Interview: Alex Calder
What is there to say about Alex Calder? One might call him a modern renaissance man. This man just goes in. In addition to his debut EP Time, released through Captured Tracks, along with his music available through Bandcamp, Alex has challenged himself with feats such as cooking, acting, and being a cool dude with a dope style. He let us ask him a few questions via email about his several careers along with a few questions about Rob Schneider, Billy Corgan, and Makeup Tutorials.
What’s the difference between releasing music through Mold Boy vs Alex Calder?
There’s really no difference.I kind of started it as a bit of a legal thing, where I just wanted to be releasing music as I pleased and put whatever out. Wanted to keep the identity of it secret, but I got a little greedy and now they kind of both just coexist haha.
What opted the decision to create instrumentals for your latest release “FATAL RELAY”?
I would consider all of those songs more demos that I couldn’t immediately think of vocals for. I still want to do something with them vocal wise. I like Bandcamp because you get that immediacy with music, which I really enjoy because I make songs pretty fast and loose. So it’s kind of a nice way of testing the waters with my stuff, so if people go “hey I like this one” it gives me a lot more motivation to go back and work on them. Kind of backwards way of doing things, but I enjoy it.
On your “About Me” you describe yourself as a musician, culinary student, and actor. Can you name a few of your acting influences?
Adam Sandler and Mike Myers.
Have any luck booking acting gigs recently?
No luck so far. I worked as an extra on a really low budget movie in Montreal and I really enjoyed it. You get paid to just sit around all day and play games on your iphone so it’s really nice and easy work. Also, once the camera gets rolling I loved trying to get in there as much as possible. Hopefully I will get more jobs like that where I can hog the spotlight.
Best and worse thing about Canada?
I guess the best thing most people would say is the health care. The worst is the winter here, but that’s also a good thing because that’s when I tend to make music the most.
Do you ever miss your short lived cooking career? What’s your best dish?
I try not to think of that side of my life as being over. I make a mean poutine, (obviously you have to if you live in Montreal, Quebec)
What led to the creation of the look-alike blog “Alex as Quentin Tarantino“?
I’m not really sure actually. I guess just goofing around on macbook photo booth a bunch and I started realizing how insane Quentin Tarantino’s face is and I found some neat effects that could recreate it.
Favorite Rob Schneider movie?
Big Stan
What’s the usually process of writing a new song? Do you ever channel your inner Billy Corgan?
I tend to start out with most songs by writing a guitar line I like. Vocal always come last because that’s the least thing I am confident about. I am not a good singer whatsoever, and I’m not sure if I’ll ever be, but I try.
I wish I could channel my inner Billy Corgan better. A lot of people really hate him and his voice, but I really really like his voice. I love when he gets that little whiney scream going on, which most of my friends hate when I play it around the house. The instrumentals are so good and cool and fit right into this “cool” 90s shoegaze feeling, but then you have this absolute freak screaming and whining over top like a little bitch, so it makes it so much more charismatic to me.
So you’ve drawn anime eyes on yourself, what I want to know is what’s next?
Well I guess just mainly the $$$ that I am making off of that video. I monetized it, so I’ve made a little over $2.00 off of it at this point. But I guess the next big thing in my career is sort of a secret, but lets just say it involves being a full time professional poker player from now on.
Best rapper in the game out right now?
I don’t really like rap whatsoever. Most of my friends like a lot of rap, but I’ve never gotten into it. I did just watch a neat documentary on Stones Throw though. I guess if I had to pick somebody maybe like MF Doom? Is that rap? Anyways, I have his MM FOOD record, which I enjoy quite a bit, but that might be because the instrumentals are so good.
Name the top 3 things to do blindfolded.
Listen to porno, play pinball, guitar solo
Any shouts out?
Shout out to Evan Prosofsky.
Do you have any other projects or releases coming up?
For the moment, no.
I started on my next album, but that’s in the real early stages.
Hopefully just going to do a butt load of touring, which I haven’t really done that much, once my record comes out officially on $`~VINYL~`$.
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