Text and interview by Matheus Jacques
I recently had the pleasure of having a brief conversation with Alex Meister , a skilled guitarist who has released two new singles, "Hard to Say Goodbye" and "It Ain't Bout Love," a conversation which you can check out in full below!
Wikimetal: Hi Alex! You recently brought us two new songs, first “Hard to say Goodbye” and now your newest single “It Ain't 'Bout Love”. Musically and thematically, what is the essence of these tracks?
Alex Meister: These tracks are mid-tempo , the kind that could never be missing from a great hard rock album. They have a measured pace with a lot of dynamic variation, culminating in great hooks and choruses that will get stuck in your head. Their thematic essence is to portray everyday moments, such as when a relationship with a beautiful woman ends, even against your will. These are the kinds of songs I most enjoy listening to and composing!
WM: They also got music videos. What was the concept and who was involved in them?
AM: “Hard to Say Goodbye” got a beautiful 4k music video directed and filmed by GK Produções. The same company I worked with on Marenna-Meister in 2020. We used an open location in a warehouse next to the Engenhão stadium here in Rio, where we filmed practically the entire video. The video for “It Ain't 'bout Love” was made from footage from the original video, along with new footage filmed in a studio with controlled lighting and edited by Tiago Medeiros , who also did the lyric video for “The Price of Love” and the cover art for Marenna-Meister's Out of Reach
WM: These two singles follow, specifically in terms of your solo career, the track "Just Thinkin About You" from 2019. What is the goal being set, is there a new full-length album being developed? And what kind of material can we expect?
AM: You can expect what will be my second solo CD, the sixth of my career. This was conceived while I was finishing producing “Hard to Say Goodbye”. This work will be a great summary of my career up to 2022, when the album will be fully released, including in physical CD format, bringing together a collection of songs, some that were written in the 90s, and several more recent ones, being re-recorded and produced now. The goal is to release singles until we complete the 10 tracks for the full album. Stay tuned, there's a lot of good stuff coming!
WM: We are experiencing a particularly complicated time (the pandemic situation), which has directly or indirectly affected many people, even in terms of creativity. Has experiencing this influenced your productivity and material development in any way? How have you been dealing with it?
AM: There's no denying that this situation we started going through last March has been incredibly complex for all of us. One of the biggest aspects is that we were left without stages to play on during this period, and many venues closed their doors. So I saw that the solution was to continue creating catalogs, releasing music. Last year I released Out of Reach with Marenna-Meister, and now I've developed this new project that will become my second CD, where, in addition to everything else, I've also become the vocalist. We don't know for sure when this will end and when our lives will return to normal. But while that doesn't happen, I'll continue producing to keep my head on straight (laughs).
WM: Tell me a little about the musicians who are currently accompanying you.
AM: The musicians are the same ones who accompanied me on Out of Reach . Cris Gavioli on bass, Tilly on drums, and Sidney Sohn on keyboards. I really liked the result of Marenna-Meister's last CD and didn't want to change a winning team!
WM: You've had albums released and distributed outside of Brazil throughout your career. How do you see the openness and reception for material with the sound you develop today? Is there still a strong market for it?
AM: Since I signed my first contract to release my CD abroad, back in 2005 with Spiritual Beast from Japan, a lot has changed. At that time, there were hardly any active Hard Rock bands on the market, and when I emerged with the first independent CD of Pleasure Maker in 2004, I managed to garner several positive reviews from the specialized press abroad, including an honorable mention for best songs of 2005 on the then most important website of the genre, MelodicRock.com, in Australia, with none other than the track "Just Thinkin' About You". But with the appearance of Crashdiet in the same year, along with all its repercussions, in less than 2 years the market heated up again, and by 2008 new icons emerged such as HEAT, Reckless Love, Crazy Lixx, etc., along with the strengthening of the Italian label Frontiers and Ear Music. Currently, the market is very competitive, even more so than then!
