Merlinmoon

http://www.skratchmagazine.com/interviews/interviews.php?id=231

Alex Deep is the man; Merlinmoon is his record label and his music/philosophy project. The 23-year-old musician and poet/philosopher was born into an Italian family in Venezuela. He began his career in music as a DJ when he was 15. Music was not considered an acceptable career choice by his family, so his mother sent him to Boston University to study business. When he was 19, he lost a dear friend in a motorcycle accident, which led him to the realization that life is too short to not live your dreams, and since then, he has sought to bring this idea to the masses through both the written, spoken and sung word, as well as through melody. You can learn more about him by visiting www.myspace.com/merlinmoon.

SKRATCH: How long have you been working on the Merlinmoon project and how did it start?
DEEP: I’ve spent four years working on Merlinmoon because one of my best friends died. That’s why the label and publishing company is called 19 ANGELS, because that’s how old I was when I began the project.

SKRATCH: Has your family come around to accepting your decision to have a career in music yet?
DEEP: After seeing my dedication and seeing what has happened, they support me. It took me three years of fighting, but I finally won.

SKRATCH: Do you play all of the instruments on your songs, or do you have other musicians who play with you?
DEEP: I play guitar and piano and make the compositions and sing. I program the drum and bass on my keyboard. I will [eventually] pay musicians to come in and play, kind of a Lenny Kravitz thing.

SKRATCH: You have your own record label, but are you looking at signing with a major label for distribution purposes?
DEEP: I’m looking for a major, but I realize that if you don’t do an independent release and sell a lot of copies first, they don’t take you seriously. I did the publishing company to protect my rights, because I compose all of my music. And I’m getting a lot of listeners; I’ve had almost 300,000 hits on my myspace. Record labels have approached me, but they don’t have anything that I want. I’m still waiting for the right offer.

SKRATCH: What made you move from DJing to writing and playing your own music?
DEEP: When I was 15 and playing in clubs as a DJ, I found that I couldn’t find songs to play. I wanted to make my own songs, so I became a producer.

SKRATCH: Was the transition to doing your own music easy for you?
DEEP: Yeah – because most of the songs of electronic music have to be very powerful to get attention, because there are no lyrics. I have always been a poet, and I wanted to be a songwriter like Jim Morrison or John Lennon. So I combined my poetry with music.

SKRATCH: Who are some of your influences?
DEEP: For their writing and way of seeing the world, Jim Morrison, John Lennon and Bob Marley.

SKRATCH: How about for your music?
DEEP: Pink Floyd, The Cure, Oasis, and of course, John Lennon. Beethoven is my biggest influence as a composer, as a life, as a genius. I was asked who, if anyone, I’d choose to play my music for, and I’d like to play it for him. But he wouldn’t understand it, so I’d say I’d like to perform it for Morrison, Lennon and Marley.

SKRATCH: What is the culture like in Venezuela?
DEEP: The people in Venezuela are very conservative and want to control everything you do. I was in their eyes a rebel, being in clubs at 16. Everyone knows who you are and what you do. It was never enough having good grades and a good girlfriend, all they cared about was what you did on the weekend, so if you do anything stupid, that is what they talk about and remember.

SKRATCH: Where are you living and recording these days?
DEEP: I’m in Boston. My family is back and forth between Miami and Venezuela because of the political troubles there. I moved a lot the last two years. My philosophy necessitates travel. I want to help people everywhere to have the will to go for their passion. Everyone has a passion – it’s a necessary variable to a happy life. I want to help people to achieve their passion. I will settle down in L.A. in September.

SKRATCH: How do you plan to spread your philosophy? Will you give motivational lectures, write a book, become a psychologist and have a practice?
DEEP: I’m thinking of going once a month to a university wherever I tour and giving a speech about [people] finding their passion and following their dreams. So many people work full-time, and then when they’re 50, they look back and regret how they’ve spent their life. We are given the gift of having life. Do what makes you happy. Anyone who has a passion has a better heart and is more peaceful and nicer to people. I hope that when I have 25 chapters of my philosophy [book] written, I will publish it and give it out at gigs, and it will help people.

SKRATCH: Would you like to talk about any of the songs on the EP?
DEEP: Every song has its own meaning. The name of the EP is POPPYFIELDS because it represents finding Lala Land. In the ‘60s and ‘70s, people found it in drugs. Nowadays we can find it better. I mean it as a term for finding the best dream in life and living it. The song is happy, because it’s meant to lead people to find happiness. “One Beat of Silence” is about wanting to be with someone after you break up. Your friends and family entertain you, but when the silence comes at the end of the day, all you do is think of that person and wish they were with you.

