ALEX McMATH • Country Comforts & Soulful Sensibilities

Alex McMath is a Mid-Michigan-based artist with a passion for music. Inspired by a muse focused upon capturing both the happiness and sorrow that color the rich tapestry of life’s experiences, Alex produces music with a voice that is strong enough to display the vulnerability and variety of human emotion without being glossy or fragile.

With a rich sound and captivating stage presence, she has been honing her skill alongside some of the best musicians in the tri-cities area here entire life.  Alexandria grew up in a household full of music with her dad and uncle (Mike & Scott McMath) both gifted musicians and songwriters who with their band Empty Pockets and their innovative ‘art-rock’ fusion group known as Empty Canvas, set a high bar for creating some of the finest music to ever ring out of the Great Lakes Bay region.

Alex would often join them on stage when she was still in elementary school, and her passion for music only continued to grow. After graduating with a degree in music therapy, she recently released her first song, “Toughen Up” (available on Spotify and other streaming services) and performs a wide variety of covers, with everything from The Cranberries to Dawes, John Denver to Johnny Cash, and John Prine to Nancy Sinatra.

“I always tell people I've never really had stage fright because music, singing, and performing has  always been something I did even back when I was a kid,” she recalls.  “I would be working on guitar or messing around in the practice room, and I would come sit on the bed and my Dad and I would spend evenings just singing and messing around with different songs. I think one of the first times I ever got up on stage. I wanted to sing Mull of Kintyre by Wings, so music has always been part of my life.”

“As I started going through High School, I slowly started performing more and more with Dad and Uncle Scott, kind of finding out how to harmonize. Both Scott and my Dad are insanely talented musicians that can play any song ‘by ear’ - they can just hear something and pick it out.”

Fortified with an in-house musical education from her family, Alex went on to earn a Bachelor’s Degree in Musical Therapy and through that degree learned more of music theory, along with piano and becoming more proficient on guitar. “I’ve learned to sight-read music, but definitely love to be able to listen and create music inspirationally. My degree has been incredibly helpful in the songwriting area and think I learned how to write songs because of that little push and bit of structure I got from school.”

When asked about artists who engaged her attention and helped inform her musical sensibilities, Alex sites several.

“Well, I’m definitely a huge Brandi Carlisle fan, I’m wearing a Jethro Tull shirt right now, and if the artist is a singer-songwriter there’s a strong chance I love them. My musical tastes kind of range across the board. I really enjoy Americana, Folk, and old Western style Country music is what I really find myself pulled towards.  Billy Strings is so good it makes me almost angry to watch his videos when I see his fingers moving that fast.  Obviously, there are big names that are huge influencers, but honestly all the people that I’ve grown up playing with were my biggest influences. Being surrounded by these musical giants in the tri-city area was a pretty amazing experience.”

As for her own original songwriting talents, Alex currently has three original compositions recorded and out in the world on Spotify, Apple Music, and other streaming services. “Because of my Dad and the fact I’ve done a little bit of recording with him, I was able to get connected with Andy Reed and it’s been super-cool to start working with him. Working with him it was awesome getting to bring these three compositions to life. The goal is to eventually have an album completed, but I have probably five or six songs that are un-recorded and I’m slowly working towards getting them right for the studio.”

Alex says her background studying music therapy helped considerably with giving her a template for the way she approaches her songwriting. “What we would do, which ended up lending itself to my own personal songwriting, is to capture an experience. For example, if you’re in a cancer center and somebody is talking to you about their experience, the goal is to write a song to try and help them process what they are going through.”

“They would do a word vomit about everything they’re feeling, so I would write it all down and afterwards make connections on what words and thoughts they shared that worked well together to make cool lyrics and then find the melody that would fit, so that process has really influenced how I write my own music. I’ll start with a certain lyric or feeling, write as much of it down as I can to get it out of my head, and then start connecting the words to a musical line.”

“My thing with songwriting is I have this desire to make sure that I'm writing from a vast span of experiences,” she continues.  “I want to avoid writing multiple songs about the same topics and want to touch on every kind and part of life that I can. I love songs where people are doing a lot of storytelling, or making up characters to tell a story.  I would say trying to bring as much of the world around me into my music is the biggest challenge for me at this point.”

When not performing solo shows,  for her live performances Alex has enlisted an A-list back-up band consisting of her father Mike McMath, uncle Scott McMath on bass, and Mike Robertson on guitar.    “I like to call them all my Uncles,” she smiles.  “They’re just this lovely crew of amazing musical uncles. I’ve grown up around them and when I asked very sweetly, ‘Would you please play with me?’, they were all very kind to agree to do it. Most of my shows have been solo outings, but we’ve done several full band gigs and have one coming up August 16^th at the Great Lakes Brew Fest and on August 30^th at the Midland Commons with that crew of musicians”

“I’m not big on writing introspective songs, but love to compose more observational material about the world, or if I have lived an experience I like to write what I learned by living through it,” she reflects. “Toughen Up is a life experience song that began with a feeling or experience I had and then because I wanted to expand the story, it became something that’s no longer connected to me, but stemmed from a thought or an experience that I had.”

“My biggest challenge and main goal I’ve set for myself is to have as many chances to write with other talented people as possible, because there are so many genres of music that I listen to. I tend to thicken up in a normal sized box and don’t want a situation happening where I’m not going down avenues because I don’t have the other set of ears and eyes.”

With Artificial Intelligence creating significant controversy with music as it is all the visual and literary arts, does Alex view it as a form of plagiaristic hijacking or simply another creative tool making the job of the songwriter easier?

“I think if people have used A.I. for creating songs and it’s worked for them, good for you. Personally, I think whether or not you use A.I. it’s going to translate, so for people who don’t have the musical ear or desire and just listen to music very lightly, that’s fine and they may enjoy working with it. But when you get people who are musical junkies and have a strong musical background and knowledge, they’re going to catch that when you use A.I. you lose the artistic, healing, emotional components of the music.”

“When I wrote Tough Enough it was about an old relationship and years later when I finally wrote the song it incredibly gave a real sense of closure,” concludes Alex. “It was never something I thought I needed to write a song about, but once I did it left a great feeling, and you don’t get that feeling if you’re going to plug into A.I. and say, ‘Write a country song about this topic.’  It’s just not the same.”

Like her music and her vocals, Alex’s talent is no studio trick, and she is proving herself to be a formidable songsmith as well as an interpreter.  Be sure to check out Alex McMath at one of her upcoming performances, or learn more by visiting her Facebook page and checking out her music and videos on the streaming services and youtube.