Soul Brothers: Aykroyd, Belushi, Alexander

Dan Aykroyd partners with Beaumont artist in 'spirit-filled' business venture

By Donna Rae Wisor
As published in The Examiner April 10-16, page 6-7B


Dan Aykroyd is putting spirits in bottles again. Only this time it is not ectoplasm and he is not playing a “Ghostbusters” character in partnership with Bill Murray. He is in a real-life business partnership with artist and Beaumont native John Alexander.

When the artist sketched an idea on a napkin during a long lunch in New York with Aykroyd, he had no idea it would lead him into the spirit world. But he is not just any artist and he was not having lunch with just any friend. He and Aykroyd go back more than 30 years. The world-reknown American landscape and portrait artist was in an exchange of ideas with Aykroyd, legendary actor/musician, entrepreneur and “proud wearer of the spiritualist badge.”

In a brief telephone interview last Friday, Aykroyd’s familiar voice bounced back from cell towers across the Northern Americas.

“I am happy to be calling you from my home in the beautiful St. Lawrence region of Ottawa, in the great state of Ontario, Canada where spring time is here and the hay is ready to harvest,” he said, sounding like maybe he had a cigar in his mouth and his feet propped up on the old milk truck that sits in a barn on his ancestral estate.

Aykroyd confirmed that Alexander had indeed ventured into the spirit world with him.

“John Alexander? Who’s that?” he said.

“The American art…,” was the incomplete reply from this end.

Aykroyd graciously interrupted.

“Aaahh, ha ha ha. Just kidding. He’s my best friend,” he said, sounding a little like the glib-tongued, Bag-O-Glass hawker he played on “Saturday Night Live.”

Recently, this seemingly unlikely pair put they’re heads together and launched Crystal Head Vodka---a kind of spirit more worldly than the myth of the 13 Crystal Heads conjured from the ancient past and brought to the fore in marketing the brand. This “very pure spirit,” according to Aykroyd, is produced in Newfoundland, filtered through Herkimer Diamonds and bottled in an “accurate glass rendering of a human skull,” --- a bottle designed by Alexander during that fateful nosh in New York seven years ago.

“He has been putting skulls in his artwork for years,” said Aykroyd.

But this is Alexander’s first go at a business.

Aykroyd, on the other hand, has been bottling “snob-free grapes” since 2005, bearing the label Dan Aykroyd Wines, with Toronto-based partner Diamond Estates Wines & Spirits LTD. He also holds the rights to Patron Spirits which he is currently distributing throughout Canada.

“This is absolutely my only one [business venture] ever, I’m not business oriented. I just came up with a very cool idea for a bottle. I still can’t believe its happening,” said Alexander from his studio in New York.

Alexander became enamored with skulls after visiting the late artist Diego Rivera’s studio and several Day of the Dead festivals in Oaxaca, Mexico.

“I had an idea to make one of those skulls like you see in Mexico and put tequila in it. I had no interest in the liquor business one way or the other,” he said.

Years later, Aykroyd was telling him about the tequila business and how it was keeping him busy.

“I told him I had an idea about a tequila bottle and Danny said ‘Draw it out on a napkin and let me see.’”

He loved the idea and asked Alexander “flat out” if he would be interested in doing this together.

“He seemed so serious about it. I actually went home and did it, front, side, all different angles. A week or so later, I showed it to him and within two weeks, we were in Canada talking to these liquor people. It’s absolutely astounding how this thing is taking off,” he said.

“Bruni Glass in Italy created a prototype that looked exactly like what John designed,” said Aykroyd.

Aykroyd decided to put Vodka rather than tequila in it.

“ So we got the distillery, he did. We got the distributors. The rest has taken off like a house afire,” said Alexander in an accessible, lingering, Southeast Texas accent.

The two have signed bottles in Houston and New Orleans at Crystal Head Vodka launches.

“I attended those launches because people might be acquainted with me there. Otherwise I’m not too involved. But he’s the draw. The draw is the bottle itself. The other thing that makes it work and changes it from being a novelty is the fact that the vodka is so incredibly good,” he said.

The two are working on another product, mildly-spiced rum.

“That will be more problematic. We’ll have to come up with something other than a skull,” he said.

Meanwhile Alexander is working on a show of his own. He will exhibit his latest master works in New Orleans on May 2 at the Arthur Roger Gallery on 423 Julia Street.

“I owe everything to Jerry Newman, my great mentor. He was the guy who laid the foundation for my career,” he said of the late Beaumont artist and Lamar professor.


13 CRYSTAL SKULLS
If two heads are better than one, then, in this case, 13 heads are better than two. According to the myth of the 13 Crystal Skulls, when brought together, they contain vast knowledge and enlightenment capable of unlocking our most enigmatic ancient mysteries. Alone, each is believed to house radiant psychic energy, which has magical powers and healing properties, according Aykroyd’s video on the Web site at crystalheadvodka.com

Let’s hope so. But after popping the cork on this novel bottle, the 40-percent alcohol-per-volume spirit, though tasty with a glycerin after-texture, left this writer incapable of unlocking the back door, much less our most enigmatic ancient mysteries. And it is seriously recommended that if the reader brings 13 of these Crystal Head Vodka bottles together in one place, to have at least 46 friends there to level the drinking field.

Crystal Head Vodka is currently available in Texas, Canada, California, Nevada, Louisiana and Florida. It will gradually roll out into other markets in the U.S.

LIKE REAL GHOSTBUSTERS
Alexander does not claim any particular interest one way or another in the paranormal or spiritualism but says he is intrigued by the 13 Crystal Skulls myth. On the other hand, Aykroyd is a subscribing benefactor to the American Society for Psychical Research and the Mutual U.F.O. Network.

