Name: Alex Simms
Born: July 7th 1992 (21 years old)
Origin: Orlando, Florida
Genres: Rock, Pop punk, Post-hardcore
Years Active: 2013 – present
Label: Songs to Love and Die By
Occupations: Musician, Singer-songwriter, Multi-instrumentalist
Instruments: vocals, guitar, ukulele, mandolin, violin, bass, piano, synthesizer, harmonica, keyboards, drums, drum machine
Influences: Every Time I Die, Joy Division, The Cure, Misfits, Sunny Day Real Estate, The Replacements

‘Alexander Simms’ (born July 7, 1991) is an American musician, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist originally from Orlando, Florida and now currently residing in Brooklyn, New York. Specialising in rock music, mostly along the lines of the pop-punk and post-hardcore genres. Alex is proficient in a diverse range of instruments from guitar, ukulele, mandolin, violin, bass, piano, synthesizer, harmonica, keyboards and drums and he has previously spent the previous two years of his life working mostly as a session musician while also regularly touring the club circuit in the United States in an attempt to break out into the music industry.
Following a performance at the Pacha nightclub in New York City which was recorded and posted online, Alex gained a small amount of interest from people, this resulted in more people appearing at the venues that he played the following nights in New York City and in April 2013 he was offered his first ever recording contract with the indie label owned by Riot! In The Boulevard lead singer Amy Meyer. He signed the one album record deal with the label and is set to begin working on finally releasing some of his music into the mainstream world of the music industry.

BACKGROUND

‘Alex Simms’ was born on July 7, 1991 in Orlando, Florida to parents Mary-Ann and Jack, he was an only child to the couple that divorced when he was eight years old due to the infidelity of his father. Following the divorce, his father moved away from Florida and they have never remained in contact with each other, Alex’s father re-married which means that Alex has three younger step-sisters Clara (9), Aimee (14) and Emma (17) they are yet to meet due to the tensions between Alex and his father that currently remain. Alex lived with his mother after his father left, she never re-married and mother and son were inseparable, she bought him his first ever acoustic guitar which ignited a passion for music. But in 2007 when Alex was 16 years old, his mother died in a car accident. This left a gaping hole in Alex’s life, with no immediate family to take him in, Alex ended up in foster care, this lasted less than a year as Alex left Orlando at the age of 17.

He stayed wherever he could after leaving Orlando, sometimes sleeping on the streets during the summer months and in run-down buildings during the cold winter months. He did some basic jobs in order to earn enough money to get him to the next city but it wasn’t an easy way of living, his aim was to get to New York and finally it happened two weeks after his 18th birthday. He was in the big city but was still living without a roof over his head, staying on park benches at night, rarely sleeping or if he could earn enough money he’d manage to stay at a youth hostel for a night or two.
He played his acoustic guitar throughout the day and offered his services to anybody who may need a guitarist whether it was as a tutor or as part of a band, he wasn’t shy and it was the bravado that helped him slightly during one October evening, he wandered into an old recording studio and heard someone singing, he managed to convince the security that he was indeed part of the singers backing band and wandered into the recording room where he politely told the singer everything that was wrong with what she was doing, just about to be thrown out of the building the singer decided to play along and told him to show her how the song should be performed and this was the turning point for Alex.

The singer in question was not famous, she was called Amelia. Her father was relatively wealthy and owned the recording studio which meant that Amelia would spend a large amount of time in the studio just for fun. It was this meeting between Alex and Amelia that changed the life of the struggling musician, they bonded quickly and soon became friends. This led to Amelia convincing her father to give Alex a job at the studio as a session musician, it wasn’t well-paid but it was a regular income which helped Alex immensely, this led to him improving his skills as a musician but also gave him the freedom to work towards a career in the music industry, it also helped him with getting booked for shows in New York. Things were still difficult for Alex financially but instead of staying out on the streets he was able to now stay at Youth Hostel’s every night, not much of an upgrade granted but it was better than nothing.

In early 2013, Alex was still struggling financially. Being booked for shows started to become more difficult for him, but one evening he managed to get himself a three song performance at a nightclub in New York City, called Pacha. The show was a success but more so was filmed by a local indie documentary maker and posted online, the video was spread around the internet and create a small but positive buzz for Alex. The video was seen by a number of professionals in the music industry and this included Adam Benjamin, the rhythm guitarist of Riot! In The Boulevard. He was impressed by the performance and in turn showed the video to lead singer Amy Meyer, who also happened to be impressed by the performance. During a break in their world tour, the band caught a show in New York where Alex was performing and the next day Amy contacted the musician to offer him his first ever record deal with ‘Songs to Love and Die By’.

