Exclusive Interview with MAD PAINTER

Mad Painter is a new Boston-area band with strong ties to the melodic rock tradition of the 1970s. They play largely original songs, ranging from Woodstock-era psychedelic rock to glam-tinged rock’n’roll à la Mott the Hoople and the Faces to Uriah Heep-style epic heavy anthems. It comprises of four persons with backgrounds that are extremely diverse.

Alex Gitlin, the concept’s inventor and songwriter, is the driving force behind Mad Painter. He is ably supported by drummer Al Hendry (Bubba Loaf, Tokyo Tramps), bassist Kenne Highland (ex-Gizmos, Hopelessly Obscure, Johnny & The Jumper Cables, Africa Corps. ), and guitarist Al Naha (Thighscrapers), who plays alongside Kenne in Kenne Highland Airforce.

They have performed in numerous Boston-area venues, including the MIT, Out of the Blue Gallery, McGann’s, Hennessy’s, Club Bohemia, The Jungle Community Music Club, and C Note in Hull, in addition to the Winter Tanglefest in the Poconos. You always have a fantastic time when you attend their concerts, and you know what to expect: 70s rock vibes with stage gear to match, amazing musicianship, and songs that will have you singing and applauding along. Check out their song Illusion and the exclusive interview below:

1. Can you tell us a bit about where you come from and how it all got started?

MAD PAINTER: I’ve had the dream of putting together my own band when I was 20 and call it Mad Painter. Even at the time I thought it’d be rooted in the British rock and blues tradition of the 1970s, as I was especially influenced by the likes of Uriah Heep, Status Quo, Rory Gallagher and Deep Purple. It didn’t materialize at the time, but I’ve learned to play the organ proficiently by attending the regular weekly Blues Jam at the Middle East. Throughout the 90s, I’ve spent time in various bands from glam rock (Silver Star) and funk (Uprise) to heavy metal (Mantis) and blues (Shaky Deal). After a long break, I resumed and tried fitting in into two tribute bands, Stormbringer (Deep Purple) and Lights Out (UFO) but it didn’t feel right. I wanted to perform and record my own original compositions. Finally the day came when the first lineup of Mad Painter got together for a jam in late 2015. By then, I’d already written most of the songs that became part of our first album (you can find it on YouTube), such as Gone Gone Gone, Barely Alive and Smile. The lineup kept changing with endless auditions and practices, and even occasional gigs, until one day all pieces of the puzzle fell into place and this current lineup got solidified. Everyone in the band is a pleasure to work with, there’s incredible chemistry and camaraderie. Bassist Kenne Highland is a veteran of the Boston rock scene, having played with the Gizmos back in the 70s, Johnny & The Jumper Cables and Hopelessly Obscure. So are drummer Alan Hendry and guitarist Al Naha. Finally, we have Julie Gee on backing vocals, her contributions are particularly important on our upcoming, second album, Splashed. We have a lot of influences in common, which makes for fun jams and rehearsals, as we all tend to think alike, musically.

2. Did you have any formal training or are you self-taught?

MAD PAINTER: I quit classical piano at the tender age of 8, so I’d be inclined to think that I’m self-taught, although I’m sure all those gammas and music theory from those early years did pay off. The entire band is self-taught, except for the drummer, a graduate of Berklee, he’s also taught drumming for over 20 years.

3. Who were your first and strongest musical influences and why the name ‘MAD PAINTER’?

MAD PAINTER: My earliest musical influences would have to be the Finnish band Hurriganes (their hit, “Get On”, was literally my first rock’n’roll) and The Sweet. When I was 11, I got bitten by the “Ballroom Blitz” bug! Also, at 11, I heard Uriah Heep for the first time, the album was “Look At Yourself”. As a teen, I got into Nazareth, Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, Quo, Rory, Queen, Paul McCartney and Wings, and Rod Stewart. As a Hammond player of course my strongest influences are Ken Hensley (Uriah Heep) and Jon Lord (Deep Purple) – both unfortunately no longer with us. I like the more classically trained and influenced players like Rick Van Der Linden (Ekseption), Keith Emerson (ELP) and Jurgen Fritz (Triumvirat). On the jazz side, my biggest Hammond influences are the “three kings”: Jimmy Smith, Jimmy McGriff and Brother Jack McDuff.

Mad Painter is an audio-visual concept, really. We do what artists do, only instead of colors we use sonic palettes, we paint aurally with rhythms, notes, hooks, licks, melodies, etc. It can get conceptual, abstract, and just plain weird sometimes, but other times it’s pretty straightforward – portraits and landscapes, a little bit of everything for every mood. There’s a certain drama associated with certain paintings. Seeing certain ones can cause serious heartache. Others can make you blue. Or happy. It’s the same with music.