“I create my own world of UFOs in my art. Danny is an expert at it. He follows that stuff. I don’t.,” he said.

“I’ve been talking about this stuff for years,” said Aykroyd.

He has, in fact, hosted a show on the SciFi channel called “Out There,” revealing that he is a believer in the existence and government cover-up of alien life-forms. About the documentary “Dan Aykroyd Unplugged on UFOs” (2005), directed by David Sereda, he said on CNN, “They’re here. They’re looking at us in a petri dish and I’ve got to say, the way mankind is behaving, they are probably very disappointed.”

Aykroyd shares one of his psychic experiences.

“The day before my grandfather died, he came to me in a dream and waved goodbye. He was walking along and waved goodbye to me. That was vivid,” he said.

In what seemed like an unusual moment of vulnerability for Aykroyd, he said, “I am very pleased and almost, like sort of vindicated in a way. There are now assertions that everyone is a little bit psychic. There is now a group in every county in the U.S. researching paranormal activities, studying electronic voice phenomena, ghosts and psychics. Civilians are taking it upon themselves to explore this in an empirical way. Like real ghost busters.”

STRANGE TIES
“For some strange reason I have long friendships with people from ‘Saturday Night Live,’” said Alexander in another telephone interview with the Examiner last Wednesday, from his studio in Amagansett.

The reason is not as strange as the evolution of some of those friendships. Having both been married at different times to “Saturday Night Live” writer Rosie Shuster is one reason Aykroyd and Alexander know each other. Another might be that they have a lot in common.

Alexander said Aykroyd is a pretty gifted artist himself.

“I’ve got a couple of drawings of his. He is an extraordinarily brilliant man. A stunning mind on many levels and art is one of them,” he said.

Both are civic-minded and serve their communities in tangible ways. Alexander is a volunteer firefighter in Amagansett where he resides when he’s not in New York.

“I’ve been a volunteer fireman for 19 years. Dan, on the other hand, I think his love for involvement in police stuff goes back to his childhood. I’ve been down in Louisiana with his police buddies. His involvement with those guys is real. Everytime we go to New Orleans he goes to firehouses and police departments. After Katrina, he was very involved down there. It is very heartfelt and genuine,” he said.

Aykroyd admits he can hardly go anywhere without a policeman’s badge. But that is due to a slight case of Asperger's syndrome, according to his interview with National Public Radio’s Terry Gross. He vigorously and rather sternly recited a large number of facts regarding his appointment by the late Chief J. J. Doyle as a reserve officer with the City of Harahan Police Department in the “great State of Louisiana.”

“Harahan is a no-tolerance-city. Profiling seems to work. I work with them on programs for kids and safety. They do an excellent job down there,” he said.

Aykroyd confirmed that he could legally arrest us but only if we are in the “Great State of Louisiana.” Still, he was assured we at The Examiner would keep our noses clean while he is here in Beaumont with Jim Belushi and the Sacred Heart Band for the Christus gala on Saturday, April 18, where they will performing as The Blues Brothers.

HEY BROTHA!
Aykroyd’s interest in spirits and brand promotion originated with his co-founding of House of Blues Entertainment Inc. now a division of the world’s largest concert company, Live Nation Inc. Yet he still goes on the road as Elwood Blues with Jim Belushi as Zee, or Zurashayda. Together with The Sacred Heart Band, they are The Blues Brothers. Aykroyd’s original partner in The Blues Brothers was Jim Belushi’s real-life brother John Belushi (Jake Blues), who died of a drug overdose in 1982. Together, they founded the Blues Brothers in 1978 during an SNL sketch. They produced a grammy-nominated, triple-platinum selling “Briefcase Full of Blues” record album. In 1997, 15 years after John Belushi’s death, Aykroyd asked Jim Belushi to join the band as Jake’s brother Zee.

It may seem an anomaly that two blue-eyed soul brothers can create triple-platinum selling blues live on stage for more than 30 years. Some say the real blues comes from a life of love lost.

“The loss of my partner when he was 33 and I was 28, that was the loss of a loved one. I think of him when we sing ‘She Caught the Katy,’ you know the one that opened the first movie. I’m really singing the blues then,” said Aykroyd.

Jim Belushi, in an interview with The Examiner last Friday, said there is nothing sad about the blues.

“The blues is the next progression from gospel. There is a great spiritual sense to the music,” said Belushi from his home in Los Angeles where looking out the window he could see the wisteria and the climbing roses.

That’s one reason Belushi performs a back flip at every Blues Brothers performance.

“I always say they pay me to fly because the show is free,” said Belushi. “I’m as strong as a bull. I box, do some yoga, tennis, basketball.

But Aykroyd, like the stereo-typed ‘white man,’ can’t jump.

“I can’t really play basketball. I’m terrible at foot ball. I like watching,” said Aykroyd.

But both of them can sing the blues and they love it.

“I do not have to think about a thing. Not business or…I just get out there and play and sing,” said Aykroyd.

After twelve years together, Belushi said the dance has gotten better.

“I’ll be dancing with ya’ in Beaumont my friend,” he said.

And Aykroyd replied, Hey brotha’.”

Then Belushi’s persona Zee Blues suddenly hit the cell towers.

“We’re reviving a new song for the Beaumont show,” he said.

Then he began to sing, “I started drinking and got real tight, I blew each and all my friends, I felt so good I had to blow it again, I said hey bartender, Hey man, looka here, A draw one, draw two, draw three…

“Look forward to it BROTHA!”