Triple ARIA winner Alex Lloyd was the much adored pop star during the time he released his first albums. Lloyd was a staple on the radio with a stream of quality singles and toured the country to pack out bars or bolster a festival bill. With a new album Acoustica in tow, Lloyd is ready to reboot his career. Alex Lloyd plays the Fly By Night Musicians Club on Thursday October 6 and The Carine Hotel on Saturday October 8. CHRIS HAVERCROFT reports.
At the height of his popularity, Alex Lloyd relocated to the England. Lloyd had toured the UK before as a young artist, but the move wasn’t his attempt to conquer Europe. The decision to move was a more personal one, with his wife wanting to experience life in London. The intent was to stay for 18 months, but that turned into seven years while they raised their 4 young children.
“We found a community in Queens Park,” says Lloyd matter of factly about his extended stay in London. “I found a lot of friends who all had kids in the same school. A bunch of writers and directors and rock and roll artists turned house painters. We’d all sit around and have coffees from school drop off until 11 o’clock.”
“I didn’t know what i wanted to do so i started writing songs for some English artists like Passenger. I guess if you are based in the UK, everyone comes through there so you get to work with a lot of great people.”
Lloyd is far more comfortable being behind the scenes than in front of the camera, but he does admit that he still has a love for performing and doing shows. It is the part of the role that relies on him to be a promoter and publicist that he has more of a struggle with. It is probably this reason that he found himself doing music for film and music for TV. That said, Lloyd does suggest that all of his jobs are music related because that’s ‘all I can fucking do’.
After a benefit show one evening Lloyd was approached by Liberation Records to record an
acoustic record. As he had been sporadically touring acoustically across the country for two years prior to that, the timing was perfect.
“I felt that I knew what I wanted to do with it and it came together really easily. It only took me three weeks to make and I am very happy with it. I got to play with the arrangements and I could hear where I wanted them to go. Amazing was tricky because so many people know the arrangement of the pop version. The voice people knew on that song was of a 22 year old and I don’t sound like that any more. I have always had an affinity with blues music and my voice is more gravelly these days.”
For Lloyd, Acoustica feels like the closing of one chapter and hopefully the beginning of another as he is writing music for himself again and is filled with passion about where this may take him.
“I spent about eight years writing for other people and now I am starting to write songs for myself that I feel really passionately about. I am not saying people are going to love them and will take the world by storm, but I am writing songs that make me feel good. It has been a while since I could say that when I am writing songs for just me.”
Last week Lloyd played Amazing as part of the Brownlow Medal as the AFL were celebrating the recently retired footballers. It is a performance that garner some criticism on twitter. While these occasions often see a musician on a hiding to nothing, Lloyd is philosophical about the evening.
“I thought that I sung great, but there were probably some people out there who think that I didn’t, so what are you going to do. The whole room applauded and people bought me drinks at the end of the night. I don’t think that there is much more that I could have done that what I did. People wanted to hear a 22 year old Alex Lloyd and I’m not that person any more. I sound a bit different. If there is one thing that I have learnt in the music business, is that you can’t please all people all of the time. You going to have lovers and you are going have haters.”
