Interview with local singer/songwriter Alex Grantham

Alex Grantham was born in Toronto to two former actors turned writers and moved to Paris, ON when he was five. His introduction to rock music arose out of visits to the Ben-Mar family fun centre with his dad. “After playing mini-putt or rocking the go carts, we'd stop into the Johnny B Good restaurant for some food before leaving. The restaurant was supposed to be this mock 50s retro thing, so they had a great jukebox with old Elvis and Chuck Berry singles on it. I used to get off my chair and start dancing in front of total strangers,” says Alex. He also tells me that his dad used to play Beatles and Paul Simon records in the house. Which he loved, “but I didn't take a serious interest into rock music until around the age of 11, when my best friend at the time introduced me to Nirvana,” he says. “Everything changed after that,” he continues “culminating with me asking for a guitar on my 11th birthday,” He started taking lessons soon after. Alex is always eager to cite his teacher, Nick Bastian, as playing a pivotal role in not just the development of his guitar playing skills, but his continued appreciation and understanding of pop music in general. “After dealing with years of intense performance anxiety,” he admits. Alex finally started performing his own original material around 2007.

Alex believes that his style of music is informed by all the artists he’s taken a liking to over the years, which is many. “If I had to define my style, I'd say it's firmly grounded in the tradition of classic singer/songwriting similar to Lennon/McCartney, Dylan, Paul Simon, but stranger, and steered by a fiercely independent, punk-rock mentality,” says Alex. “I think based on the current state of the music industry, including the trivialization of the all-consuming record label and the rise of the do-it-yourself approach, it’s important to grab onto a niche and exploit it,” he says. Alex thinks this is the result of an over-saturation of bands in general. “Anybody with a rudimentary home-recording setup and an internet connection can now start a band and ask people to listen, like me!” he says excitedly. Alex is concerned with separating himself from the majority and he believes he does this through his recording style and the emphasis he places on strong lyric-writing.

When he became disenchanted with his current state of affairs back home, Alex decided to go to school. “After much deliberation, I decided to forgo a course that might have generated more fruitful returns financially in order to pursue my passion,” says Alex. He stumbled across a one-year program called Independent Music Production through the Seneca college website, and after submitting his application package, Alex was accepted into the May 2009 class. Overall, Alex found the course to be inspiring and extremely helpful in terms of carving a meaningful route for his music and himself. “Before I essentially lacked the confidence and tools to progress my art beyond the realms of my parent's basement,” he admits. “I now feel like I possess a much clearer understanding of what it takes to succeed and endure in the new music industry, which should probably be re-named the entrepreneurial or small-business arts,” he says playfully. The most important lesson he learned is that “many of the old adages remain true. The most driven artists with the strongest work ethics are far more likely to succeed than the rest,” says Alex. He attributes this to the enormous amount of work inherent in the do-it-yourself method of operation. In addition to creating the art, independent artists may be responsible for marketing, promotion, manufacturing, distribution, merchandising, accounting, legalities and tour booking, to name some. They are also expected to maintain a strong, active and personal relationship with fans, which Alex says “may sit in stark contrast to the old idea of the artist being a reclusive and introverted personality type,”

Alex has chosen to forego walking down the big label road. He says it’s “because I know the history of labels and big music is rife with injustice, the relinquishing of creative control, extreme highs, extreme lows and more. Being independent was about retaining real control, and that attracted me immensely,”
Alex told me about how he has embraced social media to increase his audience. “The new wave of cost-efficient tools and resources brought on by the internet increased the ease of being an independent artist tenfold. I, like many others, use social networking sites like Facebook, Myspace and Twitter to establish and maintain my online presence,” he says.
“The greatest advantage of these sites is that they essentially provide me with a way of promoting my music for free. Otherwise I'd be forced to spend hundreds of dollars on buying ad space in magazine and newspapers, or printing flyers and posters. Online promotion would be useless if no one was ever exposed to it, but the massive popularity of the internet has made online marketing at least equally as effective as the traditional models of advertising – and it's free,”
Beyond the promotional advantages, Alex also uses social networking as a way of keeping in direct contact with fans and providing them with fresh material as often as possible. This may include sharing new demos, photos, blogs, show information etc. He says “it's basically a way to remain in the collective conscious and keep fans updated,” While Alex appreciates the benefits of social media and the integral role it is playing in his career as an artist, he admits it's not without its drawbacks. “To be perfectly honest, I dislike the task of promoting myself, and sometimes cringe when having to face it, which is often. Much of the ample amount of time I spend with social media used to go towards writing, and I miss the frequency with which I'm able to do so,”

Overall, Alex says he’s happy with the path he’s on and will continue venturing down it for the foreseeable future. “It's unpredictable and often exciting, and that's more than I can say for a lot of things. I deal with the occasional annoyances by reminding myself that no one ever gets something they truly want without having to accept compromise. It's sort of like growing up – within reason,”

Check out Alex’s website for more info and upcoming shows