A Chat with Mad Painter (21.03.23)
Drawing inspiration from iconic bands Deep Purple and Uriah Heep, US-based band Mad Painter is a time machine dragging us back to 70s rock. We speak with frontman Alex Gitlin about their album Splashed, creative processes, future plans and more!
OSR: What inspires you to make music?
Gitlin: My heroes. The musicians I’ve followed my entire life. Virtuosos such as Rory Gallagher, Ritchie Blackmore, and Keith Emerson. Songwriters and poets, Marc Bolan, Phil Lynott, and Ken Hensley. I’ve always had this inner voice telling me: if they could do it, so could you; so you should try at least. – Oh, but I’m living in the wrong decade and century for this sort of thing. It’s not the same as it was back then. – Try anyway, the voice keeps telling me. I always get inspired when I hear a classic rock record, be it Magician’s Birthday, Calling Card, Slider or Jailbreak. And I feel I need an outlet for self-expression, to give something back. I hear a bunch of songs, then inadvertently a melody is born in my head and I follow it.
Recording my songs with Painter is a thrilling experience. You nurse and nurture each one like your own baby, from the very first rough take (which you know will wind up on the cutting room floor) to the finished product, fully mixed, mastered and assigned a number in the track sequence of your new album. As is the case with our latest one, Splashed.
Finally, the huge motivator is our audience. We have uber-fans and diehard Painter followers who show up at every one of our gigs and like all our posts. We love them for it. But it’s also equally thrilling to bring your songs to a “virgin” audience, those who’ve come to see you for the first time and probably never heard your material before. They’re giving you the benefit of a doubt. If you’re able to bring them to ecstasy, to get them up and moving in the room, and applauding like crazy at the end of each song, you know you’ve succeeded. A rapturous reception is addictive. It’s like a drug. So when you’re playing to just a handful of people in the room, it can feel like a downer. As an artist, you always crave more…
OSR: How did Mad Painter come together and why did you choose ‘Mad Painter’ as your band name?
Gitlin: I had this crazy idea of putting together a band circa 1990 and calling it Mad Painter. Why? Because as a musician, singer and songwriter I’ve always viewed myself as a “sonic” painter. I paint with notes. Now that I have a solid band, WE paint with aural palettes and colours, which are rhythms, notes, solos, chords, etc. Nothing came out of it at the time and I put the idea on hold for a very long time. It was just a wacky fantasy of mine. But then, many decades later, I got together with two friends for an impromptu jam after Christmas 2015; things just started to gel and we took it to the next level. 2016 was a very tough year, we kept auditioning guitarists and no one would stick – either they weren’t a good fit or they had no interest and auditioned just for fun. So we wound up playing a bunch of gigs guitar-less, as a trio – rhythm section and me on vocals and keyboards. We also recorded our first album that year, and our producer added his own guitar parts and mixed the whole thing. It just snowballed from there. I’m no longer in touch with anyone involved with that album. The present line-up is the best one Painter’s ever had, and our second album, which has just come out a week ago, called Splashed, is a thing of beauty. We are immensely proud of this release.
OSR: What can you tell us about your album Splashed?
Gitlin: It’s extremely diverse. There are seventeen tracks on it and you have heavy, melodic rock via our two singles, ‘Illusion’ and ‘Rock and Roll Samurai’, orchestrated romantic balladry (‘I Live For Love’, ‘I’ve Been A Fool’), gut-wrenching blues (‘Lie To Me’), vaudeville (‘The Moon’), nostalgic pop (‘A Friend In France’, ‘Love Is Gold’), a little bit of something for everyone. My favourite track is ‘I Don’t Know’. The bass line and the string arrangements are just perfect. Also a couple of covers, ‘Stealin” by Uriah Heep and ‘Highway Driver’ by German band Randy Pie.
Reviewers have called it “a rock opera” and a “smorgasbord”. Some may think this lack of focus on any one style is a weakness, but critics so far tend to call it a strength. All that said, I think in the future there’ll be more heavy rock songs in the classic tradition, that’s just my bandmates’ preference. And it’s alright by me. All five of us are crazy about Deep Purple and Uriah Heep.
OSR: If you could change one thing about Splashed, what would it be?
Gitlin: If we could have it done and released a year earlier, that would be good. But being realistic, although Tom Hamilton’s the best producer for Painter (he knows exactly what we need and knows how to work with our songs), he only does it part-time, which means the recording and mixing sessions took place during weekends. We had to wait a very long time but he did things just right – the effects on vocals, the drum production, the entire thing.
Also, I had to do all the string and horn arrangements on my Juno synth, and if only we could afford a real live orchestra to work with, the end result would’ve been even better!
OSR: What is your creative process?
