“Everything was so far apart and in the scope of having a car,” Texas-bred indie-folk singer-songwriter Alex Amen says, as he looks back on his circuitous journey from the Gulf Coast to California, Washington and eventually Brooklyn, N.Y. “That, paired with how digital the world's becoming, makes everything feel so disconnected. In New York, you still have that human element and you’re around people all the time. Nowadays, that’s more important than ever.”
Amen, who released his breezy, Americana-indebted full-length debut Sun of Amen in June via ATO Records, has long been fascinated with both human connection and the great outdoors, originally relocating to California to attend film school and make rock-climbing movies. “I did Boy Scouts and my grandparents had a ranch in Texas, so I spent a lot of time outside, but it wasn’t until I found rock climbing that I had a personal outlet in nature,” says the musician, whose family often listened to John Denver on road trips to Colorado. “I moved to Washington and then back to California to focus on music and there was a certain loss from leaving. I filled that void with climbing and nature. That [love of nature] comes through on the record because, when hard things happen in your life, you can go two ways. You can let it make you a better person or take you down. Unless I got active and got outside, I’d probably go down a darker path.”
After dropping out of school, Amen relocated to a commune in Anaheim, Calif. and formed the psychedelic folk-rock outfit American Slang, before stripping things back and working on his Laurel Canyon-approved original music.
“My grandparents had a 78 player, and I’d play their old records,” he says. “I went through the whole arc—I got into a lot of modern indie bands and grunge—but those classic records continued to come through.”
He recorded Sun of Amen, which was engineered by Jonny Bell (Cage the Elephant, Chicano Batman), Jazzcats and Valentine Recording studios in SoCal, utilizing members of his touring combo and guests like Lana Del Rey multi-instrumentalist Tommy de Bourbon. Some of his bandmates are former housemates; others are pals from his rock-climbing days.
“The record is just as much a showcase for my songs as it is the band. Everybody has a real, personal connection to each other,” he says. “We’d nerd out, listen to a Pete Seeger record and pick up a lick, so knowing the roots of things was important. But I also wanted to do something that was fresh and modern.”
Though most of the album was written over the past two years, the standout “California Blues” predates the sessions, as well as his first visit to California itself.
“I stumbled across it and thought, ‘This says everything I’m feeling,’” he admits. “It happens a lot in art—people create insight that hasn't come yet. So many great lyrics are just as relevant now as they were when they were written.”
