And tonight it’s just family as Loverboy’s very own Contributing Editor, our Professor of Punk and dear friend George Alley releases his self-titled debut album.
Across his first full-length release, George sings stories of seductive summer nights, jealous ex-lovers and his own past mistakes. Opening with the lyrics, ‘I love me’, the twelve tracks read like entries straight out of George’s diary. Loverboy may be biased but we’re kind of obsessed. Let’s talk about the mornings we have woken up singing, ‘You’re talking of love but you’re lying instead. You’re still lying in his bed!’ or the times we’ve screamed, ‘All I wanted was the chance to be bad’ on the treadmill. George worked with producer Ian Romer on the album, the pair conjure up moments of 80s Post-Punk, Rock, Punk and why yes, that is a side-serving of Ska.
While we wait patiently for the George Alley Live Experience to work on potential tour dates, we spoke with the artist about creating his new album, the upcoming remixes and Pet Shop Boys’ BRITS performance alongside Lady Gaga & Brandon Flowers. Very George Alley debut album, FYI.
George, thank you for this album! Before its release you dropped ‘Summer Trophies’ and ‘Choice To Be Bad’ as a Double A-side. Why did you decide these two songs specifically should be paired together?
‘Summer Trophies’ I wrote over ten years ago. It was the first song I ever released as a solo artist. It’s nostalgic, capturing fleeting moments of flirtation, love, and fading youth. It’s also the title of a salacious gay porn from the late 90’s starring the late great porn star turned Japanese internet icon, Billy Herrington. But ‘Choice to Be Bad’ is a rebellious, kiss-off type song to someone who is no longer in my life. I think right now, the end of summer is the most nostalgic time and both songs share this energy and add to my backstory, providing a glimpse into the overall feel of the album.
I know you’re always making music, but what was the moment where you really thought, ‘Okay, it’s time to do proper album’?
I’ve been working with my friend Frank Musarra off and on. He was in my first band in high school and went on to record as Hearts of Darknesses. Over three years, we worked on three or four of my songs, like ‘Wishlist’. But as I started working faster, I needed someone local for production.
At the same time, Ian Romer moved down the hall from me. He had previously been in the band Pavo Pavo. We met by chance when I asked him if he could fix my AKAI drum machine. He came over, listened to some of my music, got excited and asked if we could work together. We worked every day for almost two years.
So it was really you and Ian meeting over a drum machine that kick started this process. No event in your life per se?
I quit my job managing a school not long after someone brought in a gun to threaten me. I realized it was time to change careers. Additionally, I’m a professor at two colleges and one of the courses I teach every semester is called DIY Punk’s Ethos. I thought, why am I not applying that ethos to my own life? Why am I not creating my own space?
You have been creating music for the project over the last two years. Was it hard sitting on it and not releasing it?
Yes, absolutely. We started teasing a few tracks here and there. I had covered the Thompson Twins’ ‘Doctor! Doctor!’ for a commercial starring Amanda Lepore and also had older singles like ‘Undivided Attention’ and ‘Just Leave Me Dreaming’ from 2017. They didn’t fit the genre of the album, but they allowed me to release music and ease the anxiety of holding onto so many songs. Ian and I have like twenty-two of my songs we’ve recorded together.
And the thing that you imagined at the beginning of the project, that would unite all the songs, has that stayed true? Or has that idea evolved during the process?
Well, because it was my first album and named after me, it was about thinking about me in the present, the past, and the future simultaneously. They’re all different chapters of things I’m either thinking about now, wanting to do in the future or reflecting on from the past. They are all different avatars for me—ways I see myself or a response to how others have described me.
And did you feel there was a difference between how you were perceiving people seeing you at the beginning, to how you feel people perceive you at the end?
Yeah, even the music I’ve been writing post-album, and absolutely through the process of writing the album, I feel like I’ve been able to tap into a part of me that I used to access when I was 16 years old.
When you were a brat.
When I was a brat! My real brat summer was when I was 12 and led a local gang called the British Club. I made people drink tea and blintzes in the hot sun and go to war with other clubs in the neighborhood. But yes, when I started this album, I was hyper-aware of how these songs might be perceived. Eventually, I shifted to create pop songs that I wanted to hear myself. Not caring just accelerated my process.
And I love that the album’s opening line is, ‘I love me.’
