Resident Rockstar

By Jeanette Madden
Music Editor

What can I say about Brett Dennen? He’s kind, generous with his time, an amazing singer/songwriter and even a little bit sexy when he gets onstage. Or, as I emailed to a friend, “He’s a gifted musician and an extremely talented lyricist. He was a true pleasure to interview and I’m certain that he will have many interesting things to say during his show. He’s also a total nerd and has flaming red hair. He’s really my kind of guy (in an if I could create my own child kinda way…)”

Dennen, best known for his song “Ain’t No Reason” off of his sophomore album “So Much More” recently released his fourth album “Loverboy” and is currently touring in its support. He describes “Loverboy” as more fun and playful than his previous records and when I brought up that he is well known for the depth of his lyrics he had this to say:

“First of all, thank you but second of all, I think that the way I write is, I used to always say that a good song is a song that you could just sit and play on an acoustic guitar and no matter what you do with it, no matter where you go with production or whatever its good because you know it was good on the acoustic guitar. Now, I even take that even a step further where I think a good song is a song that you can just sing, like sing in the shower. If I was just walking down the street with no instrument and I was just singing a song and someone was just like “Oh wow, what’s that song? The lyrics are cool, that melody is really cool. What’s that all about?” I think that’s a good song.”

“You can put it on a piano, you could have no instruments at all, it could just be drums, it could be a cappella but it’s a good song and that’s where I think I want it. On my next album I want to almost write it with no instrument at all and just do it all with just a voice. If whatever you’re singing has lyrics that are compelling and has a rhythm and a meter and a melody that’s all there in the vocal I think you’re in good shape.”

When Dennen said that, the light bulb went off above my head. There is so much focus on lyrics these days and that’s what I had been thinking of but his song “Sydney (I’ll Come Running)” is a prime example of what he was saying. 

“I get a little more dirty about it than just lyrics.” Dennen continued. “I think about phonetics and how words sound coming off the tongue like should I say giant or should I say tall? Tall has a hard “t” sound and is a stronger sounding word than giant. You know what I mean?”

Dennen is from the West Coast and started his musical career in college, or as he explained “I played music before college but that’s where I was in a couple of different bands; where I started cutting my teeth and kind of learning the ropes of music and playing with other people. While I was in college I helped start this non-profit organization [The Mosaic Project http://www.mosaicproject.org – Dennen is the Resident Rock Star/ Program Director]. After college I worked there for a couple of years but all the while I was working there I was playing music on the side, playing little shows but mostly just writing songs, just putting my ducks in order for an album.”

“A good friend of mine told me that her mom would help me make an album and help me get it out there so I took her up on that and made an album and started playing shows. It happened kind of slowly and naturally. At first I played shows around Northern California. It got to a point where I had a couple of fans that could come out in each city, pass my demos, make copies and sell it for ten dollars. Before I had professionally printed records I burned my own CDs, put little pictures on them and sold them for like five dollars each. I started playing more and more around the west coast and it grew from there.”

Dennen said that if he wasn’t playing music he would “like to be some sort of an educator with children. Maybe not in a classroom but some sort of an educational situation like backpacking with kids, teaching them how to be a good person, something like that. Either that or maybe like a visual artist; a painter.” He said his biggest inspirations are his friends and his life experiences and lists his musical inspirations as Van Morrison, Paul Simon, Grateful Dead and Crosby Stills and Nash. When asked about his musical mentors Dennen said “Graham Nash is a big one. I’ve met him and talked to him. He’s been a big inspiration for him. Dave Matthews is. I got to tour with him and see how he handles everything and he’s a good role model.”

The end (and my favorite part) of our conversation came when I asked Dennen about his favorite place to play. “You know, I have different places everywhere.” He said. “I mean, the West Coast, its home to me, you know? I like the Midwest and the Southwest outside of my home. The Southwest is kind of like open and deserty and inspiring and the Midwest, there’s just such a connection to water and open space. There’s this different spirit there; it’s like old spirit; not as old as maybe the East Coast but kind of like this hard working spirit that you don’t really have on the West Coast. The West Coast is newer, more relaxed. The Midwest has this more industrial spirit. I also love the connection with the water. There’s so much beautiful water, clean air. It’s a nice environment. I think Minneapolis is the best city in the country to play that people don’t talk about. It’s the perfect size, I think that’s why. I also really love Milwaukee. Milwaukee’s great.”

See some of Dennen’s music here:
“Ain’t No Reason”: http://bit.ly/ADgPi
Preview of “Sydney (I’ll Come Running)” off of “Loverboy”: http://tiny.cc/Brett

When:  June 9, 2011
Where:  In The Venue, Salt Lake City, UT          
On the web:  http://brettdennen.net/
On facebook:  http://on.fb.me/mjtu4Z
On Twitter:  http://twitter.com/brettdennen

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