Issue 104 / October 2019

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This affecting songwriter’s bathtub melancholia has connected with a swarm of online fans who’ve found solace in his lilting dreamadelica. “Strawberry Guy is close to my personality, but it’s also a form of escapism. When I sit down to write, it can be such a release for sadness” We’re overlooking the city from one its highest points. We’re in luck today; there’s a clear view as far as North Wales, maybe further. It’s bright, humid atop multiple layers. But this feels like something of a seasonal encore given the drabness of this September. The park leaning over Everton Brow is the premier vantage point for taking in Liverpool’s skyline. The array of parked cars meeting for a lunch hour escape tell you this much. It’s also a space reserved for unregulated natural beauty. In between the walkways and treelines, roughly sketched formations of wildflowers interrupt a backdrop of high-rise flats with flecks of red and yellow. However, only their last reserves remain. Summer is no longer in session. Alex Stephens, the face and feelings behind STRAWBERRY GUY, is resting his head among a wilting patch as he has his photo taken. The rolls of film capturing the scene paint a picture of dreamlike stillness. Landscape and subject are currently resting in unison. A symbiosis between two forlorn entities: the draining colour in the summer landscape; an artist whose music bathes in the slow fade of autumn. In between each click of film, Alex is much more vibrant. He’s the brightest hue on the hillside, both in character and appearance. The full force of the midday sun, intensified by the photographer’s light reflector, is bringing this out in abundance. Though, as he protests, it’s coming at a cost of his eyesight. And so the eyes remain shut, for the most part, matching the blissful aura that permeates Strawberry Guy’s keyboard-led arrangements. Back inside his flat, there’s an abundance of reference points that point to where Alex’s penchant for luscious melody derives from. Records by The Beach Boys are strewn on the couch; 12
a strung-up picture of The Smiths is softly illuminated by a pair of searching Georgian windows. Perhaps the most telling of all, though, is a photo of Mac DeMarco hunched at the waterside, an image that accompanied his 2015 LP, Another One. These are a good entry point for the palette of Strawberry Guy, but by no means a full reflection. Beyond the impressive collection of strawberry-themed bric-a-brac dotted around his home space, there’s a particular sincerity that’s present as we take shots in his bedroom turned studio. Alex insists his keyboards are turned on as we take his picture. It’s a small detail, and one I suggest won’t draw much attention. Yet, he ensures the power light is visible, and proceeds to play a run of muted notes. The only sound present is of the keys clunking in their chord shapes. There’s no desire for pretence, only a cautious honesty – one that’s offered in comforting spoonfuls across his new EP, Taking My Time To Be. While Strawberry Guy might still be a relatively fresh creative vessel (only playing his first gig under the moniker at the turn of the year), Alex isn’t overly new to the scene. He’s had a stint in Trudy And The Romance, but, most recently, you’ll have likely seen him tending to the keys on behalf of The Orielles. However, there’s a distinct change in direction for Strawberry Guy, he insists, one that’s clearly more of a personal endeavour and cathartic experiment. “My work with Trudy and The Orielles has always been quite separate to what I was writing myself,” he starts, when asked if the two projects served as a precursor to his own music. “The Orielles make the most fun music. When we write together, because there are four of us in a room, it leads us to write quite uplifting music. It’s quite the opposite for my own.” As noted during the latter stages of today’s photoshoot, the bedroom set-up is made for one. A singular chair stands in the middle of a wealth of keyboards, synths and a guitar. It’s a space programmed to pen dateless diary entries and their dreamy soundtracks. “I write and record almost everything on my own in my bedroom. Because I’m alone, it gives me the freedom to be a lot more emotional, or at least explore a broader range,” he explains. A self-proclaimed “chord geek”, Alex has poured his classical piano training into sepia-tinted songs, rubberstamped with meandering vocals that match the expanse of his blanketing organ use. It’s heavily romanticised but not hopeless. It’s music that circles the swirling halo of Beach House, with the aforementioned melodic deftness of Mac DeMarco and The Beach Boys. Yet, he plays down the formula in which the songs are produced. “A lot of them start off as mistakes,” he confesses. “Sometimes I’ll play a chord wrong and it’ll sound interesting and I’ll take it from there.” It’s a process that helps break with the formulaic nature of classical training; a similar pattern to the poet, moulding and interchanging between patterns of metre and syllable structure. In little more than a year, play counts of over two million have been amassed on YouTube. Fans have even gone as far to edit their own videos for his music. One daintily pairs Without You with scenes and edits of Kukolka, a 1988 Russian film about a gymnast. Another, pieces What Would I Do? with clips from 1971 film Minnie And Moskowitz. Comments in each video include: “I want to play this song next to someone I care about”, “these feels” and “this makes me miss a love I never had”. “I’m crying” is a regular feature also. It’s clearly a shared space for outpourings, both in the music and the reactions it generates – irrespective of the sterilised, internet domain in which it exists. I ask Alex what it’s like to see his music mushroom in the wider world before it’s been properly unfurled in its local surroundings; whether this allows for a greater depth to explore. “The increased popularity in the last year has been a little bit strange,” he admits. “The way all this started was just through putting the songs on SoundCloud. Because I’d written and produced them, I thought they should be somewhere if people wanted to listen. I wasn’t deliberately trying to make it a thing.” By luck, the songs were picked up by the right listeners, including proactive fan video makers specialising in bathtub melancholia. But there remains an obvious draw for compelling, personable connection with the audience, another signifier of his romantic endeavour. Strawberry Guy isn’t a blissed-out veneer. Each piano stab cuts close to the body playing the notes. “The online world can be hard to resonate with. It’s weird to think that some guy who’s had his heart broken in Brazil is listening to my songs as a means of making it through.” “You know, why is it all sad people that listen to my music?” he jokes, ironically. But he’s not blind to its emotive qualities, and his own similar experiences as a listener. “Some of the best songs are uplifting but are able to incorporate a range of emotion, and I think that can be so healing. If I listen back to The Beach Boys, you sense how emotional their songs are, but they’re no less uplifting than an out and out happy song.” We’ve been speaking for a couple of hours now. The rain has come and shifted our interview FEATURE 13
Page 1 and 2: ISSUE 104 / OCTOBER 2019 NEW MUSIC
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Issue 104 / October 2019

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