face". Sometimes a song can have a good hook and be a shitty song, but it gets stuck in your head and that really sucks. But the really good songs twist the knife in your heart.
I'm always working against my own intellect as a writer and as an artist. I try to get out of my head and out of my own way. One way to achieve this is to enjoy a simple melody. That can really can be about as un-intellectual as it gets. There is an escape in melodies, and I like how bass lines and melodies dance together.
Photo courtesy of Koury Angelo Photography
TNC: One important aspect of your group's show is the choreographed dance moves. Can you talk about integrating them into your performance and the overall significance of them?
Alex: In pop music and R&B, choreography is pretty ubiquitous--and it was especially so in the 80s. I feel that because of the age I am, the music that came out in the early 80s is the deepest in my sub-conscious mind. When I think of Prince and David Bowie's presentation, it is just fun to me. For me, it is all about the heightened performance.
Once you start doing choreography in front of a group of people, you have immediately upped the stakes and raised the bar on what people are expecting you to do. I like the pressure of that and it just creates another opportunity to communicate something to an audience in a live setting. It is beyond the writing and the emotional connection of the performance. There is now a visual aspect.
I've heard people say that when we start doing choreography, people immediately feel like it's ok for them to move and dance. As soon as they see us moving, they kind of relax and think "ok, this is going to be something silly so it doesn't really matter what I do". That is the main purpose of the performance. There is nothing I want to see more than seeing a bunch of people dancing.
We all come up with the dance moves together. As we work together more, we are coming up with more choreography. We are still at the beginning of our process. I want the show to become more theatrical and more involved. I don't mean by using lights or props, I mean by becoming more physically engaged and more emotionally charged.
Photo courtesy of Koury Angelo Photography
TNC: Being in a band in the traditional sense, what are your thoughts on the current prominance of DJ culture?
Alex: I love DJs. I love going out and dancing to house music. I've learned so much about music through DJs. I used to work at APT, which was sort of a musical nexus point in New York City for a long time. I just encountered so many great DJs there that hit me with so much great music. Particularly Rich Medina, Bobbito, and a house DJ named Neil Aline.
The tricky thing about DJ culture is that it is still emerging as an art form, and it may take a little while for people to catch up to it and wrap their heads around it. It's definitely an art form and ten years ago I couldn't have imagined it as an art form. You couldn't have explained it to me.
However, from an art perspective, a collage is a piece of art and music selection, at a certain point, with a certain amount of architecture to the choices, becomes an art form. It doesn't matter that it is other people's art. You are making a new statement.
You can trace the point that house music came from disco. In the late 70s, there was Larry Levan and the Paradise Garage downtown New York music scene. At that time, DJ's were creating the first breaks with two record players, but all the instrumentation was still organic.
For me personally, the excitement of our group is that there is barely anything electronic happening. Basically, it all could have been done in the late 60s. But that's where my musical soul and spirit comes from as a musician, and I am simply doing what is obvious to me. However, if I had two turn tables, I would want to spin some house music.
TNC: Can you talk about your latest single Lisa, Lisa, Lisa?
Alex: I had the hook of the song, because I am a hook fisherman and I'm always fishing for hooks, before I knew anybody named Lisa. I was struggling to write lyrics because I was trying to write a story around a hook and it wasn't happening. So it sat there for a while and then this girl popped into my life and we had this really mysterious night. Then I literally filled in the blanks of the song from what actually happened.
We just went out and she had a boyfriend, but it was clear that there was admiration. It was a very civil and polite situation. But I took what happened and put it into the rest of the song.
TNC: Is that generally your writing process? Starting with the hook and going from there?
Alex: That is really annoying to me actually when it happens. I prefer content first and then form. Its annoying when form comes first, because you may not have any content that fits that musical thing [the hook]. Because I'm into soul and an emotional response, sometimes I have to let go of that aspect [starting with the hook] and tell myself "maybe that the song could be about something else, something lighter".
TNC: Where do you want to take the band as things progress?
Alex: I really want to travel the world performing with this group to keep honing the live show and the live material by playing bigger and better places. I love performing, and this group of people that I'm working with has such a great, genuine feeling between everybody. I'm pretty much in love and want to make sure I do everything to keep the relationship right.
I want to keep putting out records and to make cultural events in LA. We are going to do the Yellow Disco at the end of the summer and that will be a monthly disco party. You have to create the culture of what you want to see. What I want to see is performances like we do, and I want to see an extraverted, fun, silly sort of atmosphere in culture that is not so consumed with being cool. Something that can be cool in an innocent way, in the way being cool was in the 50s.
I want our reach to be global, but I really want to create something awesome in LA that sticks around for at least ten years. In a good club scene, there starts to be a familial energy around it. It's not about how old you are or what you look like or how you dress. It becomes a place you want to go to, where you feel like you belong, and that's what it's all about.
Photo courtesy of Koury Angelo Photography
TNC: As a Los Angeles native, can you talk about the evolution of the local music scene as you've seen it?
Alex: I'm pretty excited about the potential for the music scene in LA right now. I'm also excited about what I feel like I can contribute to it. A lot of the work I've done over the years has started to pay off and bear fruit. I love going out in LA. I love places like the Echo and Townhouse in Venice. Silverlake and other areas are becoming gentrified, but when you go out you still feel a very native vibration coming through.
We are clearly at a very transitive and dynamic period in history and anything can happen with the culture scene around it. I would love to contribute something positive and be part of a nurturing atmosphere for artists in LA. I've been working with Carlos Nino, a DJ on KPFK and a music producer our here, and he is part of a music scene on the west side and Santa Monica that I'm really excited about. I love everything that's happening there.
LA is so big and if there is a good thing going on, it will eventually pull good things towards you. It just takes more time in LA. In New York, you find your scene in an area and stick to it. There is always going to be this dark specter of the entertainment industry in LA that will fuck up good art, but I'm from LA and I love it, and know that good things will keep blooming here.
Along with his work with the Feelings, Yellow Alex has released his own solo record. Take a listen below.
Be sure to check out Yellow Alex and the Feelings at Boardner's in Hollywood on February 22nd! There will be free entry before 10:30PM with the flyer below.
