Alicia Blue – Singer Songwriter, Lyricist

**Bowie Jane** (0:19)
G'day, it is Bowie Jane with Jess Bowen for Babes Behind the Beats. Today on the show, we have singer-songwriter Alicia Blue, who is gonna be performing at Fan Girl Cafe at the Troubadour. Thanks for coming on our show.

**Alicia Blue** (0:31)
I'm so stoked to be here.

**Jess Bowen** (0:32)
Yes, and as Bowie just mentioned, we're so stoked because you're gonna be performing at this event, the Fan Girl Cafe event, on February 27th at the Troubadour, and I am luckily going to be there hosting, and I'm just so excited to finally get to see you play, because I just, I absolutely love your music. I checked you out, and I just think you're amazing. So, so stoked to see you and meet you in person.
Yeah, so basically, I guess we wanna kinda take it back, though, like what got you into music, and at what age did you discover that you were like, this is like what I wanna do?

**Alicia Blue** (1:07)
I have a funky story. I started off with no musical background, like at all, like never touched an instrument, never really thought I would ever in my whole life. And then in my last year of college, I wanted, I was a literature major, and I was like, I'm gonna be a famous poet. And then I met this old soul singer named Malcolm Hayes.
He actually lives or lived, excuse me, at the time above Harvard and Stone, if you know that venue.

**Jess Bowen** (1:36)
I love that place, yeah.

**Alicia Blue** (1:37)
Yeah, so he lived above there, and he was in a wheelchair. And I was cleaning his house, legit, and found these old records. And I was like, oh my god, signed by Columbia.
Here's this diamond in the rough. Obviously, some kind of hard times had fallen on him. So I was like, no way, found some vinyl with his name on it and took it home, asked him to teach me about singing, because I'd never done it, and then just decided, like an insane human, from that point on, that I was going to put my poetry to songs. And that would be way more useful for the planet. That was like what my psyche was thinking.

**Jess Bowen** (2:17)
Awesome. So you were like, I feel like that that has to transition pretty like was it, did it feel like an easy transition? Because obviously music is poetry, right? Like you're writing like lyrically, that is, it is like poetry. So did it feel, what was like the hardest part? Was it just the like figuring out the music just to like make around it? And like, what instrument did you pick up?

**Alicia Blue** (2:38)
Great question.
Guitar is my instrument. I mean, I dabble in piano, but I don't play. Like I wouldn't call myself a player, but everything even still now is still lyric driven. So I just create music that sets a tone or an emotion for the emotion I'm feeling in the poetry. I rarely have come up with a musical piece first, constantly driven by the lyric because I have tons of ideas.

**Jess Bowen** (3:04)
And so like, how did you find your sound? Like did you have, like who were your influences?
Like your biggest influence that influences that you would say for yourself?

**Alicia Blue** (3:12)
Yeah, I started off because of Malcolm really wanting to be a soul singer, but that just wasn't, not only not working, but not what I am at all.
So it was cute and it's still in me, you know, in there, the like spirit of it, but really singing and just my speaking voice has served me and what, you know, I would say is kind of like what I do best, which is lyrics. Always, even since I was a kid, had been like obsessed with Dylan, you know, cause of the poet, the word thing, more contemporary stuff. Oh man, I mean, of course, Phoebe Bridgers is fantastic. I'm a huge fan of Jason Isbell and of course, again, something a bit older, you know, Joni, of course.

**Bowie Jane** (4:00)
Now, when did you first start performing then? That must've been like a bit foreign for you, perhaps, or did you speak, did you perform spoken word anyway?

**Alicia Blue** (4:09)
No, it was, it was really intense as an adult to do that. I mean, I was like 28 when I did my first open mic. Yeah, so it was really intense. There was so much to, you know, I felt so much going through my body, so much to like look at, digest, you know, being someone who's like a lot of people in our generation. Anxiety is a thing that I write about and a lot of us write about, but yeah, to just feel the eyes on me and to take up space was so fucking intense at first.