Dessiderium’s Keys to the Palace marks a transformative chapter for Alex Haddad, blending nostalgia, technical mastery, and heartfelt emotion. We delve into the decade-long journey behind this evocative album.
1. Alex, Keys
to the Palace has been described as a decade-long project. Can you
share what inspired you to revisit and complete this material after so many
years?
I’ve always
known that I wanted to do this album as the follow-up to Aria. Musically, they
are somewhat siblings as I wrote the majority of them during the same phase of
my life. As I was writing them Keys to the Palace was always the sunny day,
summertime album in my mind, whereas Aria was the starry night, wintery album.
So it was just a matter of time before I recorded Keys to the Palace. I didn’t
intend for almost four years to pass between Aria and Keys to the Palace, but
that’s how things played out.
2. You
mentioned that this album serves as a “final chapter” for a particular era of
Dessiderium. How does this chapter differ in tone and theme from Shadow
Burn and Aria?
Shadow Burn
and Aria are both somewhat depressing, defeatist albums. They’re also both
albums that conceptually come from a state of mind I was in previously that I
no longer experience. As I approach age thirty, I feel the weight of time more
than ever before. I value my time a lot more. I don’t feel as comfortable
anymore wallowing in self-pity and accepting defeat every day. With Keys to the
Palace I wanted to actually reach for something healing. That’s not to say that
it’s a “happy” album, though. It’s more so an acknowledgment of where things
went wrong and how to get back to living life in a state of well-being.
3. Time
travel is a central concept in this album. What inspired you to explore this
theme, and how do you translate such an abstract idea into music?
The whole
concept comes from an old childhood memory I have of playing at the park as a
kid. I grew up near a park called Dover Hendrix, and there was a sewage tunnel
that my friends and I would explore for fun. For me, the fascination of
exploring that tunnel was the idea of getting lost and coming out of another
opening into a different city. Or a different word. Or a different time. So the
concept of this album is that I, as an adult, visit the park again and am
beckoned by nostalgic voices to explore the tunnel again. I exit the tunnel and
am transported twenty years into the past. The themes move chronologically from
song-to-song, from my adolescence all the way up to adulthood.
4. With
tracks like “Dover Hendrix” and “Pollen for the Bees,” the titles seem
evocative and poetic. Can you provide some insight into the stories or ideas
behind these songs?
Dover
Hendrix is the name of a park that I grew up near as a kid. It’s a place that I
cherish deeply. It was a space for me to get lost in my imagination. I equate
that park in my mind with a sense of complete and total peace, and as a symbol
of joy and early creativity.
Pollen for the Bees is about young romance. It’s an ode to that drug-like
effect that love or infatuation can have on an adolescent child. I wanted a
sweet and storybook style name for a song with this kind of theme. Bees
pollinating flowers is a form of sexual reproduction, so I thought that could
be used as an innocent kind of symbol for naive, yet pure, love.
5. The
album explores contrasts such as innocence versus disillusion and faith versus
despair. Did any specific personal experiences shape these themes?
Yes. In my
youth I always carried with me faith in a higher power. A loving caretaker of
the universe that I felt a connection with and would speak to. As a young adult
I adopted much more atheistic and nihilistic views. I think there’s validity to
both perspectives. I also think there’s implications to both perspectives. Your
outlook on spirituality, or your complete dismissal of spirituality altogether,
shapes the way you live and the way you interact with the world.
6. As
the sole member of Dessiderium, you handle a vast array of musical
responsibilities. How do you approach balancing technical precision with
emotional expression in your music?
There are
many reasons I love music. There’s the emotional aspect, the way that music
speaks to the soul. That’s the primary reason I love and engage with music to
the extent that I do. But the reason I picked up the guitar is because
listening to Megadeth solos was like the aural equivalent of witnessing a magic
trick. “What they’re playing isn’t humanly possible, right?” I was always
attracted to musicians with impressive technical ability, so I practiced hard
in an attempt to be able to do impressive things with my instrument. Technical
precision and emotional expression are natural facets to my music because they
are both qualities that I love about music in general.
7. You
collaborated with Brody Smith for drum programming and Thomas Leroy Meier for
piano solos. How did these collaborations shape the sound of Keys to
the Palace?
I worked
with Brody on the previous two albums as well, and I can’t really imagine
working with anyone else at this point. I’m just a fan of his creativity. I
feel like he really gets the music and I rarely have to ask him to change
anything because what he delivers is always so good. The drum parts he writes
help the music explode with energy.
Thomas is someone who’s piano skills I’ve admired since our
days together in college. I’ve always wanted a real pianist to be
featured on a Dessiderium album, and this was the perfect album to actually
make that happen. I needed the piano interlude on Dover Hendrix to sound tender
and real. I wanted a magical piano solo on Pollen for the Bees. Thomas brought
both of those wishes to reality. In retrospect I wish I had him record all of
the piano parts!
8. The
artwork for Keys to the Palace by Adam Burke is stunning. How
does the visual component tie into the music and themes of the album?
The artwork
is a recreation/interpretation of a picture I took on my phone that I sent to
Adam. The picture was taken at the creekside in front of the sewage tunnel at
Dover Hendrix park. Behind the sewage tunnel bars is the palace, which I use as
a symbol of desire in the concept of the album. The sunny park is the past
where life is about nothing more than being present. The world behind the bars
is the future where desires have been obtained, but joy has been
misplaced.
9. With
this being your first release under Willowtip Records, how has joining the
label impacted the process or vision for Keys to the Palace?
The album
was fully written by the time I got in touch with Willowtip, so that did not
influence the process or vision at all. I do think it’s awesome that a label
I’ve always associated with such brutal music has been experimenting with more
colorful releases in the last few years, so I’m happy to be contributing more
to that side of Willowtip’s output, especially with this album.
10. Looking
beyond Keys to the Palace, do you see Dessiderium evolving in new
directions, or is this truly a closing chapter? What’s next for you
artistically?
It’s just the end of this chapter. A whole new chapter awaits. There is much more Dessiderium to come. I don’t want to delve too deep into the descriptions of future albums yet, but I will say that the next one will be the most noticeably “different” release in the entire discography thus far. There’s also a new album that I’ve recently finished writing and it’s the most explosive material I’ve ever written. The style of music may take some turns, but the essence of the project, the feeling of unobtainable desire, will always remain.
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