Alley Stewart - Interview excerpts

Just a couple of days before embarking on yet another tour in early March, this time to Colorado, Alley Stewart of Wise Monkey Orchestra was kind enough to grant an interview for a Las Vegas Weekly article previewing a show WMO would be doing in a few weeks down the road. Due to space limitations in the issue of the Las Vegas Weekly that week, there was no room for alot of great quotes from Alley.

In our effort to provide high grade content, here's a few of the previously unpublished excerpts:

Q-Do you feel any responsibility as a role model to women, particularly young women, that come in contact with your music?

"I do when I'm writing lyrics. I was always the type of person who pay attention to what people were saying. I read the lyrics on the CD covers and I'd really listen to it. And that's one of the things I've noticed about women that come up and talk to me. Women that really love the music. Most of these women love the lyrics. They like the music and they like to shake their booties, but the bottom line, the thing that gets women, the women that like us, is the lyrics."

"Another thing is that there's a lot of women who have come up to me and say, 'You know, I've always loved to sing. I've always loved music, and I've always wanted to do what you're doing. And I always, 'Do it!' If you've always wanted to it, then do it. I think a lot of people when they see me doing it then they find out that I have children and that I am married, and I'm still doing it, and I'm not a drug addict, and I'm not stressed about it, they're like, 'Wow! I can do that.' And there's been a couple of people in the history of Wise Monkey that I've seen come to fruition on that. I've seen them say that to me in a bar one night while they're waitressing at the bar and then three years later I've seen them with a band onstage."

Q-How do you manage the day to day reality of family life on the road?

"I watch so many people raise their kids and they're just so sressed out, about everything! That would make anybody uncomfortable. It makes the people around them uncomfortable, it makes the children uncomfortable, and there's just no reason for it. Raising kids should be one of the easiest things in the world if you let it be. You just go by feel. If you love them, and you have, someone like I do, who is a wonderful father, and you have to people who want to make it happen, and you have friends and family who are supportive of you, which is my scenario. I admit that I am very fortunate to have such a great scenario."

"I see us as a big, huge family. Chad and I are kind of like the mom and dad at the end of the table and then we have our children, and then we have our brothers and our sisters that make it happen with us. We're all a big family. We have that kind of love and respect for one another. And that's the way it is, and either you hang with that or you don't, but that's the kind of people we need to be in this situation with to make it work."