On The Rise: Alec Wigdahl

Alec Wigdahl describes his two latest singles as “a departure from an acoustic white guy who wants to be Ed Sheeran.

"Of course I grew up on Sheeran and John Mayer and I was influenced by them," he tells me, "but I don’t want to be in that box. I want to start making music that doesn’t sound like Shawn Mendes. I think I could make Kings of Leon rock songs. I’m really excited about that, about how young I am because I could take it in any direction.”

Wigdahl certainly is young; at just nineteen he’s amassed over 200,000 monthly listeners, has had huge success with first EP Strawberry and feels confident with his peers at 10K/Homemade records. Where Strawberry confronts the tug-of-war emotional turmoil in young relationships, “Lipstick” is easier, more joyful, a pop ballad to the honeymoon phase.

“I’ve written a lot of songs about the complications and pain that comes with letting someone into your life for a long time. ‘Lipstick’ is my response to that; is just needing someone where it’s really fun and you can just enjoy their company. It’s surface level, it’s a summer song.”

He’s drinking tea – or at least something out of mug – when we talk, and while he reclines easily on the sofa in his new home in North Hollywood, he is no less engaged and eager to share his story. He has the air or someone both sure of themselves and who they want to be, and still figuring out the best way to portray that. He’s aware of his success and his privilege, but still speaks with unsuppressed youthful excitement about his own good fortune. He’s easy to like, however, and even easier to believe in, as he begins to tell me about the journey that led him to discovering his musical passion and the ride that has taken him on.

Wigdahl started the piano aged five, picked up a guitar a few years later and has been song writing since he was sixteen and in high school. While his early beginning in music doesn’t set him apart, it certainly outs him in a Venn diagram of young, successful musicians who have been playing music since they could understand what it was. Similarly, he attended Berklee school of Music but dropped out after realising that that wasn’t where he was going to find success. He was signed by the Internet Money collective – headed by producing giant Taz Taylor, and later to 10K Projects/Internet Money. Wigdahl is Minnesotan, so “a Prince direction” is where he sees his music going. “Artists within that vein – groovy, base heavy indie shit. The shit people dance to at parties, but still pop. That’s what I want to make.”

"The shit people dance to at parties, but still pop. That’s what I want to make.”

Although he doesn’t state it explicitly, it seems that Wigdahl lost track of his passion for music as he moved through his teens, contemplating going to college to play sport. But an increase in the spinal risk of his scoliosis as he reached puberty meant he had serious spinal surgery in high school, and had to stop playing sport, leading him, inevitably, back to music. “After I got the surgery and stopped playing sport, when I didn’t know what to do with myself, that was when I rediscovered music and started playing guitar and writing songs because I was fucking sad you know. “

Wigdahl had started learning music by copying "Seven Nation Army" and Rolling Stones Riffs, but he soon fell in love with the craft and passion of song writing. He tells me that he’s influenced by all kinds of music now (“no really, you can look through my Spotify, I really do listen to everything,”), and cites BB King, Hendrix and Ray Vaughn as influences beside Rex Orange County, Two Cinema Club and Vampire Weekend. “It was originally just writing about girls. It still is, but I’d like to think I’ve refined it a little to be more of an art form,” he says.

After surgery and high school there was Berklee, to finishing his freshman year at the University of Minnesota in 2018, then going back to his hometown and releasing covers on YouTube until Taz Taylor DM’d him after little-known artist Aries retweeted one of his covers.

“Up until that point I knew who Taz Taylor was and I would look up to the guys at Internet Money and then all of a sudden, they’d DM’d me and wanted to work with me. It was kind of a surreal way to be found. Frankie, who is my manager now and works with Taz, ended up hitting me up like ‘hey we’ve been watching you for the last 6 months and we’re still interested. Come to new York and LA.' I went to New York for three days and it just clicked with them, and I was like ‘oh I’ve found the group im supposed to make music with and the place I’m supposed to be.'”

Keeping his ego in check, he goes on to explain that imposter syndrome is a permeating emotion, but that he’s got better with dealing with ‘am I worthy’ emotions by reminding himself how hard he’s worked to get here. Indeed, he’s given up a conventional nineteen-year-old college lifestyle to sleep on Taz Taylor’s couch and record pop music.

“Being here is really great and I have kids in college now hitting me up like ‘congrats that’s really great’ but like, when we were in college they were out at parties and I was the one working in my room. It took a lot of social sacrifice to make it here. Now I feel like I’ve made it to a point where it feels like shits paid off.

"It took a lot of social sacrifice to make it here. Now I feel like I’ve made it to a point where it feels like shit's paid off."

“I don’t think I struggle with ego too much because I’ve always been an insecure person. That’s going away a little bit as I grow out of insecure teenage years. I don’t ever want to let the industry, or the spotlight worsen me. It will change me – it would be naïve to say, ‘I will never change, and it will never affect me’ – and it’s definitely changed me in the last seven or eight months alone. As long as im still acting honestly and not trying to just serve fans or companies, then I’m not too worried about it.”

Although I find myself uncertain whether there is a shadow of conceit behind these well-placed words, I believe in Wigdahl’s assertion that his ego is naturally honed, and that he is self-aware to not let fame overwhelm him. He’s so relaxed in our hour together that it’s hard to believe he’s not even twenty. Such that when we discuss the murder of George Floyd which only just covers the news and media as we speak, his response is that of a much more mature musician, aware of their platform. “I’ve realised that when all this stuff used to happen in the past, I supported it, but I never said anything. Now I have 40 000 followers I should share stuff that will benefit the cause and use my voice. I’m not famous by any means but I have a platform and I think there is a responsibility then to not be a dickhead.”

He goes on to apply this his to his real-time success: “It’s humbling to have people from all over the world posting a song I made in my bedroom. It used to be me and the twenty people who listened to my songs, and now it’s me and the thousands of people who listen to my songs. Hopefully there will be millions.”

What does he think will be the music that gets him those millions of listeners? “The songs that are really honest and are like a piece of you that you want to get out. The ones that just come out all at once – like ‘A Little Bit Longer’ from Strawberry. I wrote that in New York my first day meeting Internet Money. I just sat down at this piano and pretty much all at once I played the whole song, The music producer from Internet Money got everyone to come in the room, and he was like ‘play that again.’ We ran through that song like five times and then we recorded it. I didn’t write anything down; I didn’t sit for hours thinking about concepts or metaphors. That’s why it holds up so well, because it was so natural."

"A Little Bit Longer" is the slower, more sensitive side of bombastic, incurious pop music. "I never worry about these things before / I’ve done my best; I always have / think we just took different paths / I just got to hold on for a little bit longer" he sings in the softly drawling piano ballad. A song about feeling that your partner is having second thoughts, and coinsiding anxiety, it serves as an indication that when the anaesthetic is lifted, Wigdahl is able to probe complex emotions in an accessible manner.

“I think I'm at a point in my life where I can talk about whatever the fuck I want. Not in a dishonest way, I’m just not in a box so I can see what I want to make and what works, and that’s a real privilege.”

He leaves me with a swift smile and sets down his mug, hands run through the orange mop hair and glasses steamed up with condensation: “I want to say things in a cleverer way than just, ‘oh shit my hearts broken,'” he concludes.