HELLHOUND ON MY TRAIL
An uncensored analysis of blues, singer/songwriter, acoustic, country, Americana, folk, and even jazz.

Critical Acclaim for Daredevil Angel:
"one of the year's best albums...sharply written and heartwarmingly melodic"
Kirby Raine, Hellhound On My Trail, June 4, 2008

Singer/songwriter Matthew Alexander discusses his early experiences with Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen, and Bonnie Raitt

Interview by Kyrby Raine

The music industry, for all of its flaws, offers one of the rarest opportunities you can find in life: The chance to come back and start over again. Singer/songwriter Matthew Alexander was on the verge of a mainstream breakthrough as a young man; however, as you will read below, he missed his train, and not always unintentionally, either. But it doesn’t matter. After a two-decade absence, Alexander has returned with one of the year’s best albums, the sharply written and heartwarmingly melodic acoustic-pop record Daredevil Angel. Alexander discusses the missing years of his rock & roll life.

Kyrby Raine: You once opened up for Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen in the early ’70s. Describe those expriences. Do you still recall them vividly in your mind?

Matthew Alexander: In 1971, I had moved back to New York City from Cambridge to try to make it as a singer/songwriter. I had had a successful run in Boston playing the coffeehouse circuit and wanted to try my hand in the Big Apple. My first year back in New York City, I got hired to do a gig at a music room in Greenwich Village. It turned out that I was the opening act for the opening act, who was Tim Weisburg, who went on to have a successful career as a jazz flutist. The main act was a young man by the name of Billy Joel, who was about to release his first record. He struck me as a good singer and excellent piano player but most of what I remember is how delighted he was to wave to his many friends in the audience.

A much more unforgettable experience for me was opening later that same year for Bruce Springsteen at Kenny’s Castaways, a record industry showcase. Springsteen had just come out with his first record, Greetings from Asbury Park. I was co-leader of the folk-rock trio Moonshine, and we were booked to open for a group called Mirage. When we got to the club for the sound check, we were informed that Mirage had cancelled. When we asked the sound guy who we were opening for, he told us we were opening for the next Bob Dylan. When we asked for the name of this exalted musician, we were told his name was Bruce Springsteen. My buddy and I walked away and muttered to each other, “Yeah, right, like he really has a chance to make it with a first name like Bruce!” (no offense to all the Bruces out there). We did our first set and then settled back to listen to the “next Bob Dylan.”

Springsteen started with a solo acoustic set, and we were unimpressed (and I am sure jealous as well). However, when Springsteen strapped on his electric guitar and brought out the E-Street Band, it was incredible. I knew then that he was going to be very, very big. Even though that was more than 30 years ago, it was simply the greatest live show I have ever seen. We wound up opening for Springsteen for five nights, each doing two sets every night. At the end of each night, Springsteen would thank us. All the members of his band, including Clarence Clemons, were equally gracious. A final image I will always remember is how on the very last night of our run, we all went out for drinks after the show. Springsteen was the last to order and to our collective surprise simply asked for a glass of milk!

Raine: Why did you leave the music industry? When exactly was this?

Alexander: I left the music industry in 1978. I had certainly had my share of successes and setbacks during my seven years pursuing a career in the biz. The first publisher I met with in Los Angeles, for example, heard my demo and immediately got on the phone with a leading producer in town and told him in my presence, “I don’t know who he is, but this kid just walked through the door and he’s got something…when can you see him?” While the producer was looking at his calendar on the other end of the line, the publisher asked me if I had any appointments scheduled that week with other song publishers. When I said yes, he unabashedly told me to cancel them all! I went on to have many songs published while I was in L.A., although not a single one with this publisher.

