Storytellers takes a glimpse into an artist’s inner psyche through a story of their choice.

D. Alex Meeks of the band Hooded Fang (which features prominent members of Phèdre) shares a quick Storytellers with us about the wisdom accrued from growing up on a zoo.

So it turns out I grew up on a zoo. Folks sometimes mentioned this at birthday parties, but otherwise I never gave the fact much particular mind, steeped as I was in the contexts of the thing. A home-video from small times depicts me intently building a tower of blocks, trying to protect the structure from a similarly-aged baby leopard who is quite intent on knocking them over in its young wayward clumsiness. It is evident from the furrowed child’s brow depicted therein that I have never had much patience for wayward clumsiness.

This zoo life established in me an unusual set of notions about how the world functions. From an early age, most of what I learned about sound was from elephants (they also taught me about the danger of crushing and the importance of tenderness), and most of what I learned about secrecy was from a chimpanzee named Dixie, who was like a child to my parents before they decided to make human babies of their own. Dixie, to the best of my knowledge, never told me a single secret, though we tussled in earnest on many an occasion.

I hope to eventually have as much sense as she.

Curated by Ian Stanley.