Cindy
Alexander is an American Girl
Cindy
Alexander is an American Girl
Music fans everywhere are in for a real treat, as Cindy
Alexander is about to release her new EP
An American Girl, which can stand on its merit as a quality collection of
great songs, but it also serves as a prelude to an even bigger undertaking, a
double album that is already in the works.
On the phone from her home in Los Angles, singer,
songwriter and musician Cindy Alexander explains, “I am doing a series of EPs
and I am working with different co-writers / producers, so the next EP I will be
doing is with Colin Devlin and I have some more surprises in store. We are going
to take these EPs and put them together into a double album with probably some
extra tracks, some live tracks and a couple of extra songs. We are going to
create a double LP, Four Sides of Cindy
Alexander. The next EP will probably come out in March and three to four
months after that there will be another one. I would say probably next year by
this time.”
The eight song An
American Girl record demonstrates masterful songwriting, fabulous vocals,
top-notch production quality and good musicians.
In addition to Alexander playing piano and singing the EP also features,
Chip Moreland (drums and background vocals), Carl Sealove (bass), Phil
Parlapiano (keyboards and piano), Dave Darling (guitar and background vocals),
Randy Ray Mitchell (guitar, dobro), percussionist Tina Trevino, violinist Serena
McKinney, Doug Livingston (pedal steel guitar) and Bernie Barlow (background
vocals). The record was produced and mixed by Dave Darling and engineered by
Zack Darling.
The opening song “Play,” written by Cindy Alexander and
Dave Darling is one of the best Rock songs Riveting Riffs Magazine has listened
to in 2015. From the very first bar of music this song will get you up on your
feet and one can easily imagine being at a Cindy Alexander concert and en masse
people rising up out of their seats, dancing where they stand and once they know
the words singing them back to her while she performs.
“It is a feel good song for me, so I hope that it is a
feel good song for the listener and I am talking about the healing power of the
music. Dave Darling came up with that track. We needed a rocker and we needed
something up-tempo. When I heard it I had just read a blog about somebody who
had struggled with mental illness, but all of his problems seem to disappear
when he gets on stage. I thought about how there are so many times when the
right song seems to make all of my problems disappear and I wanted to write that
song.
I also work with a lot of children who have learning
disabilities. I am a volunteer at school and I have been able to use music to
overcome some of those obstacles. I have taught kids who can’t spell anything,
to spell their name or to spell a word, by giving it a melody. I taught a little
girl how to spell happy. (She sings out the letters) It worked so well that I
started incorporating banging a drum with being able to pronounce a three
syllable word. I have witnessed what music can do and this song is a testament
to that. 
I struggled for two weeks trying to write to this track,
because normally I write music and lyrics together. It is much different for me
when somebody gives me a track. It comes from a different headspace. That song
actually went through four or five incarnations, before it turned into “Play.”
The part where it is talking about “Rhyming
myself to sleep,” (is there) because I had been working so darn hard on that
song. There are some little inside jokes about that and also because it was the
last song that I wrote for the EP.
My label really wanted something to go on the radio. I hate the notion of
writing something commercial or writing something for the radio and I was
fighting it, so you hear that in the lyrics too. “I
need a pickup on the FM / Silence is my mayhem,” and that was aimed at a
comment that somebody made to me from my record label. By the end of it I think
my hard work paid off, because I love the song and people seem to thoroughly
enjoy it,” says Cindy Alexander.
The Cindy Alexander / Anna Danes song “See you in L.A.,” is a mid-tempo gem that
has an upbeat demeanor and anticipation about being back in L.A. soon. The song
is filled with the sounds and images of the west coast such as, “Seagull
on the pier he calls,” and “It’s when
the ocean sprays my body.” The song
ends on a positive note, “I know you and
I are worth the wait / See you in L.A.”
An American Girl
is not the first time that Cindy Alexander and Dave Darling have collaborated on
an album and she takes a minute to talk about why they work so well together.
“I feel very safe with Dave. I feel like I can try
anything or sing anything or make mistakes and he will give me the space that I
need, in a room with padded walls, where I can make mistakes and I can be really
vulnerable. I have been working with Dave since my first CD
See Red in 1998, so he knows where I
come from, he knows what I stand for and he knows where my heart is. He believes
in me. When you know in your heart
that someone believes in you, you can do more and be better than you originally
thought that you could. He is a genius and I am so lucky that fate brought us
together. He is my musical guru. Even when I am writing with other people I will
run things by Dave, because I value his opinion so highly.
We honor art and we honor creativity as something
greater than ourselves. At least for me, I have to give credit to inspiration.
I have to give credit to this
magnificent, although sometimes challenging life that I have had. Sometimes I
feel like music and songs are channeled through me. I don’t take full
responsibility for everything. If I did, I don’t think anybody would want to
live with me.”
When we glanced at Cindy Alexander’s tour schedule we
did not see many months of the year when she was not touring. She is married and
a mother to young twin girls and we wondered how she balances her music career
with family life.
“The good thing is that Kirk Pasich (owner and President
of the label) and Blue Élan are on the same page that I am. Family comes first.
