Alex Dezen

A singer and songwriter who fronted the alt-country rock outfit the Damnwells, Alex Dezen has also issued solo recordings and supplied material for artists including Justin Bieber, Cody Simpson, and the Veronicas. A native of New York City, Dezen assembled the Damnwells in 2001 and served as their principal songwriter while remaining the group’s sole consistent participant. After settling in Brooklyn alongside guitarist Dave Chernis, bassist Ted Hudson, and drummer Steven Terry, the quartet issued several EPs and secured an opening slot on a Cheap Trick tour. The band finished its first full-length effort, Bastards of the Beat, then signed with Epic Records, which issued the album in 2003. Two years later the musicians returned to the studio only to discover they had been dropped, an episode documented in the 2007 film Golden Days.

The Damnwells’ second album, Air Stereo, finally appeared on Zoë/Rounder Records near the end of 2006. Although a subsequent tour with the Fray took place, weak sales prompted the group to pause operations in 2008. Dezen used the break to pursue formal training, completing a Master of Fine Arts in English at the University of Iowa’s Iowa Writers’ Workshop in 2010. During his time there he offered One Last Century as a free digital release through Paste magazine, and upon graduating he assembled a fresh Damnwells configuration built around himself and original bassist Ted Hudson to record a PledgeMusic-funded project. The resulting No One Listens to the Band Anymore surfaced in spring 2011.

In 2012 the co-written track “Take You” surfaced on Justin Bieber’s chart-topping album Believe. That year another of Dezen’s compositions appeared on Cody Simpson’s Top 30 release Paradise. He contributed four songs to Matt Hires’ 2013 LP This World Won’t Last Forever, But Tonight We Can Pretend, and he co-authored “You and Me” with the Veronicas for their 2015 self-titled record. Among additional projects, the original Damnwells lineup reconvened for a self-titled album issued the same year. Around that period Dezen began issuing material under his own name, beginning with the four-part Bedhead EPs series in 2014; the tracks were later compiled on a 12-song CD in 2015. His introspective, self-titled debut album arrived in early 2016 and reached the Billboard Americana/Folk Albums chart. He followed it with II in early 2017.