SNQLX: You wrote your first original song at twelve and called it “Thanatos.” What does that song sound like in your memory — and would you ever play it for anyone?

ALYSSA: Oh, what a deep cut! Around that time I was really into bands like Melvins, PJ Harvey, and Nirvana. It was just before I discovered Iggy Pop and the whole Detroit to NYC pipeline of music. Thanatos is quite brooding and grungey like the music I was listening to. I think it accurately represents who I was during that time. I would play it if I was in the right mood. It’s still in the vault just needs to be dusted off, haha. 

SNQLX: Open mics and jams were your classroom before anything else. What did those rooms teach you that no lesson ever could?

ALYSSA: Open mics are essential in advancing your career. I was really exploring every open mic in my radius around the ages of twelve and thirteen. These places were where I learned how to play with others and build my own confidence as a musician. Forming a good connection with other musicians is such an important thing. Music scenes are always thought to be cut throat, but they don’t have to be. The first big show I ever did was at The Farm in Eureka Springs, Arkansas- all thanks to an open mic night. I’m now living and playing music here in France and Europe- and even that comes down to an open mic night. 

SNQLX: You were playing your first real gig at thirteen. What did you understand about yourself in that moment that you hadn’t understood the day before?

ALYSSA: I was only thirteen and had just been playing open mics so it felt much bigger to have my own show than it probably was. I was always the strange and awkward character in school and in my age group. I didn’t really like anything that anybody else liked and I always naturally gravitated to music. I realized in that moment I finally felt comfortable somewhere. I knew that this was much more than a simple hobby for me- I wanted it to be more. During classes we had to sit around thinking about what we wanted to “be”. Besides being a musician, I just kept drawing blanks.

SNQLX: Your influences — Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, Elliott Smith, Melanie Safka, Nina Simone — are writers who made confession feel like a form of precision. When you write, what are you trying to be precise about?

ALYSSA: In my songwriting I have finally reached a place where I don’t sit and think about what I will write, it just falls out onto the page. Starting out I had this false idea that there were rules to songwriting and that you needed to fill in all these boxes. Lou Reed is who changed my idea of songwriting and a random excerpt I read about Williams S. Burroughs who challenged everyone’s ideas on writing during the 1950’s. Once I realized that I could just write whatever I wanted and stop worrying about sounding like anyone else, I could never stop writing. I like to tell stories of myself or others. I like to be detailed and I like to be vague. I like when I can write something that means something totally different to someone else than it may to me. Tom Waits inspires my storytelling and cryptic ideas while Elliott Smith brings out the more personal and melancholy qualities that I possess. My brain has absorbed everything I’ve ever listened to and distributed it in all of my work. 

SNQLX: You’ve said your songs come from things you see, hear, and experience — whatever is around you. What’s something you’ve witnessed that became a song you weren’t expecting to write?

ALYSSA: Oh, that’s very interesting and difficult to answer. I’ve written songs about so many people around me. If you’ve ever been close in my life, chances are there is a song about you somewhere. I never expected to move across the world and travel several places sharing my music so quickly. I practically turned eighteen and began chasing down this dream wherever it led me. Looking back at all the songs I’ve written about people I’ve met or the places I’ve been, I never would have expected to have the opportunity to ever write these songs in the first place. 

SNQLX: Where does a song start for you — a sound, a feeling, a line, a memory? Walk me through the very beginning of one.

ALYSSA: It’s always a melody and it usually comes whenever I’m the furthest from my guitar. Sometimes I’ll be in the supermarket and have this idea and run into an empty corner so I can record it on my phone. I’ve had too many ideas get lost because I believe that I’ll remember them and then I don’t. An idea for either a chorus or a verse will come and then words naturally start to fit together. I’ve noticed that if I let the first lyrical idea that comes to mind stay, that the songs are better that way. So it really is whatever first comes to mind comes out. Of course I’ll tweak it here and there but I have rarely changed the idea completely later on, I always feel like I’m losing the authenticity of the song when I do that. Almost like “that’s not how it’s supposed to go” before it’s even finished. I always finish a song on the guitar, I’ll add the chords as they fit and then really build it. I always finish songs very quickly, I don’t like to let them sit too long because then I find I am in a completely different mindset when I come back to it, so it may not match fluidly. There’s been a few times where I’ll come back to them and they’ll be better than before. 

SNQLX: Is there a song you’ve written that you still don’t fully understand? One that arrived before you knew what it meant?

ALYSSA: Oh absolutely. I think there’s been several that way. Some unreleased ones recently that I wrote out of an anger or frustration that I didn’t realize I even had. 

SNQLX: Your home base has been shifting between Missouri and France. How do those two places pull on you differently — creatively, personally, in the gut?

