Alex
Serra, is a music artist who has traveled to many places
globally, met and collaborated with several artists and is still having his own
star on the rise. A brand new single; “Missing You” came about from a trip to
Panama City and a new artist collaboration with Jamie X, which is available now
on iTunes. From Cusco, Bogotá, & Guatemala; Alex has musically collaborated
with numerous artists and performed live in various venues which makes for a
very rich and exciting career.
Alex is very creative in the method to bring forth his music, love for
traveling, meeting new artists, collaborating via a few very successful series;
“Car Sessions,” “The Backpack Sessions” & “Webcam Jams.” Alex along with recording very successful
original and cover tracks also has his hands into doing Audio-Visual
Production. In this area he has done travel clips, musical video clips, 2D/3D
animation amongst many things. Alex has also taken this audio-visual production
into an area of passion which is social & cultural innovation globally.
Official Website: http://alexserramusic.com/Official YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/aleutube
Alex,
let me first mention it is a true pleasure for you to take time out and do this
interview.
Pleasure is mine, I have all the time in the world right now.
First,
I want to say I am a huge fan of your musical series entitled; “Car Sessions”
where you collaborate and sing a lot of covers while traveling all over. For
anyone that is just discovering you tell us about how you got into this popular
series.
Well I started posting videos on YouTube a long time ago in a
channel called "aleutube" and I've been getting great feedback and
many views. So this new channel called "Car Sessions" started
spontaneously, one time I was traveling with my girlfriend through Galicia in
Spain. We rented a car and travelled the whole region so we did many miles on
the road. I'm a video nerd so I always have my camera on me just in case
something funny comes up, and I also had this little travel guitar with me. In
one of the road trips my girl was driving and I was playing this song and we
both started singing, so I thought: hey let's record this. The video ended up
looking nice and we had a fun time doing it so we decided to started a new
YouTube channel dedicated exclusively to the Car Sessions.
We did many videos after that and I also did some collaborations
with other friends. We even recorded a song in a New York taxi for Session#5.
And now that I'm living on the road I keep recording them while traveling the
whole world. Still plenty of Car Sessions to come!
You
have done many collaborations/covers during your “Car Sessions” series, what is
your favorite session/song to cover and why?
Session #3 I really like. We recorded the song, a cover by
Lauryn HIll, on the way back to Barcelona from a lovely weekend in the region
of Solsona in Catalonia, and it was a fun relaxed ride home I really like the
vibe in that one.
But there's something special about every single clip. The ride
in the New York taxi with Many Garcia (the taxi driver) was great. Then we did
a clip in the Montjuic mountain in Barcelona with some of her friends in
Session #8, which was great! And also the clip with my ex-band from Barcelona
"Se Atormenta Una Vecina" in Session #9 in the van on the way to a
concert.
How
would you describe your style of music?
I don’t like sticking to a style, but I guess I might sound the
type of music that I've been listening to through the major part of my
childhood. I've always had a passion for beautiful lovely voices in jazz and
soul music.
Alex,
you have such dynamic methods of reaching out to new artists for collaborations
along with seeing great sites globally. I believe one of your goals is to
travel the entire globe, is this true and also what are some of your other
goals musically? What other goals from your series: “The Backpack Sessions,”
“Car Sessions,” & “Webcam Jam?” do you hope to gain from them?
Actually “The Backpack Sessions” is the Project I’m currently
doing/living. I started traveling the world in October 2012. I bought a one way
ticket to Mexico from Barcelona and made my way down to Argentina, where I’ll
be living for a while before continuing my adventure to Africa and then Asia.
In the travel blog called thebackpacksessions.com I post all my
stories from the trip, both travel adventures and musical encounters. And my
wish is to be able to compile a kind of documentary when I go back home with
thoughts about the trip and talking about what I’ve learnt.
“Car Sessions” fit
perfectly in this trip and I keep doing them whenever I get a chance. Whenever
I meet someone with a car I try to convince them to do one with me!