A more sobering story has to do with an audition I secured with the leading Country & Western publisher in L.A. by the name of Al Gallico (Gallico Music). Gallico’s song screener was a big fan of my songs and
finally got me a personal audition with the big man himself. I walked in with my guitar and started playing a song for the boss who, I am not kidding, sat behind his desk smoking a cigar. I had gotten no more than 15
seconds into the first song when Mr. Gallico interrupted me and said, “That song’s got nothing…what else you got?” Needless to say, I left the audition feeling lower than the floor. Quite coincidentally, there was a
bookstore across the street where I picked up a book on the music business that informed me that it was literally easier to be hit by lightning than to make it in the business.

The final straw was when I took the same song to two different publishers on the same day. The first one loved the chorus but hated the verse. The second one loved the verse but hated the chorus. I figured out after that experience that there was no winning this game and that if I continued trying I would lose my mind!

Perhaps of equal importance was the fact that after having had my songs endlessly critiqued by “master” songwriters and publishers, I was starting to write songs more for their commercial viability than for their personal relevance. The quality of my craft was suffering. I came to realize that perhaps I would be better off holding onto my dream of writing songs and making records but funding this dream myself so that I could have creative independence. And so after finishing graduate school in Ann Arbor, I took a psychology job in North Carolina and started my own record company Caravan Records. It was a good move.

Raine: In 1987, you recorded your debut album, Wishing I Had Wings. How has your music developed in those 20 years?

Alexander: When I recorded Wishing I Had Wings, I lacked the confidence to do my own guitar parts so I hired studio musicians to play guitar, mandolin, dobro, steel guitar and bass. Although there are some great songs on the record, somehow I feel as though I got lost in the mix. Also, the vocals were done last, after all the other instruments were in place. Since making that record, I have come to realize that the most
important part of recording is capturing a magic moment in time, and that such a moment is much more likely to occur for me if I am “in my element,” which is playing guitar and singing at the same time. So on
Daredevil Angel, we started with the guitar and vocal, both of which were recorded simultaneously. After those tracks were done, I laid down second guitar lead parts which I had spent months practicing with a hand-held microcassette recorder. Fred Story, the producer and other musician on the disc, then added his parts. The result is, I believe, a much more organic and open feel than my previous records.

My songwriting over the past 20 years has also evolved to include more spiritual themes such as transcendence and meaning. In the 20 years since Wishing I Had Wings was recorded, I lost both my parents, got married and had kids of my own. These experiences, and a long forced hiatus from music to raise my young children, led me to approach music and songwriting in a more disciplined and focused way. I spend more time, for example, trying to get the lyric just right and perfecting my guitar parts.

One other change has been my going back to previous songs I had written, some as far back as high school and college, and tweaking them lyrically to bring them up to par. I had always been relentless in leaving behind the old songs in pursuit of the newest, “better” song and only recently realized that some of my old songs were pretty good, still had considerable relevance to my life and only needed some minor corrections.
This has been a major revelation for me and parallels my observation that the greatest songs are timeless in their sound and appeal.

Finally, as a guitarist I got away from using finger picks and now play only with my naked fingers. It took some courage to do this but this approach allows me much greater freedom rhythmically and melodically.

Raine: In your bio you mention once being friends with Bonnie Raitt. Have you kept in contact with her?

Alexander: I met Bonnie during our freshman year at Harvard. I first heard about her when my best friend, Mike Felsen, came back from her dorm room telling me that she had taken out her guitar and that she was a “good player.” Bonnie had a crush on Mike’s roommate. Although that relationship never developed, we all became friends. Bonnie and I would occassionally go out and talk music over coffee. I remember seeing her perform at one of her first coffeehouse gigs in Boston when there were seven people in the audience. Soon thereafter, she played at a songwriting festival I organized at Harvard. When she dropped out of Radcliffe to pursue her musical career, she was kind enough to set up an audition for me with her manager, Dick Waterman. I usually try to get back stage to see her when she performs in town although it has been a while. I have been sending her songs of mine for years, was able to get her a copy of Daredevil Angel and have not given up my dream of her one day recording one of my songs (Bonnie, are you listening?).

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