Full interview in the media player below!
I had to laugh when I first made the call for this interview to get our interviewee on the phone. The first words out of her mouth, “You’re calling from Winter Park!” I laughed because I do live in the Orlando area and our interviewee actually grew up in Winter Park before making her own way out to Los Angeles to pursue her musical career. That person is Alecia “Mixi” Demner vocalist of Stitched Up Heart. I knew right away this was going to be a great interview from her bright and cheerful voice.
Stitched Up Heart released their new album Darkness today, March 13th, via Another Century. It’s the band sophomore album after the very successful Never Alone. The campaign to the album release was very different than what I am used to seeing. They released 9 singles from the album prior to the release date! “We tried to do something a little different, especially with the way the streaming services are these days not as many people are buying whole albums…We tried to give everyone something to listen to every month so it’s brand new and fills the momentum back up since it’s been two years since we released anything.”
With regards to the writing the album Mixi explained, “We went crazy on our writing technique for this album, a lot different than our Never Alone album where we knew exactly how we wanted it to sound for Never Alone. So every song we wrote for that album we ended up using on the record. Now for the sophomore album coming out, we wrote over 70 songs for this record. We really tried to stretch our artistic ability and we tried to see how far we could go and tried to create a more modern sound and we finally after about 50 songs started to dial in on exactly where we wanted it to go.” And how exactly did they go from 70 songs down to 11? “It really all came down to how we all felt about it as a unit. And not just the band but management and the label. And everybody heard everything too. And when they would give us a thumbs up on stuff we would stay in that lane. It really ended up on how we all felt together on it and on each individual song.”
I asked what was the one track that made the album that Mixi didn’t expect to make it. “We wrote a song called ‘Crooked Halo’ that is probably the most far-left we’ve ever written. It was towards the end of the album so we kind of are able to explore a little more crazy territory. I was very proud of it.” The song itself is “a weird and unique style”. One of the other big hits from Darkness is “Lost” featuring Sully Erna of Godsmack. “I’ve been friends with Sully for a few years and we just grew a really strong friendship. And one-day management said ‘You should ask him if he wants to sing on a song’ and I didn’t want to pull that card because he’s a friend. I got up the guts and asked him and he said ‘Yeah sure as long as it’s the right song’. It took us a few months to figure out what we wanted to do whether it was going to be a cover or whatnot. Finally, when the album was completely done I realized that “Lost” had a really great instrumental bridge part to it…and I thought his voice would sound cool over it. I asked him what he thought and he said ‘This is perfect’.” Another standout single on this album is “Straightjacket”. Mixi said, “I don’t usually sing about love or bad relationships. It was definitely a little different than what I’m used to singing about. We did try to push the limits with the high notes and chorus. It’s just about crazy relationships and I think we all kind of have those where you love them to death but they make you crazy.” And then there’s “Warrior” that holds a special place for Mixi, “My grandma always pushes me to write about the military because grandpa was in the military. So for every album, I plan on doing one that’s for veterans. “Warrior” is basically about what happens after the war and what happens in your head whether or not you feel the stuff you’ve seen and done was the right thing to do. PTSD and the things you have to deal with after you’ve been through that, but you still know what you’re fighting for and why you did it. It’s just kind of the aftermath of going to war.” She also added, “That was actually one of the ones that rolled off my tongue because I knew I wanted to write for the veterans and it kind of came out pretty easily.” I love that Mixi said that her reason for songwriting is to “connect and relate and lyrically be able to speak to people.”
With the release of the new album Stitched Up Heart is going on tour to support Darkness opening for Sebastian Bach. He handpicked Stitched Up Heart to join them on this tour where his band will be performing the entire self-titled Skid Row album from cover to cover. Mixi said, “I’m over the moon about hearing those songs live every night.” I love this match up with Stitched Up Heart and Sebastian Bach blended two different styles of music together on the tour. “It’s a really interesting combination. I think that this is the kind of time where you can blend totally different areas of music and kind of put them together and people are a little more open to hearing new things when they are used to hearing one thing.” Stitched Up Heart was recently through Orlando last December opening up for Sevendust during their short acoustic tour. And it was a unique situation for the band as Mixi explained, “We completely changed everything for an acoustic performance because we were on tour with Steel Panther when we got the call about doing those shows. We had all these new songs and we’re like we don’t know how to translate this into acoustic. So we stripped everything down. Our drummer is actually a piano player so he was able to kind of transpose everything into piano and guitar and bass on top of that. And it was definitely super different than anything than we’re used to doing. I couldn’t even bang my head. I put a hat on to stop myself from doing that. But, the Orlando show was super surreal for me because I grew up in Winter Park, my Dad was there, WJRR was sponsoring it which was the station that got me into rock music. It was a very surreal amazing experience.”
During this tour, Stitched Up Heart will be performing at a number of festivals along the way. Included on that list is Danny Wimmer Presents Epicenter and Welcome To Rockville, along with Inkarceration Festival, Rock Fest, Rock USA, and Blue Ridge Rock Fest. Mixi said, “Welcome To Rockville is one I’ve wanted to do forever because it’s my hometown. It’s going to be awesome! My family is going to be there. I’m trying to get grandma to come out. Metallica is headlining and that’s like my generation and I grew up listening to that and just being able to play the same festival as Metallica is the dream come true!”
When Mixi isn’t on tour or songwriting she said she’s been painting a lot and she’s been doing some wonderful things for animals. “Usually when I have enough time and when it’s the season for kittens I’ll foster bottle baby kittens. Like two week old kittens until they grow old enough when they can be adopted. I fostered 29 animals last year.” She does this through kittenrescue.org. She also got drawn into helping out with horses with Big Heart Ranch when the fires occurred in Malibu, California. When she is at Big Heart Ranch she spends a lot of time with a 28 year old horse named Blanca. Stitched Up Heart is also working with a charity known as Guitars 4 Vets. “When we released ‘Warrior’ we wanted to try to partner up with some sort of benefit organization that helps veterans. The label found Guitars 4 Vets… It was a great match up and we have [“Warrior”] t-shirts [for sale] that benefit the organization.”
On last thoughts Mixi said, “I just really hope people like the music we put out. We put a lot of time and energy into and hope that it translates. And if you’re looking to try to help anyone and give back go to kittenrescue.org.”
Darkness via Another Century is available now through physical and digital retailers so ensure you pick up your copy.
Stitched Up Heart‘s tour with Sebastian Bach starts on March 25th and runs through May 12th. The full tour dates and locations are listed below.
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