Music
Keeping Calm and Carrying on with sad alex
Alex Saad on Creating Space for Her Bubbly Electro Pop and working with “High Hopes.”
When Alex Saad, who makes music as sad alex, began working with pluko and Duckwrth on the Discover Your Wiiings anthem, the collaboration was blessed with a sense of fizzy fusion. For her part, Saad calls the track “High Hopes,” a perfect pre-workout pump-up anthem. But the energy all three share came from a place of isolation. Surprisingly, each worked alone before combining efforts in the final stages.
“I guess [it’s] a great example of the power of remote connections in these pandemic times,” she notes. “Everything was through emails, text exchanges, FaceTime meets, etc. The first time the three of us even got on a FaceTime the song as a whole was actually pretty much done. But we were all hype on the track, supportive of each other's styles and ideas and I think that combined with probably my obnoxious sense of humor helped break the ice for us.”
Yes it’s an unusual path for harnessing inspiration. But Saad has some encouragement for musicians still trying to work out how to write that one perfect song—keep going. Yes, it’s an audacious piece of advice for a new artist to hand out. But before solidifying her music efforts as sad alex (a moniker inspired by a tongue-in-cheek mispronunciation of her last name), there was a five-year span where Saad simply couldn’t connect the type of music she liked to the style of song she was producing. Her desire to make bouncy electro-pop finally clicked after a stint in Nashville, a bout of depression, a broken leg, and an impulsive move to Los Angeles. The shift into life as a working musician came as a surprise to those closest to her.
“There's the Ed Sheeran quote about songwriting starting like a dirty faucet, and you have to start it, and you have to let it run with shit water, and then eventually, it kind of spurts of clean water,” she says. “[Before] I had never really showcased a whole lot of outward desire, besides doing some dumb shows here and there. It wasn't necessarily clear to the general public that music was a serious direction. And also, the music that I did have was pretty bad. So, I think they were just like, ‘I don't know if this is something you should get involved with.’ But I like to succeed at what I set out to do.”
It took discipline for Saad to discover her buoyant beats. After being signed to Red Bull Records in 2019—and plans for touring dashed in 2020—she describes her days as filled with a regimen aimed at not only creating a sense of comfort (mornings spent working out, meditating, and making sure her cat, Zaddy, gets fed), but also taking of the advantage of the unexpected downtime by sharpening her skills as a writer and producer through freewriting (“I definitely noticed an improvement in my ability to access words better, or just feel a little bit sharper with my brain,”), and a parade of online tutorials.
sad alex
© Alex Stone
She’s got a goal of releasing an EP and touring later this year, but Saad is also unfailingly pragmatic about what it will take to get there. She praises Norwegian musician Lido’s ability to be a one-man band, and notes that yes, she’s just one of many emerging musicians, many who have skill sets or life advantages she doesn't necessarily have in common. However her lyrics, blatant explorations of love and life, are things that most people will relate to as sentiments they’ve muttered under their breath at some point. These honest lyrics (“Fuck you for my trust issues / I don't got you, so I've got nothing to lose / Here's to transparency / Fuck you and your girlfriend too.”) didn’t come naturally for Saad.
“I was born more in the melody world and then lyrics were always there,” she says. “But I've gotten a lot better with them. When you can just stop trying to please everyone else and really try to please yourself with the lyrics, I think maybe what you hear is the way you want to say them in your head. That tends to resonate a lot more with people than the most poetic or abstract phrase. Typically, if it means something to you, it's actually going to become more universal as a result.”
It’s also a case of pushing outside expectations that’s led Saad to rethink promotions, and erect a billboard in downtown Los Angeles, featuring photos of her ex-boyfriend as part of a music video for her 2020 single, “i'm glad that you found someone.” While exposing a former lover might have been a bridge too far (“At one point he texted me and kind of called me out for what I was doing, saying that people were DMing him and getting a bit aggressive, and that was not my intention!”), ultimately she’s excited to explore spaces other musicians might be afraid to enter.
“I think you have to take some kind of risks,” Saad laughs. “Not to say that you should completely destroy your personal life—I don't think that's the answer! I could either give them the standard music video they've seen 1000 times: me in four different outfits, singing my song in four different locations. But there's no reason people want to see that; they want to watch Cardi B do that.”
The new sad alex single “dating myself,” hinges on that same level of individuality. In line with Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies” or Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Party for One” (both artists Saad admires), the song is a cheeky anthem to not waiting for someone else to push your buttons. (“You think you’re so special don’t you / acting like you’re master of the bedroom / well I can do it too / it’s really nothing new / after twenty-seven years I think I’m better than you.”) As Saad, notes, after being “mostly single” for the last ten years, she’s had plenty of experience figuring out exactly what kind of life she wants to lead.
sad alex
© Alex Stone
“It's not a foreign concept to me,” she says, noting that her Valentine’s Day included dinner and a hike alone. “I know a lot of people that have been in relationships their whole life, and that makes the idea of being alone a little bit scarier…the second you get to know yourself a little bit better and you're able to, you know, have a better grasp on that, then you're in a better position to be in a relationship with somebody anyway…I don't think there's...many songs that like empower the single position. There are some ‘Single Ladies,’ whatever. But I think there's a lot of power [in] being alone.”
Even in a year where time spent alone is abundant—Saad is still enjoying the extra time to think. There’s a power that comes with claiming your own project and expanding its borders. She admires the way that Radiohead and Coldplay have managed to evolve, and hints that punchy power-pop might not be her final sonic destination. She’s been writing ballads, and even hip-hop tracks—and although she calls music a lifeline, like most of the things that ground us, there’s always room for growth.
“We were starting this whole path of productivity and planning, and then everything shut down,” she says. “But we still had a lot of plans in place. Obviously, I was sad that we weren't able to tour and do all these things that we had in mind…I think for the whole year really helped keep me sane. I was focusing more on my artist stuff. If this was a couple years ago, and I was focusing more on writing for other people, it would have left me feeling a lot more lost then had I not had the artists stuff to keep me grounded.”