Alex Lahey is a “part-time menace” who loves parmies and beer and, like any self-respecting Australian, is happy to take the piss out of herself.
If that description sounds like most of your best mates, then you have the perfect picture of who Alex is. With a few key differences. If you hear her voice on Triple J, she won’t be calling in to request a song, her song will be playing because someone called in to request it. And if she disappears on you at a festival, instead of reappearing days later, covered in glitter, mud and the remnants of someone’s tent, she’ll surface on stage while people around you sing along to her tunes.
It’s a pretty surreal experience for Alex’s friends, and even more so for Alex herself who is now seeing her name on the line-up for festivals like Bigsound and Splendour In The Grass. If you’ve ever been in the crowd at a festival and imagined yourself up on stage, you’ll understand how Alex feels. “It is pretty weird to imagine being on the other side of the barricade with that big festival crowd looking up at you.”
Alex isn’t just playing Splendour, she’s opening the main stage. A thoroughly boss achievement for her first time at the festival. “I’ve been to Bigsound a couple of times, but I’ve never been to Splendour. I guess it is a pretty crazy thing to do for your first time.”
With most of her gigs being small and intimate, the festivals will be a whole new ecology for Alex to acclimatise to as a performer. If she’s nervous about it, though, she hides it well. “I’ve been playing with my band, Animaux, for a few years now so I’m pretty comfortable on stage. “It is harder though when you know it’s going to be a big crowd.
"We played a support gig recently and only found out at the last minute that they sold out. We ended up playing to around 300 people but because we didn’t know about it beforehand, there was no pressure and we just had fun and played around on stage.”
While her solo career is gaining traction, Alex has no intention of putting Animaux on hold. “I want to keep doing both. They’re such different projects and I like having the freedom to just create what I create and see where it fits. “I guess at the moment what I’ve been writing just happens to work for my solo project.
"That’s really how it came about in the first place. I was writing all this stuff that didn’t fit for Animaux and it just made sense to create a new project for it. The songs are all so personal, there was no way I could put any other name to it than my own.”
Alex has a lot going on but that’s how she likes it. She has a hunger to learn anything and everything she can about the music industry. “Musical education is really important to me. Not just the theoretical side of it but how music interacts with people. What makes one song connect with people and another one not. There’s so much to learn aside from the music itself.”
Her favourite new, creative adventure? “I loved making the film clips for my songs. I came up with the concepts, got my mates together and then we just got to have fun filming.”
Alex’s film clips are quirky and endearing, and so much of her personality shines through. In ‘Let’s Go Out’, she does everything but actually leave the house, spending most of the clip in her pyjamas with her pets as her only company.
To Alex, this paradox is a perfect reflection of her personality. “Someone once told me I’m full-spectrum introvert, but I just don’t believe in the whole black-and-white introvert/ extrovert thing. People are too colourful to be forced into black and white boxes.”
Alex Lahey Tour Dates
Fri 1 Jul - Penny Black (Melbourne)Sat 2 Jul - Trainspotters @ Grand Central Hotel (Brisbane)
Fri 15 Jul - Tokyo Sing Song (Sydney)
22-24 Jul - Splendour in the Grass (Byron Bay)
7-9 Sep - BIGSOUND (Brisbane)
Animaux play The Workers Club 29 July (Melbourne)
