BIO

Since consciousness, Magnus Dorian has felt as though he's experiencing his entire life in a single instant.
As the only member of The Exit Door, he takes on the entire workload for the sake of creative freedom. 

"I do everything myself. I write the music and lyrics. I never sample any songs. I do the engineering. I do the artwork. I'm involved in every part of the process. I never really feel like I'm in way over my head - I'm just part mad scientist, part nut with a guitar."

I ask him what his purpose is.

"Inside us all, there is the desire. The desire to what? You fill in the blank. You fill in the blank over and over again to follow a map you create, which will lead you to "The Exit Door". The way out of this. It doesn't matter what goes in the blanks. It can be done. Don't be a weak mind."

I'm curious to know what he thinks is most important when it comes to his music.

"I've always liked heavy music, but I like melody, too. And I think it's important to have at least one part in every song that is memorable. I've scrapped tons of songs, just because I felt they were boring."

So does that mean he tries to think outside of the box?

"No. No, I actually have to tone it down."

That statement isn't very surprising after listening to his music. Influences ranging from rockers like Black Sabbath, Nirvana, and Alice in Chains, to blues greats like Jimi Hendrix and composers such as the great Niccolo Paganini and the experimental Alfred Schnittke, help to shape the sonic palette of "The Local Asylum". He also has a certain fondness for east Indian music.
Dorian tells me he started learning to play piano at the age of eight years old, and as he grew up, he added more and more instruments to his musical arsenal and started teaching his friends how to play.

"We were just a bunch of troublemakers. We loved pissing off of the roof of a nearby church and playing as loud as possible in my Godbrother's living room. The neighbors loved it!" 

He laughs.

"When I started playing the guitar things really took off. I felt like I had finally found it."

At eighteen, Magnus moved to Oregon to work as a recording engineer and part time barista for a year. Now, at the age of 22 years old, he seems heartbroken discussing that period of his life before explaining that he much preferred the life of an artist than that of an engineer. Deciding to return to Arizona, he packed up and headed to Phoenix where he quickly moved into a studio apartment and began writing Vol 1 of The Local Asylum: "The Falling Tower", named after a tarot card in the famous Luigi Scapini deck.

"I spent a lot of time in that tiny apartment with barely any room for all of the instruments and recording gear I had accumulated over the years. I just indulged as much as possible and wrote constantly. I spent a fortune on cigarettes and pens that always seemed to disappear."

He plays guitar, bass, drums, violin, piano, mandolin, harmonica, synthesizers, and, of course, he sings. He is also very adept at making sound effects. He says he even used the sound of a balloon as a bass drum in one of his unreleased tunes.
Right now, he's working on recording the rest of the album. He says he is breaking it into three volumes to make it easier to release. Each section will have three songs on it. That way, his tendency to rewrite the songs over and over again won't interfere with the release.

"I think writing helps a person to understand that they're sentient. Words and music have an ancient relationship... So many times I just start over and rework an entire song. Or I finish one that took a month, and just drop it. I find it's a constant challenge to satisfy my own tastes. I'm especially pleased with the maniacal chaos of "Turn the Application in". It's the only one I'm really happy with in truth, and it took me forever. I mean months. It's a lot of work doing every aspect of the creation process alone, but I work best that way. I hate compromising when it comes to my art. It drives me nuts when I don't like a co-writers part but I don't want to step on their balls. It's just so agonizingly irritating."

Dorian's love for George Orwell's book "1984" heavily influenced the lyrics and themes used in The Exit Door. This explains the controversial part in track one "Behave" where he says "WAR IS PEACE. FREEDOM IS SLAVERY IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH." A quote from the book.

"I will never love BIG BROTHER. I feel that Orwell's vision of the future is at the very least a work of genius. Doublethink interests me. I try to metaphorically paint a vague picture of the mechanical nature of our dystopian society where it seems like everyone is trying to sell you something either out of survival or greed and there's a screen in front of your face at all times relentlessly burning your fucking brain out through your eyeholes. There's something so sinister at play beneath the surface. I can't wait for whatever comes next. I want to watch it all fall apart."

"So... Where are you in your dreams?" I ask him, trying not to ask for cream and sugar. He forgets not everyone drinks their coffee black.

"There are many doors within the mind. I just wander through them all. I want to see what's in there, you know? Within the prison behind my eyes, no doors are locked to me. I dream about living in that Phoenix apartment a lot. That was quite a while ago but those were some of the best years of my life. I really felt the most content at that time. I moved out of that studio apartment into a 1 bedroom and finished 'The Falling Tower' there. My kitchen always smelled like dead things and I could see my living room floor sometimes, but I was allowed to be idiosyncratic in my sanctuary."

As of a week and a half ago, Dorian moved to a small town in Tristate on the east coast where he lives with family for the time being.

"Skateboarding is basically impossible here. The sidewalks are terrible. That's my only complaint."

He quickly cheers up after a cigarette and begins sipping a half glass of Jack Daniel's on ice.

"I don't have my equipment right now. It's in storage across the country, but concerning Vol 2 I have two tracks that just need to be mixed and mastered, and one already done that I might just throw on the album to complete the next volume. I like it. It's just really short."

"...Um Dorian?" I finally ask. "Can I get some cream and sugar?"

The Exit Door is a unique experience. 
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The Author of the Article Would Like to Remain Anonymous


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