by Danny Coleman
originally published on Rock On! This Week’s Sound Bites (NewJerseyStage.com)
“I’m enjoying the beautiful weather here in Florida, I live in Orlando. I used to live in Nashville for about six years but I’m originally from Transylvania, Romania,” said an excited Alex Kilroy as he happily discussed the release of his album “Break My Chains,” his classical training, Vince Gill and more.
Sometimes we get exposed to things in the most unexpected or perhaps oddest ways. There is a line from the Bruce Springsteen song “Growin’ Up,” along the lines of, “I swear I found the keys to the universe in the engine of an old parked car” or something like that.Well, for Kilroy, he found his key to the universe in a car as well.
“I became a blues fan when I was around 12 years old,” he began. “I was already playing music because my parents had put me in classical school; we have this system in Romania, where if you go to music school, you start in the first grade and stay there all the way through the twelfth grade. So, they put me in school and they chose piano so I was already into music and playing classical piano but when I was around 12, my father had bought a car from the United States and had it shipped over to Romania and it just happened to have a DVD of Stevie Ray Vaughn “Live at Montreux,” the 1985 one and when I saw that, something spoke to me and I was like, wow! Doing classical music and all that was cool but what is that? That is what I want to do, it just spoke to me. So, I had very supportive parents and my father kind of proposed a deal to me; I was not loving piano at that point and they were kind of forcing me to do it but I said look, we always had a guitar but I said, “If you buy me a guitar and let me play guitar, you’ll never have to bribe me to practice, I’ll just do it” and he got me a Fender Stratocaster. He said, “You have this Summer, if you can learn three Stevie Ray Vaughn songs by the end of the summer, you can switch your profile in school and you can start playing guitar.” So, I was like, “OK dad, it’s a deal.” I started working all that summer practicing every day eight hours a day and got the three songs and that’s how it all started for me pretty much.”
With the recent May 15 release of his latest effort, Kilroy has lifted not only self-imposed restraints but he hopes it opens others eyes also; hence the title.
“Break My Chains” is the title track and the message of the single that came out on March 25 and the album just came out on May 15 and so “Break My Chains,” when I wrote the song, the feeling I had was just breaking away from the norm and trying to push the boundaries of society and just being yourself totally and completely without judgement. I was playing on Broadway in Nashville and I had so many gigs doing that, that the days were the same days repeating themselves. So, it was about breaking the routine; like being on your way to work, don’t take the exit and keep driving until you run out of gas and see what happens. So, it’s about breaking routines, breaking patterns; even for me, I learned so many styles and I was influenced by so many guitar players and artists where I came to a moment where I thought, OK, you’ve learned from everybody else and this is who I am not, I’m breaking all the chains and this is Alex Kilroy.”
“Stevie Ray Vaughn, Sting was another big influence on me, Joe Bonamassa, Mark Knopfler, Carlos Santana, Buddy Guy, Eric Gales and I stole a bit from everybody and Frankensteined my own style,” he continued. “Today, I’m listening to a lot of film scores and falling in love with classical music all over again. I was introduced to Diego el Cigala, a Flamenco singer from Spain a couple of years back so, yeah, I listen to all kinds of music every day.”
The beauty of blues music is that there is often, make that always room for improvisation or paying respect to those who came prior with variations on a past theme, like BB King once said when Tom Petty showed him a lick he claimed to have “Borrowed” from the late blues great, “Borrowed? Shoot son, you stole it, we all steal from each other.”
On “Break My Chains” there are all original compositions and one cover song, one that Kilroy was careful to preserve.
“The album is 12 tracks, we have a cover, we covered “Midnight Rider” by the Allman Brothers. We put a little spin on “Midnight Rider,” we put a little groove that our drummer came up with, he just started playing it and it felt so different and I was like, let’s try the song on top of it and strangely it worked. We changed a couple of chords and made it our own, it goes a little bit toward the R&B side in terms of the groove of the song and the rest we kept the same because the song is already great and we didn’t want to touch the integrity of the song.”
