My dear friends and loved ones,

I hope you are all doing wonderfully well, that you are able to embrace a little more of the newborn joys slowly coming back our way now that we can perceive the end of this pandemic nightmare. It’s not over just yet, but even the smallest of all cheers is an unbelievable treasure at this point. Every human connection is a precious gift. 

I must admit that I haven’t seen much of the year go by. It’s only when I recently left the quietness of my Virginia Blue Ridge Mountains to meet Lee Ranaldo, an artist for whom I have the utmost admiration and the highest respect because of his fearless creative incarnation, in New York City last May that I realized how incredibly fast time had moved on since I announced the release of “Standing Under Bright Lights” back in February. The months that followed, as much as everything that defined those days, still magnificently vibrate within me like a high stream of emotional uplift that keeps flowing in all sorts of blooming wonders. That’s why, now that the collector LP “The Son of Hannah” has been released and that I have completed my last interviews related to my performance at the Festival International de Jazz de Montreal, I’m enthusiastically eager to give you some personal news and to update you on my different ongoing projects.

From the initial release of “Windows in the Sky” and the peace I found with the idea of getting back in the public eye after a few years living on my own in Tangier, to the first positive and fulfilling sensation I experienced while touring despite more than a decade spent on the road, the transformative essence of taking chances to follow my instincts and vision in order to start not only anew, but to redefine everything I knew – or believed I did – based on my desire to touch the invisible rather than fiercely looking to establish any possible tangibilities designed to illusionary protect myself like I did in the past… Every single step in the last 3 years has been as unbelievably difficult as emancipative, some sort of renaissance and rebirth for me, an emotional detox on pretty much every possible level.

In fact, it became clearer and clearer that everything was completely different with the tour “A Slow Pace of Peace to Come” I had the wonderful privilege to do with my friends from Trail Of Dead prior to the pandemic outbreak. It was as if the wonders were unfolding for my eyes to see and my heart to be healed, from one night to the other. But it’s only once I started dwelling on what would become the “Standing Under Bright Lights” project that I knew I could fully commit to that new creative season of my life without having to apprehend the revulsive prospect of going through the very same affective scorn I had gone through in the past.

“Standing Under Bright Lights” has been such an extraordinary journey for me to discover and rediscover, and it’s been extremely moving to explore and revisit what turned out to be a life-changing moment. I didn’t remember just how impacting that concert had been for me, but opening up with you and having so many opportunities to talk about it in so many media outlets made me realize the highly consequential uplift that it had on me, both personally and artistically. And as I wrote to some of you either via letters, emails, or messages, that night has been deeply liberating for me, from the several stigmata I kept within me for a long time to the profound wounds I carried through my 12-year tenure as Your Favorite Enemies’ lead singer and all sorts of other emotional afflictions and spiritual doubts I grew accustomed to living with…

That unique let go was significantly vivid for me, enough to decide to expose myself without my usual fear of judgment and rejection, enough to share without filters, to welcome any opportunities to expose myself as a priceless present. I’m learning, or at least, I’m taking more chances in that regard. To be known for who I am, to blossom into the person I am longing to be, no matter how distressing it may be to face who I am sometimes. As inspiring as it is to stand under bright lights, it’s also quite frightening to know you are being looked at, even through the kind and compassionate eyes of people who dearly love and care for you. It’s not always easy to receive what you had lost faith in. And if I fail more than I would like to admit, every day is a new opportunity to try again. It’s not our failures that prevent us from being transformed, it’s pretending that we can be without letting anyone in that does.

Therefore, I am presently envisioning the summer as a transitional step towards the next chapter. To do that, I am presently writing a book, which is an autobiographic and introspective story of a hybrid format covering the period between 2018 and my conversational interview with Lee Ranaldo. The book is a very important project for me, and it should be accompanied by a new album. I don’t have any release date at this point, considering that I want to take the time to do it, and I would like to complete the initial writing phase in Tangier, where it all started for me, at the end of the summer. It’s fair to say though that I’ll be able to share some excerpts with you sometime this fall. Amongst the other projects I’m actually completing the production, may it be the new SFCC The Club yearly package or an important milestone celebration with Your Favorite Enemies, the next months will be quite thrilling, to say the least.

But before it all, speaking of Tangier, I have the fabulous exhilaration to be on my way to Morocco with Jeff and Miss Isabel, where I’ll spend a couple of days to set the last details of a dream that has been 5 years in the making. Once everything is settled, this will have tremendous meaning for us all in the near future! So stay tuned as I will officially disclose more information about it soon.

Be safe, my dear friends and precious loved ones. It’s always such a blessing for me to commune with you, not only due to just how generously engaged you are in our conversations and how passionately supportive you are towards my creative endeavors, but also because I’m immensely grateful for every one of you and because I greatly cherish our ever-growing relationships, no matter the form they may take. Every single one of you is a precious gift and I’m honored to start my day by either writing you a handwritten letter (now infamously notorious for being unreadable!), by sending a quick line, some glimpses of cheerful exaltations, or by being a true friend whenever you may be facing difficult moments. You are family, so I consider myself beyond fortunate to be so close to you all. And that’s also why I can barely hold back any details regarding what’s coming up!

Much love,
Your friend and brother
– Alex

PS: if you’re not already following me on Instagram, I guess now would be the perfect time to do so…! Just saying 😉