4. What do you feel are the key elements in your music that should resonate with listeners, and how would you personally describe your sound?

MAD PAINTER: Our sound is fiercely original; we’re not copying anyone in particular. When a song is first brought to the table, it’s but a seed of an idea. But by the time we’re done arranging it, it becomes a distinctly Painter number. I’m very proud to say that today we have an established and patented Painter sound. You can’t mistake us for anyone else. The key elements are the distorted Hammond organ counterpointed by the guitar, which can be either rhythm or solo licks, we swap back and forth depending on the number. Some of the more complex (layered) numbers have other sounds, like Moog synths. And on the new album, there’s plenty of numbers with intricate string arrangements. But when you think Painter, you think Hammond, just like Bloodrock and bands of that ilk. Then – due to the bassist and guitarist influences – it titillates closer to the Grand Funk, MC5 and Vanilla Fudge territory. Our sound is a game of balance – between an all-out sonic attack (similar to Kenne’s other band, Airforce) and subtlety & nuance. They like to “bludgeon” with sound, I prefer the contrast, light and shade. We usually happily meet somewhere in the middle.

5. For most artists, originality is first preceded by a phase of learning and, often, emulating others. What was this like for you? How would you describe your own development as an artist and music maker, and the transition towards your own style, which is known as ROCK?

MAD PAINTER:

Originally, just learning to play keyboards, I consciously took the unorthodox approach of trying to make my solos sound like guitar. I mean, the scales, the way I would sequence the notes. All I was listening to at the time were people like Ritchie Blackmore and Rory Gallagher. Also Gary Moore, Brian Robertson and Scott Gorham of Thin Lizzy. I wanted to sound like them. I got into exploring the keyboard players a little later, except for Jon Lord. I used to love emulating what he does on “Lazy”. Especially the Made In Japan version, that is classic. Then later learned the Hammond part for “Highway Star”, and from there – Heep numbers such as “July Morning” and “Easy Livin’”. So yes, no matter which band I was in during the 90s, I tried to imitate those guys in my playing. I guess I’ve developed as a player through a couple of decades of participating in the aforementioned projects and then gigging with my own band, Mad Painter. But it wasn’t until this lineup came about that I could say, finally! We have our own original sound. It has arrived! And it is here to stay!

The Splashed album is very diverse, it’s got balladry, blues, pop, heavy melodic rock. And there’s plenty of psychedelic rock’n’roll on our debut. But the “heavy melodic rock” vein is what the band now favors, so we’re bound to create more numbers a-la “Illusion” and “Rock and Roll Samurai”. But listening to a very wide palette of music from the 60s and 70s has contributed to my growth as a composer, songwriter, player and performer tremendously. The wider and more diverse the palette, the more original your own sound will become.

6. What’s your view on the role and function of music as political, cultural, spiritual, and/or social vehicles – and do you try and affront any of these themes in your work, or are you purely interested in music as an expression of technical artistry, personal narrative, and entertainment?

MAD PAINTER:

When I got really pissed off once, I wrote a political number, Never Mind, it’s still a huge crowd pleaser to this day. And it made our first album. But I don’t like to weave politics into our lyrics. Nor do I like to write about anything happening in the world currently – too depressing and nasty. And too predictable and ubiquitous, all those social media sites and gadgets. No. Since in our minds we’re still playing and writing like it’s 1970-1974, we’re mentally competing with the likes of Mott the Hoople and the Faces, Procol Harum and Spooky Tooth, and what did they write about? It was the era of zany, unapologetic, rambunctious rock’n’roll. Although if you want to tread a heavier and nastier ground, lyrically speaking, go no further than Van Der Graaf Generator and King Crimson. We’re in it for the fun, so what we do is a lot closer to the Faces and Mott. Occasionally, we play covers of our favorite numbers by the Sweet and Suzi Quatro. They never ever wrote about politics, that I’m aware of. Although there are many ways to read “Teenage Rampage”!

Cultural and spiritual messaging is different, cause there are ways to do it subtly and abstractly, almost on the innate, subliminal level. You could be repeating just a single word throughout the entire number like a mantra, and it’ll feel like a spiritual message penetrating the listeners soul.

As far as the technical artistry is concerned, well, there’s no one-upmanship going on in this band. We don’t show each other up or try to upstage one another. We’re in it together, it’s a team, and it’s us against the world. In the studio we try to be as elaborate as possible, but still playing for the song with very minimal self-indulgence. We don’t flex our egos when we solo, honestly. We just try our best to make it sound “whole”. Listen to the keyboard – guitar tradeoff at the end of Illusion (our first single). It speaks for itself.

