Abraham Alexander’s life story will grab your attention once you hear it. It says a lot about the music on his compelling debut album SEA/SONS that you don’t need to know any of the context behind his dreamy compositions to get gloriously lost in them.
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Alexander is a bit of a late starter in the music world, as he didn’t really pick up an instrument or write any songs until an ACL injury doomed his chances for a soccer career. As he told American Songwriter, he now sees that career path as an advantage because of how it gave him time to gain perspective on life in general. “I think the benefit comes from understanding what a win is and understanding of how precious this life is and how precious each moment is,” he says. “I think about the positivity and the alignment I’m seeing with every single positive thing that’s happening, and also the negative. One door shut in my face doesn’t mean I have to waste my time trying to go through it or trying to bust it down. I’ve had all the years of not doing music to really develop my sound, to really develop how I write, how I like to communicate and implement that to a song.”
Adversity hounded Alexander in the early part of his life. He was born in Greece to a pair of Nigerian parents, but racial pressures led the family to move to Texas. Not long after arriving in the US, his birth mother was killed by a drunk driver and he was eventually put up for adoption. As mentioned above, he was thriving as a soccer star until his injury, which is when a then-girlfriend gave him a guitar so that he could channel some of his emotions and past experiences. Alexander took to songwriting, became a fixture at open-mic nights, and eventually scored a record deal, a partnership with Gibson (see sidebar), and spots opening for legends like Mavis Staples and Leon Bridges, the latter of whom encouraged Alexander’s musical dreams after a chance encounter.
This leads us to SEA/SONS. Many debut artists would throw everything but the kitchen sink at an album in an effort to stand out. By contrast, Alexander lets his songs breathe with plenty of open spaces in between relatively spare instrumentation and his soothing vocals. “I think that’s my childhood and nostalgia coming through,” Alexander says of that approach. “I was born in Athens, Greece, and lived there till I was 11. I had the ability to just be. The ability to stand still. I felt that was very integral to my well-being. I wanted that to be transferred within the music. I didn’t want to inject the tracks and productions with all these sounds. I wanted the train of thought in these lyrics to breathe and for there to be room for people to put whatever imagery they want within the track, to wander and go on an adventure with me. They say less is more. If I added more to the track, that would have been less of an adventure that the listener would have gone on.”
Alexander also floats between genres so effortlessly that you lose track of the distinctions and simply get lost in the beauty of the music. “At the core of it, I feel like it’s folk, because I’m a storyteller,” he says of how he views his style. “I think that even within the visuals of the record and the pictures, that is my story. That is a story that is also within the musicality and the wordplay when it comes to SEA/SONS. For me, there’s the folk and then there’s the soul of the story, the breath of the record. I feel like those two are where I operate from. What I did was, I looked at the people that immediately influenced me in order to enhance and enrich my musical education. I found gospel and country and folk.”
Staples guests on one of the fierier numbers on the album, “Déjà Vu,” which was inspired by the imprisonment and subsequent death of Kalief Browder, which led to activists targeting inequality within the criminal justice system. “It was like touching history,” Alexander says of having her on that specific track. “She’s been the breath and the soundtrack and the voice for civil rights movements. And she’s walked with individuals who have proceeded to help bring legislation to give me the freedoms that I have right now. To have that touch what I’m doing, it feels like I’m touching history and that I’m on the right path. When I heard the track in its entirety, I was with my manager and some friends, and some folks from the label, and we all cried. Even when I hear it now, it’s like, ‘Holy crap, she’s singing my words and giving them more life than I could ever imagine.’ It’s surreal.”
It says a lot about Alexander’s approach that he didn’t choose some bold statement of purpose for the first song on his first album, but rather “Xavier,” a touching tribute to a brother of his who passed away a few years back. But that’s in keeping with an overarching message of this striking debut, the idea that the past must be confronted if we can ever learn from it.
“If we try to run from pain, how can we use it as a shield for protecting ourselves and moving forward in a healthy way?” Alexander asks. “We need all of it. We need the past, we need the present, and we need hope for the future in order to help us grow. If we try to skip one of those moments, we do ourselves a disservice when it comes to our personal growth. There’s an ebb and flow to it all and we need it.”
Epiphone Dove Guitar
Throughout SEA/SONS, Abraham Alexander uses an Epiphone Dove acoustic guitar. Featuring a solid spruce top and maple body, it produces a rich tone when unplugged, but also makes its presence felt amidst a full band when plugged into an amp. Alexander has also been chosen by Gibson as a marquee artist, which means that the company is providing support in terms of press coverage, marketing, social media activity, and many other career-boosting initiatives.
“That was the instrument that I started my journey on when learning how to play and what was inspiring me,” Alexander says of the partnership. “It’s like you have a crush on someone and you don’t know whether they love you back, and that person turns around and—you know what I’m saying (laughs). “I’m so grateful to be on this journey, and what inspired me to go along on this musical adventure [has] tagged along with me and is pushing me and giving me wings to soar even further. I am completely grateful and honored to be part of the team and part of that legacy.”
Photo Courtesy Gibson
