Maryol Sustains Passion for Guitar, Discovers Maturity in Faith
By Polly Summar
Journal Staff Writer
Alex Maryol doesn't measure himself by the same standards other people might have for him. "Everybody's got an opinion about what I should do next," he says. Get the heck out of Santa Fe, for starters. Move to L.A. Sign with a big recording company.
But at 23, Maryol says he's already met all his childhood goals. "To be on the same bill with James Brown, the Allman Brothers, Buddy Guy, Bo Diddley, Etta James ... people like that."
Any other goals? "Making a CD and actually selling it was one," he says. Now he has another. "To grow. Now I want to go to college. Maybe take some creative writing classes, anything to keep the mind sharp. I'm definitely more interested in that now than I was before."
Maryol just seems so normal. Especially for a nationally recognized blues singer. No lousy childhood or unsightly scars from prison. He's got a big Greek family and the classic looks that make him appear to have just stepped out of an Abercrombie & Fitch ad.
Maryol still lives at home with the folks, Ann and Jim Maryol. And no one seems to give him any grief for it. "No, only me," he says. "But if I had my own place, I'd just be storing my stuff there anyway because I'm on the road so much."
His folks own Tia Sophia's restaurant just off the Santa Fe Plaza. And when he rolls out of bed every morning about 11, that's where he goes for huevos rancheros or a bowl of beans with green chile.
"I like hanging out at Tia's. I've known some of the people who work there since I was in diapers," he says. He started busing there at 5 and waiting some tables in fifth grade.
If he sleeps too late (Tia's closes at 2 p.m.), he goes to the Aztec Cafe for the Vegetarian No. 1. "I love this sandwich," he says on a recent afternoon when he slept too late. In the afternoons, he likes to bring a notepad and some headphones to the Aztec and write music.
And on the weekends, this hip musician likes to catch the 6 p.m. Saturday service at St. Elias the Prophet, a Greek Orthodox church, and the Divine Liturgy the next morning at 10.
"Growing up, I was never taken to church," he says. It was something that came later. "I started going a lot with my cousin, when I was a teenager, because he went," says Maryol. That would be Ignacio Patsalis, owner of another popular Santa Fe restaurant, Tomasita's. (Maryol's aunt, Toni Maryol, owns Diego's Cafe.)
"He's the luckiest musician in town," says Maryol's mom. "He's got three restaurants in town and they all feed him."
His mother says it's his family that keeps Maryol grounded. But both she and Alex credit something else with making him the person he is today. "When he was a senior in high school, he was really impressed with himself. He was really getting arrogant," she says.
But during that year, he broke his hand. "I punched a wall at school," he says. "Back then, I didn't care about my grades, or my health, or controlling my passions. But after that happened, going to church was something that began appealing to me more."
The break had to be reset about four times, says his mother. "It really scared him. That he might not be able to play guitar."
And religion gradually became a more important part of his life. "I just slowly started to understand things about my religion," he says. "Now it's my life. It's the faith I believe." The music at St. Elias is a cappella, "Byzantine chant," Maryol explains, but it speaks to him. He says he tries to do something spiritual every day, which might mean reading from the Bible or something from the church fathers.
And he says his interest in his church is not just because of his cultural heritage. "We don't go because we're Greek," he says. "We go for God."
Old enough?
It's this very contentment with life that seems to puzzle people. This is a man who sings about pain and suffering, who's been annointed a top young gun by legendary blues festivals around the country.
Maryol writes what he feels and he's used to people questioning whether he's old enough, and miserable enough, to sing the blues.
"Classical, R&B, country, all music ... it's all the blues," says Maryol. "We're all human beings. We all have emotion, and the blues is a certain way of expressing your emotion. To me, the best music is when something comes from the heart ... that's when I really get moved."
And besides, he points out, "How old was John Lee Hooker when he started playing? BB King? Robert Johnson? It's not about what bad happened to you. It's about the human being. Do we feel or do we not?"
In May 2002, the Alex Maryol Band competed at the Sonny Boy Blues Society talent contest in Helena, Ark. "The prize was a mainstage spot at the King Biscuit Blues Festival later that year," says Maryol. His band won.
"It was amazing," says Maryol, "to be playing blues in the place it was actually first played."
It's not just his guitar playing that makes him stand out. It's that he writes the lyrics and the music for the band. "I used to make up my own songs on the piano when I was 3," he says. About five years later, he wrote his first song, but laughingly refuses to divulge the lyrics.
His manager/roadie, Ken Garley, says, "Sometimes I see piles of musical papers lying around with notes on the bars. Other times, he'll say, 'Maybe it should go like this,' and he sings it to the others."
