1. Jenny Strand.
Alexa May
The next big thing?
Here today I have Alexa May, the next big thing for sure! Over the past 6 months she has
brought the music scene by storm at the mere young age of 19. She’s got herself a bit of a
reputation of being quite aggressive and outspoken if she doesn’t like what she hears, this
should be fun! Her first single, Light Them High went straight to number 1 and stayed there
for an impressive six weeks. Surprising critics with her haunting and captivating music. She’s
caused uproar already in saying that boy bands these days are “singing ridiculous things just
for money”. I’m going to be getting up close and personal with her and try get to know abit
more abit the mystery herself!
1) So Alexa, what inspired your style of music?
Ooh Laura Marling and Marina Diamandis have been a big influence as personally I think they
have actual meaning to their songs and not just the crap that’s usually in the charts and they
stay out of the media like me really; they just don’t give a shit about what people think and I
think that’s pretty great. Laura Marling needs more recognition though, seriously! The sort of
songs she writes and the way she gets them across is insane!
2) What’s the story behind your first album? If one, that is.
There’s not really any story there at all. I wrote what I was going through at the time. It was
sort of a diary for me and just a way I could air my thoughts without actually speaking about
them. Nothing in particular was happening in my life at the time I started writing the album,
nothing that heavily influenced the album anyway. Just everyday things, nothing life changing,
that’s for sure.
3) You’ve caused quite abit of controversy with your opinions. Did the media change the
way you wanted to be perceived?
Oh yeah, most definitely. These days there are far too many media personalities about.
You cannot call yourself an artist if you get people to write the music for you. Why would
anybody possibly want to be like that? It’s beyond me, anyway. If you don’t like my music,
so be it, I don’t really care. I like my music and that’s all that matters to me. They don’t
have to listen to it, do they? But yeah it is nice being recognised in a positive way anyway.
It gets a bit weird when people I don’t even know are criticizing my appearance. That
sucks.
4) Well they don’t have much of a choice but to listen to your music, it’s on everywhere at
the moment! So, was music a big influence in your life growing up?
It was actually yeah. I had music lessons from the age of 5, I think. At first it was more
of a thing that my parents got me into, to be honest at that point I had no interest in it,

2. I mean I was just a little kid. But yeah when I got to the age of like 10 or whatever I
really started to love it. I’m glad I got into music young anyway. Thank god for my
pushy parents! No if they hadn’t of made me go to the lessons and all of that then God
knows if I’d be doing this now.
5) Do you like the music that’s in the chart at the moments?
That’s a tricky question, I do like some of the music in the charts, I was really surprised that
my album even got anywhere near the charts as it’s not the kinda thing that is usually in there.
Some of it’s really catchy but I do really struggle to praise and like people who don’t create the
music and lyrics themselves. I can’t praise people that do nothing. But in regards of whether
the songs are catchy are not, yeah they are. Actually I was really pleasantly surprised when
Marina & The Diamonds got number 1 album. That was good.
6) What music did you like growing up?
I LOVED artists such as Etta James and Eva Cassidy. Their voices were just so
addictive, still are. They’re very chilled. I don’t actually know anybody that didn’t like those
two!
7) What are your plans next?
My plans are just, not to have a plan at the moment. The media is still going crazy so I just
want them to enjoy my first album and not overlook it by starting on anything new. I will
start something new in the near future though, after everything has died down abit. I’ve
noticed my album has got a really mixed response and while people are being extremely
lovely about my album, you do get the ones that put you down. There’s constructive
criticism and then there’s people who are just going out of their way to put you down, so
yeah, a bit of time out of the limelight will be good.
8) Who would you most like to collaborate with?
Probably Marina &the Diamonds or Lana Del Rey. They’re just certain of themselves
and some of their songs are the best I’ve ever heard, to be honest and of course they
handle themselves in a certain way and the years they’ve been around they haven’t
seemed to of changed in any way, for the media anyway in terms of their songs
anyway. So yeah, that’d be really cool to do.
Quite abrupt at first meet, Alexa May comes across as quite stand-off ish yet she’s actually just
very reserved and blunt. She doesn’t want to be perceived in the wrong way by the media. Not
one to take compliments, she’ll tell us how it is and doesn’t seem to want or care for our
approval! She comes across years ahead of her age. She’s very reluctant to fall into the
mainstream charts category. With her gloomy nature and abrupt manner, there’s not much
chance of that, Alexa! I think there’s much more to come from her.