Alex Heaney - Essential Forever Interview
Heaney has found himself in the same scene in LA as artists such as Pearl & the Oysters and Kate Bollinger, enlisting musicians like Ben Varian of Pearl & The Oysters for the upcoming second Essential Forever record and contributing his retro tastes to work on Kate Bollinger's "Who Am I But Someone" music video. While he's worked with a wide array of musicians and artists, including playing in Jungle Green and Spencer Tweedy's band, he's getting ready to share his own music with the self-titled Essential Forever later this summer.
When and where were you born? What was your childhood like growing up? When did you first begin to fall in love with music? Was music something that was relevant around your household growing up?
I was born in Kettering, Ohio in May of 1996. I grew up in a town called Beavercreek. My upbringing was working class midwestern, suburban America, one of those towns off the freeway. My mom worked at a travel agency, and my dad was an english professor at a community college. My mom took the two of us on hikes and trips to apple orchards, I accompanied her in her garden, and mowed the lawn in the summer. Dad got me into baseball, little league, and taught me how to fish and grill. Looking back I’ve very grateful, even though I eventually became obsessed with moving away and seeing the world at large like many suburban kids do. My mom had me take piano lessons from a fairly young age, and it stuck. My parents love music, but are not themselves musicians, although my mom’s dad whom I unfortunately never met was a working Jazz pianist. Towards the middle of high school I started acknowledging that writing songs, and recording them were the most fulfilling times for me. I had a little basement area where I taught myself how to make stuff on garage band. I think I really fell in love with music around my senior year of high school, when I started seeking out more and, more music — especially music that was older or sounded unique in a way that I later found out denoted analog recording — and experienced how songs can transport you to a new world through songwriting, and recording techniques / attitudes.
What would you and your brother do for fun growing up? Who were some of your earliest influences in your more formative years? When and where did you see your first concert and when did you realize you wanted to spend your life pursuing music?
My brothers are half brothers and much older than me, so they weren’t around all too often throughout my upbringing. But I looked up to them like crazy, and when they were around it was like pure adrenaline every second. We would play video games, or I would go with them to run errands, or mess around in the backyard. They were my biggest role models. The younger of the two, Colin, gave my parents a CD of music he liked which found its way to me, and I vividly remember hearing “Fight Test” by The Flaming Lips. That’s the first song I remember hearing and just needing to sit down. I think my first concert was in Chicago, my oldest brother Sean lived there at the time, still does, and when I was maybe 16, or 17 I took the bus to go see him for like a week. We went to the Pitchfork Festival, and I saw a ton of acts that blew my young mind. I saw Flying Lotus and got super into sampling and making beats. I wouldn’t say I ever realized that I wanted to spend my life pursuing music. I tried my best to pursue other things to a degree. I dropped out of college after going for music for a year, then when I went back to college I went for filmmaking. It’s been more of a gradual embrace of music being the most fulfilling way for me to express myself, and needing to find ways to do that sustainably.
Did you participated in any other groups, or projects outside of EF? What initially inspired this project as well as the name? Tell me about writing and recording the group’s S/T album. When and where did recording begin and what was the overall vision for this album? Would you mind walking me through some of the background to songs such as “Boy”, “In Your Arms” and “Where The People Are” and “I’m Here My Friend”?
I was in a band called Jungle Green, which was my musical focus living in Chicago from like 2015 - 2021. All throughout my time in Chicago I released my own music recreationally under different names for each album, until I put out a weird disco EP called “words for you” as Essential Forever, and the name captured my imagination. It seemed like a private joke, but it was also a reference to my passion for both discovered artists like Margo Guryan and Emitt Rhodes, and also “best of compilations” of artists I hadn’t heard before dug out of record store dollar bins. I felt it gave me the mental freedom to reference whatever genre, or sound I wanted to. During the pandemic I obviously had a lot of time on my hands, so after shifts as an “essential worker” at my neighborhood pastry shop in Chicago I applied myself to writing, and recording demos for this S/T album. I wanted it to be a more personal statement than my first record. I felt like I had found my voice a lot more, and knew what I wanted from the demo process, then the pandemic started waning and my partner Emma, and I made plans to move to Los Angeles.
Once we got settled here in 2021, I knew I wanted to record the album in a studio, but a lot of things seemed uncertain. Luckily I found a fast friend in the great Ben Varian, who let me use his recording space at night, which was out of the back of a community theater in Pasadena. He helped me engineer, played on several tracks on the finished record, and eventually mixed it with me. The vision for the sessions was to make the most out of the analog tape, and digital equipment we had, and use techniques inspired by older records in the room to make the recordings sound new, but timeless, and grounded in the energy of the studio. “Boy” came about when I started singing from the fictionalized perspective of a woman I knew, and her relationship to her ex-husband, and the father of her child. While producing I found that layering countermelodies gave the song a Lou Reed meets Dion “Born to be With You” feel to the song that I really liked. I recorded a lot of electric guitars indirectly to make it sound boxed it. Ben Varian played drums, and I did the rest. Ryan Pollie let me use his studio to record piano takes.
“In Your Arms” started out by thinking of how Roy Orbison would write a song, then taking that structure, and giving it a downer attitude like Highway 61 Revisited. The lyrics reflect on times in my life I’ve felt lonely in the world. Recording the song was really about trying to make the room sound as big as possible and give everything that old-school cathedral recording feel of a Scott Walker, or Orbison song. We bounced a lot of things to tape and back to digital. Ben Varian played drums and timpani, I played Pollie’s piano on this as well, and did everything else. “Where The People Are” is kind of about being an outsider, also playing a prank on that idea a bit. I wrote it to be a mean little punk/glam song. The recording was pretty straight forward. I did all of it. The electric guitars were recorded on a stereo mic at Rado’s studio. “I’m Here My Friend” went through lots of iterations before I made it into a long, slow folk song. I changed the vibe of the song completely one night pretty late in the process and ended up feeling like the slow build, and scarcity of the recording made for the truest version of it. Also a track that I recorded all the parts for.
What was your experience working with Jonathan Rado of P and the O? What have you been up to so far this summer? Any gigs, or tours in the works? Is there anything else you would like to further share with the readers?
I didn’t work with Rado on this record, but I did record a few tracks at his studio with my friend/engineer Rias Reed. When I Knew Jane and See Me Again were both almost entirely done there. Rias played some guitar, organ, and drums throughout these tracks. Working with Ben was a dream. He’s a great friend, and he was instrumental in the creation of the album — from his great ear as an engineer to his fabulous drumming. He throws a mean curveball on the wiffle diamond too. He has it all. This summer I’ve been working at Hank’s Bagels in the valley, and writing new songs, hanging out with friends, building some new studio spaces around town, and getting ready to put out this record I worked very hard on. Living it up! Yeah! Musicians: reach out on instagram if you want to work together. I’ll produce, track, mix, and/or master your record. I did all that for my record, and I would love to branch out, and do the same for other people’s songs.
Thanks!
New soundcloud single.
