Alex Woodard

Website » MySpace »

I live in a little beach town north of San Diego with my two dogs. I’ve released a few LPs, “Up With The Sun” being my fourth full-length album after two EPs in the late-90s. My most recent CD was produced by Pete Droge and eventually was picked up by 33rd Street Records. “Up With The Sun” is my first self-produced record, recorded with the help of my good friend John Would.

I started writing and recording in Seattle. I moved there after living in Oregon for a few days, Boston a little longer, but mostly Southern California. That’s where I grew up. I had a childhood acting gig when I was a kid, taught myself to play piano, went to UCLA, got a degree in Business Economics, and worked in Boston for a mutual funds company after I graduated. I came home for Christmas that year and met a girl, older enough than me to know better, who told me to leave it all behind and go for music. And her. Being only 22 and inherently naïve, I indeed went after both. I drove across the country from Boston, picked up a puppy in Utah, and showed up at her house in Hood River, Oregon, with said puppy and my guitar. Nobody was home, and I was there for a few days before I realized she never was going to show up. It turned out she had eloped with some photographer on a boat while on a photo shoot in Mexico. Seattle was right up the road, so that’s where I pointed the truck.

I had been writing and singing for my bedroom walls since I was a kid, but it was in Seattle that I met some friends through a newspaper ad who helped me put a band together. We released an EP in the late 90s, and one night I was at my girlfriend-at-the-time’s house, and Bruce Springsteen’s “Thunder Road” came on the radio. And then out of nowhere, as the Boss was fading out, one of my songs came on. I could not believe it. And I won’t ever forget it. That was a good night, and a reason I have kept the faith, trying to get heard.

Those friends in my band also played with much bigger bands than myself, but they have found time to tour and record with me over the last 4 albums. We all live in Southern California now, and we recorded “Up With The Sun” almost entirely live. I look forward to playing these songs with them at our release show July 29th in Hollywood at Hotel Cafe.

I think “Up With The Sun,” which comes out on August 1st, sounds more like me than my earlier releases; maybe that’s because I’m getting older, but I’m sure that producing it myself has something to do with it too. The songs are roots-driven, with a lot of mandolin, lap steel, and fiddle thrown in with the usual suspects. The record is sequenced in a way that kind of tells a story… the songs chronicle taking off on your own with “Open Road,” to searching, finding, holding, losing, and then all the way back to being on your own again with “Morning.”

I’ve been fortunate to play great festivals like SXSW a few times, tour the country, and meet a lot of good people along the way. I’ve shared stages with some of my heroes, and I suppose I will have some photos and newspaper clippings in a box someday to show for the journey, but I think it’s mostly the people and stories that I will remember.

And I still have that puppy from years ago, although she’s a lot bigger and we’re both older now. I got her a little sister Labrador last year, minus thankfully the trip across the country and the empty house. The dogs are my family. They wake me up at around 6 every morning, I make my coffee, walk them, surf, and then go about my day.

And that’s about it.