Spotlight: Alix Page’s 'Old News' is Your New Favorite Guitar-Smashing EP
IN A TIME WHERE A LOT US FEEL STAGNANT - music and art forges forward to remind us that the world is, in fact, still turning. Last year quickly became dominated by female artists Olivia Rodrigo and Taylor Swift, both releasing albums that smashed top charts for their exceptional recount of toxic relationships that kept tugging them down. When Covid resurged and our social spheres once again began to shrink, we still managed to carve out more creative space for female artists who mastered the blend of grunge rock and heartfelt love songs. It’s a space that 19 year-old pop singer Alix Page has been rooted in since early high school and in the past few months, has proven her potential to join some of the top-charting artists with her much anticipated debut EP, Old News , and her recently announced tour with Gracie Abrams. Since playing our show in Los Angeles last summer, Page has kept a busy schedule and has yet to dissappoint with her captivating releases.
“It hasn’t settled in that my first EP is coming out four days before my first show with [Gracie],” she beamed, “not everyone gets to go to a 21-show sold out tour when their first EP comes out.” Sitting down to discuss her latest release and upcoming tour, she sat up straight in her Zoom frame and couldn’t seem to stop smiling. I couldn’t help but get excited with her too, because Alix Page is just an easy person to be happy for. She seems a lot like your super cool, easy-going friend from high school that obviously turned out to be a successful performer. She’s down to earth and likeable, unafraid to dive deep into experiences that have both hurt and shaped her into who she is.
Her unapologetic honesty and self-reflection is why her music about failed relationships and summer crushes feel so tangible when she strums her guitar and sings to what seems like just you. “A lot of teenage girls reach out to me with similar stories and experiences,” she explained about her past releases, “Stripes” and “25.” Both songs she recalls writing back in high school, either on her bathroom floor or in her garage, mourning a relationship that left her without closure. Music helped her sort through the unresolved emotions that were left scattered by the same boy over and over again. “Being so hurt by that relationship and then writing ‘Stripes’ gave me so much power and reassurance. It felt so good to have something you got out of it…a lot of Old News is about him.”
I immediately asked the same question we all wonder about singers who boldly release songs about people that are still close to them - I always picture writing about some of my exes and then immediately walking out to something out of a teen drama, like a burning box of old sweatshirts or a keyed car. She reassured me that neither was the case for her. “Before I released it I sent it to him and he was just like, ‘Yeah, it’s a good song,” she shrugged. The honesty throughout her lyrics made it nearly impossible for anyone to really get upset over. Plus, when Page sits down with her guitar to sing about the boys who hurt her or analyze her haunting dreams, the lyrics are more for her than anyone else. “I think at the end of day,” she noted, “my songs are more about exploring my feelings about another person and less about the actual person I’m singing about.”
Another key for both her exes’ amicable responses and her raw, insightful reflections is the amount of space she gives herself from the experiences that inspire her songs. Page admits she sometimes waits weeks or, like in the case of “25”, up to six months after the end of relationships to write about them. Then once she gets started, she noted that she oftentimes will wait even longer between verses to complete the lyrics. “The time between feelings hitting and sitting down to write changes. There are some songs where I love the verse and don’t want to force it and just wait for it to click.”
It helps that Page isn’t working completely alone, too. She credits her producer for his keen ear when it comes to making her songs even bigger, and her bandmates Andrew and Caleb for their constant support, creative insight and friendship. The band met as students of the same arts high school in Santa Ana, where they all bonded under their being labeled as “newbies.” Page said her relationship with Caleb grew pretty naturally through their shared class schedule, while Andrew sprung into her life with a bit more noise. “Andrew was crazy in high school. He was famous for being on people’s snapchat stories because he would jump rope with cheese sticks and climb palm trees and show up to school in a peanut costume. We became friends because I was like ‘I need to be friends with this kid, he’s just hilarious,” Alix recalled.
The trio eventually found themselves within the same friend group, and when spots in her previous band opened up, Caleb took to the drums and Andrew filled in as the new bassist. Despite going off in different directions after high school, Alix would still call them up when she had a new song idea, and they’d be back to help her record in an instant. “We’ve all gone off and done our separate things,” she admitted, referring to her bandmates pursuing independent music careers as well, “but they’ve both stayed a constant in my life.”
Old News is the latest culmination of all the lessons she has learned through relationships she has fallen in and out of throughout quarantine. She describes the whole EP as a rollercoaster of emotions that came out of a relationship that kept hurting her and then inevitably starting back up again. The pattern of her relationship with this one boy from high school, who she admits the EP is almost completely about, mimicked the frustrating cycles that quarantine sent her through, during a time in her life when she had hopes of getting away from home and forming a new life at college. Old News explores the frustrations of “feeling so stuck and reverting to your childhood bedroom and habits. A lot of the songs are asking for clarity and reassurance about how things are going to turn out,” she said.
The themes of love and romantic mourning are ones that have been made extremely popular by today’s female pop artists, and naturally thus also heavily criticized. When asked what her thoughts were on the criticism that female pop music focused so much on men and relationships is too repetitive or critically unimpressive. “I always go back to those same people who are diehard Beatles fans and call that ‘real music’,” she explained, “like, their first song was ‘I wanna hold your hand,’ and all of their fans were just girls that found them attractive. There’s a weird mentality that love songs aren’t intellectual enough. It’s a very weird male mentality and it drives me crazy. I still get the ‘Wow Alix Page writes acoustic love songs,’ and I’m just like ‘Yeah I do! What do you mean? Those are great!”
As far as experimenting, however, Page said she was inspired by artists like Lucy Dacus and Rodrigo to subtly stray away from her usual slow, soft spoken sound. In addition to the guitar-smashing energy that she pours out in her newly released video from the EP, “Radiohead,” Alix says listeners can expect even bigger choices and verses so loud that she literally recorded them through a megaphone. It’s a fun and refreshing energy that will likely connect to both her listeners online and the audiences she’ll be seeing with Gracie Abrams.
Page is absolutely beaming with excitement about the new places and people she’ll get to see on tour, especially alongside an artist that she feels she can take a lot of creative inspiration from. She’s taking the next semester of school off to devote her time to her music releases, the upcoming tour, and–wait for it– bracelet making. She proudly held up a box rattling full of different beads. “I’m gonna make a million bracelets and give them out on tour,” she said.
Tune into what will probably be your new favorite album to scream out the window of your car to, and if you’re one of the ones lucky enough to snag a ticket to a show, get your hands ready for one of those bracelets– they’re kind of adorable.
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