When Maryol thinks back to the first music that had an impact on him, he says, "Classical— my mom bought Mozart tapes for me; movie soundtracks— 'Star Wars,' 'Back to the Future,' I loved those; those kid songs like 'Hot Cross Buns'; and then Chuck Berry because of the guitar and Johnny Rivers, about being a performer."
It was during the rides in his dad's truck to Gentle Nudge kindergarten when Maryol first heard Berry and Rivers and Fats Domino and Elvis. His mom's love of Etta James and Patsy Cline and Stevie Ray Vaughan stuck with him, too.
"Stevie Ray Vaughan— he's the perfect example of someone who plays with his heart," says Maryol. "He could have played one note all night and done it."
But it was Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards who became his idol. "He had Keith Richards' posters all over his room," says Shiloh Turner, who went to Gentle Nudge with Maryol and played drums in three of Maryol's bands.
"Alex always knew he wanted to be a blues musician. Our first band was more rock 'n' roll but that's only because those were the people we could find."
Turner says Maryol was always very directed about his music. "Some people think he can be pigheaded, but I've only ever noticed that about music," says Turner, who now works with computers. "He knows exactly what he wants. He's very open-minded about everything else."
And he's loyal. Both his band members now— Willy Magee on bass and Bjorn Hamre on drums— were with Maryol in his band, Boogie Chillin,' in 1999.
"That was my first real band," he says. Then he stops and says, "No, it was Sour Mash in 1997. No ... Motion Sickness in 1996. Wait ... Soul Trip, 1994-1995."
A precocious musician
Ann Maryol dates her son's interest in music back to the age of 3 or 4 months. "All we had to do was put on music and Alex would be in his crib lifting his head," she says.
Soon she would take her 3-year-old son to Miss Gillian's Yamaha Music School at the Santa Fe Girls Club, thinking he might like piano. "But you know, with little boys ... their small muscular devlopment comes later and he was totally frustrated with piano. He was so shy, he couldn't do any of the recitals. But they did a lot of rhythm and solfage (singing syllables to the notes of a scale) and he loved that."
At about 7, he received his first guitar, a 3/4-size model. "He was almost a little burned out from piano ... his teacher just let him take his time. It took about a year and then he really took off."
A couple of years later, his folks bought him his first electric guitar from the Hock Shop in Santa Fe.
Maryol played a bit of clarinet in elementary school and had a brief stint with the trombone, too. "I still like to mess around with drums and bass and harmonica, but my main instruments are voice and guitar."
Maryol likes any kind of music— "if it's good." He even likes some pop stuff, he admits, like No Doubt, Matchbox 20 ("I don't care what anyone says, they're good writers"), Jonny Lang, Ben Harper.
Lately, he's been listening to Otis Redding, Sam Cooke and Wilson Pickett. "I spend all my money on music," he says, shaking his head.
Brotherly love
The Maryols tried to raise both their children, sons nine years apart, with the belief that they should follow their passions. Their older son, Nick, now 32, lived and taught English in Japan, became fluent in Japanese and just graduated from Thunderbird, the American Graduate School of International Management, in Glendale, Ariz.
"While I was in Japan," says Nick, "my parents sent me a video of Alex when he was about 16, and I was so shocked by how good he had become.
"He really is my personal hero. Alex has so much class. He's become so good, he has so many fans, and he has this opportunity to turn into a jerk. But he still goes to church two times a week, he still treats all his fans ... everyone, with love and respect."
If you go
The Alex Maryol Band will be the opening act and the backup band for Bo Diddley, Thursday, Jan. 29, at The Lensic in Santa Fe, 211 W. San Francisco, (505) 988-1234 or tickets.com.
Alex Maryol will appear as a solo act in Albuquerque, opening the Bo Diddley show, Friday, Jan. 30, at Puccini's Golden West Saloon El Rey Theatre, 620/622 W. Central. Contact tickets.com for availability.
For a different setting, check out the Alex Maryol Band Saturday, Jan. 17, at El Farol Restaurant & Lounge, 808 Canyon Road, in Santa Fe, 983-9912.
For information about the band's schedule, log on to www.alexmaryol.com
"In the Ground"
-- Alex Maryol
wake up in the morning
and I do what I do
say my morning prayers
and I tell Him 'bout my blues
well my life ain't but a
blade in the ground
time seems long now
but not when you been around
eat my breakfast
give my thanks for the day
well I work and toil
all my life and pain
nobody nobody knows my
life but God
nobody nobody knows my
joy but God
well my life ain't but a
blade in the ground
time seems long now
but not when you been around
nobody nobody knows my
life but God
nobody nobody knows my
joy but God
nobody nobody knows my
thoughts but God
nobody nobody knows my
pain but God ...
venue 
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