SKRATCH: What’s in the future for Merlinmoon?
DEEP: The production is already done for the second album. It’s going to be called THE BOHEMIAN SIDE OF THE SKY. That’s where the angels hang out. That’s what it is when you see a rainbow – all the angels hanging out on the bohemian side of the sky. My third album will be called PIPE DREAM, because I will be living my dream realistically.

SKRATCH: In your philosophy chapters, you refer to having faith in a higher power. Do you believe in a god?
DEEP: I was born and raised Catholic-Christian. I DO believe in god. I don’t get very specific about it, however, because I know a lot of people would change the god they were born and raised with. Also, there is enough strife and violence in the world based on religious beliefs and fanaticism. But when a plane is about to crash, everyone prays. - Skratchmagazine

http://www.songoftheyear.com/webawards/m/merlinmoon.htm

Merlinmoon has been selected as a "Runner Up" in the December 2006 and February 2007 rounds of the Song of the Year song and lyric competition. Song of the Year receives entries from all over the world and only the top entries achieve Runner Up status. - Songoftheyear.com

To help people understand Merlinmoon, how would you explain your sound, and are you the only member? What makes Merlinmoon, Merlinmoon?

Well, its not easy to describe the sound because it has some many elements to build the mood that its hard to make a statement that will make it unique. I would say that it’s an atmospheric mellow rock, intensifying different feelings while the song evolves. I’ve worked with many musicians that taught me a lot of technique, but in reality not a lot of people know how to interpret the deepness of lyrics into sound, so I decided to take a step further and be the only member with a Lenny Kravitz kind of thinking.
I will be working with a lot of musicians in the future and I really hope to find great artists that can help me take Merlinmoon into the future. This project started as a philosophy book about living the life of dreams while living the dream of life, and one day a cousin of mine gave me the first album of the doors and it changed my whole perspective of music. I found a way that I could put words into music. At that time I was a DJ, I was playing in clubs for more than 4 years, and I got to a point in time that no music would satisfy my expectation of sound, so I decided to make the music that I wanted to hear but I could find it anywhere. You see music is not only about sounds and words is much more, it has the power to make someone cry or laugh. It has answers that people are looking for, it describes feelings that people have felt but in different degrees of intensity. Beethoven one said “music should strike from heart of a man, and bring tears to the eyes of a woman”. I see music as tool to communicate with people’s inner life and help them find the road that they should be walking.



Starting music at an early age of 15, what was it about music that made you want to make it your life’s journey? Did you just naturally fall into it or were there people in your life that influenced you into the area.

As a kid I always listened to music, I was born listening to Guns n Roses, Metallica, Nirvana, Green Day, Oasis but most of all Bob Marley. When I got into high school, electronic music and raves became a hit in the city. We would have the best techno DJ’s in the world come to Caracas and perform. Due to the immensity of the movement I bought some turntables and I learned to spin in a matter of days. I started playing in house parties and some small raves until I got to play pretty good and got some big venues. I found myself following other people’s sound so I decided to start to producing. I called up a producer I knew in London at the time, and he got me my first toy, a Roland TR-909. One of my bigger brothers was also DJ at the time so himself and his friends gave me a lot of influence and support. Time passed and my interest in music became a passion, so I graduated high school, and left Venezuela to start college in Boston.

Looking at your influences you have an eclectic taste in music, from groups such as The Cure, Bob Marley and Ludwig Van Beethoven. If there was someone out of these influences that you could perform your music to who would it be?

As I said before Bob Marley and Beethoven came into my life pretty early, but Pink Floyd, The Cure, The Beatles, John Lennon, The doors, Tangerine Dream and many others came a little late, So I took the time to read about them and study how their sound evolved from the first album to the last. I felt that some of them ran out of things to say and others just got better as their life was lived viewing the world from a closer angle. I would definitely perform my music in front of Beethoven, but given that he wouldn’t understand the sound, I think that I would rather choose artists who wrote lyrics. It’ll be a pretty close call between Bob Marley, Jim Morrison and John Lennon. I admire how they lived standing firm on their roots, never questioning their ideology and leaving life perusing a dream. Well, Jim got a bit lost in it but he had great things to say.



