Alex Dew

“Alex you are unmanageable, your music is too eclectic and can’t be pigeon holed, that’s what A+R want, a label”, throughout my time as a songwriter these very words or there abouts have been repeated to me and honestly they are probably true. I do write in different styles, I don’t tick the commercially viable boxes, my story is not that sellable, I am not Doherty the wild man of rock and roll or too cool for skool Jack White . I am who I am and after years of umm and ahhers not doing anythi...

“Alex you are unmanageable, your music is too eclectic and can’t be pigeon holed, that’s what A+R want, a label”, throughout my time as a songwriter these very words or there abouts have been repeated to me and honestly they are probably true. I do write in different styles, I don’t tick the commercially viable boxes, my story is not that sellable, I am not Doherty the wild man of rock and roll or too cool for skool Jack White . I am who I am and after years of umm and ahhers not doing anything for me particularly I have come to the conclusion I don’t actually care, I just love music and being the cool artiste that satisfies the journos and the, lets face it dying record companies,is essentially not of interest to me. I am that story of an artist who was on the brink of making it, Jazz Summers (Verve manager), managed me for a while setting up my first London gig when I was 17 in front of 90 a+r bods (It destroyed my confidence), had I have sold my publishing to him for 5000 he may have made me into the next Badly Drawn Boy or shelved me for ever and eternity, who knows. Next on the list was Boy George, his label picked me up did a few singles, John Peel Radio One played one of the singles “Piggy Back Ride” a few times as did XFM, Fake as the act was known had a small buzz about town and I was offered a small album deal, it was not even exclusive, but my manager at the time advised me to hold out, so I did and it disappeared, leaving me stuck in some kind of Inertia, I just wanted to make music and have people listen to it, but oh no that’s not the fucking game, you have gotta wait and actually it seems to me DO NOTHING. Boy George loved the stuff and after a sell out Borderline gig in London was worried I was gonna be snapped up by a major (I met Amanda Ghost at this point and I wish I had co written some stuff with her as I loved her attitude and she is very talented, but guess what my adviser told me the best course of action was to do nothing, as he stated she wasn’t gonna amount to much!!!!). So that fizzled out and I was again left with zilch. Next up we have a new manager dilemma, a company split and one offered me an amazing opportunity in the States and one advised me they were the most experienced, like Terry Fuckwit I stayed on UK soil, carried on my agenda of nothingness and then the manager I chose retired very shortly, that was nothing but cruel, the USA side of this split even suggested he managed me in the UK and she did the USA, but MR I am gonna fuckin retire and not tell you wouldn’t have that, so I cut all ties to the US side of this split, the young manager in question is now as fate would have it one of the top 30 players as voted by Billboard, she is real high up in a massive record label, but due to my decision all ties with her have fizzled out. The next stage was an act called Blankspace, this was managed by a guy who picked me up through a company called NUDE who’s biggest signing was Suede, Nude showed strong interest in me themselves but guess what my manager advised me to do nothing!!. The ex nude guy managed me and put out a few singles and an album called My Days With The Astronauts, NME gave it a great live review and 8/10 for the album, radio one also played the single release from this album and things were looking promising, we supported The Bluetones at the Kentish Town forum to around 2000 people and I was on the verge of a publishing deal with V2, finally I was moving forward, but then it fell through and the band fizzled out, I hit some bad times after this, then I got the chance to co-write and sing on BMG signed Kinobe’s 2nd album, Wide open, the track was called Tired Hearts. The album didn’t sell really as the band had been in effect shelved, but formed from this was a song writing partnership with the chief songwriter, we formed a studio band and created some great tracks but as always inertia set in, the chief reason was a management company stuck to the oh so popular activity of doing nothing. JUKE formed from this studio project so something good came out of it. My girlfriend at this time was also a singer and with the main guy from Kinobe we all started to write some material together. Then something weird happened I became jealous of the blossoming friendship of my girlfriend and the main Kinobe guy, I am not a jealous type at all, I just sensed something, my friends thought I was paranoid. Shortly she left me and I have never been so heartbroken, I was dangled on a string as I was not allowed closure, a few months down the line I found out she was pregnant, and guess who was the father!!, weirdly it was one of the best things that happened to me, I realised that after all the heart ache and lies I could forgive 100%, I wish them both well and I am tempted to hook up with the aforementioned guy and write some tunes, we had a good chemistry!. So there we go a summary of my journey. With all these nearly made it stories I now find myself a washed up wedding singer, seriously, my life is driving up and down cold, dull motorways playing cheesy covers to drunk Aunties. For a while I have been lost, truly, JUKE has potential but I feel will take some time and we need good management. I have decided to come out fighting, I don’t care about fitting a sellable mould anymore, but to date I have over 500 songs recorded and I am gonna release every last one in a series of albums through AWAL, who channel to I-tunes, I probably wont sell much but that’s not the point, at least I can exorcise the demons contained within a lot of the material, that’s what I am a songwriter and that’s what a songwriter does let people hear the music. Timescale wise I am gonna aim to release and album every 2 months. Then I can get on and write more and more music. Thanks for reading this its what gives my endeavours a purpose. God bless you all.