Jam Session with Alex Hicks

On one night, she sits on the dark stage, flooded with purple light, her face and chest in a black corset splattered with blood-red paint, she won’t even look up from her guitar raging with brutal riffs, while the large scale live painting behind her shapes up a story of a dark romance. Another night, she’ll pour you a pint at the café where she works, then leaps over the bar, casually grabs her acoustic guitar, and co-sing Karma Police as the regular opening act of the Wedsnesday Open Mic. True to her Gemini self, Alex Hicks is hard to pin down to one personality trail, or category of art, let alone music genre. During our talk, Alex often burst into laughter or once into an old sappy country song. Here is what the VIU schooled singer, dancer, performer and painter has to say about jamming, stage fright, and the music in grocery stores.

Where do your memories begin?

My dad built the house and, we lived in a trailer meanwhile, then moved to the basement as he continued building. There was lots of mud for my brother and I to play with. And the small town life. We lived 20 minutes away from Pikton with population of 4000, so growing up, it was really big for me.

When did you first feel this musical itch?

I remember a moment when I was walking down the hallway to the washroom in elementary school and was singing a song. And I thought, ‘Yeah, that sounds really good’ (laughs). When I was five I sang in my first talent show. My mom plays the piano but she’s really shy, so she won’t play in front of people. My dad plays the guitar and sings. He won’t miss an opportunity to perform. You pass him a guitar and he’ll have it the entire night and play for everybody. He always urged me to pursue music. But before I was singing I was dancing. I wanted to be a dancer and I took lessons to get my energy out. I was wiry kid, so I had to dance that shit off (laughs).

What did dancing give you?

Confidence. I knew I was good at it. Plus I was a control freak and loved telling my friends what to do. And choreographed dances and organized productions with these little girls (laughs). I felt really really good when I danced. And I still do.

So when did this transition from dancing to singing happen?

When I was five years old, my dad and I started to perform at the country fair every year. I got a lot of encouragement from the audience as a kid putting myself out there. But it wasn’t until I entered this country singing contest which was a couple hours away from our town. And I sucked balls! I was so bad! They would have you rehearse with a band for a few minutes and when the time came to perform, they’d give you the first note and you’d go in. And I sang the one song entirely off pitch. I didn’t even realize that until my dad told me after. I was horrified by the experience of humiliating myself in front of people. But it was such a lesson for a kid. Not the best sort of feeling, but before that, with all the small town encouragement, I thought I was the shit (laughs).

What about the guitar?

AH: I didn’t even notice the guitar until like grade eight or nine. And this is going to sound so cliché, but my dad was playing “Stairway To Heaven”, the most cliché song you can get inspired by, but I felt like ‘I wanna do that’. And then every day I would get home after school and go right into the basement and play my guitar and I did that obsessively. I can’t say there was anything else I’d obsess about like I obsessed about my guitar.

Did you take classes?

I took one class in high school and they just showed us simple three accord songs and I got bored with that. But our music teacher let us into the quiet room and just jam. I hang out with some guys that were playing power chords and taught me to play some Iron Maiden songs. And let’s face it, Iron Maiden is hilarious. Funny dramatic stuff. But I was stoked to learn the power chord. I still play it.

What are your musical influences?

It’s all over the map. I enjoy a lot of music and I don’t search for it. I’m always influenced by people around me and what they’re into. Like my best friend when I was growing up. Her parents were so different from mine. They were European and their house was like nothing I’d seen before. The way they decorated it, the food they ate, the music they listened to was all foreign to me. I went over there for a sleepover one day, and in the morning Milly’s dad was playing Buena Vista Social Club. That was nothing I’d heard before. I loved that shit because you could dance to it. So if I could draw any sort of connection in music I like it’s something you can move to. It doesn’t necessarily have to be something upbeat, but if it moves me then I’ll listen to it.

Speaking of movement, is there any music that makes run really far away really fast?

(pauses) I don’t like spending a lot of time in Shoppers Drug Mart or grocery stores, because the music in there is horrifying -in a super aggressive way. Oh, I know! Noodle Box! I had a really terrible experience there. I went and ordered Pad Thai thinking it would be good. It was gross and dry, and the music was crazy loud. This throbbing club music which did not suit the environment at all, and made Noodle Box feel like such a cheese ball corporation. I wanted to go running out of that place and never come back.

It’s funny that you tend to pin music down to locations rather than naming genres you don’t like.

