Folk singer Alexis Antes will show off new tunes

By JOHN BENSON

entertainment@vindy.com

Singer-songwriter Alexis Antes finds herself at a crossroads.

After spending the past year working on a new CD, the talented artist, who was a founding member of Cleveland folk-pop group Odd Girl Out, is hoping her future includes both touring her own material as well as writing tunes for others.

“I’m working more on writing some songs I’d like to sell to other artists to record,” Antes said. “I have a couple of people I work with now that help with publishing. So that’s the route I’m going to use right now. I also might go down to Nashville and join a few writers circles.”

Over the past decade, the critically-acclaimed Antes has had quite a career. Not only was she the only Northeast Ohio artist chosen to perform at the 1998 Lilith Fair at Blossom Music Center, but she was continually nominated for Best Folk Singer in the region by the local music press.

Now comes word Antes is finishing up the follow-up to her 2003 album “All Come Down.” The vocalist-guitarist said she’ll be playing new tunes such as the rocking “How Do You Do That?” and the midtempo “Let Go,” as well as Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide” and Pink’s “Crystal Ball” at her Saturday debut show at the Lemon Grove.

“Whereas most of my earlier stuff was a lot of relationship-gone-bad songs, the new material has a little bit wider variety of topics,” Antes said. “There’s still some of the good love-song stuff my current fans are used to hearing, but also a little broader than the love topic. I guess it’s just life in general and soul searching.”

For Antes, that soul searching included overcoming a serious bout with writer’s block, which explains why it took so long to write her new album. In fact, she admits a hiatus she took last year away from her normal 100-plus live-show schedule was aimed at jump-starting the creative process.

“I didn’t struggle as much musically, it was more lyrically,” Antes said. “That’s been more of a battle for me than it has been in the past. I don’t know. I can’t explain it. It would seem like I would get a couple of things going but not enough to put an album out. But then the gates opened up, and I guess it was the right timing. It felt good. So right now, I’m actually kind of working on two projects at once because a lot of people have asked for an acoustic recording. One album I’m working on is an acoustic CD. But I love playing with my band members, and I’m looking forward to doing full-band arrangements on the main CD. So it’s not folk rock anymore, a little bit more on the rock end. I might release them simultaneously later this summer.”

Wow, that’s quite a gift for fans who have been waiting for new material from Antes for more than half a decade.

“Yeah, maybe,” Antes laughed. “A gift for them. A gift for myself.”

if you go

What: Alexis Antes

When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday

Where: The Lemon Grove, 122 W. Federal St., Youngstown

Tickets: $3; call (330) 301-0282