One of the stronger DIY albums to come in the mail lately is Alan Wilkis‘ Babies Dream Big. With tight hooks and catchy choruses reminiscent of my beloved funkadelic 70s, BDB has the potential to make me do my secret happy dance when nobody’s looking. Yeah, I said it.

I got the chance to interview Wilkis this week…

Who is Alan Wilkis?
Part-time fighter, full-time lover… Ha! I’m 26, born and raised in NYC, living in Brooklyn now. I’ve been playing music (guitar & piano, more recently drums) for about 20 years. Been in and out of a few bands: a hip-hop band called Witness Protection Program, and then a hard-rock guitar/drum duo called A+P, played in a few jazz combos in college.

Tell us about your new album, Babies Dream Big?
The album is the end-result of about a year and half’s work. By the time my last band came to a close (Summer ‘06), I had been getting more into home recording. Experimenting a lot, playing around with arrangements, exploring the limits of the studio/the creation of sounds that you can’t make (or at least can’t make so easily) live. Right around the same time, it occurred to me to start making happy music/trying to make listeners feel good - I had spent a long time in more mope-y phases, more self-absorbed singer-songwriter-y phases, and I guess all of a sudden it hit me that I wasn’t interested in that anymore…

What do babies dream about?
Still trying to figure that out!! Babies are such fascinating little monsters – we project emotions on them, hypothesize what they might be thinking about, but what’s REALLY going on in their heads is a total mystery! And whatever it is they dream about is even more mysterious… I imagine baby dreams are the most pure kind of dreams – no frame of reference, no language, no major communication skills for them yet, just pure images/colors/sounds/etc… And my songs are on repeat in them, of course…

Who are your influences?
My influences are pretty broad. I’m a pretty voracious music listener as my friends can attest – I really try to listen to at least one new album a day, and once I’ve listened to something 3 times, I very rarely come back to it. But as far as all-timers: Stevie Wonder, Self, Prince, Beatles, The Beach Boys, Boston, Donny Hathaway, D’Angelo, Zappa, The Doobie Bros…

What genres do you cover on the disc? Why do those appeal to you?
I primarily cover 70s/80s era stuff - soul, R&B, soft rock, classic rock, and electronic music. Tons of harmonies, synths, arena-rock guitar. The core of the album is really the idea of the criss-crossing of genres as a genre in itself. I really tried to take things that I love/have loved over the years and combine them in surprising/unexpected/hopefully refreshing new ways… The danger of genre-hopping, and something a lot of bands suffer from is never having a clear identity, but I hope that with BDB, listeners can find my voice consistent throughout – it makes sense to me at least…

You have some musical guests on a few tracks. Tell me about those.
I have had the good fortune of meeting some insanely talented musicians in NY over the past few years. And I was somehow able to trick 2 of them into recording with me! Eric Biondo (trumpets on “I Wanna Know”) is an incredible hornplayer and singer in his own right. He is in the group, Antibalas, and his own band is called Beyondo. He has played and/or recorded with tons of people, TV on the Radio, Dirty on Purpose, Pela, Chris Garneau, The Exit, The Monkees/Davey Jones, El-P… The list goes on and on… It’s pretty staggering, actually.

The other musician I worked with is Jason Treuting (drums on “It’s Been Great” and “I Love the Way”). Jason is an unbelievable composer/drummer… He is in the NY-percussion ensemble, SO PERCUSSION – they’ve collaborated with Matmos, performed/recorded works by Steve Reich, David Lang, Evan Ziporyn… Total motherfuckers… It was so much fun to work with Jason, because I’ve only heard him perform in more serious/classical settings – so cool to hear him just sit back and get a little jiggy with it…

What’s the story behind “It’s Been Great”?
I met a guy in NY a few years ago who will go un-named. He always rubbed me the wrong way because he ONLY talked about himself… Every time I saw him anywhere he would just launch into “I did THIS great thing this week, and THIS really cool thing just happened too!!! My band is doing REALLY well! Can you believe it?!!” And of course, once I noticed it the first time, it became this funny little game in my head every subsequent time I bumped into him of “how long until he notices I stopped listening” etc… So the line popped into my head once after talking (or I guess, not-talking, to him): “It’s been great talking to you about me and all the things that I’ve done recently.” That’s where the lyrics to “It’s Been Great” started…

Did you do the drum tracks yourself?
I did all the drum programming/editing on the album, and I played drums on “Girls on Bikes.” I only started playing drums about 8 months ago, I decided to teach myself… It’s an instrument I’ve ALWAYS wanted to do, and never had the chance to growing up in NY (neighbors don’t like drums for some reason… Go figure). I’m nothing special just yet, but I think I’m now at a level where I could fake it with a shitty indie rock band.

Where can people get the album?
CDBaby, iTunes, Last FM, Rhapsody and a few other digital retailers, too.

What else is new?
Stupid allergies, unfortunately!