And finally, our shows and our records are all about entertaining the listener and our audience. It’s about making them forget their problems for a little while and feel good. If good becomes “euphoric”, we know we’ve done our job!

7. Do you feel that your music is giving you back just as much fulfillment as the amount of work you are putting into it or are you expecting something more, or different in the future?

MAD PAINTER:

I think we’ve stricken just the right balance. Of course if you mean something more in the future, it would mean a larger and wider audience for our material worldwide, more people from New Zealand to Canada discovering Painter, and us playing bigger shows at larger venues. Yes, I think those days are coming!

There’s nothing more disappointing than playing a room full of empty chairs. Been there, done that. We feed off the energy of our audience. So if we have fifty or a hundred screaming fans going nuts, we come off the stage at the end totally satisfied. This has already happened, by the way, last February in Kingston, NY, at the Winter Tanglefest. Kenne called it Paintermania!

8. Could you describe your creative processes? How do usually start, and go about shaping ideas into a completed song? Do you usually start with a tune, a beat, or a narrative in your head? And do you collaborate with others in this process?

MAD PAINTER:

Dmitry Epstein has written the lyrics for our two singles, “Illusion” and “Rock and Roll Samurai”. If he already has a lyric sheet, I take it and come up with a melody. Sometimes I send him an instrumental demo and he comes up with his lyrics, so it goes both ways. When I write on my own, I usually start from a melody or a refrain in my head. The words to a projected chorus come next. Then I think about how the verses should go, some clever twists and turns, mid-sections, instrumental breaks. When the basic structure is there, I go back to the lyrical idea in the chorus and try to expand it by writing a full set of lyrics. Each verse yields the next one, it can be like telling a consistent story, so the verses are like cars in a train. There’s no 2 without 1, no 3 without 2, etc.

9. What has been the most difficult thing you’ve had to endure in your life or music career so far?

MAD PAINTER: Finding the right players, team players, musical soul mates. You could spend an eternity if you’re looking for something very particular and no one you know or get to meet thru ads cares to share your vision. Luckily, I’ve found just the right players and couldn’t wish for a better lineup. I never take it for granted and always mention it live when we’re on stage, introducing each player by name. The second most difficult thing is generating a sufficient amount of buzz in the area (and we’re based in Boston), so as to expand the fan base and get bigger crowds to attend our shows. But with the help of Bsquared Mgmt, whose services we’re now employing, I think help is well on the way.

10. On the contrary, what would you consider a successful, proud or significant point in your life or music career so far?

MAD PAINTER: After all the naysayers were convinced the band was no good and I shouldn’t sing at all, performing at our first Tanglefest in early 2017 was a sweet vindication. We were nothing like what the audience had expected. It was Mad Painter’s second show and a very successful one. And when we returned back to the Tanglefest this year, playing in front of a large hall full of crazy, dancing lunatics, blam! That was an out of this world experience. Then of course I’m extremely proud of the album we’re about to release in early 2023, “Splashed”!

11. With social media having a heavy impact on our lives and the music business in general, how do you handle criticism, haters, and/or naysayers in general? Is it something you pay attention to, or simply ignore?

MAD PAINTER: I used to take it very hard, but now I have learned to just keep the eye on the ball and keep moving on. My bandmates are extremely supportive and helpful in this regard, finding just the right words of encouragement, if that’s what the moment requires.

12. Creative work in a studio or home environment, or interaction with a live audience? Which of these two options excites you most, and why?

MAD PAINTER: Both. Playing in front of a live audience, especially when the sound is good, and the sound engineer knows what he or she is doing, is the best, most exhilarating experience in the world. We feed off the energy of our fans and send the energy back their way when we play live. If the show is a successful one, at the end of it, there’s a lot of love in the room, it’s palpable, you can almost touch it.

But in the studio a different kind of magic takes place. I love participating in the process of building a number from scratch, starting with the basic rhythm section, then adding in guitars, keyboards, lead and backup vocals. And then the mixing. Everything from soup to nuts. There’s not been a time when I left the studio unsatisfied, I always feel like I’ve just witnessed a miracle, every single time. Maybe that’s because we have an incredible producer, Tom Hamilton, and couldn’t have wished for a better one.

13. Do you think is it important for fans of your music to understand the real story and message driving each of your songs, or do you think everyone should be free to interpret your songs in their own personal way?

MAD PAINTER: As a “painter”, I prefer to leave everything up to everyone’s interpretation, obviously. No two persons will interpret the same work of art exactly the same. But there are some songs that tell stories, like “Let Him Go”, for example. That’s a little bit different – you still don’t know who the main protagonist is, you’ve never met him, he could be real or fictional. They don’t know what he looks like. But you get to know his story throughout the song. So obviously, in this scenario, there’s less room for interpretation.