[Sonic Seducer] Zurück ins Leben
掲載：Sonic Seducer（英語のみ）
1. About a year after your first solo album, you released a live album. You didn’t really want to present your songs live at first – now you’ve even released an album. How does this turn come about?
Coming back in the public eye has been a long process for me, especially after so many years of untreated depression and self-denied burnout. This is why I believe many different reasons could explain the unlikely journey that led me to release “Standing Under Bright Lights” and to personally evolving altogether.
The obvious ones were associated with the fact that I was still trying to understand the nature of mourning and its necessary let go. Neither was I able to comprehend the complex emotional implications that came with the grieving process I was deeply struggling with following my father’s passing at the time. This confusion would be exacerbated by the incredible success that “Windows In The Sky” had upon its initial release in Canada, a situation I wasn’t prepared to deal with and that greatly affected me afterward. I didn’t feel ready for that sudden renewed attention, nor was I feeling solid enough to face any of it on my own. So the prospect of playing live wasn’t even a thing for me, it was an inexistent matter. I was completely submerged by the necessity to find peace with the album’s intimate nature to be able to move again somehow… I felt paralyzed, vulnerable and exposed.
It’s only months after “Windows in the Sky” had been released, when I started to exchange handwritten letters with people who had generously sent me messages to let me know how the album had been tremendously empowering for them to face their own emotional crisis and to let me know how much of an anthem of hope in dark days it was for them that I slowly managed to come to terms with the vivid essence of the record. I was finally able to look back onto it, to uncover the words and sounds for what they really were. Playing live, which made me physically and psychologically ill during the 12 years of touring with my previous band Your Favorite Enemies, was completely out of question… Until the Festival International de Jazz de Montreal’s programming director reached out to me, and persistently pressed on for me to be part of the 40th anniversary of the event as one of the festival’s headlining acts.
I was very hesitant. I was frightened to realize, once on stage, that I wasn’t able to deal with all those emotions, making a fool of myself in front of my family and friends who would witness the disastrous outcome. I ultimately decided to do it when I realized that I would be playing on almost the same day my father had died 5 years earlier. It then became a one-off homage where I would play “Windows in the Sky”, a record that was about him, in its entirety, a moment that would conclude my adventure as a live performer. There was no plan to tour, no pressure to entertain anyone, no further release ambition, no intention to keep on going after that concert. And it was a decision I was serene with until that night changed absolutely everything for me.
All that to say, it’s been a long journey back into the light from that point on…
2. You are releasing the album at a time when no live concerts are allowed to take place – can it also be seen as a kind of replacement or consolation?
There is no possible consolation nor any way to replace a live moment. There’s some kind of a spiritual ceremony involved in a live concert setting. You congregate to an event and you are disposed to commune with others, you are prepared to go in and willing to be uplifted, and sometimes, you are ready to be empowered enough to see your life be transformed afterward. That’s why I didn’t have the pretension to believe that “Standing Under Bright Lights” could offer consolation or replacement. It is a living testimony of that liberating and emancipative renaissance that I had the blessing to dwell on, like so many others that night, and I wanted to share with people, and it seemed especially meaningful to do in the collective confusion and distressing conditions we have to deal with since the crisis began.
3. There is also a new song on “Standing under Bright Lights” called “The Son of Hannah”. What is this about?
It’s a song about my father’s life journey, which was made of emotional damage and affective brokenness, a life that saw him long for answers and purpose for most of his life. He struggled with alcoholism, depression, and suicidal thoughts up until the moment he found peace in his faith in Christ’s teachings and completely turned his life around. The song features a woman mentioned in the Old Testament that kept on pressing God to have a child, and I juxtaposed that story with the image of a prophet’s sons who had inherited everything and were living ungrateful existences of self-anointment over others who were living as slaves. I liked the paradoxes and the vivid images, in which I saw my father’s struggles as much as my ungrateful self towards him. I conclude the song in a eulogy that represents the complex individual that he was. It became a sort of prequel to “Windows in the Sky”, shining a light over my regrets as a son and the inner voyage I had to make to find the source of my ever-growing bleakness in order to become a man of my own.
4. Do you have a personal favorite song on the album? Which one and why?
That’s a tricky question… All the songs represent a moment with my father or a glimpse of my reflections about how fundamentally similar our emotional struggles have been somehow, even though I denied any connections with that man most of my life. So it’s difficult to say… “The Hunter (By the Seaside Window)” has a special place in my heart as it encapsulates the whole album’s spirit, in a way. The entangling connection between hunter and prey, the mirroring and interchanging essence of their existence, one being defined by the other, while the other is tracked by their own reflection, 2 parts of the same entity fighting within, both light and darkness, both outside longing to get in and inside craving to get out… It’s the first song I ever wrote that way, marking a significant shift in the way I’m allowing myself to create.
5.The album has been out for about a month now. How were the reactions to “Standing under bright Lights”?
The reactions have been tremendously enthusiastic! I think this is probably based, besides the wonderful nature of the concert itself, on the honest let go and the pure rendition of the songs that night… they were being lived in a free shape and form, enfranchised from any of the usual egocentric ambitions and entertainment purposes they would have most definitely being corrupted by had I the intention to release it afterward. And I think it represents the missing piece between “Windows in the Sky” and what people discovered during the subsequent concerts I communed with them when I decided to tour, months after that first concert. I believe people are now able to understand a little more of what happened when I talk about how liberating that night has been for me. It was that significant of a moment and I’m incredibly thankful for the festival staff who decided to record the whole thing…
6. Before your first solo album was released last year, you withdrew for a while due to a stroke of fate. At what point did you know you wanted to make music again?