Gitlin: Writing-wise, if a melody comes to me in my sleep or when I’m in the shower, doesn’t matter, I try not to lose it. Put it together, add some structure and present it to our master lyricist, Dmitry Epstein. So far, he’s the one who’s written the lyrics to our best songs, the two aforementioned singles and ‘I’ve Been A Fool’. He gets back to me a while later with some verses and choruses. Then I bring the whole thing to practice and run it by our band. Of course, there’s a world of difference between the first time trying a song out for size and the finished product. But we do have our own patented Painter sound, I’m proud to say it’s impossible to confuse it with any other band, past or present.
Lately, I’ve been receiving lyrics from Dmitry and putting them onto my own music. So sometimes his lyrics come first and sometimes I just come up with my own text. I’m not a poet though, so it’s a much harder process for me. I try to make it interesting when I write, avoiding banalities and mundane words and expressions. The motto is, if you have nothing to say on a certain day, don’t even bother. It has to have substance, it’s got to excite, thrill, engage or provoke thoughts and emotions. It’s got to be real. But we don’t view ourselves as a contemporary band because in our minds we’re not competing with other bands out there in 2023. We have our favourites and they all were active in the period between 1968 and 1975. Mentally, we’re competing with Mountain and Grand Funk, Vanilla Fudge and the Small Faces, people like that. It just feels right. We’re in our own element when we forget about the realities of today and just plunge into our own music. It’s as if we’re teleporting ourselves (and our audience) back to that era. So our shows and records are, invariably, a time warp experience.
Those are our influences. This is chiefly why I avoid current topics in my lyrics.
OSR: What does music mean to you?
Gitlin: It’s an outlet for creative expression. If you’re an artist, you can’t just go through life working, drinking beer and watching TV, right? You get to hear the music by the bands and artists you revere and feel the urge to express yourself in the same way your favourites did back in the day. They, too, had to start somewhere and build their fan base and discography from scratch. Now some of them are part of the international rock canon, while others remain less well-known and more obscure (so “for connoisseurs only”). Either way, I feel just like they did 45-50 years ago. I want to be part of that scene, and I think this goes for all members of Painter.
OSR: If you won the lottery, what would you do with the money?
Gitlin: Quit my day job. Organise the best marketing campaign possible for Splashed. Shoot more promo videos. Go on a three-month tour playing in many countries. The possibilities are endless. And of course, finance the recording of the next Painter album which will become reality sooner rather than later anyway. We are planning on visiting Tom’s studio this year and laying down some tracks for the new songs we have up our sleeves.
OSR: What do you think are the pros and cons of releasing music in this digital era?
Gitlin: You have a lot more competition now because it’s become a lot easier to create music at home. There were no Pro Tools and such back in the 70s or 80s. On the other hand, the record industry was so tough to break into – you had to knock on many doors, send out demo cassettes, beg some mogul or impresario to give you the time of day. Now it’s the “DIY” era and you get judged by your own merit, if you’ve got the goods, your music will speak for itself and you’ll gain new fans. Of course, to us, the quality standards of writing, arrangement and production still matter just as much as they would back in our favourite time period. Which you can clearly hear on Splashed.
Now, the fact that you can’t make money selling your records, I don’t even know if it’s a pro or a con, to be honest. Yes, with Spotify and other digital platforms, less and less people want to buy a physical CD (we offer both CD and digital downloads of Splashed on our website). But the CD now becomes a great marketing tool with the help of which you can spread the word, secure the right connections, get to know record labels, DJs, promoters, etc. It’s like your business card, in a way. We’ve toyed with the idea of doing a vinyl release, but the costs are clearly prohibitive. Unlike many established musicians, I don’t begrudge the digital era with all its gadgetry and convenience right at your fingertips. Yes, with Splashed being on Spotify and iTunes, I know we’ll probably never get rich from the song streams, but hopefully, they’ll help popularise the band and introduce it to new audiences around the world.
OSR: What future plans do you have for Mad Painter?
Gitlin: Another album, at the very least. Hopefully, more gigs both locally and around the US, time and schedules permitting. More singles and videos, those are a lot of fun! And definitely festivals. There are so many out there! We’ve played the Winter Tangle Fest twice, most recently in February 2022, in Kingston, NY, and the audience reception was absolutely phenomenal.
OSR: Do you have a message for our readers?
Gitlin: Yes, definitely! Come see us in New York, at the Chelsea Table and Stage on Saturday, May 27th. Details here: https://madpainter.co.uk/shows
And do visit our webshop if you’re interested in buying the CD or the digital download of Splashed. We’re so proud of the way it’s come out, the artwork on all four sides of the wallet-style foldout is a thing of beauty.
Many thanks to Alex Gitlin for speaking with us. For more from Mad Painter, check out their official website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Spotify.
This artist was discovered via Musosoup #sustainablecurator
