Alex Lindsey Jones is a Sydney singer-songwriter on the rise. His debut album If She Knew is the ideal showcase for his unique voice and instantly accessible pop-rock tunes. I caught up with this hot new up-and-comer today to chat about unkind British audiences, his prolific songwriting skills, and his unlikely friendship with Craig McLachlan.
I read that you spent a lot of time as a kid raiding your parents’ record collection. What were your favourite albums as a kid?
I most definitely did. They didn’t have a lot of good stuff in there, but I managed to find a lot of Elvis, a lot of Beach Boys, and even The Beatles, and that was pretty gold stuff to discover as a kid. Eventually my tastes evolved and The Beach Boys turned into Huey Lewis and The News and Elvis turned into Bruce Springsteen, and so on, but that was a great place to start. That real American rock and roll stuff, apart from The Beatles, was really what caught on so that’s really influenced my stuff up until this day.
How important was your parents’ musical influence on your career?
I guess because my earliest musical memories were directly affected by their tastes and what they had lying around the house, they were fairly important.
You began writing songs at such a young age. Did you ever have any other career ambitions, or was music always it for you?
It probably sounds a little boring, but music was always the only thing I could see myself doing. It was a borderline obsession when I was a kid. It was the only thing I could talk about, think about. I’d constantly lock myself away in my room with my guitar and write songs. I think between 16 and 18 I’d written a couple of hundred songs, maybe a little bit more. That might sound like a lot, but I can tell you they weren’t all good ones! It was definitely just one of those things. I just couldn’t say no.
I remember the first time I actually had the courage to play one of my songs to someone and sing in front of them, and they told me I was awful. They said, “You were awful, you stink!” But I just couldn’t take no for an answer. So I just kept going and here I am now.
So I guess perseverance pays off!
Yeah, although it’s funny. It’s such a personal thing what people like musically. There’s almost no right or wrong, no good or bad. It’s just what connects and what doesn’t.
You moved to the UK and played with the band Falling Down for a few years. What did you learn working in the British music scene?
That was a real learning curve, especially playing this sort of hybrid Aussie-American-classic rock stuff which had never been particularly popular over there. We played a lot, we played over 100 shows in the couple of years we were together. But we were virtually booed off every stage we ever went on! It was tough but what I learnt was just not to give up and not to quit. We got quite a thick skin from the fact that we didn’t go down so well. But hey, they kept giving us gigs so we can’t have been that bad!
But it was definitely a very interesting period of my life. It’s not the first place I’m going to go back when I’m doing my world tour, hopefully sooner rather than later!
What made you come back to Australia?
After a couple of years abroad I was so homesick. Sydney is just the greatest place as far as I’m concerned. I really, really missed home and wanted to get back to the sun, and the good food that we’re used to, and all that sort of stuff.
And I just thought that it was fitting to record my debut album in Sydney. It was getting to that point where it was like “I’ve got to make an album, it’s now or never.” They say that you’ve got your whole life to make your first album, and I kind of took that literally! It took four years to make it. But it had to be done in Sydney. I’m quite proud that I could do it with local players and producers, and do it all ourselves in our own backyard.
Now you had more than 100 songs to choose from when recording your debut album If She Knew. That’s pretty prolific – what inspires you?
It’s just one of those things. I don’t know if I can really sum it up or put it in a nutshell. Who really knows where the inspiration comes from? The way it works with me, any time I’ve tried to force myself to write a song, when I think I haven’t written a song in a while and I should write a song, it backfires. It doesn’t work. I end up either not writing anything or I write something really awful and I throw it out straight after it’s finished.
What I find is that occasionally I’m just overcome with inspiration for whatever song it is, and I have to grab my guitar no matter what I’m doing. I might be sitting on the bus and I’ll pull out a bit of paper if I’ve got one and I’ll start jotting down a lyric. Or I’ll start humming a tune and I can’t get it out of my head and I’ll have to remember it until I get home. It just hits you in the oddest places, the inspiration. And who knows where it comes from? I can’t really explain it.
Is it challenging to narrow the songs down when you’ve got so many?
It is hard, because sometimes you’ve got to let go of the ones that you do for yourself. Sometimes I’ll write a song and I’ll think, “That’s exactly what I want to say. That’s exactly the kind of song that I want to write.” But I don’t really think people will get into it, it’s not the kind of thing that people will like as much as I do. So you’ve definitely got to cut out a lot of material that you’ve written for yourself.
But it helps when you’ve got people that are coming to see you regularly, your friends, and I guess you could call them fans, they do let you know when they particularly like a song. So in that sense it’s easy to pick out the real gems, because they’re the ones that people ask you to play, or tell you after the show that they’re really good songs.
You funded the album yourself. How important is it to you to remain independent?
It’s becoming more and more important. When I was first starting to put the album together and get into it, it was one of those things that was very hard, to be independent. It’s not like it was 15 or 20 years ago when getting a record deal was really important, and probably a lot easier as well. There’s a lot of pressure on independent artists. They’ve got to look after the business side of things as well.
But now as I get further into my career, I’ve just realised there’s so many bonuses to being independent, and making the decisions yourself. And I guess I’m quite proud of the fact that we’re doing it all ourselves, and not relying on anyone else to call the shots.
I believe Craig McLachlan’s a big fan, and he makes a cameo in the video for your new single “Your Love is Amazing.” How important has his support been?
His support has been tremendous. Craig McLachlan is easily the nicest guy you will ever meet. He’s just wonderful, a real sweetheart. We had a chance meeting and ended up talking about music, and as it turned out we liked a lot of the same bands and had a lot of the same influences from when we were growing up with music. So we really hit it off in that sense. After hearing my album he loved it and wanted to help out any way he could. And as it turned out we were about to film the video for my first single, “Your Love is Amazing,” and Craig offered to do a little guest spot for us. He even rearranged his TV shooting schedule to come out and do this few second cameo. He’s just a real great guy, really supportive. I’ve really appreciated all his help, and he’s shared a few war stories with me, which has been really fantastic. He’s just a great guy.
And people don’t realise he’s probably the most talented musician I’ve ever met as well. The guy plays virtually every instrument under the sun. I’ve even got one of his lesser-known albums, and he literally plays everything on it. This cat is just so talented, but musically he doesn’t get that credit. But people don’t realise that.
People just remember “Mona” and that’s it!
They do, and it’s a real shame because he had a lot more to offer. But I guess the fact that people know who he is is great for him. And he does a little bit of music, a little bit of TV, a little bit here and there.
I hear that you’ll be doing some Sydney shows soon before kicking off a national tour. What can we expect from your live performances?
The initial live shows around Sydney are acoustic showcases, so it’s going to be quite interesting. The songs are going to be different slightly. Not so different as to be unrecogniseable, but they’re going to be a lot more striped back. They’re a lot more emotive and soulful. So it’s going to be interesting. People are going to get to see these songs in a really naked form and I guess hear where they originally started, because all these songs were just written on the acoustic guitar way back when. We spent years recording this album and polishing it up and adding these little frills in the studio, so it’s going to be nice to strip it back and just let the songs play themselves and live on their own. We’ll see how they go.
And finally, do you have a message for your local fans?
To all three of them [laughs], thanks for the support and make sure you keep coming to see us.
Sydneysiders can do just that next month when Alex Lindsey Jones plays two special acoustic showcases. Catch him at the Old Manly Boatshed on April 15 and the Sandringham Hotel on April 23. If She Knew is available digitally through iTunes.
Image used with permission from AAA Entertainment