Alex Smith can make the Friday night waitress who’s tending to a restaurant full of hungry customers with a dozen meals on her tray and beverages in hand look like a slacker.
Not only is this 20-year-old journalism student from Minnesota, but he also works at the Missourian, has a radio show at KCOU, started his own NFL website and is a full-time boyfriend. As if that’s not enough, Smith dances to the tune of his own jams. Literally.
On top of it all, his baby, Cosmonot, happens to be his one-man band. Too self-reliant to want to depend on other musicians, he decided to take on every role of the band himself and gave birth to Cosmonot the summer before enrolling at MU.
Since then, he has honed his sound (think Jack Johnson meets The Strokes) and put out two demos and an album. But how exactly is that possible as an oh-so-busy college student?
“He’s really, really good at time management,” says Bridget Stone, Smith’s girlfriend. “He juggles a lot of stuff and is constantly working on projects.”
But the sun didn’t always shine for Smith’s music career. He had to record his second demo, _Ignite Ignite_, in the basement of Schurz Hall, which was a constant struggle.
“I couldn’t just do it whenever I wanted to,” Smith says. “If I wanted to go down to Schurz basement, there were usually people down there so that didn’t always work out. And if I wanted to do it in my room, I had to do it at certain times of the day or it’d be too loud, and someone would yell at me.”
In spite of Smith’s less-than-ideal recording situation, he was able to make his music quality as high as possible. He had some help with his album, _To The Sky_, from his friend Evan Cottrell, who owns a recording studio. Smith met Cottrell serendipitously through an MU rec league soccer team.
“The last day of soccer, we decided to celebrate even though we lost our final match,” Cottrell says. “I ended up inviting the whole team to Shakespeare’s and offered Alex a ride. On our way, we started talking about music, and he mentioned he was going to record an album soon. I let him know that I produce and own a studio. After that it just kind of worked out.”
Cottrell wasn’t the only one who helped with _To The Sky_. Smith’s girlfriend, Stone, is featured in the track “All I Know,” which has a very “Juno” feel to it. “I felt honored that Alex asked me to be a part of it,” Stone says. “It’s something he really cares about, so it was a really great experience working with him.”
_To The Sky_ was created over a span of 1 1/2 months.
“I basically had to kiss my weekends goodbye,” Smith says. “I would do it when I had a lot of free time. Working with Evan was a lot different because there were set times where we were going to do it.”
Although Smith started Cosmonot as a solo musician, he now welcomes the help.
“It was a lot more collaborative, and I didn’t have to have it rest all on my shoulder for the final product,” he says. “It was basically his baby too.”
In terms of the future, Smith forecasts a new song and maybe a show or two here. He hopes to record another album and start a take-off band with Cottrell and other friends. Smith says with a laugh, “The future is bright.”