Musician creates complex characters
For a lot of people who came up in the college radio milieu of the 2010s, discovering — and then becoming obsessed with — (Sandy) Alex G felt like a rite of passage. Part of his appeal, perhaps, is his relatability: Born Alexander Giannascoli, the musician is a downhome kind of guy, internal and introspective.
By the time he was 21, before he dropped out of Temple University in Philadelphia, he’d quietly produced a cache of more than 100 selfrecorded lofi tracks with characters and narratives so personal and magically constructed that listeners could feel like they were right there next to him.
Fader named him the “Internet’s Secret Best Songwriter” in 2014 and this year updated that description by calling him the “Neil Young for kids who grew up on Game Boy and Gushers.” He signed with Domino Recording Co. in 2015 and, by the next year, ended up collaborating with Frank Ocean on the albums “Endless” and “Blonde.”
(Sandy) Alex G’s latest album, “House of Sugar,” released last month, is his most adventurous and rooted yet, with moments of pastoral twang, distorted electronica and soft rock. The tracks are boundless and envelop a cast of woeful and perplexing characters who could be out of a Denis Johnson short story or a noir film set alongside the Delaware River.
The Chronicle spoke to the 26yearold artist at his home in Philadelphia ahead of his upcoming Bay Area tour dates.
Q: Can you talk a little bit about the headspace you were in when you were working on music for “House of Sugar” and some of the emotions you were feeling?
A: It’s tough to say, because I think with every album, I’m not feeling the same way over the course of the year or two that I’m working on it. I guess I’m trying to capture the whole spectrum of emotions that everyone feels throughout the period of two years — you know, you go from down to up to cynical to optimistic. It wouldn’t be honest for me to say I was only feeling one way the whole time.
Q: That makes a lot of sense. I’m sure it’s never a binary thing. In past interviews, I know you’ve said that explaining your music can sometimes undermine it, and that you’re trying to go with your subconscious — but interviewing is obviously such a conscious process. I wonder if that’s a weird paradox to have to go through over and over again?
A: Yeah, I think you’re spoton with what you’ve said. Every time I do an interview, I think I get a little better at them — or more confident. When I first started making records with Domino and I’d do this press cycle and s—, (I felt) a sort of expectation from the interviewer as to what the answer to the question was or felt pressure to say something because, for example, I know that you have to write a piece on this afterwards, so I’m like, “OK, well I need to come up with something for her to write.” But at the same time, I don’t have any of the answers because I don’t really think about (making music) in a binary way.
But, I think now I’m more comfortable with not being interesting, you know? I’m more comfortable with just being like, “I don’t have the answer.” As opposed to when I was younger, I’d just make some s— up. I was very pretentious, I think, when I was younger.
Q: You have such a dedicated fan base who are almost like a new generation of Deadheads. What is it like to know you have a legion of followers who are drawing connections to and from the most personal and natural parts of your life and your work?
A: I mean, it feels like an honor. It’s hard to think about it because I’m just living my life and this is just the way it is and I’m not really thinking about how it feels that much, because there’s no alternative.
Obviously, it’s great because I can have a career, and I’m like buying expensive groceries and s— like that.
Q: Is that what the money’s going toward? Not like, Air Force Ones?
A: I guess it’s not that kind of money yet. I’m buying lots of food, going out to dinner a lot.
Q: You mentioned a few years ago that you were making pasta from scratch.
A: Yeah, I’m buying nicer flour. There’s something called 00 flour that is a little more expensive because I guess it’s ground finer so then the pasta is a little bit — to be honest, I don’t really know what the f— it does. But I just read online and looked on YouTube to see how people do it.
Q: In “House of Sugar,” a lot of images jumped out to me, and they almost seemed to make up a certain American mythology: images of addiction, indulgence, nostalgia and disconnection. Were there any particular experiences you had in the last couple of years that paved the way for those themes?
A: Well, I know getting older, me and the people around me, we have more money now and stuff and people are just ... I don’t know. This is tricky . ... I guess I don’t want to talk about it too much because I don’t want to narrow down what the album means for anyone who’s listening to it. I’d rather it just stay as whatever it is to whoever’s listening.
Q: I do feel like something that has been present in a lot of your albums is this overarching sensation of nostalgia — and a specific nostalgia for the very tender and insular time of childhood, and of being a young person. Do you think of yourself as a particularly nostalgic person, or even nostalgic for a time you don’t live in?
A: I don’t think I’m a nostalgic person. But I think when I’m making music, because it’s my craft, I think I choose to get inspired by things that were the most intense for me. There’s just so much intensity when you’re a young person, and so I guess I reflect on those feelings.
I also think that that voice of a child is still inside me, at least. So, when I’m trying to be brutally honest and expose whatever I’m feeling with the lyrics, I guess a lot of times I end up reverting to this really pathetic, childlike voice because I’m trying to expose something. Does that make sense?
Q: It does. And well, you’ve given a name to that character. Sandy was maybe a manifestation of some of that raw childhood stuff.
A: Right. I guess in order to make the songs, I’m gauging how they make me feel throughout the process. I’m like f—ing with myself while I’m making them so I feel something, and that motivates me to keep going. My only gauge is, “Oh I’m saying this. I don’t really know what I’m saying, I guess, but it’s making me feel kind of crazy to say, so I’m just going to keep on going.”