I went from living in my dad's basement to moving to New York. So I never had that middle ground of easing into adulthood.

Alex Winston

Categorized in : Moving Adulthood

I do feel like L.A. has a very supportive and collaborative energy. I felt that in New York too but also there's so much space here! You can have a home studio. In New York you had to rent a room to do a session or to practice. As a solo artist, it was a lot more expensive. Here there is that comfort in lifestyle a little bit more, being able to breathe a little bit more, and creatively flow, not having to stress about how to get our gear there in a cab and pay by the hour, it's just a different vibe.

stress artist home

I call my backup singers my sister wives. To me, they are my best friends. We are all super close. It's kind of like the closest relationship you can have without being blood related, to me. It's a joke that they're sister wives - obviously, we're not polygamists.

my-best-friend wife kind

Obviously, you've spent some time in New York. I moved there and it was a bit much. It was a bit overwhelming for me. I didn't want to go out. I just felt a little homesick. I was just waiting to feel excited about something. I went through a phase of feeling kind of dull. It's really easy to shut off in New York and stay in your apartment.

homesick waiting feelings

I hate saying I'm a new musician, because I've been doing this forever, but they like to put new musicians on a lot of weird bills.

musician hate forever

I love country, folk, and strong female voices, like Alison Krauss, Dolly Parton, PJ Harvey, and Kate Bush.

female strong country

I grew up listening to a lot of that stuff, Motown and Stooges. But also early rock-and-roll like Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Elvis Presley. I feel like as I grew older, I've been working with different musicians, people that have are constantly showing me different things.

musician listening people

The influence is really all over the place. Detroit, definitely because of Motown and Stooges. When you come from a place like Detroit, you're really proud of what you have there.

motown influence proud

I felt that I really couldn't be creative with opera. You're supposed to sound this way here. You're supposed to crescendo here. You're supposed to do that. I had no sense of identity while singing that kind of music.

singing creative identity

I took opera lessons. I can't read music to save my life, but I would just copy and get away with it. I think that they thought I could read music, but I can't. I would just listen. It was really me just mimicking. That's one of the reasons I decided I didn't want to do that anymore.

get-away reason thinking

I tried to take a few community college classes, but it got in the way of music, so I stopped. I had real life college and traveling on the road college. It's like a segue into adulthood, like living on your own for the first time.

community real college

I'm actually one of the few kids in my grade, especially girls, who didn't end up going to college, just because I already knew what I wanted to do. I had already been actively working in music before I graduated.

girl college kids

I feel like I've been doing performing my entire life. I started taking music lessons and singing when I was about ten. I didn't have one of those creepy stage moms that made me do stuff. I started bands at a pretty young age and played with my friends back in Detroit. I've always known that I wanted to do this. It was all I was ever interested in doing. I never had, outside of music, any extracurricular activities that I took part in.

singing creepy mom

Growing up, I never listened to English music. I was more into Motown, as well as early rock n' roll like Chuck Berry and Little Richard.

rock never growing-up music

I like real instruments, and try to stay from anything that sounds too synthetic.

stay try like real

Most of all I want to make pop music that has something real behind it.

behind music real want