Shortly before the release of the full record, Kilroy released a single called, “Let The Good Times Roll,” a song that has caused some confusion in that it is not a remake of any song bearing the same name from the past or present but it does have a very special guest who plays on it; Mr. Vince Gill.
“Let The Good Times Roll” is my song, I wrote it and there seems to be a little confusion,” he explained. “Some people thought it was a rendition of the blues classic but no, it has the same title but I wrote it from my perspective and if you listen to the lyrics, mine is about this guy who wanted to move to Nashville and wants to make it and gets all of these obstacles thrown at him and the point of the song is don’t give up and something will happen. That’s why I say, if you sit around the barber shop long enough, eventually you’ll get your cut.”
“I met Vince when I was playing in a band in Nashville and I met him at a rehearsal space called, “Soundcheck.” My drummer at the time arrived a little late and came in with all his bags and stuff and said, “Hey man, Vince Gill is outside in the parking lot!” I’m thinking, no way is Vince Gill just hanging out in the parking lot and I ran out and I talked to him. I said, “Hey, I’m Alex from Transylvania, I love your music and everything you do, you’ve inspired me so much,” this happened like four years ago. He was so kind and humble and nice and he said, “Let me introduce you to my wife Amy Grant” and I was like, wow, this is incredible. They asked us what we were doing tomorrow and then asked if we wanted to go to the rehearsal for the Christmas show they were doing at The Ryman, the one they put together every year. So, I went there and we started to become friends; when I got there, Amy was rehearsing with the background singers and Vince was having coffee and he saw me and said, “Oh, you actually came, sit down” and we had a conversation about guitar pedals, amplifiers, life and it was wonderful and because we have a common friend, my vocal coach Tabitha Fair who knew him well because she sang with Amy Grant; I never asked him for his phone number but I really wanted to stay in touch with him and because Tabitha knows him, she reached out and asked if she could give me his number and he said, “Sure, tell him to give me a call” and that’s how we started staying in touch. Then when I moved to Orlando, he called me and asked how Orlando was treating me and I said, “Pretty good, I’m doing an album and I have a crazy ask; would you want to play guitar or sing on one of my songs?” He said, “Sure! Just send me the track” and that was it, ask and you shall receive; so you just have to go for it.”
Thus far, “Break My Chains” has met Kilroy’s and the critics’ expectations and has positioned him to possibly tour as well as move on to some nicer spaces.
“So, the album is doing pretty well,” he said confidently. “Indie Boulevard did a great review on it and Blues Rock Review gave us an eight out of ten and we had a release party at Bang & Olufsen who are a Danish company that make very high end home speakers and their stores usually look like an art gallery. They have nine stores in America and one happens to be near where I live so I went in and said, “Hi, I’m Alex and I have an album releasing on May 15 and I’d love to have the release party here at your place” and he listened to the album on the spot and said, “Let’s do it.” So, it was kind of a black tie event in a way, about 60 people showed up and we heard the album for the first time on great speakers. I don’t know if I told you but we had a great team mixing and mastering the album and a great producer who all made it sound really good and I wanted the music to be heard at its full potential so that’s why I had it at Bang & Olufsen and it was great to see new people I’d never met hearing the album for the first time and seeing their reaction to the album. I have CDs that I’ll put on my website and I’ll sign them as well and we’ll also have vinyl coming down the road.”
“We’re gonna take it on the road,” he continued with a laugh as he discussed the future. “We are doing local gigs around Orlando but we are talking with booking agents to see if we can start a little tour and bring the music to the people so that’s the plan. I’ve also been writing a lot of songs, songs I love and there are some that didn’t make the cut for this album so there may be some that make the next album and I’ve already begun writing for the next one. Every time the inspiration comes, I put it in the drop box and I listen to it and if it really speaks to me, I’ll put it in the bag for the next album so yeah, I’m writing a lot.”
To keep up on all things Alex Kilroy, please visit https://alexkilroy.com/