By Kalena Reynolds | Staff Writer
Waco-born R&B, soul and jazz fusion group “Smooth Nature” resonates with authenticity and sonic passion throughout their songs and live performances. The trio is composed of two brothers and one of their longtime friends, making it obvious when listening to their music that their connection runs much deeper to one another than just their craft.
The group’s vocalist, Marvin Alexander, has always loved music. In 2021, he was convinced to perform at an open mic night put on by his cousin. While there, he met the group’s saxophonist, Gerald Wilburn.
Fast forward a few shows, and Smooth Nature was officially in the works.
The group released their first song in 2022, titled “No More,” which Diarian Alexander, the band’s vocalist and pianist and Marvin’s younger brother, said was part of a batch of songs that the group initially recorded and released.
“I’d never been inside the studio at that point in time, and it was my first time. That was very memorable,” Alexander said. “I love that song. It’s still a great song, even though, hearing-wise, not many people have heard it. One day, when people are looking back for the deep cuts, they’re gonna see the older songs and be like, ‘Man, these are some bangers.'”
The group’s second and third songs, “Waterslide” and “How Would It Feel?,” were released as a way to explore its own identity within the walls of a studio and figure out what kind of production the band wanted.
“We created those songs in 2022, in addition to a few other ones, so that we could move in that direction,” Marvin Alexander said. “Those are very different. We had very little experience. We just knew how to play our live instruments. So we found a producer here in Waco, and he made the beat, and we played the instruments, and that was pretty much it.”
Marvin Alexander said that he began learning how to produce and record vocals and the group’s instruments in 2023. As Alexander developed his production skills, the group began writing and producing its music on their own.
“Our song “Genuine” and our song “That Feeling Of Love” just came out, and the next two that are coming out have pretty much been fully produced by us,” Alexander said. “It’s very much just thinking of ideas, then I’ll make that sound and that feeling at home.”
In every song “Smooth Nature” writes, the band aims to resonate a sonic and lyrical message of love and passion, he said.
“The music out today is not truly all good,” Diarian Alexander said. “There’s a lot of music that talks about breaking up, money, sex, drugs. We are trying to change that precedent. We spread the message of love, and really, truly, it goes through a lot of our songs. We’re only singing about our ladies, really, to get people to know that in life, the most important thing to do is to love on big skills and large scales, to go close and far to us.”
The group is currently releasing a song a month and is set to release their next one, “Love Story,” in late November. The song started off as a secondary thought guitar riff and soon blossomed into a fully developed song with the help of the other two members.
Aside from releasing songs, the group is also planning a Texas tour for next year, which Marvin Alexander, who doubles as the band’s manager, explains has been a large learning process as far as the logistics go.
“We’re trying to make sure we have the back end of everything we do down because, you know, in the beginning, it was just,’ Oh, I want to sing on stages; this is fun,'” Alexander said. “But this job takes way more than just getting some instruments and playing. Understanding how the business works and meeting the right people, the different connections involved getting good at what you do, the skills behind earning and producing, it’s so many tasks.”