Alex signed the one album deal recording contract and is set to begin recording some material for release in the coming months.

DISCOGRAPHY

Albums
Enigma (June 16, 2013) [#2]
This Is A Wasteland (February 15, 2014) [#4]
Battle Lines (May 2015)

Singles
Golden Hearts Shine Forever (April 21, 2013) [#3]
Dirty Little Heart (May 26, 2013) [#5]
Going Down Together (September 8, 2013) [#1]
Forever Yours, Never Mine (feat. Nadia Berry) (October 13, 2013) [#2]
Bad Influence (January 18, 2014) [#2]
Final Moment (April 20, 2014) [#2]
Oxygen (July 13, 2014) [#8]
Russian Roulette (January 25, 2015) [#1]

E.P’s/Other
One Life To Live (December 1, 2013) [#11]

Alex Simms – UK Tour 2013



“Alright everybody, what’s been happenin? Summer is almost over, are you guys just as bummed out as me? I hope that you all had a summer that will live long in the memory, I know that these last few months have been hugely important for myself, I certainly think that the summer of 2013 will be a period that will be etched in my memory for the longest time, it’s truly been an incredible few months, learnt a lot of new things, met a lot of interesting people and formed some relationships that have truly changed my life, it has been hard at times and a little confusing too but I wouldn’t change any of it, it has been a truly character forming bunch of months for me and I just feel completely refreshed, it feels like I’ve removed any negativity from my life and I’m in the best place that I’ve ever been in, I guess summer makes a lot of people feel that way for some reason, but I don’t know … it just seems different this time around!

So for those of you that have shown interest in my career so far, I firstly must say a huge thank you. I released a debut album in July and it’s sold over one million copies already, that’s so incredibly surprising, apparently it’s still in the top five of the charts which is just, well I can’t really express how f*cked up that is to me, I thank you all for the incredible support that I’ve received and hope that I’m able to pay you all back in some way.
I have some great news for my fans over in the UK, I’ll be heading over your way in September to embark on my first ever tour, it truly amazes me to think that there’s enough interest that I’m able to already perform some headlining shows, and in a country other than my own home country is just all the more overwhelming. We have some confirmed dates at venues that I’ve heard a whole lot about, places like ‘King Tuts Wah Wah Hut’ in Scotland where a bunch of my favourite bands have played in the past, ‘The Underworld’ in London which is just … forget about it, it’s a huge honor to play anywhere in London, anywhere in the UK for that matter, then there’s ‘The Cockpit’ in Leeds, ‘Rock City Basement’ in Nottingham and ‘Trillians’ in Newcastle all of which I hear is just wild.
So I hope to see you at one of the shows below, lets all get wild and sweaty!”

– Alex Simms

Full tour dates
Sep 10, 2013 - Aberdeen – Tunnels
Sep 12, 2013 - Glasgow – King Tuts Wah Wah Hut
Sep 13, 2013 - Newcastle – Trillians
Sep 14, 2013 - Sheffield – Corporation
Sep 16, 2013 - Leeds – The Cockpit
Sep 17, 2013 - Nottingham – Rock City Basement
Sep 19, 2013 - Manchester – Sound Control
Sep 20, 2013 - Plymouth – White Rabbit
Sep 21, 2013 - Bristol – The Fleece
Sep 23, 2013 - Cardiff – The Great Hall
Sep 24, 2013 - Southampton – Roxx
Sep 25, 2013 - Portsmouth – Wedgewood Rooms
Sep 26, 2013 - London – The Underworld
Sep 27, 2013 - Belfast – Queens University
Sep 28, 2013 - Dublin – The Academy

*Note – tickets available from various official websites at just £6.50 per person, they’re on public sale now*

THERE’S A HORIZON AHEAD, I HOPE YOU CAN JOIN ME THERE!
SATURDAY, 12 OCTOBER, 2013



“Hey fans, what’s happenin’? Alex here!