Genres are so cloudy these days. I can’t tell you I don’t like pop music, because that would be a lie. I love pop music, I just don’t like when it’s shitty pop music. And that’s the stuff you find way too easily in drug stores.

What do you think you are best at in life?

I’m trying to create art that incorporates all these things I enjoy and am good at in a swift movement. I can feel in my life right now – where I’m living and who I’m surrounded by- that all these things are starting to come into motion with one another. They’re still a little separate because I don’t know yet how to put them together, but then again, when you ask me how I got to playing the music I play now, I don’t even know what that means. It’s all sorts of things. Right now I love playing the electric guitar and jamming with people, sharing these ideas and seeing where it goes.

What does good jamming feel like to you?

It’s like meditation. You’re constantly letting go of what you just did and also taking whatever comes. Being open to things. Like playing a weird note and being able to say “oh, that sounded gorgeous’. Who’s going to say that it’s wrong? I tend prefer the spontaneity over knowing exactly what’s going to happen. But I’d like to have balance of these two. There’s something more that I’m going for than just pure spontaneity. There’s this other, neurotic, part of me that wants to create an actual show or a story to say something.

Does spontaneity bring you more inspiration?

Do you remember the a-capella song I sang the other night? I wrote that one during closing time at work. I was going through the tasks and humming a melody. I attached a word here and there and without thinking about forming a sentence or a full thought, another word came and the thought formed itself. Sometimes it’s the other way round. I don’t know how to explain it. That song just came very easily because I allowed it to come easily. It felt good. I kept repeating it and repeating it until I was done work. Then I went up to my room and recorded it over and over, practiced so many times that I started to feel paranoid that my roommates could hear me, get annoyed and be like “Shut up, sounds fine, go to bed!”

How do you like recording your music?

AH: I’ve put out a record before and I hate it. I can’t listen to it for long, but when I do, I hear my voice that was just too young, the ideas that were underdeveloped and put down into some sense permanence.

Do you feel like it was time wasted?

No, it had to happen. I like how crisp it sounds, but I don’t like my singing. You can tell I was not comfortable.

How do you become comfortable and effortless in your singing?

Both with time and with the desire to do so. It goes back to meditation. Well, I don’t mediate. I use that word but it’s not like I sit down in silence. I’d say, when you speak, feel your voice, get in touch with it. Your voice is an organic instrument which is reliant on your health… Or not even that. Tom Waits and Billie Holliday were heavily smoking and drinking, but their voice was authentically them because they were comfortable with themselves. And taking lessons helped me because I had someone else watch me while I was singing. These teachers don’t just give you voice lessons, they’re teaching you how to be comfortable in your skin. They’re able to see where you discomforts are and how to help. I’ve heard so many people say “oh I wish I could sing.’ I know they want to sing because they see how good it feels. That’s the desire. And then something stops them. There’s this closedness in the body. I’ve felt that before and I can tell when someone has that. It helps to have someone point out some techniques and teach you how to use your diaphragm and how to breathe. Breathing is huge!

Do you have stage fright?

Yes, but I move past it very quickly because I can’t handle it. It’s way more important to me that I get to perform than focus on the fact that I’m scared. If I can just keep my cool and breathe, the feeling of fear is actually beneficial. I crave that feeling. If I don’t have that little bit of nervousness, then it’s probably going to be a pretty shitty show. It’s going to be lifeless. And that’s scarier than anything else.

What brought you over here?

I came for the jazz program. Coming out of highs school, I knew I wanted to be creative in some way and music stood out for me. I applied to two schools. One in Toronto, the jazz program in Hum.. where I didn’t get in because I didn’t know enough theory and my scales were off. But I got accepted to Malaspina. I was stoked; I felt that’s where I wanted to be, locationally.

So what is on your horizon right now?

I would like to free myself more. As much as I love playing the guitar, I feel that that’s always going to stay in the realm of hanging with the boys and jamming. That’s not much about performing, but rather enjoying sound for yourself. I would like to get more into vocal, hands-off-the-guitar performance and feed that other part of my brain that’s writing the notes. And I have this fantasy about making a music video with a bunch of chicks on long boards, singing and doing synchronized moves (laughs). I love physical performance. That’s where my heart is. So if I could combine all those things… But right now it’s just shaping. And I’m not going to force it. I’m just figuring it all out!

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#interview #music #nanaimo