Up and coming pop-punk star Cameron Alexander was kind enough to join TGEFM for the newest installment of our Roll of the Dice interview series. We got to chat about their sound, their message and their influences. Check it out below
Thank you so much for agreeing to this interview. What can you tell us about yourself for readers just discovering your music? What do you want your music to signify to listeners? Is there a specific sound aesthetic or design you aim for when writing?
Hi! I just wanna make music for you to scream along to to make your day a little easier. Maybe a stage dive or two also if that’s your thing.
I want my music to signify to listeners that I’ve got problems to deal with just like everybody else does, but making and experiencing music helps me not get caught up in life’s bullshit and practice gratitude. From a sonic perspective, I want listeners to be able to tell that I respect the older music as well as new trending stuff. I don’t want to record music a certain way just because this guy or that guy did it and got famous, but I actually wanna push the envelope on what it means to have your own sound.
What album or band or significant singles made you go “Yeah, this is what I want to do” Not just an influence but who or what was the catalyst?
I still remember listening to blink-182’s self-titled album when I was 13 in the backseat of my parents car during a road trip late at night. That was the most serious and emotionally vulnerable music I had ever heard being such a young kid, and hearing it come from a band that’s known for running around naked in the street made me realize
how many dimensions songwriters can have with their music. That was definitely a maturing moment when I realized music can move people and have a lot of meaning.
That road trip was also to the Gibson guitar factory in Memphis, Tennessee, where I happened to find Tom Delonge’s signature Epiphone guitar, and my parents were nice enough to buy it for me. Finding that guitar at the same time as being obsessed with that album felt like fate, and it was easily a memory that solidified me as a musician.
You played every instrument in your songs plus you host a podcast, Crossing Streams. I need a nap when I check my mailbox. How do you keep yourself moving forward and motivated to keep creating?
I definitely stress a lot and take my work personally. I’ve been working really hard on enjoying the journey of creating more than focusing on the outcome. I also try to remember that life is all about having and solving problems, and these are the problems that I would like to have in my life. If I’m going to stress over anything, it might as well be something I love. Along with that, I have an amazing friend group here that are all in
creative fields that keep me grounded and sane, which I feel utterly blessed to have.
The world has been going through some shit over the last few years. What affect, if any, have the cultural and political landscapes of the last few years had on your music or the live scene in general?
I would say it has a lot to do with my music and approach to creating in general. Especially graduating highschool in the middle of a global pandemic, it felt like I was making a lot of heavy commitment decisions in a time where nothing felt certain. This was also around the time I first started releasing music, so a lot of my writing had to do
with dealing with growing up in such a weird time. This along with growing up in the social media era, where there’s such a fast exchange of information, it can feel really exhausting and worrying to try to make something culturally relevant, when the culture is changing every second. Now I try to take a much more singular approach to contributing to the culture. Instead of trying to have a fresh take on whatever big thing is happening and trying to affect the world at such a large scale, I want to connect with the self a lot more, and help people (along with myself) find peace in themselves, and then maybe positive change can flow outwardly from there.
What have been some of the most memorable moments or experiences in the music scene so far? What’s been the most unexpected? The weirdest?
I’ve had a lot of great and unexpected moments since moving away from my hometown and starting my music career. I didn’t expect to make a group of best friends and start a collective where none of us make the same genre of music and throw music events for 1400 kids to show up to, but here I am. I’ve also been able to work with some amazing producers in some amazing studios, such as working on “Time to Break Up” with Justin
Cortelyou at Soul Train Studios in Nashville. I’ve been fortunate to make a lot of great relationships in my music career so far, and I’m super excited for what the future holds.
Roll of the Dice is a short interview format with a variable amount of questions. A pair of dice is rolled and the total, between 2 and 12, is the amount of questions we can ask. All questions are given to the interviewee(s) at once, and no follow-ups are allowed. The interview may be lightly edited for content and clarity.
Bad Dad (occasionally called Ed) has been on the periphery of the punk and punk-adjacent scene for over twenty years. While many contributors to this site have musical experience and talent, Ed’s musical claim to fame comes from his time in arguably the most punk rock Blockbuster Video district in NJ where he worked alongside members of Blanks 77, Best Hit TV and Brian Fallon. He is more than just an awful father to his 2 daughters, he is also a dreadful husband, a subpar writer, a terrible dresser and has a severe deficiency in all things talent… but hey, at least he’s self-aware, amirite?
Check out the pathetic attempts at photography on his insta at https://www.instagram.com/bad_dad_photography/