‘Letgo’ hints at caring for someone in a relationship, knowing they’re not right for you romantically anymore but not wanting to lose them from your life. Or maybe managing these ideas of loving someone else but also loving yourself. The line ‘I love me, I love thee’ encapsulates that. The album has hints of that kind of theme in different songs, whether it’s in ‘Letgo’ or ‘Fake Sick!’ where I say, ‘I’m self-involved enough to be proud of this empty heart.’ Asserting my independence and self-love was essential, even if it made others mad.
It could have just as easily been, ‘I love thee, I love me’ though, right?
It’s placed secondarily, you’re right. ‘I love me’ is the important line to lead with. There were many people that encouraged me to do this album, there were also a few people were really skeptical even voicing their opinion they didn’t think it was a good idea; those people aren’t in my life anymore. I felt the need to assert my kind of independence. I had to openly say, ‘Well, I love myself’ and if that makes someone else mad, it’s even more exciting for me!
Also self-love is so important when it comes to being an independent artist. You need to be your own cheerleader.
You have to love yourself. The way music works these days, you have to interact with it daily, create stories around it, so you’d better like it! You don’t make an album and just let a record company handle the promotion. Plus, I get to create these little worlds with my music and I’m addicted to it.
My early favourite on the album is ‘King in Town.’
‘King in Town’ is the single that will be released with the album on September 27th. I always like songs where I admit to being self-involved or reveal some character flaw. I enjoy songs where the narrator doesn’t play the victim but acknowledges their own role in the drama. ‘King in Town’ is about a love triangle. I play a jealous, petulant king—or metaphorical king—who is in love with someone who might also be entertaining the romantic interests of another person. I enjoyed portraying a character who is essentially jealous and looking to destroy the other romantic connection, adding a bratty twist to it. That’s a part of me!
Across the album one of your voices is very sneery while the other is a real chest voice that jumps out.
Yeah, certain songs require a more sincere voice, like ‘Only the Shadows Know’ and ‘Ink’, where I’m more sincere. ‘Choice to be Bad’ is in head voice, more nasal and punky, like the line, ‘If I make you mad, that’s your problem.’ ‘Ink’ is raw and chesty, hinting at childhood trauma in a Lady Macbeth ‘Ink as Blood’ way. That voice feels more vulnerable, while the sneery voice is more of a ‘Fuck you’.
I could feel a real difference between the precision and control of delivering the verses at the beginning of so many songs and then really letting your voice rip with ad libs towards the end.
I have an MFA in choreography, and ‘Theme and Variation’ is a tenet of modern dance. Doris Humphrey popularized that you set the theme and then keep the listener engaged with variations on that theme. Maybe it’s also a preference in composition. ‘Only the Shadows Know,’ for example, started as a 25-minute long bizarre collage of analog sounds from my Roland. It took Ian and me about a month to break down the best parts to fit into five minutes.
Well, the people need to hear this 25-minute collage. Will there be some remixes coming?
Yes! DJ Carl Michaels, who’s opened for Kim Petras and Carly Rae Jepsen and a resident at Shep Pettibone’s megaplex gay club, Paradise in Asbury Park, is doing two house mixes of ‘XRAY’, so that will be coming out in the fall along with a music video.
Three artists I thought of when listening to this album were Patrick Wolf, Brett Anderson and The Killers. Well, actually a little Gaga too on ‘Dancing in Disguise.’
Wow. Absolutely, those are astute selections. Brett Anderson and Suede were on my mind as I saw them live in Chicago around the time of recording this album. Their song structure and musicality, combined with a high/low element of punk, telling personal geographic stories, influenced me. When I wrote ‘Letgo,’ I was thinking of Gaga’s songs multiple choruses so ‘Letgo’ is really three choruses, each topping the other. Plus through influences like Damon Albarn and Brett Anderson, you get people like Morrissey and Neil Tennant. The Killers, for example, are influenced by the Pet Shop Boys.
Oh, when I mentioned The Killers and Gaga, suddenly I was thinking, ‘Oh, the connection point is Pet Shop Boys at the BRIT Awards with Brandon and Gaga.’
I love that performance.
Tell me about the lyrics on the album because some of theme are so cinematic…
‘XRAY’ and ‘Wishlist’ are inspired by short affairs, remembered in a cinematic way. In ‘XRAY’, I recall being naked in a cold night pool with a guy after a scavenger hunt game in Cleveland. ‘Burning river, Erie Lake’ references the Cuyahoga River that caught on fire in 1969. I like trying to set specific geographic locations and I guess by doing that I’m eliciting my old dreams. It is psychogeography.
Do you have a favorite couplet on the album?