And the “Webcam Jam” is a very cool story. I received a comment
on one of my videos from Ernie Halter, who is a great Singer-songwriter from
California, and I knew the guy from YouTube so I was shocked when I got his
message. He told me it’d be cool to sing together so I immediately wrote back
and told him: hey we could record something life online. We had a chat on Skype
and did some testing before we could come up with something coherent, but we
finally recorded a pretty cool take on ‘Georgia’ considering we were recording
life from our respective living rooms in California and Barcelona.
How
did you come up with each of the extremely successful and enjoyable sessions
(The Backpack Sessions, Car Sessions, & Webcam Jam)?
The idea of traveling the world was a dream I’ve had for a long
time. I actually woke up to it when I was living in London and I watched the
movie ‘Into The Wild’. Something inside me lit up and I suddenly realized that
that was my next step in life. So I went back to Barcelona and worked for about
3 years to safe up money for the trip. And finally I went for it!
So after deciding to jump into this great adventure I thought of
how I could keep doing what I love, making music, videos, and creative stuff. And
I had the idea of contacting my YouTube fans and letting them know about my
plans and opening up the possibility to connect in person and do stuff
together. So I started the ‘The Backpack Sessions’ travel blog and Facebook
page to let people know about my travels and adventures! I really love meeting
up with people that are passionate about similar things than I am.
You
have a brand new single that you are featured on entitled; “Missing You”
(available right now via Itunes), how did the collaboration with Jamie X come
about?
That's a cool story. I was traveling through Panama and I got to
Panama City. I checked in this cool hostel called Luna’s Castle, a very
party-like place. There was a living room area with sofas and there were many
guitars for people to jam. So I saw this guy Jamie playing and grabbed a guitar
and started playing with him. There was a very good vibe and we enjoyed playing
so much. It turns out Jamie X is a super producer-singer/songwriter from
Australia! The thing is he really liked my singing and suggested we’d do some
playing together in Panama City. So we ended up playing in a very cool venue
called Teatro Amador in the Casco Viejo of the city.
After that gig Jamie told me: we should record a song together!
And that’s how I ended up recording the vocals for one of his songs, Missing
You. I really like Jamie X’s style, he’s got a really cool mellow vibe and I
was honored to be able to collaborate with him.
Check out the tune on iTunes:
I
have listened and truly enjoy your single “Missing You” and your collaboration
with Jamie X, do you both still stay in contact and think perhaps future
projects on the horizon?
Definitely. I made a really nice friendship with Jamie X and we
keep in touch. We always day dream about other projects we could work together
in, wouldn’t be surprise if we meet up somewhere along the road, he’s also a
keen traveler.
In
your travels you have been able to collaborate with many artists, do tell us
about a few and how you met, the collaboration came about, their sound and why
you gelled together when working together on tracks?
I’ve met many amazing artists along the way. Some of them we’ve
recorded clips together and others I just captured them playing.
In Tulum, Mexico, I was lucky to meet Raul Neri son of the
famous guitarist Juanito Neri. I could see he’d had a pretty tough life, he was
crippled and had no home, he lived in the streets. I was mesmerized by his
presence, he was such a sweet man. We played some songs together and then he
played a beautiful song: ‘No me platiques mas’.
http://thebackpacksessions.com/the-day-i-met-raul-neri/
http://thebackpacksessions.com/the-day-i-met-raul-neri/
In Chitré, Panamá, I met up with my very good friend and
wonderful singer Valentina Sousa. I stayed with her and her family for sometime
and we wrote a couple songs together during those days. We did this ‘Algarrobo
Sessions’ videos where we climbed on a huge tree they had in their backyard,
and we had the most fun time! http://thebackpacksessions.com/algarrobo-sessions/
In Bogotá, Colombia, I met up with Leo Parra a musician who was
starting up his own recording studio in the city. He invited me to his place
and we recorded a nice ‘Nina Simone’ cover.
http://thebackpacksessions.com/recording-in-bogota-colombia/
In Galapagos, Ecuador, I met Sebastian Pita. I fell in love with
his style and personality. Sebastian y la Banda Fantasma is his alter ego band
where he composes beautiful songs. I recommend you check him out. http://thebackpacksessions.com/a-nomadic-musician-in-the-Galapagos-Islands/
In Cusco, Perú, I met Lorry Tajean a lovely French flute player.
