(Sandy) Alex G

A mishap with a recording device prevented the INDY from running an interview with the prolific singer-songwriter (Sandy) Alex G, who makes dreamy, surreal lo-fi songs that somehow manage to also feel preternaturally emotionally intelligent. Here, anyway, is an amalgam of the conversation: Right now, he’s reading Roberto Bolaño (he picked up a copy of the hefty 2666 in the airport because he liked the cover). He found the lyrics to “Southern Sky” in his dream journal (the last time lyrics came to him in a dream, he says, was the song “Axesteel,” from 2014’s DSU). In regards to a picture of him that was recently swept into a fake news frenzy—in the picture, he is depicted with a beer stain on his pants; members of the alt-right mistook him for a youthful Beto O’Rourke and circulated it with the caption “Robert Francis O’Rourke in college. Drunk and pissing his pants. He wants to be your president in 2020!”—Alex G says that he found out about it when an old friend from high school texted him. And yes, he thinks it’s funny. Other snippets of the conversation are lost to the sands of time and errant technology, but welcome to Durham anyway, Alex G. We hope you like our Southern sky.