The coffee shop door opened and I saw the flash of the bright red jacket out of the corner of my eye. Stefan Alexander walked in and we introduced ourselves to each other. He pulled me in for a hug and we sat down to chat. Even though we had just met moments ago, it had felt like sitting to talk to an old friend. The NYC queer artist just dropped his new music video for his track “Photograph”, and we sat down to chat about his writing process, inspirations, health, and more. Read down below to step into his world, and check out the new video!

Nicole: You just dropped your cover for the Missy Elliot song “Oops (Oh My). Was that something that you were planning for a while?

Stefan: Yeah, we actually produced it back in like 2017 and then didn't end up recording the final vocals until 2019. So yeah it's been in the works for a very long time.

N: I love that you tried to keep it very close to the original kind of as a respect to her.

S: Totally! I didn't want to mess with it; especially didn't want to change any gendered language or anything like that. The song is super nostalgic. I didn't want to throw anybody off.

N: So is that where you draw a lot of inspiration from for a lot of your stuff?

S: For sure.

N: What artists in specific would you say?

S: Well, I feel like it's not necessarily specific artists from that era, it's like blanket radio and music video playlists from the late 90s/early 2000s. It's just like all that is this wave of nostalgia that I'm always trying to tap into, but not necessarily specific artists that I go back to.

N: So have you gotten into anything new recently that you've also drawn inspiration from? What's the newest artist that you've gotten into recently?

S: Well it's funny because I don't actually listen to that much pop music. I listen to a lot more folk and more experimental stuff. So there's this woman named Hayley Heynderickx who I'm obsessed with right now. I'm always trying to incorporate more of that folky lyrical content into the pop music that I write. I want to try out new topics. I'm always trying to - not necessarily new for the world. There are things people have written about. I'm not trying to make that claim - but like things that I've never written about, things that I've never discussed in a song. That's always my aim. So that folk music seems to inspire me to do that, and I listen to a lot of old music - 50s, 60s, 70s type stuff. That's where I draw most of my inspiration.

N: Is there any specific style that you would want to tap into that you haven't explored yet for your music?

S: I feel like I don't know if it's something I can predict. It's like whatever I'm kind of feeling.

N: I feel like that's a really good way to go about it. You know, what you're feeling that day. I feel like that gets you the most genuine results in your music, and I feel like your music is very genuine when you listen to it.

S: I actually write most of my songs just a cappella so it could go any way in terms of genre, but most of it is going to end in being cohesive with what I put out already.

N: Specifically, what are you trained in for music? Did you self teach?

S: I'm trained in quite a few things. I studied cello for about 8 years - Suzuki method which is very good for the ears. So, I can't really read music, but I have a good ear, and then I studied jazz and classical guitar. Now I've been studying voice for the past two or three years. So that's my main music education, but then I also went to college for audio engineering and production so that was really formative too for sure.

N: Do you still have a really big hand in producing your stuff or have you kind of given that away to the people that you're working with?

S: I'd say I definitely have strong opinions but I'm trying to be better about being a better collaborator, and allowing people to make their own creative decisions who I’m working with, and being willing to accept that those ideas are often better than mine. Because that's their main gig is the production side of things and my main thing is the songwriting, and trying to give up some of that authorship because it's not always positive you know? Just being able to say, “Well I did everything,” is like, well does it sound good? That’s the most important thing to me so I definitely get involved foundationally on most of the productions that we work on, but then my producers usually take it and do lots of stuff on their own after that.

N: Has there ever been a moment that you didn't agree, and then later on you have that “a-ha okay yes” moment?

S: 100% and I'm trying to avoid moments like that because I want to be on board and be more open to things earlier in the process. That just makes for a better collaboration.

N: I had read that you just got diagnosed recently with Central Sensitization Syndrome…

S: 2017.

N: So, do you feel like that was more of a relief to know what was wrong so that you can kind of control what’s going on?

S: Oh yeah the whole journey was to the diagnostics. I mean yes, the last two and a half years have been a journey to rehabilitation, but four years of just things getting worse, and worse, and worse is so much more difficult than two and a half years of knowing what's going on and being able to also explain it to people. It's weird when you have an invisible condition. People don't understand it. It's not a buzzword like cancer or something like that. I'm not comparing my condition to any other condition, but there are things that people understand and things that are new that people can't always get a handle on, and you have to find sort of just…in the same way that people are like, “So what kind of music do you make?” and you should be able to explain it in fifteen seconds. It’s like, “What’s your illness?”, and ideally you can explain it in a couple seconds and people are like, “Oh I understand that,” and they can empathize with you. You are letting them in and being vulnerable, but efficiently, if you will.

N: When did you realize that was all starting?

