Daniel Drexler is Uruguayan artist whose fifth album, ‘Mar Abierto,’ is a hit in South America. He performed at this year’s South By Soutwest Music Festival as part of a showcase called the Sounds of Uruguay. Not only is he a musician, but he’s also a physician, specializing in the treatment of tinnitus.
Deirdre Saravia: Are your patients aware of your dual role?
Daniel Drexler: Uruguay is a very small country, everyone knows everyone, the whole country only has 3 million people inside so, it’s almost impossible to hide that I have a second life, that I’m a kind of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde!
That you are an otolaryngologist, has that anything to do with your alter ego?
I don’t know, I think that all the things I do are related to sound and I love science, I love biology and I started studying medicine and then I shifted all the focus of my studies to ENT [Ear, Nose, & Throat] because inside ENT you have the ear, and I was involved with the ear and especially patients who have problems hearing… so in that science sound is involved, and in the music of course, sound is involved, so at the end everything I do has to do with sound.
Drexler comes from a family involved with music:
My elder brother Jorge is also a songwriter, my younger brother plays the bass, and he also has a rock band which is very popular in the Rio Plate and my sister is a DJ--she’s the DJ of the family, and the last tour that I made of Brazil, she came with us, she was contracted by the production from Brazil to play music before the shows so in one way or another, all the family is engaged [in music-making].
The inspiration for your songs, where does that come from?
It comes from every little thing I see in life, everything I hear, everything I feel, and I try to put those topics inside my songs.
So they’re very autobiographical?
Yes, they’re very autobiographical, I mean I didn’t have the discipline to write a diary in my life, but now I notice my records are my diary. I have five records and every one of them is related to a different stage of my life, and what happened in my during this stage is inside the records.
Tell me about writing ‘Mar Abierto, Open Sea.’
’Mar Abierto--Open Sea’ is the feeling that you have, when you are standing in front of the horizon and you see that you have so many possiblities, so many directions that you can take and at the same time this kind of fear you can have when you have so many choices in life.
Find out more about Daniel Drexler's music at his website.