Well, I’ve always wanted to refer to myself in third person and in ‘XRAY’, I did. ‘George, I hope you know how to appeal with this gentle refrain, and if your silence survives, well, there’s always your smile.’ In one of my favorite songs, ABC’s ‘Look of Love’, Martin Fry refers to himself in third person in the bridge. ‘Martin, maybe one day you’ll find true love.’ The bridge is like revealing the inner character of, or the narrator is telling their inner story. So, in ‘Look of Love’, Martin Fry is revealing his hidden reservations about love. Finally in ‘XRAY’, I got to say ‘George’ in the bridge.
Very good, very good. You were talking earlier about having many different genres for the album. Which one was most challenging for you to get into?
Any song that didn’t start with me on the piano. ‘Blue Valentine’ began with a bass guitar riff I wrote which was new for me. I did some vocal ad-libs, asked Ian what he thought I was saying, and we built from there. It was challenging but totally exciting.
One of my favourite things was hearing all your layers of vocals. You’re joined by your Mum on there too, right?
Yes, my Mom, Norma Alley, is on ‘Dancing in Disguise’ and ‘XRAY’ She was a big reason why I got into music. She had a band called Electric Shit in Detroit in the ’70s, where she used to hang out with people like Alice Cooper and Iggy Pop. Having her vocals recorded on my songs was exciting for me since we don’t have recordings of most of her songs.
Which lyrics did you have her sing?
She sings ‘Another day in paradise, dancing in disguise.’ It’s the only song where there’s a female character. It is a spy/hero character for me. Somebody that can move in and out of identity like powerful women, drag queens, club kids, people that transform or trouble the boundary in some way. That always inspired me at a young age and one of those people obviously is my Mom. So to have her also be the person singing about this woman ‘dancing in disguise’ on the dance floor is fun for me.
I love that because when I was talking to you about Gaga, I was thinking specifically of her song ‘Dance In The Dark’, which I’m sure she said was about Princess Diana. So you’ve got your Mom on there as your version of Princess Diana.
Yes, yes, yes. Princess Diana, Gaga and my Mom!
I love that. Tell me about the videos, because obviously you’ve got a performance background and watching the videos, it totally shifts, brings the song obviously to life.
I wanted to work with different people to avoid one style. Gøkhan Yidzili in LA did the video for ‘Wishlist’, which is very cinematic. Philip Moore, my ex-boyfriend and one of my best friends, did a kitchy collage Sci-Fi aesthetic video for ‘Letgo’ with Robert Lambert. Adam Peditto and I did two different videos ‘King in Town’ and ‘Fake Sick!’ We like doing totally different things each time we work together.
Now, finally our last question. You’re favourite. We are named after the biggest-selling single of 2001 so we always ask what is your favourite Mariah song?
I have been thinking about this for months! I have actually just finished reading André Leon-Talley’s The Chiffon Trenches and he styled Mariah during The Emancipation of Mimi. He was talking about what a generous person she is, not just in terms of her elaborate gift giving but also in her craft, for example she completely re-records her vocals for each DJ to remix. And actually my album cover, designed by Alvaro Masa, was inspired by the typeface of her debut! But my favourite song? I grew up thinking I could escape being bullied as a kid by auditioning for any kind of Star Search type TV show. I even auditioned for The New Mickey Mouse Club. I loved teen pop stars like Tiffany. So Mariah’s song ‘Prisoner’ was probably influenced by working with Brenda K. Starr as it has that free style element, that chest voice, Taylor Dayne strong control.
It’s a fan favourite but she hates that song.
I can absolutely see how it’s not really her style or way she writes her own songs but….
But It’s a fan favourite.
It’s a fan favorite, and the way she sings it is passionate; from chest voice. It makes me think of roller skating to it at USA Skates in Euclid, Ohio, in the early ’90s.
Oh and a bonus question…I hear you once had a run-in with a…ghost?!
Haha…I used to live in the basement of the Roberts-Quay house in Philadelphia that was once owned by a Pennsylvania senator. I think maybe it had been a children’s hospital, but I woke up to two turn-of-the-century children, one in an old kind of wheelchair, just staring at me. I’m sure it was some kind of REM issue; it was before edibles were available because I would blame it on that now. I just remember screaming ‘Get out!’, throwing a pillow at them and then feeling guilty later that these children were seeking my help and I just threw something at them.
The debut album, George Alley, is out now
Order the album at www.georgealley.bandcamp.com
Photos by Sean Gomes