I try to devote about a week a month to shows however, there are going to be
months when my family needs me at home and that is the way that it is. Because I
am on a label, I am able to do a lot more touring than I did before, but it is
very expensive. You have to put out a lot of money in advance for plane tickets,
hotels and equipment rentals, which I couldn’t do before, but now I have tour
support. It is great that I finally get to go out and to play for people with
whom I have been in touch on the internet for so long.
House concerts are absolutely hands down my favorite
concerts to do. I try to incorporate them into every tour that I do. The most
personal connection that I can create with my fans is by going into someone’s
home and chatting with them and meeting their friends. It is a very interactive
show and those are usually my anchor dates and then I book club dates around
them. I have truly enjoyed touring in the last year.
I have always said that music is the key to my
adventure. It is not just about the shows and the music, but it’s about the
people that I meet and the places that I get to see and the little stops along
the road. I have been having the time of my life. I really have been and it has
been great balance to be able to get away and feed that gypsy part of my soul
and then to come home to an incredible family and a wonderful husband and to be
in LA where I was born and raised. I love the city. It is great,” she says.
In 2012 Cindy Alexander released the album
Every Rise and Fall that she
describes as being 100 % of her life.
“Every
Rise and Fall,
the whole record was written around my pregnancy and the first couple of years
of being a mother. I think that fertility for me was harder than cancer (more
about this later). I shoved so many needles into my body and I went through so
many procedures in order to get pregnant. As someone who always looked young and
always felt young I took it for granted that it was going to be easy for me to
get pregnant and it was not. I write about that and I write about losing my
identity as I became a wife and a mother and throughout writing the record I
reclaimed myself. When you are going through fertility you have to go into the
doctor’s office every week to have them look at the status of your eggs and to
check your blood, so you can’t be touring. You also have to be at home with your
husband. There was so much change for me during that year that I basically had
to walk away from music for a while.
I did play some shows, while I was pregnant and I would
puke right before and right after and I had the worst morning, afternoon and
evening sickness throughout my pregnancy not just the first few months. By the
time I was five months pregnant with twins I couldn’t get close enough to the
piano or the keyboard to play and the way that the guitar laid on my belly it
was really hard to play, because my kids would literally kick the guitar. I
could tell that they loved music, because they moved around more to the rhythm
and I could sing them to sleep before they were born. That was incredible and I
don’t have any resentment for that time. I am so grateful that I was able to get
pregnant and that I have the most important, most beautiful and most creative
masterpiece ever, my children. They are my most beautiful song that I have ever
written. Nothing, not one ounce of success in music will ever compare to my
children. My family comes first. I would be lying if I didn’t say that I was
depressed and I didn’t have the release that I was accustomed to for a few
years. When I finally started writing again, I became a better mom, a better
wife, a better friend and a better daughter, because I found that balance again.
I had that release. Music has always been my healer throughout my life. It has
gotten me through everything.
I wrote myself through depression with
Every Rise and Fall. I explored all
of that territory of the power of being able to create life and to nurture life
and the sacrifices that we make for that. I thought that was the most profound
experience that was ever going to happen to me and what was I going to write
about next? Then I was diagnosed with cancer in 2013. Instead of waiting for so
long after I did, after I had kids, I sat right down at the piano and I started
writing right from the moment that I knew something was wrong, on the night that
I had the biopsy and that I was waiting for the results. That night I wrote
“Stronger Together.” 
“I think that you can suppress feelings and suppress
emotions and let that become disease or you can release it and let it heal you.
My intention was to heal and my intention was also not to go through it alone. I
was going to share it, because maybe my story would save someone else’s life. I
was very lucky and I was very vigilant. Both of my parents had breast cancer, my
grandmother had breast cancer and even though I didn’t test positive for the
BRCA gene I knew that there was a very high genetic possibility that one day I
could be diagnosed.
There was a moveable cystic type of mass on one side
that wasn’t on the other and even though it didn’t look like a tumor on the
ultrasound and my mammogram was clear, there was some sort of cellular change.
When my yearly MRI came up again there was some change that was noticed and
there were some places on the MRI that for lack of a better term lit up. I went
back to the breast specialist and they still could not find anything with the
ultrasound and the mammogram was still clear, but I knew there was something
wrong. He said we can’t biopsy it, because we can’t find anything. I went back
and I got another opinion on the MRI and I found a doctor who could biopsy the
spots that lit up, while I was in the MRI machine and they found the cancer.
I listened to my body and I listened to my intuition and
I caught the disease at an early stage when it could be treated. I was very
lucky and I wrote my way through the journey and I blogged about it. I answered
any and every question that came my way. There wasn’t anything that was too
personal or stupid. All of that support, the prayers and the positive messages
from people all over the world meant the world to me and it really got me
through. I don’t think anyone should ever go through it alone. I know people who
prefer that and they don’t want to talk about it. They don’t want to tell
people. They say that it takes a village to raise children and it can take a
village to get you through cancer too. I was lucky that I had that village.”
