A few years back when Alex Statan was a theatre major at UC Berkeley, the singer and guitarist brought his irresistibly witty, high energy game to The Gilman, the college town’s legendary punk club as part of a popular comedic punk band. Now, fully focused on his solo career but self admittedly “the antithesis of taking myself too seriously,” Statan’s poses a key question to his fans in the Bay Area and beyond on his explosive five song debut EP Go Big Or Go Home: “What if I happen to be your future lover?” Actually, for quirky reasons known only to the singer, he spells it “Luver”—and refers to the film Rush Hour 2 as a means of seduction for good measure.
Statan’s been getting an amazingly positive response to that question ever since August 2007, when he first brought his powerful musicianship, cool persona and funk-punk pop attitude to San Francisco’s Hotel Utah Open, considered the city’s best open mic by many local musical tastemakers. The venue’s MC J.J. Schultz set the tone when he said of Statan: “Alex has got some sort of energy when he plays - and I'd like to say it's infectious, but I won't, because that would be cliche, but let's just say it's communicable. Either way, I dig it and the crowd really gets into it, and Alex, generous performer that he is, feeds off that and returns it back to the audience and it turns into a feedback loop of sorts, and before you know it, it's bedlam, craziness, drinks are spilled and people are screaming! He's a pop craftsman and heck of a singer.”
While the Hotel Utah’s become a true home away from home—he headlines there regularly now—the singer held his EP release party for Go Big Or Go Home at another hotspot, Café du Nord. Everyone who checks out Statan’s show and leaves with a giddy grin on their face agrees that while it’s hard exactly to pin down what this guy’s all about, the following description captures it to a pop culture ‘T’: If John Mayer, and Prince found a way to have a baby, and that baby thought he was Justin Timberlake, that would be getting close…the sound is something like Jack White (from alt rockers The White Stripes and The Raconteurs) meets Jack Black with a little James Brown thrown in for good measure.
“When I graduated from Berkeley, I wanted to draw on my theatre major to act and direct, but music was always there in the background, waiting to emerge,” says Statan, who prior to going solo was in a heavy gigging party band whose latest incarnation was as Awkward Silence. “At one point, I realized the acting thing wasn’t working out and I began writing new, funny songs that perfectly fit my voice and thought I would take a shot at the open mic night. I like the whole idea of a cool Timberlake vibe, but musically my songs are more like The Raconteurs, with a little of Coldplay when I’m more serious and lyrically like Flight of the Conchords. I like to stay away from the singer-songwriter tag because that often implies acoustic coffeehouse music with heavily introspective lyrics, and I’m all about catchy pop songs with strong melodies and having a great time in my live performances.”
His partner in crime during his shows is Gawain Matthews, a well known Bay Area guitarist who is also Statan’s mentor and produced Go Big Or Go Home; among Matthews’ credits are stints with Ben Lee and Derek Trucks. Matthews brings out the spirited energy of witty songs like the seductive blues rocker “Don’t Hold Back,” a brazen female empowerment piece also known as “the why are you losing weight in your ass” song. The origin of “Future Luver” is similar to the way Paul McCartney was carrying around the melody for “Yesterday” with the title “Scrambled Eggs”; Statan was singing “peanut butter,” then rhymed it with “future luver,” which gave birth to one of the EP’s most clever, tongue in cheek stabs at overcoming approach anxiety and being smooth around women. Statan wrote the slightly more serious, ska influenced “High Note” (an ode to being a sexually frustrated teenager) a while back and decided to pursue music more seriously after his friends responded positively to it.
Here's what some fresh bloggers think of Alex's CD
While building his career slowly and steadily, Statan likes to say he’s working on being a local legend, but he’s also excited about the possibilities of a publishing deal and placing his instantly infectious songs in films and on TV shows. “I’m really proud of these songs and am grateful for the overwhelming responses they’ve been getting,” he says. “The EP is slick but not too pretty, and I’m glad people are enjoying it, but my live show is where I really take the music to the next level being raw, ballsy and funny. During my last show, a friend of mine was playfully heckling me to do a song I had planned for last. I said to her, ‘I’m not playing that song yet, but this song is dedicated to the person who wants the other song.’ I’m a rhythmic, nutty guy who loves jumping around and making people laugh as they sing along.”
“Go Big or Go Home” is a watershed EP, and the tracks on the disc provide listeners with different pieces that, when put together, show Statan as a talent that is comparable to the likes of a Peter Gabriel. While there are only a few songs on this EP, I know that this CD will be in my car for months to come. Statan shows that there should be no limits to what an individual can do when they create music, and the impressive nature of the tracks on “Go Big or Go Home” should represent some mark that future artists should strive to achieve.
Each of the cuts on this 5-track EP is an exercise in Classic Pop Comps 101, nor has he lost his sense of humor while getting a bit more serious about life's dilemma's (which, as in "Interference", don't inhibit his clever wordplay). Every song here would easily bring a club audience to its feet, so obviously the days on stage in the theater and at the local tavern taught the gent a few things. Perhaps even more brow-raising is the fact that his backing is mostly provided by Gawain Mathews, a multi-instrumentalist who really knows his shit dead cold, whether it be on the keys, guitar, bass, or even whistling. Dave Tweedie's the drummer/rhythm unit and changes up nicely between the metronomic and colorative, but Mathews is indispensible to Statan's work, almost an extrusion of the composer's brain.
So, I'm tellin' ya, peoples, peoples, peoples.pop ain't dead, it's just going through its changes, and that's a really good thing, because a lot of the basics got lost in the 80s, almost died of neglect in the 90s, and gents like Statan are putting it back together again in the 00s. What Piper, the Babys, and Artful Dodger mostly missed is now coming up for re-election. Therefore, vote early, vote often, and light up for the inauguration. It's gonna be a new day on the charts.
-James from Neufutur Magazine
