Our Alex Lahey feature was originally published in our September 2022 issue. Purchase a print copy here.
It was May 2022 and Australian rocker Alex Lahey found herself rejuvenated, being 90% finished with a new record and in the final stretch of a U.S. tour supporting The Regrettes.
The world, however, decided it had other plans and put several of those tour dates on hold.
The Regrettes’ vocalist Lydia Night had emergency surgery to remove her appendix after a show in Toronto, effectively ending the tour.
With no more shows booked in America, Lahey decided to spend time in California before heading back down under. It was a situation she had known too well. ‘It’ being that sensational itch to play live music for a crowd.
“It’d been so good to tell crowds, ‘My new record only has a few weeks to go!’ It allowed me to get my fix in,” Lahey said. “Despite it finishing abruptly, being out with The Regrettes was so fun and so good.”
Both Lahey and The Regrettes reunited in August to play some of those previously canceled west coast shows.
And as different situations put live performances on pause for Lahey this summer, it wasn’t too long ago that COVID-19 washed upon Australia’s shores.
The nation faced political turmoils and had some of the strictest lockdown policies of any major country on the planet. It was a world defined by serious social distancing — a world unlike the one Lahey loved being in.
“It became easy to forget that music is a social, personal and sacred experience,” Lahey said. “This beautiful union of people rocking out to the same thing? That’s the setting I believe music was meant to be in.”
Without that union, Lahey struggled to pick up instruments in her home and took one of her most-prolonged pauses from songwriting.
That may not sound like the hardest thing a person could have done in lockdown, but it is when you understand how close Lahey had become with her fellow Australian musicians.
In the last decade, Australian artists have produced some of the world’s most important and rawly powerful music-making splashes on the airwaves and streaming services today.
Courtney Barnett, Camp Cope, Gang of Youths, Tame Impala, Amyl and the Sniffers plus King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard are among those Lahey stands beside. Each one has something unique to offer.
Lahey sighed at the thought of that time.
“Ugh,” she said. “Australia and the defamation of our industry. The feeling of 2020 and the pandemic. Massive bushfires in Australia. Yeah, it was a lot.”
The music industry in Australia generates a lot for the country, Lahey said. And the pandemic kind of left her and other artists feeling like they were left behind.
“People being withheld their income and all sorts of stuff. I sadly saw my peers falling behind,” she said. “Even today it feels like there’s a constant state of turmoil. Housing and affordability is something we struggle with in Australia and there’s a permanent stain of living on stolen indigenous land. We are in the thick of these situations. We can’t be in the shit all the time as individuals.”
Through the constant thickness of Australian life and an unprecedented pandemic, Lahey did what she is known to do best: be an Australian-based musician — and a damn good one at that.
“I had moments of ‘I haven’t written a song by myself in months,’” Lahey said. “‘Oh shit, can I still even do it?’ Then you do try and the muscle memory is still there. That was a great feeling.”
A great feeling that Lahey hasn’t had the chance to properly display since her 2019 album The Best of Luck Club.
Between then, 2020 and the lingering days since, she powered through to write a record different from those she had before.
Perhaps she even learned a lesson from the uncomfortability she faced in the past few years.
Lahey was on a mission to discover as much about herself and the music she could write. The game plan was to leave no stone unturned.
“It was the longest I’ve spent on a record,” Lahey said. “Obviously because of the luxury of time that came with COVID. It is not as ‘snapshotty’ this go-around. There was a lot of time to think about what is going on and how I’m putting things together. I’ve pushed myself more. I’m a big picture person and by no means a perfectionist and don’t love to spend more time on things but I was able to enjoy how this could happen.”
Lahey said that she even had co-writers on the album and yet it managed to feel more authentic than ever before.
“The sound feels the most ‘me’ despite bringing in all other sorts of people to help,” she said.
Lahey is proud that the result was a jar filled with every emotion and experience she wanted to represent in music.It’s more than the quality upbeat sound she’s already distributed.
“There are some songs that are fun, some that are a bit sad,” she said. “You see, tour is fun and it’s a good way to escape facts, but it was good for me to sit back and think about why I do things, life and the way I do stuff. Then I wrote about it, haha.”
Classic Lahey is still there, just in a more mature way. Not that she wasn’t before. But even she agrees that she has transformed and experienced growth as a human.
Her songs will still enchant listeners, making them feel like they just walked into an amusement park with a pack of pals set for the best day of the year.
It also talks about her gripes and appreciation for her home country, not unlike the track “Perth Traumatic Stress Disorder” from her debut 2017 LP I Love You Like a Brother.
“Melbourne is a big character in the record, Lahey said. “This time, though, it’s in a more outward-looking way than I had written in the past.”
Lahey is even bold enough to peel back a curtain and reveal her life.
Surprisingly, she said she felt her personality was shadowed by her desire to write songs that matter. She’s outspoken about several things. She hates homophobes and racists. She thinks boys suck. She’s glad Scott Morrison lost the 2022 Australian Federal Election. But the personal side of what makes her human had rarely explicitly shined through.
While writing her new record, she said she finally understood that she could reveal herself more. But only because the last few years allowed her to discover more information about herself.
“One thing that continuously comes up on this record is social anxiety,” Lahey said. “In the past, I would write songs one way and bounce around topics. Now that I know more about myself, the more I kept writing, I realized ‘Oh shoot, I was trying to say ‘this.’’ ‘This’ was serious pressure and anxiety. I’m glad I’ve been able to get that out through a platform I love.”
Lahey still hasn’t officially announced her new record. She released the full, polished and very real-sounding song titled “Congratulations” on Aug. 30.
Her previously-showcased ability to write with brutal honesty, charm and wit is on a collision course with openness and maturity while keeping the best of both worlds.
There is no reason to speculate what Lahey’s new record will sound like. She’s already told the world. And it better buckle up for a social, personal and sacred experience.
“It’s exciting,” she said. “This moment feels like a gem. It’s quite crystallized.”
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