During her journey through cancer Cindy Alexander wrote
the songs that became her album Curve,
which was released in 2014 and as she indicated she started writing those songs
the night that she had her biopsy. The last song that she wrote for that album
was “January Song,” which was written during the month of January. If you have
ever loved someone who was facing the biggest challenge of their life, there
will likely be a few tears in your eyes, as you listen to “January Song.” This
writer did.
Cindy Alexander talks about “January Song,” “It tends to
make a lot of people cry and it is amazing the effect that it has on men. It
really surprised me that men would react the way that they do to the song. It is
a thank you song to everybody who got me through it (breast cancer).
I wrote it for my family, my friends, my
support system and my fans that are on Facebook every day and who checked in
with me, as well as all of the people at breastcancer.org who were rooting for
me. It is a big thank you.”
The album Curve
opens with the rocking “Heels Over Head,” another fabulous song co-written with
Dave Darling.
She talks about the song, “With that one, it is kind of
a joke I have with myself that I am a bit of a drama queen and I was thinking
about all the horrible choices that I had made and all of the muses in my life
that had created five albums worth of songs about dysfunctional relationships.
In that song I am finally taking responsibility for all those poor choices.
Ultimately, I am such a drama queen, I had to get cancer to write more music and
that was what was in the back of my head. For the song I needed something that
was not going to be depressing and had to be a little bit more fun and a little
bit more tongue and cheek. I wrote it with that in mind. (I wanted) some songs
on the record that brought a little levity to the listener’s experience and I
think “Heels Over Head,” would be one of them. It has a great groove and you can
rock to it. “Best think twice / Before
you leave me for dead,” I was thinking this isn’t going to kill me, don’t
even go there. You wouldn’t know that unless I just told that to you.”
The song “Heels Over Head,” also features a solid guitar
solo by Connor Pasich.
Curve
also has a very stark song “Anesthesia,” which Cindy Alexander says is to be
taken literally.
“When I say that my pieces lay on trays, it is literally
about my body parts being taken off and being put on trays. It is about drugs
being infused into my system. I am hallucinating and it is about some of the
visions that I saw. There are metaphors and imagery in respect to the drug trip.
That song was inspired, because the anesthesiologist who was at the foot of my
hospital bed was texting right before we were about to start surgery and I said
dude please do not text and anesthetize. I think that he was really pissed off
at me, because the two earlier times that I went under it was a very peaceful
and beautiful experience going out and this time the first drug that he put into
my veins burned me and I went under and my last word was an expletive. My
hallucinations were intense, so that song is pretty literal.”
A lot of aspiring singers, songwriters and musicians
flock to Los Angeles in hopes of getting a lucky break in the music business,
but Cindy Alexander grew up in the city.
She has one brother, her father is a lawyer and her mother was a school
teacher, who now works as a trainer in real estate.
Cindy Alexander says, “Education is really important in
my family and always has been. For generations when money was given to children,
it was to be put away for your education. I value that opportunity and I was so
lucky to have it. I went to some of the best schools in Los Angeles and I got a
great education, so I really didn’t start music until after college. I think in
my twenties my dad would have preferred that I had gone to law school or gone to
medical school like my brother, but it wasn’t what I wanted and it wasn’t what
was going to make me happy.
I knew I was a performer from the time that I could
speak. I was doing talent shows and I was always in the school plays. I was
taking dance and taking singing and I loved it. I love to express myself
theatrically and on stage. Some people might say that I just needed a lot of
attention and that was probably true too.”
Cindy Alexander’s paternal grandmother was a music
teacher and “She would give instruments to us as gifts when we were little kids
and we would form a little band together.”
She says that her grandmother encouraged her creativity
and her imagination when it came to music and Cindy Alexander credits her
grandmother as being very influential. Her maternal grandmother had been a
vaudeville dancer who at one time had aspirations of being a Rockette, before
she gave up her dreams of dancing. Alexander
says that “the bug” for performing skipped one generation in her family and it
was rekindled in her.
I graduated from the University of Southern California
School of Drama. For the last show that I was in I played Evita. I was one of
the stars of my program and then I went out into the real world and I had to
start from scratch again, which was very difficult. I was doing theatre and a
commercial here and there and little indie films. At the same time I was
cocktail waitressing on the side and I started recording demos for other
people’s songs. Because I had access to a studio I recorded something that I
wrote and that at that time I didn’t really think of myself as a songwriter. I
just thought that I made stuff up and I played piano to it.
I didn’t realize that I was creating songs.”
The more songs she wrote the better she got at it. As
she says, she realized this was the best part she could ever play, that of a
singer-songwriter and she never looked back.
Cindy Alexander laughs while recalling one of the very
first songs that she wrote, “Let Me Be Lonely Alone,” which she describes as a
real zinger and then she says, “You have to start somewhere right?”
These days Cindy Alexander is writing songs with real
hit potential and that will match up with any of today’s top artists. She is
signed to Blue Élan Records, after choosing to remain an independent artist
throughout her career. She says she felt comfortable with the vision that her
longtime friend Kirk Pasich had outlined to her and he had been a longtime
supporter of her music when she was self-funding her albums.
You can visit Cindy Alexander
on her website or follow her on
her official Facebook page.