In your autobiography, which people can check out on www.merlinmoon.com and in www.myspace.com/merlinmoon you say that you started as a DJ in places such as New York, how did that come about? And why were you so criticized?

I did a couple of after parties in my house in Boston, because clubs closed at 2am, so friends would bring friends and one day, I got offered to start promoting in clubs. I took the opportunity and a couple of months later I was inside the DJ booth. One thing led to another and I got to become resident DJ in many clubs and be the guest DJ in Clubs in NY and Miami. I was criticized a lot because I came from a business family and they didn’t take my music seriously. With time my studio grew and my music got better. I was studying economics and business 12 hours a day and I would take time off my sleep to play the piano. It was pretty stressful but I got threw with it. I graduated from Boston University in three years, and since then I’ve been writing chapters of my book and taking my music into higher grounds. Time and hard work led my family to understand that I could actually become an artist. As months passed everything cooled down until I finally got my break.



Do you still use what you have learnt from being a DJ in your music or has playing the piano been your muse?

Yes, electronic music is in my blood, I still listen to artists such as Richie Hawtin, Trentemoller, Depeche Mode, Massive attack, etc. I’ve added modular and vintage synthesizers into my music, but not to the degree where people can categorize it as electronic music. I will do remixes of my songs and maybe with time add more electronic elements, but before that I need to focus more on guitar effects to create moving walls of sound with my fingers. Nevertheless piano is my main instrument but sadly I cant carry it around with me all the time, all though it would be cool to have a piano in the beach to play some tracks after surfing. I see myself growing pretty fast as a guitar player.



What has been the greatest, or at least the most memorable gig you have performed at?

I haven’t performed much as Merlinmoon because I’ve been moving around and living in so many different countries that’s its difficult to have a stable band. I am pretty grateful to have had the opportunity to live like a gipsy moving from city to city, it has helped me a lot to learn about humans and deepen the idea of my philosophy book. I’ll be moving to LA later this year to finish recording the album and where I have a band waiting for me to start the tour.

As a Dj I had a gig in Venezuela where I played in front of more than 2,000 people. In one point of the night my girlfriend hugged me from behind and took my headphones off. She whispered in my ear to look down. The lights where all turned on and everybody had their hands up screaming at me like if I had their joy in-between the vinyl and my fingers, It was a great experience.



What has been the weirdest thing to happen to you at a gig or just in general.


One night my girlfriend came to visit me from Mexico, I was still in Boston at the time. After a great night together I woke up in the middle of the night sweating. I had a dream where I had a conversation with a friend of mine who died a year earlier. I went to the kitchen to have a glass of water and I sat on the living room on my piano. I had this emotion stuck inside me that I wanted to release, so I started passing my feeling to the keys and I just started playing like I’ve never played before. I composed and recorded a whole track in just a couple of hours, and when I finished I went to bed. The next morning when I wake up I had a vivid image of my dream and when I heard the track I called it Angel, it was about my friend.



I believe that Merlinmoon was selected as a runner up in the December 2006 round of the Song of the Year song and lyric competition. How did that all come about?

I got this random email of a person who listened to one of my tracks, and that person said that I had a pretty good chance to win the song of the year competition. I didn’t know anything about the competition, so I looked for it online and I submitted one of my tracks. Then in February I received an email from the judges saying that I was selected as a runner up. So I decided to give another of my songs a chance and I submitted it again, and I got selected again as a runner up in Februaries round, I am pretty proud of the result, given that my music is really mellow and fresh sounding, I wouldn’t have expected for the judges to vote for me as song of the year. I hope that in a couple of months when people get to know my sound better, I could submit another song and maybe something great happens.



What are the upcoming plans for Merlinmoon? Any plans on performing down in Australia?

I would love to go down there, I’ve had the chance to travel all over the world but I’ve never been to Australia. I have a lot of people there interested in the sound, asking me where can they buy my album and even offering me money to ship them the record, which I will do once the record is done. Also in my website’s statistics, I get a lot of people from Melbourne, Sydney and other cities coming back to the website weekly and listen to the songs. Maybe with the help of a local record label we can promote some tracks, launch the album and make a nice tour. I would also love to surf in Australian beaches and play some acoustic gigs on the beach, well if I am lucky to have no white shark interested in tasting me.

For a short period of time people can download some of my songs in this address. www.sonicbids.com/merlinmoon
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http://www.fusionmusicmag.com/merlinmoon%20interview.html - Fusion Magazine Australia