Melbourne-based musician Alex Lahey releases her third studio album, “The Answer is Always Yes,” this Friday, May 19, via Liberation Records. It’s her first release since 2020’s “Between The Kitchen and the Living Room,” and follows up on her previous full-length albums “I Love You Like a Brother” (2017) and “The Best of Luck Club” (2019).
Ahead of the release and the start of her U.S. tour, Lahey talked with GBH News about recording an album during a pandemic, the beauty of collaboration and Boston venues. Lahey stops at Somerville’s Crystal Ballroom on June 6.
Excerpts from the interview follow and you can hear the full interview above.
McCaul: How would you describe the album overall?
Lahey: It’s a great question. I think this record is the riskiest album I’ve ever made. Obviously, the process of making it was quite different to the other ones, which I guess was like a risk in itself. The idea of bringing other individuals into creating songs, writing songs and sort of giving those songs direction in the moment of genesis, I suppose, is kind of new to me, but also something that I wanted to do. It was no accident that that happened. It was a very conscious decision. So I think by way of process and also the actual outcomes in the sound itself, I think I take a few twists and turns that I probably wouldn’t have if I’d just made the record the same way as I’ve made others. And that was why I wanted to change it up.
I listen to a lot of music, I’m a fan of a lot of artists, and the things that get me excited about being a fan is not knowing what’s next, you know? Like Paramore: no one knew what that new record was going to be like. And then you get it and you’re so satisfied because it’s like ... when a new season of a TV show comes out and you don’t know what’s going to happen and it’s so exciting.
McCaul: You talk about a lot of things thematically across the album. What would you say is the throughline for the album itself?
Lahey: The concept of the record emerged quite late, which I think is generally the case when it comes to making a body of work, unless you're making a traditional concept record. But I think that there is a concept throughout it, and I feel that the penny drop moment was when I sort of excavated the line “the answer is always yes” from an iPhone note that I had when I was writing that song and I was in a room with someone named Jonny Shorr. We'd written these verses that were kind of vignettes of legitimate things that had happened or were happening but just have a slight air of discomfort around them. But you persist and you kind of coexist with the discomfort.
And I knew that the chorus needed to have a very definite message. I found “the answer is always yes.” And I'm like, “it doesn't get more definite than that.” And it feels good, you know, it feels good to say, it feels good to hear, it feels good to read. I remember when I came away from that song thinking, “I think that's what the record is about.” It's about no matter how uncomfortable or dark life can get, I think that there is something in us as humans to want to keep living and find the zest for life. I think the only way to keep getting that zest for life, for lack of a better phrase, is to say yes to it and hand yourself over to it.
And then going through the rest of the songs, I was like, “this is what a lot of it's about.” It's about those things that life throws at you which are out of your control and you'd rather not have. But if you look through it with a certain lens, you can find the humor and you can find the positivity and you can find the opportunities to grow or connect. And I think that that's essentially what the record is about.
McCaul: You brought a lot of collaborators on really early on in the process for this album, which is very different from what you’ve done previously. What was that experience like compared to your past albums? What was it like working more collaboratively, especially in 2020 and 2021?
Lahey: The one silver lining of COVID was that everyone was available. No one was on the road, everyone was sort of up for doing things differently, which I think is kind of cool. And I think we’re now getting this wave of releases which have come from that and ... there’s some really cool stuff. And for me, I was in the most locked down city in the world in Melbourne throughout that time. And generally, at the best of times, Melbourne is so geographically isolated from everywhere and it’s really hard to reach people in a tangible sense. But with the pandemic and people being at home, it kind of broke down those barriers, so it gave me more access than ever to collaboration, which is kind of like, I guess it’s irony? I don’t know, who knows what irony is.
But it was sort of like the antithesis to what it’s usually like making music in Melbourne. And so I was really lucky that I was in a period of my creativity and a period of “the cycle” where I was writing music and I was able to work with people on the other side of the world, like Jacknife Lee and John Mark Nelson and people like that who would be working remotely on these songs. I don’t think you could tell the difference [between this album and the last].
I guess I came to collaborating kind of in reverse order with the way that artists usually come to it on their own projects: in which artists will collaborate with people on their own project and then down the track they’re like “oh, maybe I want to be the collaborator on another artist’s project.” For me, I’ve been a collaborator for other artist’s projects for a really long time, and so I know what the job is when you’re fulfilling that role in that context, and I really love it.
McCaul: What are you looking forward to with this album cycle?
Lahey: I’m looking forward to touring the most. I haven’t done a headline tour here in the U.S. since the last record, and touring commitments for that record got cut short for obvious reasons. I’m really excited to get back on the road and connect with people on that level again.
I love doing support touring as well ... But there’s something about playing to your own audience. It’s truly affirming and special, which I’m excited for. It sounds like a cliche, but for me personally, I’m coming back into touring with a whole new attitude of just how grateful I am to be doing it, circumstances aside. Just the privilege of doing this as a job doesn’t get lost on me, let alone doing it as someone who’s traveling. I’m not from here. I’m a long way from home, so it’s such an amazing life to be living. Also because it got taken away, and you never know what’s going to happen. I think I have a renewed sense of presence and appreciation.
McCaul: A lot of people are super excited about this tour, particularly this Boston date in Somerville coming up in June.
Lahey: I’ve never played the Crystal Ballroom before. Boston is one of my favorite places in the world to play, quite genuinely. I was really sad to see Great Scott become a casualty of the pandemic. That venue has meant a lot to me and my team over the years. And I know that I’m far from the only artist that feels that way about it. This city really means a lot to me. I always, always come to Boston whenever I’ve come to the U.S. and it’s just going to be so great to come back. It feels like we’re all experiencing this new dawn and I’m excited to have that together.
