KERRANG: TEN MINUTES WITH ALEX SIMMS
One of the breakout stars of 2013 was the alternative rocker Alex Simms. In what was a surprisingly eventful year for the musician who began it playing to less than 300 people in New York to suddenly working with people like ‘Nadia Berry’ and ‘Jennifer Armstrong’. He has maintained that productivity and lack of fear was the driving force behind the whirlwind year, a debut album and an E.P along with a string of hit singles. It was Songs to Love and Die By who took a chance on the unknown musician and as the year drew to a close, it gave Alex Simms an opportunity to re-group and take stock of what he had achieved, but then came the idea to work on material alongside fellow-rocker ‘Julia Volkova’ and a studio album and world tour announcement later, it appears that Simms has finally gotten the opportunity to sit back and take stock of what has happened so rapidly for him. Kerrang met with him in New York City as he was busy working alongside Julia once again in preparation for their upcoming tour, here’s how it went;
Alex, great to finally get an opportunity to speak to you, it’s been a whileAlex: “Absolutely, it’s been completely insane.”
Let’s just take a moment to consider where you were this time last year, you had received a little bit of buzz from your singles and you were preparing for the release of you album.Alex: “Yeah … I had released Golden Hearts Shine Forever and Dirty Little Heart and they did pretty well, better than we had sort of dreamed of. I had spoken of the ideal scenario with Amelia and those two songs just surpassed it. It did mean that I was encouraged to press on with the album and get it finished in time for the summer run. I wouldn’t say it was rushed though, I’m happy with how it turned out. Just a couple more weeks in the studio and we’d have had another two songs to add to it, but that never really happened. I can’t complain though, right?”
Definitely not, the album turned out to be quite the successAlex: “Surprisingly yeah, I mean I had my own ambitions for it and I’ve always been ambitious about things. It’s like at the end of the year I was talking to people about trying to get Nadia and Jennifer to work with me, people were like that well that would just be a completely f*cked up thing to do, because the debut album was very rock and post-hardcore oriented and already I had become seen as a ‘rock guy’, which to an extent is true but I don’t believe in giving yourself boundaries, I don’t want to be just a popular rock musician, I’d rather be a popular musician. I don’t just listen to rock music, I listen to and can appreciate all kinds of music. But the industry can be pretty vain at times.”
You’ve spoke about working with Nadia and Jennifer, and did you receive a lot of criticism for working with what are more often looked at as pop actsAlex: “There were a few things said about it and there’s this thing that I hear a lot about how I lost a lot of fans because of that decision. But I sort of thing f*ck it, the songs I recorded with both of them weren’t particularly poppy, but people are entitled to their opinion, it doesn’t really effect anything. I’ve said from day one that I want to be looked at as a musician rather than a Rockstar.”
And if anybody had any doubts of your rock credentials then you sort of proved them wrong this year with your collaboration with Julia.Alex: “Possibly, yeah. I mean I worked with Julia on my debut album, we did a track called ‘We Are Like Vultures’ and I joined her onstage in October and we did one of her tracks called ‘The Bite’ and it was so f*cking insane. Like completely unreal the reaction during it. We hung out a few times after a couple of her shows and we drunkenly thought it would be a good idea to write a few songs together and before you knew it, we had enough to make an album and we kinda just though, you know what? Why the f*ck not. The songs were quite different from what I had written in the past, they had this very old-school sort of 70’s/80’s rock vibe with a lot of sexual tension in the lyrics and we never guessed it would turn out to be like a major project for us, it’s become a labour of love for both of us really.”
Speaking of love, our female fans out there will no doubt be interested, what’s your situation?Alex: “[Laughs] … of course! No love in my life at the moment, I’m just doing what I do and maybe something will manifest into something, I dunno, I’m feeling like I want something a little substantial. Something with potential to actually go somewhere.”
Back to Mutual Addiction, would you say that working with Julia brought out the different side to you?Alex: “Yeah, but I think that’s the same for her too. I think we both found a different sense of inspiration from each other. I mean the majority of the songs were written under the influence of alcohol. You have to consider the situation and state of minds that we were both in at the time of writing the songs, Julia was on the road and sort of felt isolated and I was at a bit of a loose end trying to find something occupy myself, so the hang outs turned into late night drinking sessions which then turned into midnight confessions of our deepest fears, insecurities, wants and needs and those sort of led to the writing and so what you have from the record is two people that are essentially just completely lost and with only each other.”
And at the time of you and Julia working together, there were a few rumours of you guys being involved, some reports stated that she was becoming a bad influence on you. What did you think of that?Alex: “It was funny. I mean, you can’t take anything Culture Uncut writes seriously. But I guess you can see why they’d consider it and think that maybe there’s a story in that somewhere. I mean, there’s nothing to really discuss. I think you could never call it a relationship, it was never like that. The thing about her being a bad influence on me is completely true! Nah, I think there’s a few moments that we’d probably erase from the history books but I’d say we both sort of influenced each other, not necessarily in a negative way though”
But a world tour together though, surely that’s a risky thing for you both?Alex: “I don’t think so, we’re both in different places now. I think passion fades out, it just sticks around in small bursts and over the course of a tour, I don’t think it’s an issue. I’m looking forward to performing these songs live for the very first time, I’m feeling very energized and enthusiastic about it, I think the tour will be a blast.”
And what about the future beyond the tour?Alex: “I’ve started to think about that … I haven’t quite figured it out yet. The tour will keep me busy for a while and I’m sure I’ll be writing while on the road, whether that manifests itself into another solo album or another album with Julia or even something else completely different remains to be seen. But if you’re asking me right now, which I’d rather? I’d say I’d prefer to make another ‘Mutual Addiction’ record.”
We’re sure whatever you do will be interesting. Thanks for your time and good luck with the tour. 