About Ross Alexander

The Official Bio

Ross Alexander is a singer/songwriter who loves, and hates, everything about being a singer/songwriter. This love/hate relationship with music causes a constant flow of genre contradictions in his songwriting, which is never more evident than in his lyrics. The songs on his debut EP - “7 Shades Of Something In Between” - reveal an honest songwriter who somehow manages to retain an air of integrity, and whose lyrics still manage to elude simplistic analysis. If his heart is wore on his sleeve then that heart definitely resembles a cryptex that requires careful handling before the true nature within can be revealed.

Even though there is a depth, and a delicately imposing darkness surrounding his songs, he still maintains that he is a straightforward, honest guy, who always reveals too much. The subject matter of the debut EP is very strongly centred around his own recent experience with grief, and loss, and also exposes a fragile, yet strong spirit that seems to be knocking on every door hoping to find somewhere to lay its head for the night. A spirit of brokeness blatantly juxtaposed with a spirit of defiant rebellion seems to set the tone for the EP, and it is a good way of beginning to describe the artist.

An unnatural love of music and all things music related from an early age inevitably led to a passion for performing, singing, and songwriting. His earliest childhood memories include listening to his dad playing vinyl records, and listening to his mum playing the piano. Ross grew into a teenage music fan of ‘geek proportions’ (his own words!), with his bedroom walls constantly adorned with various posters and used concert tickets from various gigs he had attended. His teenage years were spent listening to music, buying albums, going to gigs, and playing his guitar. Every gig he attended intensified his desire to perform, which led to a growing feeling of frustration at being in the audience at gigs, and not on the stage where he felt he belonged. Playing guitar in garage bands in his early teens led to playing in gigging bands in his late teens/early twenties. Always a guitarist who could write, arrange, and produce, he always had a deep hidden desire to sing and front his own band.

In his late twenties, after having spent what seemed like a lifetime in various bands Ross decided to make some serious changes in his life. He had gradually realized through experience that the typical ‘band dynamic’ that he was used to was fraught with egos, rivalries, jealousy and insecurities, and this dynamic was gradually eating him alive and destroying his love of music and performing. He decided to quit bands and make a go of a solo career.

The first step was to write and record some demos. Two songs quickly came and were recorded with copious amounts of zeal and a similar amount of insecurity. The studio engineer was impressed with the songs but was aware of a weakness in the vocals. Ross too was aware of this and his tremendous sense of self doubt and an unnatural lack of confidence did nothing to help the situation. The engineer gave Ross a small piece of advice that was to prove very valuable to him. He advised him to get a live acoustic covers set together and start gigging round any bars that he could get into. The idea was to learn how to sing in a live environment and was pretty much an invitation to a baptism of fire and the start of a music apprenticeship. The advice was gladly received and Ross immediately formed a live acoustic 2-piece with his friend Mark Braidner. Mark was a blues/slide/folk acoustic player and a seasoned veteran of the acoustic gigging scene having gigged all over the world purely for the love of performing. The live acoustic gigs rekindled Ross’s love for the acoustic guitar, and Mark proved to be an inspiring player who influenced and elevated Ross’s acoustic playing to a much higher standard. He fell in love with the notion of being able to convey a song with just an acoustic guitar and nothing to hide behind. This notion quickly developed into a creed that Ross continues to measure his songwriting and indeed his songs with. If a song cant stand alone as a solo acoustic track without all the ‘bells and whistles’ then it isn’t a good song. ‘Bells’ and ‘whistles’ are great, and definitely have their place in the scheme of music production, but the essence of a song is the melody that should be there regardless of what else is there.

“ . . . All I got is a red guitar, three chords, and the truth
All I got is a red guitar, the rest is up to you . . . “

(Biography courtesy of Jon Blakk)

In His Own Words

“I am pretty much a ‘full-on’ music fan first and foremost. My whole life has always seemed to revolve around music. My earliest childhood memories are of me sitting listening to my fanatical record collector dad playing records from all genres, and styles. He was a real rock’n’roll, and rockabilly fan, and he always had a top notch sound system which pretty much got a full workout on a daily basis. The earliest memory of a song I have is Rainbow’s “All Night Long”. I remember vividly sitting in the ‘hi-fi room’ with my dad while he blasted the track at full volume. Its still one of my favourite songs to this day, and the opening riff never fails to make the hairs on the back of my neck stand. I have no doubt that my deep love for rock music stems from that one song. Becoming a ‘heavy metaller’ in my teenage years was an inevitable progression.

My earliest memories of seeing music actually performed are probably based round listening to my mum playing the piano. She is a self taught pianist who plays by ear, and plays for the pure pleasure of playing. I started to understand the concept of ‘playing by ear’ when I got my first guitar and started trying to work out various heavy metal riffs by just listening to the songs and trying to imitate them. My mum bought me my very first guitar, an Encore electric, with shark tooth inlays and a locking trem. Heavy Metal to the core! A few years later my dad bought me my first Fender Strat, and it is still my prized possession to this day, and would be irreplaceable should anything ever happen to it. The Fender Strat started me on the road to opening up my mind to a more mellow style of music . . . which eventually led me to really getting into the acoustic guitar and the "unplugged" renditions of classic songs.