LJ Hepp
Alex prides himself on “not being a Xerox of anybody.”
In a very real sense, James Alex, the frontman and creative force behind Philly-based punk-rockers Beach Slang, is the poster child for patience, the patron saint of good things coming to those who wait — and continue to bust ass.
After all, it took more than two decades of grinding in the trenches of ballrooms and dive bars, most of them with ’90s pop-punk band Weston, for Alex to finally hit it big. Now, in his 40s, he’s reaping the rewards for his hard work: an increased fan base, SXSW festival gigs and one-on-ones with musical heroes like Bob Mould.
A lot of musicians would have given up the fight a long time ago.
“I suppose I’ve always romanticized the struggle,” says Alex, whose new band formed in 2013 and crashes the Frequency on April 24. “I’m way more into the hunt than the capture. I never moved to plan B.”
Plan A is working pretty well at the moment. Alex prides himself on, as he puts it, “not being a Xerox of anybody.” And he’s proud that Beach Slang’s core guitar-driven sound draws comparisons to Paul Westerberg, the man Alex calls “my songwriting bull’s-eye.” Tunes such as “Too Late to Die Young” and “Bad Art and Weirdo Ideas,” like most of the cuts from the band’s two EPs and its 2015 full-length debut, The Things We Do to Find People Who Feel Like Us, hit the same teen angst-infused notes that Westerberg and the Replacements nailed in punk’s ’80s heyday.
Alex readily cops to living in a state of arrested development — “I’m still the guy with the band posters on his studio wall,” he says — which may explain how a guy a generation-plus removed from much of his new fan base speaks to them so effortlessly. From a different performer, a line like “The kids are still alright / We’re just too high to fight” (from the song “Kids” on the EP Who Would Ever Want Anything So Broken?) might have felt a little too calculated.
“It’s like I’m 20,” he laughs. “Except for that one, enormous thing.”
That “thing” is his son, who just turned 1 this month. And for every memorable Beach Slang moment — not long ago, the band was jamming in a packed room in Croatia, of all places — Alex is keenly aware of the costs he’s paying to live his dream.
“That’s going to be the hardest obstacle,” he says.
At least for 2016, since Alex and Beach Slang aren’t slowing down at all. (“I don’t do well with being idle.”) The band just recorded 10 songs for a second album, set for release in September, a collection Alex says evokes shoe-gazer ’90s groups like the Catherine Wheel and showcases his love of the Psychedelic Furs.
“I don’t want to just bat out ‘Bad Art and Weirdo Ideas’ for the rest of my life,” he says. “I’ve always been a heart-on-my sleeve, confessional sort of guy, but I was also quiet and introverted. Now, I’ve developed these relationships with our fans, [and] my armor’s allowed to drop — that’s been pretty cool.”
