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27th July 2010Alicia Lena has had a huge year so far, She’s only 22 years old and has already gained a huge fan base.
Not only does she have a huge fan base but she’s also made some celebrity friendships with fellow musicians including, Tisha Jackson, G2L, Dan Richards (The Walls), Max Armstrong and she’s also worked with some of the biggest names in popular music including, Stephanie Fierce and Ryan Ross Hernandez.
During this first year as a professional musician she has had such huge success, her debut single New York Love Affair (Feat. Stephanie Fierce) sold approx. 673,878, her follow up single More Than You’ll Ever Know sold approx. 944,258 copies and her most recent single Party-Starter (Feat. Tisha Jackson) has so far sold approx. 997, 716 copies.
On top of all of the singles success she released her debut album which sold 2,292,516 copies and was a massive success both commercially and critically but as of 24th July she is keeping things quiet, she has finally got some more time off after supporting Tisha Jackson on the North American leg of her world tour and is making the most of her free time because she’s set to return to the road with her very own headlining tour beginning on October 1st 2010.
We were given unique access to a day in the life of this years most successful breakthrough pop artist.
As I enter her New York apartment she greets me and says “I don’t really know what to expect from today to be honest, it’s not likely to be one of my busiest days but I’ll take you to all the places I’ve spent a lot of time at over the past year, which could be fun.” she says with her trademark smile.
She offers me a seat and a coffee and we spend twenty minutes talking about life, “It’s amazing living in New York, it’s not the same in the summer though, I’m more of a winter girl to be honest, In a cold winter, I like to just put on a sad record and just sit for hours looking out of my apartment window at all the people doing they’re own things.” She clearly loves the city.
The conversation moves onto pop music and new pop acts in particular, “I think theres some pretty good music coming out now, G2L are very talented and I’m looking forward to meeting them, I’d like to work with them, they’re so young and enthusiastic and that’s something we have in common which is awesome. There’s also so much great alternative music coming out too, all you have to do is go to any live music club in New York or LA and you’ll see just how good new/young bands really are, it’s a special feeling when you find music that excited you when you previously didn’t think that there was enough good music coming through, but I think times are changing in music and it’s looking promising not just pop music but all music.” She explains with enthusiasm.
“Ok are you all set to have a walk over to 4th Street Studio’s.” she asks, I say yeah and grab my coat.
As we walk down the stairs I notice that Alicia smiles and says a very polite good morning to every person we pass either on the stairs are standing in the hallways, She’s extremely polite and I almost feel obliged to be so polite to these random strangers but obviously they aren’t complete random strangers they’re neighbours.
As we leave the apartment what I realise, which I didn’t realise when we were in her apartment is that she’s actually a huge millionaire pop star but she still lives in the very apartment she lived in a year ago when she was struggling, I didn’t really think about how unusual it was, it’s not like it’s a horrible building, it’s one of the more modern New York apartments but it’s not the usual superstar’s home.
As we cross over the road to get to 4th Street Studio’s which is a five minute walk from her apartment, “I didn’t actually record the album in these studio’s, I did spend a lot of time in here though and it was pretty good fun, I just sort of spent a lot of time writing in this studio because I’ve been given my own little space here at 4th Street Studio’s and it’s a pretty great place to be, there’s usually at least 3 musicians in this studio recording, writing or just hanging out.” as we walk through the hallways of 4th Street Studio’s we pass a couple of people who you may be aware of including Greg Walls who greets Alicia and again she’s always very polite with people and she introduces me to Greg and we all chat for a couple of minutes before we move on.
It’s 11:45am as we leave 4th Street Studio’s and we head across the street to a small coffee place as we walk up to the counter the young girl who serves us greets Alicia and they begin to talk about their weekend, they seem pretty friendly and as we receive our coffee’s we take a seat by the window. “I’m a bit of a regular here, everyone is so friendly and I can sort of come here and not feel like people are looking at me thinking, oh it’s that pop star. I can come here and people will smile politely and occasionally ask how my day has been, the girl who served us is called Megan and she’s sort of living in the city alone, she moved from Boston to New York on her own and she‘s trying to become a photographer but has to work here to sort of continue to live, you know, so every time I come in here and if she‘s serving me, I tend to tip even more generously than I usually do, because she’s such a nice girl, she’s struggling and works here sometimes 9 hours a day, she’s sort of got to know me over the year and she’s showed me some of the photo’s she’s taken and she’s incredibly talented at it but people just can’t seem to discover her, you know.” she explains heartily.
As we finish our coffees the topic switches to relationships “It’s always drama drama drama with relationships, especially with the media attention and that sort of thing, it sort of scares people away, I think that’s why a lot of famous people tend to go for other famous people, because we all kind of know how to deal with the media attention but with people who aren’t used to it, things become more difficult. I’m single right now and the fact that I have some free time now until October makes me think about it more and I don’t particularly enjoy being single, but I’m not gonna be in a relationship just because I may be feeling lonely.”
I ask if there’s anyone she’s close with who she has a crush on, “Of course, when your working closely with certain people and there’s a certain spark, it makes things interesting, I’m not gonna name names but there are definitely guys who I’m close friends with who I’m secretly attracted to also and if I thought they felt the same way I’d do something about it, I’m not shy when it comes to talking about feelings but like I say, I’d love to be in a relationship but I’m not gonna be upset if I’m single for a long time.”
