SORROWS - ARTHUR ALEXANDER INTERVIEW : “I was a HUGE fan of French 60’s pop music"

Sorrows are back, Arthur Alexander and his band have just released "PARTING IS SUCH SWEET SORROW" on Big Stir Records. This is powerpop at its finest. Gérard is the questioner, Arthur the answerer. Thanks to both of them.

Arthur, can you tell us about the Sorrows' origins in New York?

I started Sorrows following the breakup of The Poppees. The initial band lineup lasted about 6 months. I wasn’t happy with it, so I dismantled it and started from scratch.

First to join was Jett Harris, The Poppees’ drummer. I heard he just left the band he joined after leaving The Poppees so rung him up. We had, a telephone conversation and Jett asked me what sort of vision did I have for my new band? I blurted out: “ABBA meets The Sex Pistols!”… there was a long pause on the phone, I thought he hung up on me… then about 30 sec. later Jett said: “I’m IN!”.

Next came this guy from a newspaper ad we put in. He looked like a fucking refugee from Allman Brothers Band and had the ugliest guitar I’ve ever seen, which he played holding it up by his chin (or may be higher?). I showed him one of my songs and we went at it. By the middle of the first verse Jett and I looked at each other and wordlessly nodded: “yeah, that’s the guy!” I asked him if he’d be willing to cut his hippy hair, shave off his mustache, drop the guitar down to his balls and get a decent (read: cool-looking) guitar. He said ‘yes’… Joey Cola was in the band!

Then came a long succession and a revolving door of bass players. Some filling in, to help us out, some “momentarily permanent” – meaning, they did join the band, but just weren’t cutting it, so they didn’t last long. After one of our shows in Washington, DC, which we played very frequently, this guy approached me, said his name was Ricky Street, that he was a huge fan of the band; rattled off a whole list of bands that he liked, checking all my boxes, and asked if he could audition for us. I said: “If you wanna come to New York? Sure!”… and he DID!... The guy had a fantastic stage presence, great vocals, and really understood the whole rock ‘n’ roll vibe about Sorrows. Ricky never went back to DC, taking up residence in the reclining chair in our rehearsal loft…

… and Sorrows were off to the races!

Were you influenced by this New York scene and by other bands (Cars, Plimsouls, Romantics, Poppees)?

I’d say, most definitely, I was influenced by The Poppees! I was one of the band’s co-founders! LOL

There’s no question that I, and for that matter everybody else, was influenced by the scene. All the bands crossing paths with each other on nightly basis, the whole community that the scene created was incredibly vibrant. You simply could not help but to absorb and assimilate the sounds you heard around you, how people dressed, etc. That said, just like with the Poppees, I had a very definite vision for Sorrows, our look and sound. And although the temptation was there to try look and sound like the bands that were the “darlings of the scene”, my centerpiece and focus was on our own music direction. I knew exactly where I wanted to go with my music and I believed in what we were doing.

Why did you choose to sign with Pavillion Records?

Honest answer? Because they wanted us! It was a dream of every young band to get signed, to get a major label deal. Our lawyer told us the contract they gave us was the worst he’s ever seen. We still signed it. To their credit, they seemed like really cool people and a blast to work with… at first. Sadly, then things turned dark and ugly. REALLY dark, and REALLY ugly.

How was “Teenage Heartbreak”, your first album, received?

It received a fantastic reception, a lot of radio play, rave reviews. Unfortunately, our “mother label”, CBS Records, was not very interested in promoting us. Promotion was very expensive and it was much better business for them to simply license records from already established UK bands and just put out their records. No uncertainty as to whether, after a great expense, they will deliver a great record or a piece of crap. They knew up front what they were getting, now all they needed to do is print it, put it out… and the money starts rolling in! I still remember at some point we were told that, without ANY promotion(!), “Teenage Heartbreak” became The Song of The Summer in Seattle!... (of all places!... it rains there all the time!). You’d think, CBS would jump all over it, sent us there to tour and promote the record… nothing. We played a really big festival in Chicago called “Summer Fest”, co-headlining on one of the stages along with The Four Tops and Ray Charles. Before the show, I walked into Sam Goody’s, one of the biggest (if not THE biggest) record stores in the country at the time. Not a single copy of Sorrows album in sight. Need I say more?...

Can you tell us what happened in the making of “Love Too Late”, your second album?

Oh yes, I could tell you… and plenty! In a nutshell, as we were getting ready to make our follow-up to “Teenage Heartbreak”, we were given a chance to work on “Love Too Late” with a legendary producer, Shel Talmy. He was like God to us. The man produced The Who, The Kinks, Small Faces, you know, all bands that we loved. We worshiped the ground he walked on.

Sadly, it quickly became obvious that Shel, and our record label had their own ideas. They just didn’t bother to share them with us…

But before I turn this question into a “War and Peace”-size book… it’s actually best if you watch this video. We made it in conjunction with the release of “Love Too Late… the real album”, and why it’s called that way….

This second album features Ellen Foley and Karla de Vito (Meat Loaf), how did you meet?

First, a minor correction. It was not the second album. It’s the song “She Comes and Goes”, from our first, “Teenage Heartbreak” album, which features this incredible ensemble – Ellen Foley, Karla De Vido, Ellie Greenwich (LOOK her up! She was the real star of the show!), Mikie Harris and Susan Hall. We called them “Sorrowettes”!

The way I wrote the song, its central character is a girl, and the verses are about her, but when the middle part hits, the roles change, it’s now her, proclaiming her undying love and devotion to her hero and idol.