It took me about 2 years between the moment I left Montreal to what I believed would be 2 months to write the next Your Favorite Enemies’ record and having enough emotional clarity to simply let those words and sounds be the songs they were undeniably forming. In terms of “wanting” to make music again, it was during the concert that is now known as “Standing Under Bright Lights”, as it was the very first time that I felt at peace on stage and was able to dwell in the invisible without the usual frightening sensation of not being enough, not having to numb the paralyzing feelings of potential failures. It was an incredibly galvanizing uplift that surprisingly had nothing to do with the cheerful nature of a live concert… It’s hard to explain… I felt free like I never had before and I decided to slowly keep on exploring that state of mind and heart a little further, one little step after another, allowing me to appreciate every single one and to evolve from one to another….
7.You perform together with some bandmates from the time of Your Favorite Enemies under the name Alex Henry Foster & The Long Shadows. Why don’t you just make music under the name “Your Favorite Enemies” again?
Your Favorite Enemies, like most of everything I did since I started my creative adventure, has been about friendship and honoring the people who have supported us along the way. The Long Shadows are not Your Favorite Enemies and to pretend it is would only serve as a gross ticket sale operation. There’s no potential confusion that way. And even if only have love and respect for my longtime friends and bandmates, their integration in my solo project came almost by accident. I had no intention to keep on going after that initial concert, I thought it would be a wonderful opportunity to share a significant moment together for one last time, and that was it. But to do so, they had to unlearn most of what they had learned during the span of YFE’s journey. I didn’t want to re-create YFE. My idea was to conduct the band like an orchestra and it would be based on multiple intangible factors such as how I feel at that particular instant, on the communion taking place with the audience, and whatever direction I felt the songs wanted to go based on my instinct… It was a real challenge for them. It takes a lot of humility to accept those conditions after being in a band for as long as we were. But most of all, it requires a great measure of love towards me to support me as they have for what was supposed to be a homage to my late father and my last live performance…
8. Is Alex Henry Foster & The Long Shadows more of a solo project or more of a band?
It’s a solo project being communed with an open and evolving band, in the likes of Nick Cave and Swans maybe. If my profound attachment and friendship towards the former members of Your Favorite Enemies is the core that holds the whole band concept together, the songs are what defines the evolving and transformative nature of the Long Shadows. That freedom is utterly necessary for me as a creator. It keeps everything real and honest. It’s totally exempt from unnecessary compromise and constant negations that usually come with being a collective. This way, everyone can contribute, but the songs dictate it all…
9. You are very personal with your fans. What does being close to your fans mean to you?
It’s essential for me. Human values are the foundation of everything I have the privilege to give life to, but are even more importantly the heart defining the blessing I have to commune with others. I’ve learned a lot being away for so long. I used to invite people to share a moment based on what I wanted to offer… Now, I welcome people to come and refine whatever there is for us to transform so we can see life bloom through and beyond ourselves rather than only stand as a reflective source of some infatuated and momentary flash. That’s why it’s so meaningful for me to send a personal handwritten letter to every single person who orders something on my online store. It’s a very significant privilege for me to be able to do so, to engage myself completely in the relationship whenever and however possible it is for me to do so…
10.You got through a difficult time in your life a while ago. Right now is a difficult time for a lot of people. Do you have any advice for people who are going through a difficult phase?
I’m not very good at giving advice but what I can say for sure is that however broken we may think we are, no matter how impossible of a situation we may think we are trapped in, nor how deep in the dark we may be lost in, we are never too broken, never too damaged, never too lost of a case. It’s ok to feel overwhelmed, to feel like a failure, like a total disappointment, to put one knee on the ground, or to completely collapse. We are not entitled to anyone’s expectations nor are we destined to become the object of our own illusions. It took me more than 10 years, while touring the world and smiling at everyone cheering for me, to accept the fact that I was suffering from an invisible pain without a name, to be at peace with the fact that I will have to compose with that inner damage all my life. But that initial admission was the beginning of acceptance for me, of letting go of what I thought I had to firmly hold onto. I slowly opened the shutters, allowed others to reach out to me. It wasn’t easy. I wish it was magic, but was is more than fulfilling than any make-believes is to discover what lies around us, to rediscover what was so easily overlooked with time… And if we allow ourselves to be amazed by what’s around, it helps us remind ourselves that we are part of something or someone’s environment as well, waiting to be discovered or rediscovered. As ridiculous as it may sound, this came as great encouragement for me when I was contemplating taking my own life when I first arrived in Tanger a few years ago, a place where I learned I wasn’t broken beyond repair. It’s not advice but it’s what I remind myself of when I miss a step… or two!
11. What are your next plans?
There are so many things coming up, but I guess what I can say without spoiling all the fun ahead is the release of a special lathe-cut limited-edition collector vinyl for “The Son of Hannah” on June 4th. It’s probably one of – if not the most – amazing of all silkscreen vinyls I had the joy to share with people so far.
And I also have been working on a book for a few months now. It should be out sometime this upcoming fall along with a few songs… All that before looking into a project I would like to complete and release prior to my upcoming European summer tour called “Not All Wonders Have Been Lost” in 2022.
I’ll bite my tongue for the rest…!
Be safe and see you soon!
KRISTEL DÖHRING
2021年6月