Your Man Alex Smith is playing alongside Daryl James, Onward and The Great Disruption for ‘Double The Launch’ this weekend.
The night will see Daryl James release a new EP, and Onward release a new single; hence the doubling of the launch, as Alex Smith explains. “I wanted to have a really big gig. Music attendance in Brisbane is really shocking… I was thinking if we had all these bands that are releasing something, we'll get a bigger crowd and some good cross-pollination of fans.”
Alex has been playing under Your Man Alex Smith for almost three years; a title which started in his high school days. “I used to do YouTube stuff as a comedian, and I used to end every episode with ‘this is your man, Alex Smith'. So when I went into music, I was never just Alex Smith, because the name was too common.”
What started as performing covers solo, developed Alex into a singer-songwriter playing original material with a full band. “The Milk Factory was my last, good gig. I had a sneaky, solo-acoustic gig at The Mill Hotel, which was going back to my roots. When I first started, I played three-hour covers gigs at the back of a café.”
Alex still enjoys playing other people’s music, in between writing his own. “I'm never usually 100 per cent happy with my music. So being able to play songs where I can say 'I love this song, every bar of it', I can learn that. It's always easier to get motivated playing cool songs that other people have written.”
In his own songs, which range from love ballads, to comedy, to musical theatre, Alex has a sure-fire formula for coming-up with the goods. “I put my mind in the frame of 'What would Jim Steinman say?’ [composer of Meatloaf’s ‘I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)’]. Then suddenly my language changes into this ridiculously dramatic stuff, like: 'oh my wretched soul, burning in the hearts of hell'. I like that.”
'Double The Launch' will be one of Alex’s last big performances, before he knuckles down to full-time work, in order to fund his next release. “You're looking at Australia's newest trolley boy!” he laughs.
“I'm not going to play as many gigs as I have in the past, not because I'm leaving music, but because I want to put as many hours under my belt as I can.”
Alex’s debut EP, ‘Crazy Days’, was produced by Stuart Stuart, the producer of Sheppard’s hit single, ‘Hey Geronimo'. “I wanted [‘Crazy Days’] to be polished so I could get radio play, and then from there, I'd make the more niche stuff. But at the end of the day, I spent a lot of money on an album I'm not entirely happy with. This time I'm going to follow my heart, stay true to myself, and make the album I wanted to make.”
Your Man Alex Smith plays New Globe Theatre 23 October.
[Added 26 Oct: YMAS has announced another show... and this could be his very last show ever; The Zoo 27 November.]
