Doug Mikula a popular local musician from the Jersey shore, celebrated the release of his first major album since 2005 on February 2 at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park.
The album titled “Just Beneath the Surface” chronicles Mikula’s personal struggles in life particularly with drug addiction.
Mikula says he didn’t get introduced on drugs by being in the music scene as happens to some people. Instead, he says he started to use drugs because “I didn’t think I would be as good as people said I am.” He adds, “It was manufactured in my head, but that’s just sometimes how I felt, and how I still feel.” The addiction started with painkillers and eventually progressed to heroin.
In his self titled album “Doug Mikula,” which he released in 2005, there are no vocals. However, as Mikula began to mature, his style started to change along with it.
In Mikula’s new album, he explained that the reason he decided to include vocals is that “it was therapeutic for me and I thought it could help some other people.”
In the track “The Relapse Song” the lyrics include “…please pay no attention to the man behind the curtain…” a reference to “The Wizard of Oz” when “The Great And Powerful Wizard of Oz” was exposed as being a fraud. Mikula says this is similar to how he felt when people said how good he was as a guitarist.
When Mikula was young, he was introduced to music early. His mom was a singer in a band that was formed by people from their local church. He would listen to albums like “Phantom of the Opera” with his mother and by 7 he was able to pick out the songs by ear on the piano at his grandmother’s house. According to Julie Mikula, Doug’s mother, in highschool, when a friend left his guitar at their house, Doug picked it up and started to play it.
After high school, Mikula decided that he would play guitar as his main instrument. He describes his style at that time as “shreddy guitar madness,” and says he wanted to write music that was “flashy, fast and impressive.”
His style has shifted, but response to his work remains positive. More than 500 people showed up to the album release party where he was joined on stage by special guests Secret Sound and No Phizz.
Fan Sandy Semenas says that one of his songs “The Relapse Song” really hits home for her.
“I can relate to relapsing and the struggles you go through,” Semenas says. She adds that it has an emotional impact and that she loves it.
Mikula’s next door neighbor, Hope Cahill, who was at the release party on February 2 says she has listened to Doug’s music since she was young.
“I’d get invited to different rehearsals of his, or you would be able to hear [the music] if the windows were open,” Cahill says. She adds, “This album is a comforting thing because I know that anything I go through, I can also get through like he has.”
Mikula says he has new music on the way. “It will not focus on my drug addiction and recovery…My life is happy now, so my music is gonna reflect that,” Mikula says.
