SPOTLIGHT: ALEX RAY
Photo By Shantell Cruz
Meet Alex Ray and tune into her debut EP “MESSY”
MESSY is described as your most vulnerable project yet. What made you ready to release something so unflinchingly personal at this point in your career?
My therapist told me that real vulnerability is hard. I took that to heart and wrote lyrics that actually made me nervous for my friends and family to hear. It helps that naturally I’m an over sharer and write every song like a diary entry anyway, and I write with cowriters who are friends so I feel comfy enough to just pitch reckless lyrics and be as authentic as I can be. And I pay my therapist a lot.
The title track “Messy” feels like the emotional centerpiece of the EP. Why did you decide it should also define the entire project?
I think the word itself summarizes the whole project. There’s a song about me being the other woman, a song about me hating my pos ex, a song about me dating around and not letting someone stick around too long, a song about me holding on for dear life to someone I loved. I think messy just summarizes who I am. I’ve done a lot of messy things, and we’re all a little messy. This project is about all the messy times in our lives that we’re embarrassed to share.
You’ve said “Messy” isn’t a “woe is me” song but more of an “I royally fucked up my life” song. How did writing from that unapologetic perspective shift the way you approach your music?
Like I said my therapist told me that real vulnerability is hard, so I did a lot of soul searching about what I actually was afraid for people to know. It was really freeing and I think from here on out nothing I could possibly write could feel bigger and more honest. I don’t feel like a “victim.” It’s not a “life isn’t fair” song. Instead it’s a “wow you’re such a dumb bitch, of course no one wants you” song. That’s sad to hear but I spend a lot of time fully believing I deserve every bad thing that’s ever happened to me - like I’ve burned so many people and done so many regrettable or stupid things, of course this is the mess I’m in. It makes me sad, but I wouldn’t say it makes me feel sorry for myself.
The music video for “Messy” is intentionally raw and unpolished. How did you translate the song’s vulnerability into its visual world?
This is definitely the most involved music video I’ve done. Really, it just highlights how your vices really take control of you when you’re alone. Everything we struggle with comes out to play when you’re alone. It’s in a really bare warehouse, with just me in all white. I’m not particularly pretty in most of it. But it kind of just represents how if we’re left alone with our thoughts and regrets, we can just completely lose it and depend on things that we’ll regret, and the cycle continues.
Across the five tracks, you balance swaggering alt-pop energy with confessional ballads. How do you decide when to lean into grit versus softness?
Honestly, it’s just how I’m feeling that day. Sometimes I come in to a session and am like “I need nasty, grungy guitars.” Sometimes I’m like “wow, I’m sad this is sad, everything is sad, it’s ballad time.” Sometimes John will already have a track in the works that he wants to show me, sometimes I would have a demo and say, “I want it to sound like this,” depending on the lyrics and vibe. I don’t think any of it is an exact science, and I’m sure I make some bad judgment calls, but there’s always room for an additional stripped version of any song!
In “Drivers Side,” you explore toxic but magnetic energy, while “Yours To Use” dives into aching honesty. How do these tracks reflect the duality of your own experiences?
The songs are my favorites because they’re actually two sides of the same coin, so I love that you picked up on the duality! DS shows this facade of “I’m so hot, you need me, you’ll do whatever I say,” while YTU is more of “I’m so in love I’ll accept any kind of treatment if you’ll just stay.” Actually, they’re about the same person and situation. I have BPD, which is borderline personality disorder, and I’m not saying you HAVE to have BPD to experience one love in very different ways, but I’m sure the BPD adds to the experience. In this love, I could be the most charismatic, enticing person when I saw I had him, but the second I felt him slip away, I’d melt into what the bridge of DS starts to reveal and what YTU explores even further. With BPD, you have this intense fear of abandonment, whether it’s valid or not, so when I felt him pull away and came to this realization, I was just a fling, I experienced the most intense desperation I’ve only ever felt one other time in my life. The mask of confidence I put on just shattered, and behind the mask was a girl so insecure and scared and fragile. So DS is about me me me - touch ME, meet ME, I call the shots, trace MY lips… the visual is all about me me me. Then the bridge of DS and YTU focus on him - how YOU move, YOU slide your fingers in my belt loops, YOU take me higher, hanging on to YOU…. And lyrics in both songs kind of reference each other, so for example DS says “love the taste of the way you lie” and is very sassy about it, but YTU is almost begging “go on lie to me” because she misses him even caring enough or wanting her enough to lie. There are references in both songs to the jeans I was wearing, and that the intimacy kind of always happened in the car, and was always a secret. But yeah, sorry for the long answer, I just enjoyed creating this mini story across both these songs and exploring how we can be so many different people in just one relationship.