I offer to pay for the drinks and Alicia refuses and pays for the drinks and the rather large tip before calling Megan over and they hug and say goodbye.
It’s now 12:05pm and we have just taken a taxi ride into Times Square, she shows me around a lot of her personal favourite shops and although I’m a guy and this is the part of the day I was dreading I realise that shopping with a woman can be fun, as we trail through the various clothes shops in Times Square Alicia decides to buy me some New York souvenirs and among those New York based souvenirs is a I Love New York T-Shirt, a statue of liberty hat and a New York Yankees shirt. We have fun during this shopping trip and it shows a more comedic part of Alicia, she seems to lived up when shopping and as we visit a costume store I can tell it’s gonna be a laugh, she try’s on so many different costumes from a Pirate Costume to Superwoman costume.
We eventually leave the store before heading into another clothing store and I’m relieved to find out that the shopping period of the day is over just as soon as we leave this current clothing store.
It’s 2.05pm and we head over to the Hit Factory, this is the place where she recorded her debut album and while we’re there she plays me some of the songs which missed the cut for the album and she also plays me a new song which is expected to end up on her follow up album called Clichés Come Easy which is a truly amazing song, it sticks to what you’d expect from an Alicia Lena song but it somehow manages to be more soulful than her previous songs, it’s just Alicia and a piano and it really makes you think, you should keep an eye out for this song in the future.
We arrive in the room where her album was developed and as we take a seat we talk about producing, “I love it, I wasn’t initially gonna have a go at producing until later in my career when I’ve got more experience but I got a call from Sasha and she asked if I would come down to the studio she was at to write some songs together for her upcoming album and once we had spent a couple of weeks working closely writing songs together she asked if I’d be up for producing her album. I was pretty cautious about it but once I heard her perform a couple of the songs live in the studio I was on board. It was a learning experience and it’s something I’m looking at doing a lot more of in the future.”
The conversation moves towards her other love, Touring, “It’s the greatest thing about being a musician, I love performing live, it’s always nerve wrecking before I go on but once I hit the stage I’m in my comfort zone, it’s everything to me, I wouldn’t be a musician if I was only allowed to do studio records and not allowed to tour. It makes all the hard work in the studio pay off when you hear a capacity crowd singing your lyrics back at you. It‘s everything to me.”
We leave the Hit Factory and return to Alicia’s apartment, I listen to some of her records while she gets ready for a meal at her favourite restaurant. It’s evident that her personal favourite music is a more soul/jazz sound, records by Miles Davis, Sam Cooke, Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder and so many Motown records. She also has more modern music including albums by Stephanie Fierce and GirlSpice.
Alicia is ready for our meal and we make our way into a cab, “So where are we going?” I ask, “Oh just this little Italian restaurant called Papa Maggio’s, I know it’s not glamorous and what you’d expect from a musician but I like it.” she explains.
We arrive at the small restaurant and we are greeted by a waiter and a few people glance over once they figure our who the girl who just walked in is.
We decide to share a large pizza and begin talking about fame, “I’m just about getting used to it, the way I look at it is like, whenever I see someone looking at me and pointing at me in the street I just react the way I would if it was an old friend, I just smile politely maybe wave at them and then get on with my day. It’s kind of annoying at time when I’m trying to get somewhere and you have people following you and taking photo’s, if they just say up front, oh can we take a couple of photo’s of you, then I’d stop and I’d allow it, but they don’t they just sort of follow you and try to take photo’s and make stories about me. But the fact that I’ve spoken to a lot of people in the industry about it has helped me handle it better than maybe I would have a couple of years ago, When I was in the studio working with Stephanie I was starting to get media attention and I spoke to Steph about how she handle’s it and that helped me handle it more, then I asked Ryan Ross about it and well lets just say his response was a little bit different.”
Her mobile phone rings and she apologizes and I tell her it’s ok and that she can take the call, She answers it and I can hear a lot of happy screaming and fun on the other end of the phone, Alicia explains, “Sorry I’m gonna have to call you girls back because I’m in the middle of an meal with someone who’s writing an article on me.” She finishes the call and apologizes, “Sorry about that, It was G2L, there very excitable.” I smile politely and say it’s ok.
It’s 7.00pm and we’ve finished our meal and made out way to a club in Manhattan called the Star-Gazer Club, As we arrive we see some recognizable faces and Alicia is only here tonight to open an extended part of the club, it’s a recently refurbished part of the club, it’s sort of like a private lounge area and she cuts the ribbon and declares it open, we go into the lounge area and have a couple of drinks before calling it a night.
It’s been an busy day in the life of Alicia Lena and I’ve learned quite a bit about this pop star, I was surprised how down to earth she really was, because I must admit I kind of thought that the politeness and the kindness was sort of her celebrity persona, I never thought she wasn’t a nice person, I just kind of expected her to be more of a diva but she really doesn’t seem to be like that.OOC: I thought I'd try something a little bit different. Edited by user 31 July 2010 22:54:14(UTC)
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