On the Rise
Alex The Astronaut

If time is a humanly incomprehensible fourth dimension that’s theoretically open to travel, then how does anyone really grow up? Physics graduate Alex Lynn has no answers. “I think that’s what I was realising when I was writing this album. I was looking around like, everyone doesn’t know what they’re doing,” she laughs. “How does everyone not know what they’re doing?”

Naming her debut album The Theory Of Absolutely Nothing, in a nod to both the Einstein quote, “The more I learn, the more I realise how much I don’t know,” and the all encompassing scientific framework ‘The Theory of Everything’, not the Eddie Redmayne movie, what she’s basically getting at is the slow realisation that none of us have a fucking clue. “Every interview I’ve done about all my songs I’m like, yeah it’s about growing up, it’s about growing up, it’s still about growing up,” she says. “I think I’m just gonna keep answering questions like that until I’m eighty-five.”

Born in Sydney, Lynn moved to the UK when she was ten for three years. “My dad got a fancy job to go over there and so we got put in this pretty famous kids school, which was really weird and surreal. I had Mick Jagger’s granddaughter in my class and we sat next to each other a lot,” she smiles, still with a hint of disbelief.

Usually a sporty kid, at The Harrodian School she was suddenly surrounded by burgeoning musicians and actors. Their enthusiasm for the arts was catching and Lynn began learning guitar, falling in love with playing. At thirteen she moved back to Australia and graduated high school before taking a scholarship to play soccer at a University in Long Island, New York. “I thought I wanted to be a doctor and then I started doing biology and realised I didn’t like biology and I hated blood,” she laughs.

Instead, Lynn took a pre-engineering degree, studying maths and physics alongside a strict soccer training regime. On top of all this, during her final year of college her music career began to take off back home. “In Australia there are strangers who know the things I’ve written and I’m here in America in a college dorm going to soccer practice,” she shakes her head. “Even my friends, ‘I’d be like oh I was on the radio today in Australia’, and they’d be like, ‘Oh cute’.”

But the physical distance from her hype helped more than hindered. “I didn’t feel like I had to write in any different way,” she explains.

Lynn returned to Australia in 2017 with a fresh arsenal of tunes, one of which would prove a pivotal release. “I wrote a whole bunch of different copies of “Not Worth Hiding” directed at homophobic people,” she recounts. “It was gonna be a letter to someone that was homophobic and then a letter to a politician explaining to them, and then I just changed it like, just write the letter to yourself.”

She discussed an EP’s worth of material with her team, eventually deciding to release “Not Worth Hiding” as a single despite its immensely personal vulnerability. “I remember telling one of my best friends, I think this is going to be the most impactful song that I’ll write,” Lynn recounts.

Two weeks before the track debuted, Australia’s then Prime Minister announced the same-sex marriage plebiscite. Suddenly Lynn’s quiet letter to herself was given national context. “Not Worth Hiding” became the unofficial anthem for the landmark vote. “I remember crying to my friends the weeks leading up, not wanting it to come out, and then when it came out people were really nice about it,” she smiles. “I think I was angry for a little bit that my personal story was so known. I didn’t like that. But now I’m much more comfortable and I feel really honoured that people would listen to my story and then go, this helps me process what happened to me.”

Lynn’s debut album, The Theory Of Absolutely Nothing is out this week. It’s a record packed full of vibrant, witty, insightful and heart-rending storytelling, all hooked around rich and tender folk-pop melodies. Tracks like “Happy Song” and “Caught In The Middle” show Lynn’s sensitive understanding of the human condition, while others like “Split The Sky” lay bare her capability to translate emotions into lyrics without relying on cliche. Her writing is as refreshing as it is realistic.

Lynn’s approach to songwriting is equal parts head and heart, not letting her scientific training slip. One of the most striking moments on the record is “I Like To Dance”, a song about domestic abuse. “That song was literally data points,” she explains. “I met with some domestic violence liaison officers and I was like, give me every single statistical answer to the douchey questions people ask domestic violence victims and let’s answer them in a way that’s real. And then I read a whole bunch of literature and just made sure everything was scientifically accurate and then I asked questions like, what is the thing that’s common in all or most cases of domestic violence that people wouldn’t realise? All I really wanted was if people were hearing this song, that they could hear it and be like, fuck that’s me.”

While Lynn is as analytical as she is emotional, the outcome is a collection of poignant yet warm, instantly involving songs. She continues, “You have to think a lot about how other people would be feeling and why they would do the things they do. What are the tiny details that transport someone from going, I can see that makes sense, to the moment where they’re like, fuck, I’ve done that before, I’ve experienced that exact thing?”

And that’s the strength of Alex The Astronaut, her ability to make you relate, to catch you with a melody as you slowly realise a little part of yourself in the lyrics you’ve been subconsciously humming. To try and help you learn a bit more about who you are.

Well I guess this is growing up.