We met at a hostel where he was working. One day he saw me playing my travel
guitar and joined in with the flute, we had so much fun that we engaged
everyone in the hostel to help us record some clips in Cusco. We did this
‘Respect’ cover in the streets of the city which ended up looking really cool,
luckily there was an excellent camera man in the crew! http://thebackpacksessions.com/playing-in-the-streets-of-cusco-peru/
And of course the story with Jamie X in Panamá City. http://thebackpacksessions.com/jamiex-feat-alex-serra/
What
other parts of the world are you extremely interested in traveling/discovering
and for what reason?
After almost a year of traveling I realized that I might be
addicted to it! Hmmm… I really feel the impulse to keep going and keep
experiencing these wonderful adventures. I’ve learnt many insights about myself
and about how I really honestly want to live my life. And the beautiful thing
is that everyday I learn something new. I meet so many different people, listen
to so many different opinions, and this opens up for me a whole new world of
possibilities and fills me up with strength and inspiration for my own life.
It’s not about the actual places, it’s about the people you meet
along the way and the fact that you’re constantly revealed with new beautiful
insights. And you realize that we’re all searching for the same thing, all we
want is happiness, and for some reason humanity - specially in the western
“civilized” world – has become really selfish, people don’t look after each
other, and there’s no compassion at all. It’s really hard to see this when your
completely submerged in the paranoia that governs our culture, you as an
individual are almost in an hypnotic state, but when you travel you understand
the richness and whole meaning there is to life and you feel much love for the
people and relationships you encounter! That’s what I believe, so I’m gonna
keep traveling for a while.
Music
is a powerful tool, what does it mean to you as an artist?
I’ve come to appreciate music more and more with time. For me
it’s a way of liberating emotions, a way of cleaning whatever’s trapped inside
me. It’s like going to the top of a mountain and screaming with everything
you’ve got, you know that feeling? So I’m being selfish here, I don’t just do
it as a way of making a living or whatever, I do it for myself. It’s a very
important healing mechanism for me.
What
made you get into the music industry?
I’m not really in the music industry, in the sense that I haven’t
got a contract with any label. At the moment I’m working on writing my own
songs and I’m really looking forward to releasing something soon. However I
would do independently not through any record label.
What
was your first gig?
My first gig was when I was like 15 years old. I had a pop-rock
band in school and we played in front of the whole school for Christmas. I
remember I never looked up, I turned my head to the ground and never looked up,
I was very shy back then.
What was your first milestone as a musical artist?
I got into music more seriously when I was 20 or so. I started learning guitar and did some vocal training. I got into the school’s gospel choir and that was a wonderful experience. So I did some gigs here and there and by the time I went back to Barcelona after living in London for a while I got into 2 really cool bands. Soulchoir Barcelona, a soul-band, and Se Atormenta Una Vecina, a disco-funk band. I learned a lot from singing in those bands. In the meantime I had been posting videos on YouTube and that was also working really well. My wish right now is to write something of my own and shoot it out there, probably when I finish my travels.
Who are some of the artists that are part of your “dream list” that you would love to collaborate with?
I don’t really pursue working with anyone in particular. I love meeting people that have a passion for music, and if there is any connection with them then I go for it. So I’m opened to whatever comes.
How do you choose cover tracks to
sing?
I try to choose carefully when picking a cover. I like feeling
comfortable with what I sing and truly enjoy the song. So you probably won’t
see me doing any commercial MTV-pop songs. I love soul, jazz, pop, blues and
those are the genres I try to cover.
When people listen to music from
Alex Serra, what do you want them to remember about your music?
I really love when people come up and say: ‘hey man that was
beautiful’. Because that just means that they’ve really felt you singing and
that you’ve connected somehow. That’s really amazing to me. I realize I have a mellow relaxed tone to my singing and playing and so this is what I expect people to hear from me. I want them to feel peaceful and relaxed when listening to my songs.
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