ALYSSA: Missouri and France differ in a lot of ways but they’re actually very similar in others. I’ve noticed that wherever I am, I always find myself missing where I am not. I’ve been in France for a long while now so I see the Ozarks everywhere I go. I never thought I’d write so many honky tonk songs about missing country music and all it has to offer. Just like when I’m back in Missouri I find myself thinking about all of the mysteries the old architecture of France holds and all of the interesting characters that have started to shape who I am as I enter my 20s. There’s a constant homesick no matter where I am. Missouri is my familiar and comfortable youth while France is that uncomfortable yet necessary push into the rest of my life. 

SNQLX: Playing for audiences in France, Croatia, across the US — audiences who may come to the music from completely different starting points — has that changed how you think about what a song needs to do?

ALYSSA: Playing for various audiences in various locations has only further proved to me that music is a language of the world. While lyrics tell the story and allow individuals to relate, the emotion that is conveyed through the instruments and the voice can touch anyone anywhere. It’s only the performer who can shape what a song will do. A song is a tool and the performer has the opportunity to present it in any way. When you’re connected with your music, the audience can feel it.

SNQLX: You recorded Darling with French musicians and a French arranger. What did that collaboration ask of you that working alone or in Missouri hadn’t?

ALYSSA: Writing and recording an album in France was another one of those things that uncomfortably pushed me forward. I no longer had the safe haven of my parents or the friends I grew up with. I was in a position where I needed to be vulnerable with people I had recently grown to know. My partner, Matéo Perfetti, and I met apart of the Pinetop Perkins Foundation masterclasses in Clarksdale, Mississippi. He was an exchange student from France and I was I was just me from Missouri. After that connection I followed him to his home in France and we crafted our first album “Darling” which he arranged and produced. I wrote all of these songs and he sprinkled magic all over them. It was a whole new side of myself that I could finally explore, a step towards no limits. We began to find our sound and our rhythm that makes us, us. My touch and inspiration has always favored classic and vintage sounds. With Matéo’s modern ideas it really blended and became something new. 

SNQLX: You and Matéo make music together and build a life together. Where do those two things overlap in ways that surprise you, and where do they stay completely separate?

ALYSSA: Working together in music and being married has definitely made our relationship different than the average relationship. Our work is always front and center. We’re working for the same dream. I don’t believe it is ever truly separate and could ever truly be separated. Everything we do always comes back to our songs, our shows, our brand. It’s a positive connection though. When we work, we work separate and then come together. So it’s a balance that proves itself.

SNQLX: When Matéo arranges one of your songs — takes something you wrote alone and expands it — what does it feel like to hear it come back to you transformed?

ALYSSA: It’s always so interesting. I give him complete freedom to arrange as I have my complete freedom to compose. When writing and arranging together there can tend to be things we may not want to do and the other may want to. To avoid dealing with this kind of “conflict”, giving each other our separate spaces to work has proven to have the best results. Many times what Matéo does is completely unexpected yet perfect for the songs. One of my favorite things is to see how he interprets the song and how well it matches and blends the things we both like. 

SNQLX: You’ve been in rooms with musicians who carry decades of history and hard-won stories. What’s something one of them told you that has stayed with you?

ALYSSA: I’ve had the opportunity to learn from and work with Bob Margolin who was Muddy Waters guitarist for several years. Bob played with lots of incredible artists including The Rolling Stones. I’ve heard several stories from him like when he opened for The Velvet Underground but would’ve rather seen The Doors who were performing the same night up the road. He’s the kind of  guy who does exactly what he wants when he wants to do it. Hanging out with all of those old blues musicians in Clarksdale, Mississippi taught me lots of things. I always remember hearing that if you don’t feel the music, then what’s the point? Everything always comes down to authenticity, anyone can spot it from a mile away. I’ll always be thankful that I had the chance to talk and sit in with them.

SNQLX: What do you want Darling to have meant — not to audiences, not commercially — to you, personally, ten years from now?

ALYSSA: Darling was just the beginning. In ten years I’d like to look back and think about just how far we’ve come. Now I look back and I flinch knowing that our next album blows our previous self production out of the water. When more time passes I’m sure I’ll be glad to see how much we changed, because it once was me. It just only grew from there.

SNQLX: What part of who you are as an artist do you feel like people haven’t seen yet?

ALYSSA: Our newest album “Faces” released March 27th and really showcases a side of myself and my work with Matéo that hasn’t been shown before. We had the opportunity to record the record at Les Studios Saint Germain in Paris, France with renowned French producer Jean-François Berger. Working with Jean-François has been an absolute honor and working beside him and Matéo has allowed me to do exactly what I want and bring ideas to light that I would’ve been too afraid to before. With this new album I think people will be surprised to see a slight shift in direction. For me, it’s always been me, but this time without any limitations at all. Drawing inspiration from The The, Supertramp, and Michael Jackson in some aspects and Iggy Pop, Tom Waits, and Fiona Apple in others. I just can’t wait to get it out there and show all of the hard work we’ve been putting into this.