Review Fix Exclusive: Alexis Harte Talks ‘The Night of My Death’ And More

Review Fix chats with singer and composer Alexis Harte who discusses their new single, “The Night of My Death,” off their new EP. with a background in TV and film composition as well as commercial tunes, Harte has quite an eclectic resume.

Review Fix: How did you get involved in music?

Alexis Harte: True Story: There was a funky old electric guitar and Memphis amp in our attic (one of my mom’s hippy friends left it there). I dug it out one day and tried to play “Get off of my Cloud” by the Rolling Stones.  Failed, but was intrigued enough to keep at it!

Review Fix: What are your influences?

Harte: I listened to so much stuff growing up. My mom was a big fan of 70s folks and pop, so people John Prine, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Carole King, etc was often on the stereo, and that definitely crept in. But what probably had the biggest impact was British Invasion (the usual suspects: Beatles, Stones, Zep, Who, Kinks etc), Hendrix, then later West African pop (folks like Baaba Mal, Habib Koite, Oliver Mtukudze), and Brazilian Tropicalistas (Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso, Tom Ze and more), and fingerstyle guitar going back to Mississippi John Hurt , who was always high on my list. I got very into flamenco guitar for a while as well.

Review Fix: What is your stand-out track on this EP? How was it written?

Harte: “The Night of My Death” is a song I’ve been trying to write for years. It was actually inspired by what I describe in the first verse, though luckily I stepped out of the way at the last minute. “The Night of My Death” freezes the moment of death for the length of a song, in order to explore the final steps we might take to give our lives closure. It’s also a musical nod to one of my favorite short stories “Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce.

Review Fix: What makes your brand of music special?

Harte: Not sure… I think that one is better left for listeners!

Review Fix: How does writing music for TV and Film help you in this type of work?

Harte: Really good question. Being a composer by day means facing tough deadlines, which has helped my studio workflow and production chops, and I think has allowed me to take some risks in the studio that I might not have done otherwise. It has also really helped me figure out and commit to arrangement ideas pretty quickly. On the other hand, writing for TV and film is always done in service to the picture. Writing my own songs means taking the reins completely, so I need to get myself out of the scoring mentality and figure out what I want to say!

Review Fix: Why do you think people should enjoy it?

Harte: Hmmm, I really did take a lot of care with these songs and some of the arrangements and concepts are pretty ambitious for three-minute pop songs, so I hope listeners have a fun ride with that. Mainly, I had a great time working on these and I hope some part of that rubs off on listeners.

Review Fix: How do you want your music to affect people?

Harte: I hope that people can enjoy on different levels. Ideally, a listener would stop what they are doing and sit down and listen top-to-tail on a really good system, but I realize not everyone will do that.

Lyrically this is an important record for me. I wrote the song “The Night of My Death” to help me confront one of my most favorite anxieties: kicking the bucket unexpectedly. But I wanted to do it in a calm, non-hysterical way, with the absence of violence. If you knew the moment of your death and could freeze it (just before the truck hit you, etc.), what would you do with your last evening? The song is about gently broaching the subject of death, mainly to see how we prioritize our lives.

If this song helps others do that, I’d be very pleased.

Review Fix: What makes this album different from your previous work?

Harte: Well in some ways, it’s pretty similar.  I closely worked with Jon Evans (Tori Amos/G-Love), the same producer who has joined me on several previous albums. I’d say Briefcase is more of a deepening and widening of my past sound. I think I’ve covered an album’s worth of themes, tones, and moods in the space of five songs. I’ve never liked adding filler songs, but since this was an EP,  I was very intent on making every song standout and clamor for the listener’s attention. Whether I achieved that or not, who knows! I just wanted it to be a very satisfying and diverse ride for 16 minutes.

I did not really sit down and write these songs sequentially. Thematically and lyrically, they were sculpted pretty slowly and more like microphones left on in five different rooms of my house, 24/7 over the winter, catching the conversations, arguments, jokes, hand-wringing, rough-housing, etc. The “songwriting” was more about editing this live feed down to the typical song format, with verses and choruses as needed. The songs are kind of three-minute mini-plays from scenes taken from my life over the last year.

Review Fix: What are your goals for the rest of 2018?

Harte: Mainly, I’ll be working on the score for a cool animated kids series through starting in the Fall which is going to keep me busy.  But as often happens when I’m deep in a scoring job, I start to spin off song ideas for my own stuff. I like the idea of releasing fewer songs more often. I may even just release singles for awhile!

Review Fix: What’s next?

Harte: I’m off for a three-week road/camping trip with my family through the Southwest desert! (Utah, New Mexico, Colorado). It’s our Wally World.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 13821 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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