Featured Tracks:
“Scratch the Surface” By Alex Stamp
“Trouble” by Alex Stamp
I came across Alex’s music just a week ago. While approving songs for WegetArtists she was buried underneath a lot of Country tracks, but her stuff just stuck out. I was fascinated by the emotional power behind her voice in the song “Trouble” and so I asked Alex to tell me about her music and where most of her inspiration was coming from. This is what she wrote back to me:
———–
Hi Simon,
I’d love to tell you that I’m a full time musician – but I’m not. I work on a farm looking after horses and compete at showjumping. It’s not ideally what I’d like to be doing (especially since I got thrown off a few weeks back and broke my hand, meaning I can’t ride or play guitar at the moment!) but it pays the bills and allows me enough free time to be able to work on songs.
I’ve ridden and competed from a very young age, and when I was 7 I got my first proper little competition pony, called Lineker. I rode him until I was 14 when I finally grew too big for him. This pony taught me everything I knew and I never had the heart to sell him on, instead keeping him as my little retired best friend.
4 years ago I was out for the evening when my mum found Lineker to be very poorly in his stable. Despite everyone trying to reach me, nobody could get through because my phone battery had died. They had to put my little pony to sleep that night and I never got the chance to say goodbye. In the days that followed I wrote a song called ‘scratch the surface’ all about the events of that evening. I wanted to record it so much but could never sing more than a few words without breaking down. Eventually, whilst at Rockfield studios in Wales, I went into the live room and did one live take. You can hear every creak of the old piano and every teardrop in my voice but to me it’s perfect.
Every song I wrote is written out of pure heartbreak – writing music is a way for me to channel sadness. I hope one day to be able to channel happiness in the same way but for some reason it just doesn’t seem to work like that.
I sing backing vocals for a singer songwriter called Andy Ruddy (you’ll hear his voice on lots of my songs) however with regard to live stuff this is as far as it goes. I’m happy to be in the background however never gig my own stuff – kind of a case of
Coyote ugly syndrome I guess! I made it my New Years resolution to change this and so once my hand is fixed I hope to get out there and start playing live… Guess we’ll just have to wait and see…
——–
Alex, we love your music. You are an amazing inspiration to all of us and we’ll do our part to spread your music and make sure you’ll have enough checks in the mail so you can write more of your amazing tracks.