ALEX HAWKINS

Rising Britpop star Alex Hawkins releases blistering single ‘New Kid In The City’.
Alex Hawkins:
“‘New Kid In The City’ kind of sums up my life over the last few years.”
Alex Hawkins is a charismatic, 21-year old songwriter from Suffolk who writes it like he feels it.
He’s unafraid to soak up a mass of musical influences from Bob Dylan, David Bowie and punk to The Rolling Stones and Oasis, then reinvent them with his own unique brand of raw musical energy.
Alex has been featured by BBC Introducing and just finished a hugely successful nationwide schools tour.
‘New Kid In The City’ is a blistering, riff-heavy Britpop flavour anthem for a new generation.
It’s an uplifting but personal take on coping with life in the big city.
The new single is the lead track from forthcoming LP ‘Young Minds’ (due out early 2024).
It is a refreshing collection of strong, evocative tunes that manages to capture everything from life in a new environment to songs about friends, lost love, alienation, nature and Netflix.
‘New Kid in The City’ is euphoric, but it’s also deeply personal:
“I moved to Brighton when I left school at 19 and headed to London a year later. During that time I felt a mixture of isolation, loneliness, pure joy and everything in between. It was a big shock for me moving to the city from the countryside. I’ve realised how everybody feels these things at some point in their life.”
‘New Kid In The City’ is released via Stonerolla.
Alex Hawkins is picking up numerous plaudits as an exciting live performer.
He’s being hailed as a Bob Dylan influenced alt. folk hero;
yet his debut album ‘Young Minds’ – due in early 2024 – offers a more eclectic range of sounds and influences.
Alex is a charismatic, 21 year old songwriter who writes it like he feels it.
He’s unafraid to soak up a mass of musical influences from David Bowie, The Doors, Tom Waits and punk to The Rolling Stones, The Pogues and Oasis, then reinvent them with his own unique brand of raw musical energy.
Alex hails from the Suffolk countryside and has been playing guitar since the age of ten.
He started taking it seriously when his mum came up to his room and exclaimed:
“You should write a song.”
Alex wrote his first proper song at the age of 12.
Inspired by the first stop on the Monopoly board, naturally enough it was called ‘Old Kent Road’.
During his teens, Alex couldn’t stop playing the guitar.
He began visiting a family friend who was a folk musician and massive Bob Dylan fan.
As Alex explains:
“Things just snowballed from there, I would go to his house and play two of my songs and he would play me two of his songs. This went on throughout senior school.”
Also inspired by Patti Smith and alt. folk;
Alex takes in a very wide range of styles including Punk and Britpop.
Equally fired up by the ‘grumpy beauty’ of Nick Drake and the guitar stylings of Woody Guthrie, Alex is first and foremost a creator of songs.
“I’m not pursuing some idea of stardom or fame, I’m just a songwriter, that’s the process I’m devoted to,”
says Alex.
Things were going well until Alex reached 17:
then came a really tough time in his personal life.
“I was in a really horrible place,”
explains Alex.
He had to uproot from home, leave his mum’s house and go to stay with his dad during lockdown.
It was there he wrote the first song where he could really cut loose and let everything go.
It was called ‘Irrational Love’ and features on the debut LP ‘Young Minds’.
“That was my cry for help. I just didn’t know where I fitted in,”
says Alex.
This turmoil took Alex’s songwriting to a whole new level and during a frenetic two week period in March he wrote 4 or 5 songs a day.
He would write about everything:
mum, dad, his girlfriend, the changing of the seasons.
It was a cathartic experience and pretty much saved him in 2020, at the age of 18.
“Since then everything’s been pretty cool. I don’t view song writing as therapy now, but it certainly was at the time.”
After the low period, Alex secured a place in Brighton University to study music:
‘song writing and music production,’ but the course was too formulaic for Alex.
“They told me how a song should be; it was very much a Pop Artists course, which I’m so far away from and I quickly realised I wasn’t going to fit in there.”
Alex became overwhelmed by life in Brighton and was struggling mentally, so moved back home to his Mum’s house.
From October to November, he took a part-time carpentry job to give him time to write.
During this period he was very prolific, finishing a book of poetry by penning 5 or 6 poems per day.
“I can’t write like that now, because then it was all so pure, desperate and sad. I’m very proud of the first book, but I feel like I can’t even judge it – it’s certainly not fine literature – but it comes from the heart.”
New single ‘New Kid in The City’ pretty much sums up Alex’s life over the last few years.
Like Dylan’s early life, he was constantly on the move.
After Brighton, Alex had 6 months at home, then moved to London (Stoke Newington).
“I was looking to find somewhere different again, it was a kind of escapism. I was in London for 6 months, I would work two nights a week in a bar. I had a really cheap flat. I was working 12 – hour shifts – on Friday and Saturday nights – and had the rest of the week off to write songs”
In six months Alex wrote 200 songs and saved up £1000 to record demos for his first album, which was then picked up by Tracy at Stone Rolla Records.
“I couldn’t go out, I couldn’t really afford it. I didn’t have a social life. I had just enough to pay the rent so I could keep writing songs in the room.”
Back in May 2022, Alex Hawkins was featured ‘In Session’ by BBC Introducing by BBC Radio Suffolk following on from some successful live dates in London, Ipswich and Norwich.
Earlier this year he officially signed with Stone Rolla and played to a packed crowd at Stone Rolla Records Soiree No 1 at The Old Queen’s Head in Islington, having recorded the finished version of the album.
He’s also featured on local TV in Wales, having been mobbed by adoring fans on his recent schools tour.
Alex went down an absolute storm on the schools tour of the UK and at festivals during the early part of 2023.
He was recently voted one of the best live acts at the Deepdale Festival in September this year.
‘New Kid In The City’ (released as a single on October 27) from hotly anticipated new album ‘Young Minds’ captures the excitement, alienation and trepidation of life in the big city.
Songs like the infectious ‘Biro Blue’ and piano-led ‘We’re Just Dogs’ are brimming with yearning, melodic Britpop energy.
Expect songs with driving guitars, plaintive piano and killer choruses destined to become festival anthems, such as the high-octane rock n roll of ‘Wartime Dance’.
Due to the cancellation of a festival date in late September, Alex and his band (a three-piece in the style of Jimi Hendrix Experience) decided to run through five songs including a Marc Bolan cover.
The session was captured at the Boathouse Studios, Suffolk by producer Adam Bowers.
It’s a set brimming with energy and show just how great the band are live.
‘Young Minds’ is a refreshing collection of strong evocative tunes and captures everything from life in a new environment to songs about friends, lost love, nature and Netflix.
Alex has been though more emotional turmoil than most during his formative years, but he’s come out the other side, bigger and stronger, both creatively and emotionally.
The last words go to Alex:
“If I didn’t have music, I’d be completely lost.”