Your therapist once told you that real vulnerability is supposed to feel hard. Which song on the EP was the hardest for you to write and why?
Definitely MESSY. That song is full of everything that I kind of hope people think are just hyperboles. You could honestly pick any single lyric and think “yeah I wouldn’t love saying that out loud about myself.” Except maybe “I drive a Benz.” You could listen to it and think “she exaggerated to get her point across” but I fear every word of the song is true at least at some recent point in time. Including that I drive a Benz.
You’ve been open about living with bipolar disorder. How did those experiences shape the writing of MESSY?
Oh I continuously f*ck my life up because of my bipolar. When I’m manic, I spend tons of money with no sense of consequence, I’m promiscuous, I’m irritated and I overeact, I lose a lot of empathy, I don’t sleep, I say things that I don’t even mean, I act inappropriately, all the things. When I’m depressed, I sleep for 18 hours a day, I don’t do anything “productive,” I don’t work on music or content or my day job, time just speeds by, I can’t engage with the people I love, it fully incapacitates me. In the past year, we really got my medication right, my partner grounds me a LOT, and I have a much less demanding day job, all of which have really helped with the cycles of my mood. The “up again down again up again” is me saying, “I know it’s exhausting how I’m constantly up and down, I’m also exhausted by it.” I think a lot of people will be able to relate to messy, but if you have bipolar I think it will be really, uncomfortably on point.
“Wasted” and “Boy You Ain’t” bring a more anthemic, biting energy. Were those tracks written as catharsis, or as a way to reclaim power?
Wasted was a “reclaim power” song for sure. BYA was totally cathartic. In BYA, I was writing about an ex that pissed me off. I just had some stuff to say then I was over it. Wasted us about dating around with no intent to commit, just to feel something - I think I was tired of friends telling me I shouldn’t be dating around as much as I was at the time, and I just thought “damn, none of you would care if I was a dude. Who cares? I’m a grown ass woman.”
You’ve said you wrote about things you were most ashamed of: the nights you couldn’t get out of bed, manic decisions, letting life fall apart. Was there hesitation in putting that out into the world?
I’m definitely nervous for my friends and family to listen to the lyrics. I kinda hope they think it’s all just a metaphor. But I wouldn’t say I ever “hesitated.” It just kind of is what it is and I don’t like censoring myself or being censored so it might be an act of defiance to release this project in the first place.
Sonically, the EP blends grungy guitars with synth-driven alt-pop. What drew you to that mix of rawness and shimmer as the backdrop for these stories?
I think I just don’t want to be beholden to a certain genre. The music I listen to is all over the place genre-wise, so it wouldn’t make sense if I just write 5 synth pop upbeat bops and put them together. I just love grungy guitars, I love synth pop, why not put them together?
You started your career as a lawyer before shifting into music full-time. Do you see any parallels between the discipline of law and the craft of songwriting?
I hated every second of being an attorney, so that my cloud my judgment, but if anything, the process I used for writing a brief and writing a song are similar in the sense that go chronologically and will not move on unless I have a placeholder of some kind. I don’t start with a chorus or bridge ever, because going back and figuring out how to get the story from verse to chorus is a bit harder for me then. Same with a brief.
You’ve built a strong presence online as a “fangirl whisperer.” How has your relationship with fandom influenced how you connect with your own listeners?
Honestly, I’m just a fangirl at my core. I love consuming content from my favorite artists, I love analyzing their music, I love getting tickets and picking the outfit for the concert and meeting other fans and just everything about being invested in an artist. So when writing my music and planning my releases and visuals, I think of what I want from my favorite artists. I want meaningful stories and songs that are interconnected and authentic and intentionality, so I want to provide that to anyone who consumes my art as well.
MESSY embraces the beauty of being unapologetically human. What do you hope listeners take away from sitting with the chaos alongside you?
It’s cliché, but I hope they feel less alone. Something about me is I will straight up google to see if someone’s have been in my situation and won in the end. “Musicians that didn’t make it till late twenties/thirties,” “average 401k at 29,” and goofy things like that because as sad as it sounds, I want someone to affirm that I’m not screwed forever - that someone has been where I am and figured it out. I want the article that says “here’s this pop star that didn’t pop off till she was 33.” I want the Reddit thread where someone says they had no retirement at 30 and managed to catch up. I want messy to be someone’s “okay, she has this long history of mess ups and anxiety and insecurities and she’s still making music and her mental health has improved and she is doing the thing.” I wouldn’t use myself as some perfect example of how to get your life on track - I’m still a mess and struggle every day with where I am. But at the same time, I’m a lot further alone than I was just a year ago so I hope that inspires someone.
Listen to “MESSY” here.
