Alexander Arundel

Alexander Arundel
Alexander Arundel is a songwriter, guitarist, and DJ. Born in Glasgow, Scotland, he has lived in London, New York City, and Nashville, Tennessee. He is married to Adrienne, a native New Yorker.

1980s London
In 1980, Alexander Arundel was living in London. He met up with Alexei Sayle, Tony Allen, and Rik Mayall. They formed a touring troupe called Alternative Cabaret, a group of politically motivated performers. One of its founder members, the late Tony Allen, described it as "a sort of collective of comedians, musicians – dope smokers, dole scroungers, tax evaders, sexual deviants, political extremists."

Alexander wrote a song called When The Gold Runs Dry. and asked Alexei Sayle if he wanted to have a live recording from The Comic Strip Live on the B-side. The single was released in 1980. In 1980, Chas Chandler, famed bass player of The Animals and manager of Jimi Hendrix, asked Alexander to write a song for his artist Steve Petters.The song "Change Of Heart" was released on Cheapskate Records.

1980s New York City
In 1985, Alexander met Robbie Shakespeare and Sly Dunbar, aka Sly & Robbie. They liked a demo of three songs and agreed to record with Alexander at Park South Studios in Manhattan. Chrysalis Records decided to get Richard James Burgess to produce the sessions. Ed Buller, ex-Psychedelic Furs and Suede producer, met Alexander in New York and, along with Mars Williams, the band recorded "Indigo" and "Knight In Arms" for Chrysalis Records.

1990s New York City
In 1993, Alexander met the band Warrior Soul, signed to Geffen, and joined them to write and record Space Age Playboys. The first single, "I Wanna Get Some", was on heavy rotation on MTV. , and they toured Europe extensively. They performed at Dynamo Festival in Holland to 134,000 fans. Alexander was a guest VJ presenter during that show for MTV's Headbangers Ball, where he interviewed the bands backstage.

Metallica invited the band personally to play at their Monsters Of Rock Festival at Donnington. Shortly after headlining Brixton Academy, Alex decided to leave the band.

In 2005, The Space Age Playboys was ranked number 323 in Rock Hard magazine's book of The 500 Greatest Rock & Metal Albums of All Time. Metallica's Lars Ulrich has rated it one of his favourite albums, and has recently said they are one of the most under rated bands of the 90s

Late 1990s/2000s New York City
Jon Zazula, the manager who discovered Metallica, Ministry, and Anthrax, was a good friend of Alexander. He was now managing Canadian artist Bif Naked. Jon asked Alex to recruit a band in Canada, rehearse, and tour with Bif in Europe.During this tour, Arundel (aka xfactor) and Bif co-wrote the first single, Chotee. ", off her new album I Bificus. The single went platinum and was used in the Susan Sarandon/Natalie Portman movie "Anywhere But Here". The Jay Leno Band played an instrumental version of the song for an entire week.

A New Sound
Since leaving the band, Alexander was writing songs not just with guitar but also with Technics 1210 turntables and keyboards. He was a friend of Maxwell Jayson (Mackie) , formerly of Cro-Mags, Bad Brains, and later Fun Lovin' Criminals. Together, they teamed up with Zowie, bass player from NYC hard rock band Circus of Power. They needed a DJ, and Alexander asked his friend DJ Spinbad to join them. DJ Spinbad, one of the best turntablists in New York and host of Hot 97 Hip Hop radio show, joined their rehearsals and recordings.

There were four songs recorded at the legendary Electric Lady Studios in Greenwich Village, New York: "Truth", "Say What", and "Lay Down". Although never officially released, Alexander has the masters in Glasgow. ReMastering and releasing these songs in 2025 is being discussed.

Pseudo A Hybrid
Alexander wanted an even more hybrid sound with turntables as part of the sound. He teamed up with Alex Bovone from Williamsburg, Brooklyn. They performed their new hybrid sound with Arundel on vocals, guitar, turntables, and keys, and Bovone on keys and mixing live.

There was a new Web Live Streaming studio in Soho, New York called Pseudo.com. It was created by Josh Harris, the financial guru of the new dot com era.

Live performances of these shows are rare but TRUTH performed a 2 hour live electronic show that has been captured on film.

