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September 15, 2006 > Arts & Entertainment > Damnwells’ Dezen speaks in ’Stereo

Damnwells’ Dezen speaks in ’Stereo

Brooklyn band’s front man talks studio recordings, Houston gig, students’s need for leisure

By Julia Bursten | Thresher Editorial Staff

The 1980s had overproduced, piano-heavy pop and ragged punk that was more politics than melody. The alternative ’90s, flowing from Seattle, spawned waves of college radio and countered a mainstream music culture populated by Vanilla Ice, Will Smith, the Backstreet Boys and Britney. So far, this decade’s recording scene has produced some of the most innovative hip-hop on wax, as well as mind-numbing rap and pop. And rock these days is often more generic than it is timeless.

But Brooklyn’s The Damnwells have fulfilled only the second of these traits with their latest LP, Air Stereo, which dropped Aug. 16. Lead singer and guitarist Alex Dezen spoke with the Thresher about the release, the band’s upcoming concert this Tuesday at the Mink, and why Rice students should get out of the library and into the city.

How does Air Stereo differ from your first full-length album, Bastards of the Beat?

Essentially, Bastards of the Beat was a collection of demos. … Air Stereo’s really our first attempt at making a real record where you go in and sit down and actually think about the song as opposed to just showing up and recording whatever we’ve gotten together. There was some real thought process.

How did you like studio recording?

It was incredibly satisfying and also incredibly frustrating. Going into the studio, you go in with certain expectations — not necessarily grand ones, but just expectations for your own self, and sometimes you find yourself unable to achieve what you thought or what you had sought to achieve. But the serendipitous thing is you maybe wind up with something even cooler. I think “Golden Days” is one of those songs where we went into the studio with a totally different idea than what we actually came out with. What we came out with was a lot cooler than what we went in with.

What is your favorite thing about “Golden Days”?

It’s sonically intriguing: I just enjoy listening to it. I think it sounds satisfying. There’s something about it that’s kind of reminiscent of ’70s pop. I always liked those sounds, like Fleetwood Mac and Cheap Trick — bands that have kind of a heavy sound at times but that can also be very lush.

How does your live sound compare with your sound on Air Stereo?

I’ve never felt like records should sound like live performances, necessarily, because the live performance is more of the nature of improvisation. The recording is really a moment in time, a specific moment in a specific way the song was interpreted, however that’s done, if it’s with strings or whatever. But when’s it’s live, it’s about us four guys on stage and the chemistry between us, so I’m not really trying to recreate the record.

Why should Rice students come to your show?

Rice does have one of the most recognized graduate programs for musical composition. I know that because a friend of mine that I played with in college went there for her master’s. At one point when she was a teacher’s assistant she’d asked me to come speak to her composition class. Now I don’t know anything about the fundamentals of academic music. I don’t know how to read music or write music, so this was kind of an interesting idea to have me come in and talk to her students who were studying music to kind of get them out of the textbooks and into the reality of what they’re trying to accomplish, which is sound — music. So I think to have a healthy curriculum you need to step outside of the classroom and see what’s relevant culturally or musically or artistically. When [I was] in college, I wish I had thought of it as a great opportunity to sit back and let life do its thing in front of [me] and take in what you want and reject what you didn’t mix with. But getting out of the classroom and going to see live music is essential to anybody’s liberal arts education or otherwise.

My friend who was TA-ing this class felt like her students were so overwhelmed by the academic aspects that they weren’t listening to the music anymore. When you study art, you almost forget that it’s art, that it’s this amazing work of genius — Mondrian or Monet or whatever — because you’re too busy trying to study the brushstrokes.

End of article

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