Interview with Brett Dennen
Brett Dennen, a peaceful musician from Oakdale, Calif., is doing more than his share to help the world become a better place. With projects like The Mosaic Project and Love Speaks under his belt, as well as his positive lyrics, Dennen promotes hope and happiness to fans worldwide.
Dennen graduated from UC Santa Cruz with a degree in community programming, which helped him to form the The Mosaic Project. The Mosaic Project is an organization that works to give kids hands-on skills to break down borders and barriers of discrimination by teaching them through music.
According to the website, brettdennen.net/mosaicproject, there is a song for every subject taught and each song is sung to students around a campfire. The CD includes “well-loved songs about empathy, diversity, conflict resolution and peace.”
“The program now is pretty rock solid,” Dennen said. “We’ve got our curriculum built in. Sometimes we’ll change the way we teach something and then I’ll write another song. It’s the most important thing you can do, to enrich the life of a child and be a role model or a mentor because obviously children are the future.”
Then there is Love Speaks, a program that is promoted via Dennen’s website and his live shows. Dennen describes it as a “trademark system where I use my music and money made from my music and connections with bands and concerts I’ve played as a way to connect people with non-profit organizations and charities that do good in the world.”
Alongside his peaceful projects, Dennen has his peaceful music. Dennen has three full-length albums, 2005’s “Brett Dennen”, 2006’s “So Much More” and the most recent 2008’s “Hope for the Hopeless.”
Dennen’s music is inspired by the state of the world and his songs contain various socio-political messages, which he hopes will inspire listeners
Many perceive the world to be in shambles these days, but rather than lose hope, Dennen sees possibility for change. “If things were perfect and we were living in a utopia maybe it would breed a sort of contentment. There’s beauty in tragedy. When things get really, really bad maybe we can start living again. It’s a really powerful time because there’s a lot of hopeful people and inspired people,” Dennen said.
Dennen will be playing a show at House of Blues tomorrow with support from Angus & Julia Stone. Attendees can see Love Speaks in action. The Life is Good Kids Foundation will be at the venue selling T-shirts. All proceeds will go to kids with disabilities, terminal illnesses and victims of child abuse.
Tickets for the all ages HOB show are $15.50 and, if you’ve been a longtime fan of Dennen and know his earlier material, some of which he doesn’t often play, check out his Twitter page to tell him which songs you’d love to see performed in the encore (twitter.com/brettdennen).