Getting to Know Alex The Astronaut

Up-and-coming Sydney-born, New York-based singer/songwriter Alex The Astronaut is someone you really need in your world. We asked her to tell us more about herself:

I am Alex. I’m 20 years old and I’m from Sydney but I live in New York. I’m currently watching “Making A Murderer” on Netflix and I have posters of Einstein, Bob Dylan, and Finn and Jake from “Adventure Time” in my room. My favourite song/music video right now is “Formation” by Beyonce because it’s incredibly powerful and because she is the queen. My favourite people are my Mum and Dad because they always help me to be the best and happiest person I can be.

“Half of 21st Street” is a song that I wrote and Benjamin McCarthy produced. It’s about a postman and a thief who wander around New York after a night out. It’s meant to portray the lure of New York City realistically without rose-tinting it.

Aside from music, I play soccer on scholarship for Long Island University Post. We train almost everyday and it’s mostly a lot of fun, we get to travel around and last year we made it to the national championships. It’s a great opportunity to experience a life in the U.S. and build friendships with people from all around the world. Two of my best friends are Swedish and they have been teaching me their language while I’ve been here. I like learning about other cultures and meeting new people, that’s why I wanted to come to university here. I like surfing when I’m home and being at the beach. I also spent some time programming a Raspberry Pi into a TV receiver and for my thesis I want to program one to interact with the International Space Station. It’s a kids project, but I think I’m going to do some more advanced stuff with it if I can.

Home is in Sydney. I was born there but I moved around a lot. I lived in London for three years, and Melbourne, and now New York but I think Sydney will always be home.

I’m currently studying for my undergraduate degree in Mathematics and Physics. I’m most interested in research involved with relativity and Einstein’s impact on modern physics. The discovery of gravitational waves at LIGO was so cool, and the fact that Einstein predicted that a hundred years ago just blows my mind.

I spend too much time playing with Rubik’s cubes and learning and writing new songs.

It might surprise people to learn that the song was only half finished when we chose to record it but something about it made us think it would be special. I finished the song and Ben and I thought that the postman and the thief’s story needed to be heard.

This year, I’m going to work to play more shows and to share my music with as many people as I can.

Keep up to date with Alex on Facebook.

Interview by Bobby Townsend.