At its peak, Alex Maher’s addiction was so at home at rock bottom, that it invited the veteran Vancouver musician in to visit twice in one year.
The first time, approximately three years ago, Maher recalls that he was so high on hard drugs that he thought he could safely parkour out the back of his apartment building. That delusion resulted in a shattered heel bone, three months of forced sobriety as he convalesced after surgery in his parents’ home, and the feeling that maybe, after almost a decade of substance abuse, he needed to turn a corner.
But, in reality, it took a second incident – Maher hallucinating that his apartment was on fire and having to be escorted to a waiting ambulance by police – for the reality of rock bottom to finally sink in.
“It had turned into this thing that I didn’t even realize was controlling my life,” says Maher, seated at a sunny Eastside kitchen table recently. “When I got back, all my gigs were still waiting for me, and I went through a period leading up to that where, the more gigs I got, the more money I got to facilitate this crazy affliction. So I was clean for three months – not by my choice – and then I went back into my gigs, had my own apartment, and hit bottom again.
“There was something pulling me out of it this time, though,” he continues. “My [new] relationship with my girlfriend, Lauren, and the why am I doing this again? It had almost killed me once that year.”
Maher adds that he was also coping with the loss of two dear music industry friends to the same vice.
It’s a dark subject, one Maher explores with a prizefighter’s perspective on Aether – the first solo EP from the talented saxophonist, loop pedalist, and DNA6 and Flannel Jimmy co-founder in almost 10 years, which he released to a sold-out crowd at the Fox Cabaret in February. The majority of the tracks were written during his “dark time”, and serve as lyrical lamentations on isolation and loss. Sonically, however, the album retains Maher’s trademark velvety vocals, blues-pop guitar riffs, and searing sax solos. “It’s trying to make something uplifting from something extremely sad,” Maher muses. “Kind of like a Green Day song. If you listen to a Green Day song, it’s really upbeat and poppy, but if you listen to the lyrics, it’s really dark.”
He’ll be performing tracks from Aether, like the soulful “No One Else” (which he co-wrote with friend and Carly Rae Jepsen collaborator Ryan Stewart) and sun-soaked “The Light” with his band at the fifth anniversary of Ground Up on Thursday, May 4, at Guilt & Co. Proceeds from the show go to the Bavubuka Allstarz Foundation, a nonprofit organization that connects youth with music and the arts. That’s in addition to the handful of regular weekly gigs Maher plays, such as the Keefer Bar on Tuesday nights, Clough Club on Saturdays, Parlour on Mondays, and Anza Club open mic on Thursdays, which he’s hosted for more than a decade.
In fact, somewhat miraculously, Maher says his musical ability, passion, and professional reputation survived the thousands of days he spent high. “Music was always there,” he says. “It was weird that I was always able to – even when I was at my peak of abuse, I was somehow able to keep it together for each gig. My evil addict was good at scheduling, I guess?” he jokes, wryly.
He also acknowledges, with the recent tsunami of fentanyl-laced party drugs and overdoses, that he’s lucky he survived his addiction at all.
Ultimately, Maher’s recovery began in earnest when he joined Daytox Vancouver – an outpatient withdrawal-management program – two years ago and started doing home drug tests to prove to his loved ones that he was clean. He says he’s been clean since. The 37-year-old also credits his partner, Lauren, new rescue pup Billie, and circle of friends for being instrumental in his recovery.
“That’s what’s going on,” he says, contentedly. “That’s why this album exists.”
• Alex Maher and his band perform at the fifth anniversary of Ground Up at Guilt & Company on Thursday, May 4, at 10pm. Pay-what-you-can sliding scale admission at the door. alexmahermusic.com
