Alex Izenberg doesn’t feel the need to speak much. A series of yes’s and no’s form a stark contrast to the 25-year-old’s multi-layered and gorgeous melodic crescendos. He occupies the density of a Scott Walker, the indie pop of Tobias Jesso Jr, and the sonic tapestry of Grizzly Bear/The Antlers. Though fledgling in conversation at first, Izenberg isn’t phased by the chaos of missed connections, perhaps because he is so familiar with singing about them. His new album, Harlequin, swells with complex strings, horns, and piano, supporting a voice that bursts wide open when talking about music. Exes, crushes, and Emily Dickinson poems-turned-songs (“A Bird Came Down”) — Izenberg is a rising star.
Izenberg started playing music by playing guitar because He would at his best friend’s parents’ apartment all the time, and his big brother had a Fender Strat He thought it was the coolest thing in the world.
Izenberg recalls That one day when I was 13, my parents took me to get a Fender. I was at the guitar store, and Linda Perry came up to me while I was playing guitar and thought I was so good that she bought me a guitar. Have you heard of Linda Perry? of course, from 4 Non Blondes. So she just bought a guitar for a stranger?
Yeah, and then we stayed in touch. I was at her studio a lot, and she started coming to my band’s rehearsals. She really acted like the “band mom” and eventually signed us to her label, Custard Records, and we put out an EP. We went on tour with Roger Daltry for two months, and when we got back, the band kicked me out.
I guess because I wasn’t paying enough attention to the music, and I wasn’t networking on tour to help broaden our fan base. I didn’t really see it coming to be honest, and then around the same time my girlfriend of two years who I was obsessed with broke up with me. I was very sad at that period of my life. I would even go as far as to say that I was depressed. But, I’m also very proud of the record I’ve got out of it all.
His first single, “To Move On”, with the accompanying Andy Warhol-inspired video of you eating a burger. “Changes” hit me quite hard, particularly the line, “If I had known that her heart was made of stone, I would flee.” During “Changes”, I was thinking about my ex, just thinking about me and how maybe if I changed my ways she would come back. Check out the album
The Fat Angel Sings 