Interview with Alex Zhang Hungtai of Dirty Beaches, 2013
It is hard to think that Dirty Beaches is a band and not a movie soundtrack playing on a loop in your daydreams. Every time a Dirty Beaches track ends you open your eyes and sigh, lamenting that you weren’t actually lying naked on warm sand, or walking down a humid palm tree lined street. Perhaps at twilight, or dawn, or sunset, or any kind of moment you wish could last forever. This is the music of Dirty Beaches.
While dive bars, cigarette smoking, and neon signs along a highway seem to be synonymous with the music of Dirty Beaches. The man himself, Alex Zhang Huntai, is separate from that kind of aesthetic now. Calling from Berlin, Alex details his new living experience, “I moved here a month ago. I was in Montreal before. I wanted to move somewhere where I didn’t speak the language, somewhere far.” Alex hints at a relationship breakup motivating the move before the conversation heads more comfortably in the direction of his upcoming tour.
Only headlining a show in Melbourne and Sydney apart from a Perth Festival spot, Alex explains his modest tour. “It’s pretty hard to budget a trip to Australia. The only way to finance it is to fit in stops in Asia and the Asia Pacific region. It makes it worthwhile.” It is not that Alex isn’t enthusiastic to promote his work, he is as interested in coming to Australia as one is about any foreign land un-visited. Travel and an anti-hero figure also seem to fit perfectly with the Dirty Beaches theme.
Alex talks animatedly about the beginning of the Dirty Beaches sound. “Most of the result of my sound and equipment set-up was born more out of necessity. I didn’t have a laptop for a long time. I just bought cassettes, a tape recorder, and a microphone. Then I added a guitar and drum machine and made a record.” As Alex explains, money from these record sales has bought him more professional equipment, but more importantly, people to help with the recording process. “Digital and virtual instruments are a very economic way to make music if you don’t have the means to buy the real thing,” Alex explains, “They are very practical for someone like me, I’m in a much better situation than I was but I’m not talking about instruments that cost thousands of dollars yet.” It’s a real shame to think of Dirty Beaches not having access to recording equipment it deserves, but it is also kind of romantic and fitting for the bands sound and Alex doesn’t stress the point of money.
A Dirty Beaches live show, according to Alex, plays out in a similar vein to the nostalgia and romance of being down and out. “I think there’s a sense of romance in all performance,” Alex muses, “We usually play live only the music I’m comfortable with at that time, even if that means it’s just new stuff and nothing popular. It depends on how we feel though. We tend to steer away from anything we feel we should do because then it becomes an obligation and obligation is never true.”
Alex says he would hate to pay money to see a performance that ‘wasn’t real.’ There is a misconception that musicians have to always be aware of pleasing their audience or feel a need to keep them entertained. Alex goes further and expresses the desire to not stray from what he is trying to pursue artistically, “I don’t assume my audience is just a bunch of dull people who want to hear ‘the hits.’ I appreciate their interest and would rather dissolve the relationship where I’m above them. Instead, I’m an artist, they are a listener and we continue on together.”
The ‘hits’ of Dirty Beaches would refer to his album Badlands, which was released two years ago. It is pleasing to listen to for the imagery and feeling it conjures, evoking the films of Wong Kar Wai, and Alex’s signature breathy vocals play a big part in the records re-play appeal. As Alex points out though, that was two years ago time has passed and he is in a different place as are his listeners. There really is no need to be stuck on one popular song he had one time and feel the need to recreate it. Dirty Beaches have had the chance to tour Europe and see more of the world after the popularity of Badlands. So naturally, their sound is evolving. For some, this is where they would decide to hop off the Dirty Beaches train, choosing to stay nestled in that palm tree and humid night invoking sound.
The anti-hero of a Dirty Beaches song should be Alex, though he points out that was just a theme he was toying with at the time of recording Badlands and his other mixes. Alex states that the album was made for his father and that the two albums he is releasing this year will be different. Listening to Alex talk about his influences makes it clear that he was indeed not lying when he mentioned the two years since Badlands has passed and that he has moved on.
Alex cites Vincent Gallo as an influence on him musically since his teens, prompting excited talk about the actor's recent film La leggenda di Kaspar Hauser (2012) which despite having an electro film score, depicts a similar anti-hero figure. “Vincent Gallo’s album When was, and still is, a big influence on me. It’s mainly instrumental and it’s also the only album I still listen to that I purchased over ten years ago” Alex says.
As fans of Dirty Beaches will know, instrumental music is kind of the signature Dirty Beaches sound. It’s what gives them that soundtrack quality and sets the band apart from the noise of the hundreds of other independent bands. Sometimes a song like ‘Elizabeth’s Theme’ is just what your buzzing head needs.
Alex agrees with that sentiment and proposes “Ideally I’d like to pursue [soundtracks] as my day job. Hopefully, some projects in that vein arise this year. Instrumentals are just the feeling, so there’s no words blocking the listener from that,” he says, “I’m not a big fan of writing lyrics, because I imagine the judgment of the listener. So for me, instrumental music is very free. I can be whatever I want.”
Fans of Dirty Beaches no doubt also revel in the harmonies of doo-wop and other nostalgia music. There’s a similar yearning and it fits Alex’s dismissal of the need for lyrics. All discussions about the redundant pursuit to capture the passage of time aside, there is something in a Dirty Beaches song (with or without lyrics) that keeps you pressing play. Maybe it’s not widely marketable (yet) but that purity is valuable to an audience and it is what the Dirty Beaches listener keeps an ear out for.