Alexander, along with Dec and El and Alex Bovone, performed three more live shows with full rave banner visuals created by Adrienne. The focus in these performances was more on songs that were truly a live band with a DJ. By this time, the TRUTH sound was established. Videos of these live events are rare but have been preserved.

2000-2003 Williamsburg to Dublin
Williamsburg was where TRUTH built their studio. As a three-piece, they recorded songs like "Before You Fall", "Out Of The Rain" , and "Spare Me Those Lies". . ". The band moved to Dublin in 2003 and performed a live 3 song set on RTE on the Cormac Battle live show. They would break up shortly after that three-song set was aired. Alex moved to London where he met Michael Ward-Bergman. They recorded three of the TRUTH songs with a more organic feel, with Michael on the Hyper Accordion. Alexander moved back to New York and recorded "Dogs Of War" with Matt Johnson on drums, who was Jeff Buckley's drummer and later Rufus Wainwright.

2003-2015 New York City to Nashville & copyright advocacy
Alexander Arundel was living in Nashville, Tennessee in July 2008 when a proposed bill called The Orphan Works Bill was being rushed through Congress. He, along with the Nashville Songwriters Association and the Illustrated Partnership, helped to prevent this bill from being passed. The bill was a major piece of copyright reform that could have removed copyright protection for many songwriters. Alex (Gene Poole) wrote an article that appeared in the Nashville Business Journal in July and helped spearhead the campaign. The full text of the bill can be found on the Congress website.

Alex (Gene Poole) was a regular at the famous Bluebird Cafe in Nashville, performing three song live sets of new material every night. He recorded and worked closely with many of Nashville's musicians. Co-writing and recording the song "California's Almost Gone" with Lincoln Parish, founder and guitarist for Cage The Elephant. "He Toi" was written about the Charlie Hebdo shooting in Paris. Rich Redmond, the drummer for Jason Aldean, played drums on the first version. The song, half of which Alex sang in French, was produced by Ron St Germain and also featured Alex's close friend Dave Eggar, the renowned cellist best known for his work on Coldplay's hit "Viva La Vida".

Alex's work "down South" also involved recordings in Cincinnati with synth and piano player Lief Erikson, including "Beautiful Dreamers", "Orphans and Widows", and "Second Skin".

In 2016, Alexander (aka Gene Poole) performed his new hybrid acoustic/electronic set of politically charged songs at The Basement East in Nashville. He performed with his friend from Cage The Elephant, Lincoln Parish. The pair had developed a strong chemistry.

2019 to 2024 Nashville to Glasgow
During COVID, Alexander Arundel, aka Gene Poole, performed live DJ shows on Twitch from his studio in Glasgow, complete with green screen backdrop visuals. Immediately after the January 6 Capitol riot, Alex wrote the song "A Season To Kill", followed by "I Am A.I", and during COP26 in Glasgow, he wrote "Almost Midnight (Net Zero)".

Alexander has taken the 24 track 2 inch Masters of the recording made with Sly & Robbie, restored and digitized the 1985 tapes. He extracted beats from Sly Dunbar and bass lines from Robbie and wrote a new song as a celebration of the late Robbie Shakespeare. The song (and video) is called "That Sly & Robbie Groove".

Most recently, he wrote "October Dance" after the events in Gaza. A 20-minute documentary titled "20 Years in 20 Minutes" has been produced to illustrate the musical journey this artist has made and the transition from a hard rock guitarist to a hybrid performer, copyright reform advocate, and technology advocate.

New Livestream Platform
Alexander Arundel is creating a new livestream platform called Southside Mix. It will be owned and run by artists, and allow them to have a much higher percentage of ticketing. There will also be Bronze, Gold, and Platinum packages for users, with an a la carte menu of purchases. Enabling them to participate monetarily in a variety of ways, and not just a static one-time ticket buy. This will include NFTs and the ability to rent/lease or sell their streams, in part or in total. This new form of micro publishing benefits artist and fan.

Alexander's lyrics over his entire career have covered everything from the death of a pope to animal cruelty, with his song "Second Skin" or corporate greed with a song like "Before You Fall", or The Capitol Riot with his lyric in "A Season To Kill". When COP26 was in Glasgow he wrote "Almost Midnight" about Climate Change. Artificial Intelligence was addressed with "I Am A.I" and his latest song "October Dance" tries to understand the horror of Gaza. All of these songs will be performed in the forthcoming Livestream on Southside Mix.