S: It started in 2013 and I then dealt with it for four years. Initially, I couldn't play guitar for a year and when I got my tonsils out I couldn't sing for three years unless I got wasted. That's how we recorded my first songs is just totally soaking my liver in alcohol so that I could ignore the pain for an hour to get through a session, because otherwise I couldn't sing for 5 minutes without having to stop.

N: Now do you find yourself working around it, or working with it in a way when you're writing your new stuff?

S: I would say working with it. I mean it's definitely opened up a whole new range of songwriting topics, and it's like I feel like before I got sick, I would trend toward more depressing songwriting topics and now I'm more inspired by things that are uplifting and things that can help somebody else. Of course there's value in a sad song too. That can be really helpful and really cathartic for somebody to hear their own experience or somebody else's experience in a tearful way, but if there can be a message that's like, “Okay we've been through the hard thing and now we're moving on,” then there's value in that type of music too.

N: Have you started working on new material?

S: Well we have this EP coming out in late March/early April and that stuff is all done, but then yeah, we're already working on the next project, which is super exciting, and have a bunch of songs written already for that. Always trying to write new ones - was writing on the train on the way here.

N: So you're constantly writing - do you find different environments call for different writing techniques?

S: Yeah.

N: Is there a specific environment that you prefer to write in?

S: I love just writing by myself on the subway. It's my favorite, favorite place to write. Just quietly humming to myself, singing into my phone, typing into my notes app so I can move things around and copy and paste. It's fun to sit down with a pad and write on paper too, but I really like just the malleability of making something on my phone.

N: So you have a bunch of voice memos there?

S: Like literally two or three thousand. A lot of them never see the light of day and a lot of them, I mean there may be good ideas in there that are just gone down the list, and I just forget about them. Every once in a while if I'm looking for inspiration I'll just go through and be like, “Oh this song.” Say like this memo says, “cool hook”. I could probably listen to that again, or fun chorus. They're all random, like “Wednesday idea”. Today if I were walking on the high line, it would be like “high line idea”. Doesn't mean anything until I have lyrics.

N: Have you ever written something with the intention of it being a hook or a chorus and realized, “No this would be a better bridge or something else”?

S: 100%. My producers always say, “Make every section a hook.” Like why not? Make everything an earworm, or something that can get stuck in somebody's head. If every section is just another chorus, how great is that? You're really packing it in.

N: Is there anything in specific that you want to talk about with the new album? Is there anything on this new album that you feel you've done very differently from the last one that kind of sticks out?

S: It's pretty cohesive, but there's one song on there that's more political and I'm really excited about that one. It's called "Up and Away". I was thinking of it as sort of a “let's get the fuck through 2020 because this is going to be a hard year”, assuming you're on the liberal side of the spectrum. Often with these songs that I try to write that are more uplifting, it's really first and foremost - I'm writing them for myself, because if I know they work for me I can hope that they are going to work for somebody else. So, if it's a song that I can hum or I can listen to and be like, "Okay yes okay. I'm remembering I'm down in the dumps, but there was a time where I was excited and it's when I wrote this song,” and that can sort of bring me back there, I'm hoping that that song can inspire me to do more activism, and inspire me to do more phone banking, and more going door to door, and all that stuff that is involved in a presidential or local election.

N: Have you done any of that stuff previously?

S: Yeah definitely in 2016 and 2018 - working for congressional races and even in my local state senate stuff. I'm totally fascinated by all that.

We took a break to discuss social media.

S: My main social media platform that I like the most of course is Instagram, like a lot of people. For me, it's been so incredible because I'm talking to people all over the world and hopefully affecting people all over the world. This teenager messaged me from India and was like, "It's not okay for me to be gay here, but I can listen to your music and at least have three minutes where I feel okay." I was like, "Shit, that's incredible."

N: There's a huge connection, I feel like, between artists and fans now because of social media.

S: And that's my favorite thing in the world, and especially people that share health stories with me. I met somebody on Instagram who messaged me (actually two people) and was like, "I am a musician with chronic pain in my arms and my throat that I never diagnosed and maybe your diagnosis is the same as mine, and maybe now this is something I can seek out." That’s too much of a coincidence. Whether I reach the heights or acclaim or whatever the fuck as a musician, knowing that I could help a couple people is like, what more could I ask? That's truly what it's all about.

N: Anything else that would want to plug?

S: My first single for this upcoming record is coming out in a couple of weeks. It's called "Photograph" and I'm super excited about it. I actually wrote it back in 2015, and it's kind of all about online dating and the challenge with seeing somebody and reading their little caption and you're like, "This person is perfect for me," and then they don't even write back to you. It’s just the millennial experience of dating is so strange, and bizarre, and depressing and all, but also amazing; and you can meet people that you never would've met before, and so that song was born from my like…I used to just be such a serial first dater, not a serial monogamist. Just go on so many first dates, and that period, and all that fucking swiping inspired that song. I'm super excited about it, and I hope people can relate.

Check out his new music video for “Photograph” now!