TMN New Artist: Alex Dezen

On February 12, 2016, Alex Dezen, founder, frontman and main songwriter for the Brooklyn-bred four-piece The Damnwells, will embark on his next musical phase by issuing his first full-length solo set, an appropriately eponymous, deeply personal, 10-track self-portrait of a man now ready to lay the foundation for his own identity as a solo artist.

“When words alone are not enough, you need to say it in a song,” says Dezen, when asked why he felt now was the right time to write and record his inaugural full-fledged solo album. As Dezen describes, a creative burst during a stint in Ohio over New Year’s 2015 sowed the seeds for tracks that would be recorded in Los Angeles during January and February. “I didn’t write like 30 songs and just kind of pick the 10 best. These are 10 songs that I had to write.” The bulk of the sonic slices on the album are served up straight from past personal, and often painful, experiences. “The good thing about writing these songs is that when I have to talk about them I can just say, literally, all you have to do is read the lyrics. Because it’s not like its coached in some kind of flowery metaphor.”

The lyrical focus on family and friends, politics and pop culture portrayed in songs such as “Ode To Ex-Girlfriends” (a tender tribute to a series of exes and their moms), “If You Can Say I Love You On A Greeting Card How Can It Be True” (a tale of domestic drama), “Into the Hands of Hazelton” (a sonic equivalent of a buddy road picture), “Leonardo” (a tip of the cap to his girlfriend’s fantasy celebrity freebie, Leonardo DiCaprio) and the intensely personal “I Don’t Want To Be Alone When I Die,” led to Dezen’s decision not to collaborate with other writers on any of the songs on the record. “These are all me,” he says.

Alex Dezen is now playing on TMN Radio.