It's bleak stuff, but it can be comforting, too. On the songs Giannascoli releases as Alex G, he explores topics like mental illness, the solipsistic effects of drugs, the bummed-out lives of degenerate friends, and the singular pain of missing someone who doesn't miss you back. “With another person it takes fucking forever." “When you're talking to yourself, you make fluid decisions," he says of the song-making process.
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His parents bought an Apple computer when he was in 6th grade, at which point he started writing electronic songs using GarageBand-primitive constructions that he says sounded “like Aphex Twin if he was stupid." His varied experiments with writing music collaboratively, like the “goth techno" he made with his cool older sister or the pop-rock that accidentally “ended up being punk" he recorded with his high school band, The Skin Cells, always led Giannascoli to the same conclusion: he works best alone. School was always a breeze, so he did whatever work he needed to land on the honor roll and focused the rest of his energy on making songs. Giannascoli spent most of his childhood 20 minutes away, in suburban Havertown, Pennsylvania. On “Message" for example, a song from Alex G's album RULES that humbly borrows the melody of Bob Dylan and The Band's “I Shall Be Released," Giannascoli sings, Every year I'm getting older/ every day I feel the same/ and when I feel like I got no one/ at least I can hear the rain. But he's definitely a college kid, and there's a certain transitory, post-adolescent vibe to the space that suits his moody songs, which lyrically, seem to be almost exclusively concerned with the cognitive trauma of growing up. There does seem to be a disconnect between the grungy singer/songwriter and the welcome mats, the bare white walls, the chore checklist scribbled on the fridge in neat, curvy handwriting. For the past three or so years, he has been quietly prolific, hiding in plain sight behind the hundred-plus self-recorded rock songs he's uploaded to the internet under a shorthand version of his name. He insists that the simple apartment, shared with three other Temple students, is not an accurate reflection of his personal identity. “ This is my studio," Giannascoli says, picking up the microphone and waving it in the air. On the desk is a 16oz can of Narragansett and a Nirvana BIC lighter, and with the exception of his guitar and a single microphone, duct-taped to a desk stand and propped up beside his Macbook, there's no gear in sight. His hair-oily, dark and nearly touching his shoulders-perpetually hangs in his eyes. Giannascoli, a 21-year-old Temple University junior, is wearing a navy button-down, straight-legged blue jeans and mud-brown boots. Later that night, his eponymous four-piece, Alex G, will open for Teen Suicide, a Maryland rock band that's aggressively loved by some, though hardly known to many. It's 4PM, a couple hours before soundcheck, and Alex Giannascoli is sitting in his small North Philadelphia bedroom with an acoustic guitar cradled in his arms.
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