Joey Cola sings lead on this one, and it just didn’t feel quite right to have him sing “her” part. It felt to me like it should be a girl. Arrangement-wise, I always had this idea of keeping the verses stripped down to bare bones and when the middle part hits…everything explodes! Being always a huge fan of Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound that was the sound I went after for that part. This in turn brought up the idea of having a girl group, like The Ronettes, or The Shirelles singing in that part of the song. People at our label knew Ellen, Elli and the others, and before we knew it, Sorrowettes were born! They were a total such a blast to be with in the studio. An unforgettable experience.

During this long period (1981-2021) you recorded two solo albums, the first in 2018 (One Bar Left) you continued to evolve in the music world?

After moving to Los Angeles I primarily immersed myself in music production and recording work, as well as post-production for film and TV as a sound editor. Frankly, I thought that my days as a recording and performing artist were behind me. I simply lost the desire to write and record my own stuff. Then, around 2008-2010 two things happened. I started getting involved with young bands playing on the LA scene and producing their records. Then, in 2010 I produced a re-release of the first Sorrows album, released on Bomp! Records as “Bad Times Good Times”. This resulted in Sorrows getting together again and playing a West Coast and then East Coast Tour. Slowly but surely, that lit the fire under my ass to get creative again. I guess that fire never died, it just needed some oxygen! In fact, “One Bar Left”, the lead off track on my first solo album was written on the Sorrows tour. Then, in 2021 came the second one “… steppin’ out!” and now I’m working on completing the third one! No rest for the wicked! LOL

On this first solo album, there's a track that might strike a chord with French audiences: “un peu plus longtemps” sung in French!!!! Can you tell us the story behind this track?

I actually wrote that song for Sorrows. At some point, for about 15 minutes, we had a French guy in the band and I gave the song to him to sing it. Then I had the idea to have him also do it in French (‘cause… why not?!). Soon enough, the guy was gone from the band, but the idea remained. When I decided to do my own version of it as part of the “One Bar Left” album I asked a French friend I have to write me French lyrics for it so I could do also a French version of it (I was a HUGE fan of French 60’s pop music (Johnny Hallyday, Les Chausettes Noires, Francoise Hardy, Juliette Greco, Edith Piaf, Silvie Vartan, George Brassens, etc.). Then, as I was recording it, she became my language coach to make sure my French pronunciation was good. I love French language, so I was hell-bent on sounding like a Frenchman. Finally, she said I did… she’s a good friend, so she probably lied! Hahaha… You tell me!!?!?

Between your second solo album (stepping out/2023) and a new Sorrows album (love to late, the real album/2022), we note the collaboration with the Big Stir label. Why this choice?

After I finished working on the “Love Too Late… the real album”, I was looking for a label to put it out on since the label I put out my “One Bar Left” album with wasn’t interested. I spoke to quite a few other labels, but either they were not interested in us, or I wasn’t interested in them, they just didn’t feel like the right fit.

Around the same time, my band – Arthur Alexander Band – was playing around LA for quite some time by then, and we did a few shows for Big Stir who where promoting a series of concerts at the time. I’m not sure if the Big Stir label even existed back then, but they were great people and I had such good feeling about them from that experience. But by the time I was shopping “Love Too Late”, I was aware that they had started a record label so I decided to give them a call. We had a meeting… and suddenly everything clicked! It literally felt like coming home. I often joke about it, but it’s true: Sorrows were signed to CBS Records, one of the biggest labels in the world, with million dollar budgets; and Big Stir, a tiny operation by comparison, with ZERO budget, gave Sorrows and me as solo artist, more exposure and presence on the market and around the world than the “mighty” CBS ever did! They just truly love what they do and treat their artists like their own kids, not a number in the accounting books. Lucky me!

Tell us about the new LP.

It came about in a very unexpected way. We had recently come back from England after the fiasco that our recording sessions for the “Love Too Late” album had turned into. The war which errupted between us and our record label over this album essentially spelled the end of our association. Things were not going well and we felt angry, betrayed and out for vengance. During that time we reconnected with our original producer, Mark Milchman with whom we worked on “Teenage Heartbreak” album and who also got shafted by the label when it came to the second album, because they wanted a “name producer”. Mark, who still worked at Mediasound Studios, the same incredible studio where we recorded “Teenage Heartbreak”, offered to bring us in for one night, on studio downtime (read: for free) just to record some new songs we were working on at the time. We were just fine with that; we figured it would be great to just beat the shit out of our instruments and exorcise the demons we felt inside. Nobody was thinking “we’re making a record”, so we didn’t spent the precious studio time setting things up “properly”, getting sounds and all that stuff you normally do in the studio when you “make a record”. We just set up our drums, amps and mics in the middle of the room, as if we were on stage, and proceeded to raise hell! LOL… but as the night went on and we kept listening to the playback of what we just recorded, song after song, we began to realize this ain’t no bunch of “demos” we’re putting down. The fire, the fury (and the middle finger!) that kept jumping out of the speakers every time Mark hit the Play button on the tape recorder, was just unbelievable! Even the song “Cricket Man” went from an afterthought to a monster! We barely knew how to play the song when we came to the studio having just started to work on it. As we were wrapping up the session I asked Mark to let us record a quick take of it as a reference demo, for us to keep working on it. When we finished Mark called us into the control room and said “you better listen to this! It’s a monster!” We attempted to “do it better”, but didn’t even finish, the magic wasn’t there, nothing came even close. This was the only full take we did, and that’s what’s on the record.

I remember leaving the studio the next morning, the sun was up… and we had our next record!

Thank you Arthur

https://bigstirrecords.bandcamp.com/album/parting-is-such-sweet-sorrow

Just FYI… Some of the bands I produced…