Peruse the interviews with songwriters on this site, and you'll find that many of them are also illustrators. There seems to be a connection between songwriting and visual artistry. And nowhere is this most evident in Alex Maas, the singer and songwriter for The Black Angels, whose latest album Phosphene Dream was released in September on Blue Horizon Records.
You see, music and images are inextricably linked for Maas. When he plays music, images race through his mind. Every time. It's the music that stimulates those images. And from these images come the lyrics. I have simplified the process here, but what makes this interview unique is the ephemeral quality of Maas's creative process: ultimately, we know not whence the inspiration comes. And it's not something Maas is interested in knowing, because he wants to retain that "magical quality" of the process. But he is always looking for new triggers, and he's found one in an unlikely place: cooking.
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