Interview // Alex Bleeker

Photo by Leanne Kriz

Heaven on the Faultline is the new solo album from Real Estate’s Alex Bleeker written and recorded over the last several years. Bleeker joins New Commute to discuss the record, The Dead, climate change, and the pandemic’s impact on songwriting and touring. Heaven on the Faultline is out March 5th via Night Bloom Records.

Heaven on the Faultline is your latest release since 2015’s Country Agenda and an album that drops the Freaks from the moniker. From a writing and recording standpoint, how was this “solo” record different from previous works?

In 2009, when I first adopted the Freaks moniker, it really was just that: a moniker. "The Freaks," for a few years was just a catch-all term for a loose community of musicians, really, whoever I could convince to play or record with me during any given era. By 2013, however, the most enduring lineup of "The Freaks" had really solidified, and so we became more of a band in a traditional sense. The musicality, songwriting, and arrangements of that band are very well represented on Country Agenda and Heaven on the Faultline was much more of a solo endeavor. It didn't feel right to label it "...and The Freaks" because The Freaks are now a very specific group of people who didn't play on this particular record.

This new record was largely written and recorded at my home in coastal northern California. Armed with some GarageBand demos, I went into a studio in L.A. to trace over dinky-sounding parts and to flesh out the sound. I was joined by a few great musicians from time to time during that period (CMON's Josh DeCosta, Sun Arraw's Cameron Stallones, Kacey Johansing and Tim Ramsey) but this feels very much like a "solo" record to me.

As the bassist for Real Estate, you’ve helped bring that band from its humble Ridgewood origins to the main-stage summits of modern day indie rock. While that band’s sound has developed into a full-spectrum experience, your own music seems to have scaled back and minimized the production value. Do you feel a reaction in your solo work from the adjustments and maturity of the band?

A few early Freaks songs made their way into the setlists of the first ever Real Estate shows back in 2008, but pretty soon it became clear that they didn't really fit into the defined sonic palette that RE started developing back then. This was really the birth of The Freaks, which was originally just a basic re-shuffling of instruments by Real Estate's core members in order to accommodate my songwriting. Real Estate of course was the band that really took off, but since then almost everyone in the band has maintained some kind of "solo" project. I think this dynamic is key to the health of the band.

Real Estate's chief songwriter is Martin Courtney, but the spirit of the band remains fiercely collaborative. I think the band's strength is derived from this collaborative spirit, but it can also be challenging to compromise your vision as a songwriter, so having another outlet is crucial. In short, whatever I'm doing musically that isn't Real Estate is always in some way a reaction to or a balancing act with what Real Estate is doing. That said, there's sometimes songwriting overlap and crossover among all of the projects, as some shrewd readers might soon discover...(winky face).

It’s well known that you are personally influenced by the music and spirit of the Grateful Dead both as a musician and as a life-long music enthusiast. Previous recordings reflect that more directly than your new album. Are there pieces on the album that you feel were inspired by the Dead or did you try to distance your writing from those sensibilities?

I've never consciously tried to distance myself from the association with The Dead, I remain a huge fan. I will say however, that my obsession sort of peaked in 2015, right around the time that a new Grateful Dead mania was gripping legions of music fans who hadn't yet gone down the rabbit hole. In that year, and it in the years preceding it, The Dead utterly dominated all of my listening. At some point I did have to make the conscious decision to climb out of that hole a little bit. I felt like I was missing out on a lot of other great music, and so I made the choice to expand my listening habits once again.

This is the latest batch of songs to be released since I made that shift, so it seems logical that my songwriting would reflect that personal change. I hadn't really thought about it before, but it's probably true...wild! Still, The Dead are an influence I will always happily wear on my sleeve, and you can hear that in some of the songwriting on this record as well, particularly in the lead line of “D+,” I think.

You had to flee your home in California because of the wildfires that overtook large swaths of the state earlier this year. How does the anxiety of climate change and its existential impacts on your life influence your work as an artist?

I think the undeniable impacts of climate change are having a substantial impact on our global consciousness. I am not a social scientist, but I do believe that all things on this planet and beyond are intrinsically linked together as one complex and singular system. Whether you have been directly impacted by some sort of climate change disaster or not, whether you even believe in climate change or not, I think it's impossible not to tap into some sort of universal anxiety these days. This planet, which was once perfectly suited for human life, will not always be. That change is imminent, and for humans the stakes couldn't be higher. So, I think whether we want to or not, we're all feeling it.

I don't mean to be too much of a doomer here! I'm comforted by the fact that change is inevitable, and that the universal system will carry on as it always has! Hahaha, this has all gotten very heavy and very heady, so I guess I'll just answer the question: most directly, it's affected some of my songwriting.. "Felty Feel" is pretty much about climate change.

Heaven on the Faultline is the final product of many years of writing and crafting this set of songs. After such a long period of time, and with the given challenges of releasing new music today, what was your strategy behind choosing now to share this record?

Honestly, I don't really have a strategy! As an artist it feels vital, now more than ever, to just keep going. This record was finished in January of 2020, just before Covid really hit the States. If not for the pandemic, the album probably would have been released in 2020, but beyond that, I had no intention of holding it back. The record's finished; it's time for it to come out!

It’s unknown when touring will be a safe, viable experience to consider. Knowing that, are your creative motivations and inspirations affected? Was the live performance a consideration for you as a songwriter that has altered the way you think about your songs and records?

As I said before, this record was really developed in a solo recording kind of context. Many of these tunes have never been performed live. So in this particular instance, I'm not super gutted to lose the live element here. The Freaks band text chain has been reignited recently though, and I think it's very likely that we'll have some kind of reunion when it's safe to do so. I'm really excited about the prospect of re-working these songs to fit the band's musical sensibilities and seeing what happens to them in a live context. Looking forward to these seemingly far-flung realities keeps me going and keeps me hopeful.

In general, as a working musician, the inability to tour has been pretty devastating. Like so many other broken systems revealed by this pandemic, it's now clearer than ever that musicians really only survive on touring income. I think we need to fix this. I don't know exactly how to do it, but it probably involves some sort of unionization and legislation regarding streaming.

As we all have learned to live more solitary lives quarantining in our homes this year, have you noticed any changes in your musical diet? Have you discovered any new ways to stay creative?

I discover a lot of music from my bandmates in Real Estate when we're in the van on tour, so not having that has been a big change. Like a lot of people, I've found myself digging into the seemingly endless stream of great reissues and compilations that have been coming out recently, but I'm also trying to listen to a lot more new music which is a habit I had sort of fallen out of for whatever reason. As I write this I'm listening to the New Commute new music best of 2020 playlist, unsurprisingly, there's so much great stuff in here! (Full Disclosure: Alex Bleeker was paid millions to say this)