No Rules

Berel Alexander’s CD release weekend, plus Absynth Q, The Melodians and holidaze events

(Dec. 3, 2009) I’ll probably always think of him as young Bernie Steinberg, leader of RBS Syndrome, Fortuna High’s hottest punk pop band, but these days he’s calling himself Berel Alexander.

“Berel is the name on my birth certificate: Berel Alexander Steinberg. Bernie was my grandfather; Alexander was my great great uncle. I went by Bernie my whole life, but since 2007, I’ve switched to Berel,” he told me.

Berel Alexander

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This weekend he celebrates the release of Hooked, the first album by the Berel Alexander Ensemble, but not his first by any means. He began recording as part of a pre-teen chorus that did records like All You Need Is Love: Beatles Songs for Kids for SoHum’s Music for Little People. Six years ago we talked about an RBS Syndrome album that came out as the band members were finishing high school.

The plan then was to keep making music together. “That was the dream. We kept that dream alive for about a year, but it was a struggle,” he said wistfully. “Eventually people decided they wanted to do other things. At that point I thought my world was over - the band was over and I was no longer working with my best friends.” He opted against enrolling in college - he wanted to make music. After just “hanging out” locally for a bit, he joined an Orange County punk band, Halfway Home.

“That fell through very quickly. Then a couple of years ago I began focusing more on the acoustic side of my music. I realized being a singer-songwriter is what I want to do with my life. I started using the name Berel. I thought Bernie Steinberg didn’t have quite the right ring to it, unless I was like a klezmer musician. I had a different vision.”

Part of that vision involved enrolling in classes at HSU while he worked on the songs that would become Hooked. “I had these songs written; I knew I wanted to do something with them and that I had to put together an ensemble with at least drums, bass, cello and violin. That’s the instrumentation I heard. I struggled with the concept of how to do it. I was thinking big, listening to music coming out, seeing Jack Johnson in Rolling Stone. I started playing with the Berel Alexander Septet in 2007, and a lot of the songs on the album were developed starting then. They’re songs about my life and about what’s going on in the world.”

In “No Rules” he sings of a relationship, but also lays down a come-what-may philosophy: “Take it as it comes. Don’t plan too much, ‘cause plans are bound to be broken. There are no rules for what we’re doing now.”

“I wrote that song when I was backpacking in the Trinitys,” he recalled. “It’s personal, but anybody can relate to it in some way. I hope it also speaks to greater issues in everyone’s lives.”

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