The punch line of Sweet Sweet Music Blog is “Let’s Put the Power Back in Pop.”
And if you don’t know what that means, please listen to Lex Bauman’s new album, The Dangerous Game.
Better yet: put on the classic debut albums of The Beat and The Romantics, and then The Dangerous Game.

It will take you as high as a Power Pop kite can go.

It took me to a height where, as a 56-year-old, I honestly thought “While We’re Still Young” was about me.

So where does a young artist get a sound like this? Bauman talks to Sweet Sweet Music Blog about hooks, Cheap Trick, Tinted Windows, working with Tuk Smith and finding his own place in the long and glorious power pop tradition.

The Dangerous Game feels like a collection of small anthems — songs that are incredibly catchy without ever feeling overworked. Where does that instinct for melody and hooks come from?

I’ve grown up listening to all sorts of bands: KISS, Marvelous 3, The White Stripes, Sawyer Brown, Cheap Trick, Queen, George Strait, Guns N’ Roses, etc. They are all very different, but they all have very strong melodies and hooks in their songs. That is just the music that I love, so I think when I write a song, that stuff all just seeps in there.

There’s a strong sense of Cheap Trick, Rick Springfield and The Cars running through the album, but The Dangerous Game never feels like a nostalgia exercise. How do you take those influences and make sure the songs still sound unmistakably like Lex Bauman?

You take little bits of inspiration from songs or artists, but never too much from one. We always listen to music while writing. The Cars, Rick Springfield, Cheap Trick — those are all influences, but so are Tom Petty, Springsteen, Katy Perry, Goo Goo Dolls, etc. I just take the best from every genre and era and run it through my own filter.

You’re a young artist making a record that sounds remarkably confident and fully formed. When did you first realize that this was the sound you wanted to pursue? Was there a particular record or moment that made everything click?

It was probably a gradual thing. I started playing when I was 9. I was learning White Stripes and Queen songs. I love all sorts of music: softer, poppy music like Bleachers; soulful music like Otis Redding; heavy music like Mötley Crüe; heartland rock like Bruce Springsteen, etc. When I was around 13, I wanted to make something that sounded like The Killers meets Def Leppard. I got really into the Marvelous 3 around that same time. Then I got turned on to a band called Tinted Windows. That was probably the moment, if there is just one, that really established where I wanted to go musically.

How did you find the sound of The Dangerous Game? Did you go into the studio with a very clear idea of how you wanted the guitars, vocals and production to sound, or did the identity of the record emerge while you were making it?

We demo pretty extensively. Tuk Smith is my co-writer and producer. Our outlook on music is pretty similar, so when we write and demo, it comes out pretty organically. By the time we get to the studio, the songs are probably more than 95% formed.

The songs are out now, and at some point they stop being yours and become the listener’s. What is it like to let people discover these songs and turn them into their own little anthems?

It’s really cool. I just think about writing these songs in a garage, and then you are up on stage and people are singing along to these words with you. It can be mind-blowing. The songs all mean something special to me, but when other people make them a piece of their lives and make them mean something to them, that is a huge honor, and I’m incredibly grateful.