A Conversation With ... Alex Hosking
Adelaide-born pop artist, Alex Hosking, has been writing songs since she was 10 years-old. Her music would mostly be written for other artists, but recently, she released her own single, Monsters, which is the start of a new chapter for her. We caught Alex while she’s in Amsterdam for Amsterdam Dance Festival, and spoke about living from a suitcase, music, more music and how it all started for her.
BYO: What sort of artists have you been writing for as of late?
Alex: Whilst I was in Australia, the last people I was working with was The Preachers, and I was finishing off their album. I was also doing a song writing camp called The Tower. It was a really great camp that had some big song writing artists.
BYO: How has traveling for the past two years affected your life musically and non-musically?
Alex: I've grown so much as a human, just in so many different facets. I think travel is one of the best education forms that you can have. It's truly opened my eyes to so many things. I've had the opportunity to get to meet people from all around the world who have been exposed to different things and different music and just stuff that I didn't have growing up. It just enriches my song writing, because they're going to be bringing in samples and sounds that I wouldn't necessarily think of. There's a major part of nostalgia when you're writing and a lot of that comes from what we used to listen to as kids. So it’s always really exciting to hear someone else's favourite songs, which quickly become my new favourite discoveries.
BYO: You’ve been writing music since you were 10. What got you into writing music in the first place?
Alex: It’s a funny thing because it isn't necessarily what every little kid is doing - writing songs in their princess journal. And every time I get asked this question, it makes me giggle, because I just always did it and didn't think anything of it. My parents sang at church, and my mom studied music when she was younger. We were always a very musical, arty and passionate family. We loved everything.
BYO: Were you ‘that’ family who sings songs in the car together?
Alex: Every single road trip. Even when we'd do carpools for sporting games or whatever, anyone that was in the car had to sing. Like you could be the shyest kid at school and you had to just start performing, it was just terrible. My parents had this cliché love songs album that they like and every single time any person came over, mom would get on the piano and dad would be singing at the top of his lungs and trying to get everyone else involved. And just a few weeks ago, we did a family trip to Italy and it was so beautiful. We've been trying to catch up for ages; my sister lives in New York and my parents live in Adelaide, my brother is always moving and I'm in a suitcase. So we decided to go to Italy and the driver that was taking us to our Airbnb, had this little karaoke app in his car. He's like, “do you want to do karaoke?” And my sister and I just looked at each other like, oh my god, you've got no idea what you've just done. And so, for this two-hour drive, my dad and my mom was singing New York, New York and all of these songs with this thick-accented Italian driver and they were having the best time, it was just so hilarious.
BYO: What sort of music were you exposed to when you're growing up?
Alex: I was brought up in a religious household, so I have religious music growing up. But I was so obsessed with pop music and I remember waking up really early to be able to watch Rage before they woke up. I’d sneak upstairs and we had like this little TV room and I’d turn the TV on really low just to watch it. The first album I ever bought was Enema of the Mind by Blink 182, the one with the naughty nurse on it, so I remember listening to it on the lowest volume because I think it had a swear word in it and my mom would have questioned the naughty nurse because at the time it was so bad ass, which thinking about it now is nothing. My uncle would always play the Red Hot Chili Peppers for me and I was just obsessed with that type of music from such a young age. And then my popa, he gave me his vinyl collection when I was in middle school, and that exposed me to the 60s and I fell so hardcore for the Beatles. I think that was where my pop structure writing was the most heavily influenced by because I just would listen to these Beatles records over and over again.
BYO: Same girl. What is your favourite thing about writing music?
Alex: So there's so many studies and psychologists that use music to write people out of dark places, or experiences. I think one of the beautiful things that has always been a thing, but I've realized in the last couple of years as it's become my profession, is that it's a therapy to me. For some people meditation is really important, but for me, song writing is an absolute therapy, because I will experience something happy, sad, angry, and I'll write about it. And I'll relive that whole experience and write myself out of however it made me feel. It's so poetic, but I like to capture a feeling, so that's probably my favourite thing. And if you do a good job of that, then having people be able to relate is the ultimate goal, isn’t it?
BYO: What was the inspiration behind ‘Monsters’?
Alex: I just thought about how I decided to leave my home town Adelaide and was living out of a suitcase and had no idea where I was going to end up. I was just so overwhelmed by this new travelling lifestyle and with that and taking this massive leap to start doing music full time, I had all these self-doubts start to creep in, and realised I was being the biggest distraction, sort of becoming my worst enemy. And then I went into the studio and the producer started playing around with these drum beats and I started singing this melody and it all came together quite smoothly.
BYO: I know you released your first album in 2012 – how did that happen?
Alex: So I wrote most of the songs when I was 12 and I got the opportunity to fly off to Nashville to record it. I'd started up this little YouTube channel - It was back when YouTube was just really becoming a thing and I wasn’t getting that many views, but back then I guess it probably was a lot. And this producer found my stuff. Whilst I was there, we co-wrote a few songs and different writers would come in and out. And that was such an eye-opening experience, because it made me realise that I could do this full time. Nashville is sort of a must because it's such a mecca for music. It has so much history and is such a defining place for music, even if you're not into country. So I was really grateful for that opportunity. And that was sort of where my recording journey started. Since then, the records have been taken down because I wrote the songs when I was 12 and they don’t represent me.
BYO: I also saw that you were on X Factor.
Alex: I was, but I was never majorly featured on it. So pretty much what happened was I made the top 25 under 25 girls and it wasn't a major accomplishment, but actually, it was that year that I wrote the debut single for The Voice winner, Celia Pavey (AKA Vera Blue), Bodies. So that was a little oxymoron sort of experience because that was where my song writing journey started for other people.
BYO: That's interesting. I saw your Instagram post that said you would be doing things that push you out of your comfort zone this year. What are those things for you?
Alex: One of those things is starting to release as an artist and to do it independently. It’s such a big deal for me and is really the first time I'm ever doing this. There's a real security in being in the studio and writing for people, I get to just hide away, be reflective and it's a safe space. It’s a safe dark little corner where I can just write about my feelings. But when you put it out for the world, you offer up the opportunity for people to give their opinion and now I'm ready for that.
BYO: I'm so excited for you.
Alex: Thank you.