Dan MacIntosh (Songfacts): It seems like Sheena Ozzella does the most of the singing and you do a lot of the songwriting. Do you write songs with her voice in mind?

Alex Kerns: Oh, definitely. I even have little videos of me singing way out of my range. It's kind of embarrassing.

Songfacts: So if people ever found those and released them, you'd be in big trouble.

Alex: Yeah, I would be pretty embarrassed. Maybe I'll release them one day as a joke on myself.

Songfacts: You write with her voice in mind, but do you also put yourself in the position of how a woman might feel about particular issues when you write songs?

Alex: Not so much. I just naturally write how I would write and how I would say it, as far as the concepts and points that need to be conveyed. But there are songs like "Lipstick" where you can kind of tell that it's coming from the point of view of a male that's being sung by a female. The "he's" and "she's," like "I'm just a boy," or something like that. All the gender specifics will not really match up to the voices. For me it's more important that the words match the original meaning.

Songfacts: Do you have any favorite songs that you've recorded?

Alex: My favorite songs, especially the songs we play live, are "Paint The Youth" and "Truly." A couple songs off the new album. My older favorite songs to play are "Expert Herder" and "Mechanical," which is my favorite song to play - Sheena wrote the lyrics to that song.

Songfacts: Why do you like that song?

Alex: I just really enjoy it. I like the mood of it. I just feel like it has a really good closing feel. It's the closing song to our album; it's the closing song to our set a lot of times. It's a good feeling song. It's hard to describe. And it's kind of nice because I'm not as much attached to the lyrics as she is. But it is one of my favorite songs to play.

Songfacts: Is it tough being a trio?

Alex: It's comfortable just being the three of us. It's a lot easier to organize shows and practice and getting us all to commit to something. It is a little harder as far as performance-wise to be a trio because you have a little less to work with and if anybody messes up, it's way more evident than it would be if you had two guitar players and someone to kind of cover up your mistakes or a wall of noise. If it's just three of you, it's very clear when you mess up.

Songfacts: What is the strangest subject you've ever written a song about?

Alex: That's a tough question. Let me think.

Songfacts: We can come back to it.

Alex: Yeah, let's come back to it because I really need to think about that.

Songfacts: One of the things Songfacts is helpful for is explaining things that might be confusing to listeners. Are there any songs that get a lot of questions from fans that are maybe misinterpreted?

Alex: Oh definitely. Lots of times people will misinterpret lyrics. Even lyrics sites online get them wrong. On our new album we have a song called "Oahu, Hawaii" and in the bridge part of the song, the lyrics go, "There's a lot of islands in Hawaii," which is true. There's a lot of islands. But everybody, for some reason, sings "violence." We have a lot of people come up to us and be, like, "Is there really a lot of violence in Hawaii? What's the deal? I don't really understand that line."

Songfacts: Well, if your only exposure was Hawaii Five-0, you'd probably think so.

Alex: Yeah, that's true. A lot of people haven't been to Hawaii, and that's probably their only perspective, that TV show.

Songfacts: Are there any other songs that fans get the meaning wrong?

Alex: The last line of the song "Lemons," people will quote it and even sing along to it and say the wrong words. What it's supposed to say is, "Your emotions are sane, and you don't know how much that hurts me."

Are sane, not aren't sane. People are thinking I'm saying that they're crazy, but it's supposed to be that your emotions are not crazy, and that's what's hurting me. The whole meaning of the song is backwards.

Songfacts: Do fans contact you to explain things?

Alex: Yeah, definitely. I get that a lot. Sometimes they'll say how a song has applied to their lives. We have some songs about long distance relationships and stuff like that. With social networking, so many people have started long distance relationships. I think they accidentally relate to the songs because of their personal situations, due to social networking.

Songfacts: Who were the songwriters that really inspired you to want to write songs?

Alex: Stephin Merritt from Magnetic Fields was one of my favorite songwriters because I really love how much meaning he has and some of the simplest lines they'll be so quirky and still comical at the same time. He doesn't take himself too seriously. Sometimes he'll just make up words to describe how he feels. I think he's one of the most brilliant songwriters I've ever heard. He's definitely in my top three.

Another one would be Tom Waits. He creates such incredible imagery in his songs. You listen to his lyrics and you feel like you're in the city that he's in while he's writing it and you're eating the same meals that he ate right before he wrote it. He just really puts you in his shoes. Those two would probably be my top two, as far as lyricists. I don't think we sound like either of them.

Songfacts: You'd have to smoke, like, three packs a day to sound like Tom Waits, and that's quite a commitment.

So, have you given any more thought to the weirdest subject you've written about?

Alex: I didn't think about it too much because I was answering your questions. The song "Chautauqua County" isn't really that weird of a song, but I think a lot of people were surprised that I wrote a song about Chautauqua County because there's not really any big cities in Chautauqua County. There's people from Chautauqua County, but if you look at Chautauqua County on a map, you won't recognize any of the cities. It's New York, but Buffalo's not there. My hometown where I was born is there, but it's just like a random town. There are counties in Utah that don't have Salt Lake City in it. There are a handful of people who are from that county who are, like, "Why did you write about Chautauqua County?" That's the county where I was born in and the song's kind of about my early childhood during that time period. It's not all that weird, but it's unique from all the other songs I've written.

Songfacts: Have they asked you to do a public service announcement where that song is the soundtrack to it?

Alex: I wish.

Songfacts: Have any of your songs ever been used in advertisements?

Alex: That song "Chautauqua County," the one we were talking about, the guy who puts out our records, Chris Wrenn from Bridge 9 Records, in the same shop where he runs Bridge 9 he runs a screen printing company, and he asked me if he could use that song. So we have that song in that commercial, but it's not a very widely seen commercial.

Songfacts: Is there's one product you can think of that you'd like to do music for?

Alex: Yeah. Darn Tough Socks. I love Darn Tough Socks. It's this small Vermont brand that makes these hiking socks. I wear 'em all year long. You can get 'em at Eastern Mountain Sports here. They have the lifetime warranty, so I haven't bought a new pair of socks in, like, eight years. I just have the same ten pair of socks. If I get a hole in 'em, I just write them a letter a letter, 'Man, I really love guys,' and they mail me the socks back.

Songfacts: The hip thing is to have a tennis shoe sponsor. But you're going even deeper; you're going into the sock.

Alex: I'll show you sometime if I ever meet you in person. I'll take my socks off and you can try them on. I know that's gross, but you will never go back.

Songfacts: Do you wear them on stage?

Alex: Yeah, I wear them all the time.

Songfacts: That's like a total product endorsement?

Alex: But I don't need them. They have a lifetime warranty, so I don't have to buy them ever again. All I can do is just spread the word. Spread the gospel of the socks.

October 10, 2013. Get more at lemuriapop.com.

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