So stoked to be writing to you all today, it’s been a hectic little while if I’m being completely honest with each and every one of you remarkable people. I’ve barely had the opportunity to take it all in so far, let alone speak to you all on a regular basis in blog form. I’m hopeful that this is something that I can remedy in the coming months because I enjoy taking the time to sit and take things in and writing about it helps to make it feel really, if only a little! I know there’s quite a few of you out there that have been supporting my music like crazy over these few months and you need to know that it is truly and greatly appreciated because I’m fully aware that without your incredible support that what has happened in the last five months couldn’t have been possible at all and so I hope that with every inch of whatever success may come my way in the future, I truly hope that you feel responsible for it, because it’s you guys and girls that make it happen and I can’t really emphasize that enough; I’ve been there, I’ve been where you are and supported bands from the very beginning and seen some rise like phoenixes into the realm of superstardom and some flicker on the brink before eventually just fading out. So I realize the importance of what you guys do, be it coming out to see me perform or purchasing my music, every little thing that you do makes a huge difference and hopefully you do feel part of something huge!
I’ve been in the crowds and I know the feeling, I’ve waited in the rain for forty-eight hours just to get a ticket for a band that once were great but somewhere along the way lost whatever it was that made them great, I’ve waited in that queue with like-minded people, just to give them one final chance just to prove to myself that the support wasn’t completely wasted and that perhaps somewhere deep beyond the overblown bullsh*t that took over four or five of the greatest musicians I’ve ever heard in my life that there may still be that spark, nobody likes to think that something they love has died and gone forever, but it happens a lot! Oh, and don’t worry, I’m pretty aware that there will be a lot of people that read this and see that previous statement as the most ironic statement I could possibly make at this time.

See, I’ve just released a song called ‘Forever Yours, Never Mine’ with Nadia Berry and yeah, she’s just about the biggest thing in the music industry right now! The song has been given a pretty overwhelmingly positive reaction from various corners of the music industry and I thank each and every person that gave the song a fair and unbiased listen. I couldn’t be more proud of what we both created in the studio and I’m eternally grateful for Nadia agreeing to be on the track, she brought such a calmness to a couple of otherwise unruly and unorganized recording sessions and she made the song great, I firmly believe that and thank her for her time!
Of course, being labelled as part of a more alternative music scene there is always gonna be negatives when you try to extend yourself and your appeal to a greater audience, the positive has greatly outweighed the negative but I have received messages of disappointment from a small group of people, which is to be expected, I still thank them for taking the time to voice their opinions, however stone-aged their opinions may be. I should point out that I believe that there should be no limitations to your creativity and to your art. I mean if you’re gonna pass up the opportunity to work with someone so hugely talented just because you think it could p*ss off a small minority of your fans then I hope you enjoy stagnating because that’s what will happen if you have nothing forcing you to reach the next level.
And for the few of you out there that claim to be ‘real-punk’ and will refuse to listen to the music of a sell-out, you may want to avoid the next single as it features the wonderfully talented ‘Jennifer Armstrong’! But may I just ask, what is the point in there being stars, if everybody is afraid to reach for them?

Yes, I’ve also worked with Jennifer Armstrong on a track from my upcoming E.P, it’s called ‘One Life To Live’ and it showcases both of our vocals very well, it’s full of driving guitars and it has a very anthemic chorus. I hope that the true fans enjoy it as much as I enjoyed creating it, it’s definitely become another favourite of mine and I must offer another thank you, this time to Jennifer for gracing me with her presence in the recording studio, it was a total blast to work with another person with such a powerful voice and presence and I certainly hope that the fun we had in the studio comes across in the song, because it was a great couple of sessions working on that track.
I’ve also got four or five other songs that will appear on my E.P that I plan on releasing in November, hopefully this will set me through for the rest of the year and tide fans over until I begin working on the next full-length album. I’m fully aware of the privileged position that I now find myself in, but that doesn’t mean that I’m ready to rest on past achievements. I think it’s important to work my ass off and give my real fans the sort of dedication and commitment that they deserve.

Speaking of that, I’ll be on the road quite a lot throughout the rest of this year and into the New Year. I’ll be joining James Urie as one of many support acts on his world tour, I’ll be joined by the likes of Zayne, Vara Gallo, Kai Rollins and Calling Captain and I’m sure that it will be an absolute blast, I can’t wait to get going!
I guess that’s all that I have to say for now, I’ll leave you with a line from one of my newest songs;

“I don’t feel bad, because what I’ve said is true
Enigma went multi-platinum
But those songs were written all about you”

Seems pretty appropriate, alright dudes, catch you later.
Peace and love xx”
– Alex