Aaron Benko welcomes Alexa Wildish to the studio, where they discuss her musical journey and her upcoming KGNU Presents performance at The Riverside in Boulder on August 4th. They delve into Alexa’s time on The Voice, where she competed in season 24. Alexa’s new EP, After Love, consists of cover songs and will be released on September 27th. The first single, “everything i wanted,” a Billie Eilish cover, will be released on July 19th (Interview date: 7/16/24)
Aaron Benko: I want to introduce Alexa Wildish here in the studio live with us.
Alexa Wildish: How’s it going?
Aaron Benko: Welcome. So happy that this worked out and so glad that you’re here.
Alexa Wildish: So excited. Thank you for having me.
Aaron Benko: Of course. And you are from Lyons, or you’re living in Lyons. It was cool – we just realized that we met each other, or we saw each other, at the Viv & Riley show.
Alexa Wildish: In Moxie. Yeah. Small world. I was like, I recognize you.
Aaron Benko: How cool is that? That was a really phenomenal show. You’ve got a show coming up in a couple weeks, or I guess next month, right?
Alexa Wildish: Yeah. Early next month, August 4th. That’s a couple of weeks.
Aaron Benko: At the Riverside in Boulder and I’m looking forward to it. I think that’ll be fun.
Alexa Wildish: Thank you. I’m looking forward to it too. I think it’s going to be a night of a lot of intimate storytelling, and sharing my experience of my time on The Voice, and also just life experience right now and what’s coming up for me. So I think it’s going to be a cool show.
Aaron Benko: So you were on this year of The Voice?
Alexa Wildish: It was actually last year. They move pretty quick. I think they’re on season 26 now and I was on season 24. So it was just the end of last year I was on the show and it was one of the craziest experiences of my entire life.
Aaron Benko: How different is it performing in a studio like that versus a recording studio. And like, how do you reconcile?
Alexa Wildish: It’s entirely different. But I grew up in an environment that felt similar to that in some ways, like a really flashy environment. I was raised in musical theater and classical music, so I feel like I had a little bit of awareness of what that feels like, but nothing can prepare you for that moment when you get up on that stage and you’re like, where the heck am I? Especially after years of playing my own original music. There was a lot of fear in me that I was like, oh no, I’m going to get pigeonholed and oh, is anyone going to know that I write original music? But it turns out they all could hear it in the way that I was interpreting songs, which was extremely refreshing and I felt really seen. I was like, wow, this is magical in its own right. But there are so many things that happen behind the scenes. It looks effortless when you watch it. And I’m like, you have no idea what was happening behind those scenes. It was a lot. Someone brushing up my makeup every few seconds.
Aaron Benko: Yeah. How much time did you spend? Did you live somewhere else?
Alexa Wildish: Yeah, I lived in LA with all the other contestants, with everyone from ages 13 to 45. There was more than that, it was their families. Just the wildest experience of my life. And I’m like, okay, I need to go to bed at a really good time and take care of myself because the process was overwhelming just in itself. You didn’t know what was going to happen the next day. You got your schedule the night before. So you’re like, am I going to need to perform for people today or not? Whew, it was the most rigorous experience I’ve had musically. And that says a lot, cause I’ve done a lot of things, but yeah.
Aaron Benko: And now you’re playing solo for the most part?
Alexa Wildish: Yeah. I play solo, but I do have a show on October 4th at Swallow Hill, where I’ll be playing with a full band as an album release show that I’m really looking forward to. Once all of these songs are released from this upcoming EP, that’s a cover EP, called After Love. All of the songs are cover songs. They’ll be coming out. A few singles are going to come out and then the whole EP will come out September 27th. So October 4th will be a show with a full band, but I do like to play alone too. I think there’s some magic that comes from that intimacy where it’s just me and my guitar or me and my octave mandolin. It’s a tad vulnerable, but then there’s the beauty of the bigness too. So I like both to be honest.
Aaron Benko: And on August 4th, you’ll be playing solo, just guitar.
Alexa Wildish: Yeah. I’ll be playing mandolin and octave mandolin and guitar. And there might be a special guest, my producer for this record, After Love, and my last record as well. Russell Durham, he might play a couple of songs with me too. Yeah, definitely be open to lots of interesting surprises and things coming in. So I’m excited about that.
Aaron Benko: And what is an octave mandolin?
Alexa Wildish: An octave mandolin is an octave lower than a mandolin. It creates this sort of Celtic sound. It looks like a guitar, like an arch top guitar. It’s really beautiful. Sarah Jarosz actually plays the same Fletcher Brock octave mandolin that I have and so it was a dream to get it initially and I absolutely love it. Yeah, it’s a cool one. Didn’t bring it today. Sorry guys. But I did bring my guitar.
Aaron Benko: Yeah, you want to play something?
Alexa Wildish: I’d love to. So this is one of the songs off of my EP called Alexa Wildish. That one’s already out for everyone to come and listen to, and “Waitlist” was played from that record. But this is called “Magic Hours”.
Aaron Benko: Oh, that sounded great.
Alexa Wildish: Thanks. That was fun. It’s wild to sing that song live ’cause every time I sing a song that I’ve written a long time ago, it comes to have new meaning every time I sing it. So yeah, that one just hit me in a new way where I was like, oh wow. There was a long time of my life that I did not feel like I could be putting myself in the public eye. I was really scared of that. I don’t know why. I think there were just some things I needed to work through internally coming into a place of, yeah, actually, I can do this. When I decided to do The Voice, I swear I’d never been more scared in my entire life. As soon as I got asked to do it, I was like, yes. And then I was like, no, absolutely not. I’m not going to do this. I was trying to hide and it was just not working. Yeah, that’s where I’m at right now. I’m like, okay, I’m going to keep doing it.
Aaron Benko: And coming right out of COVID as well, right?
Alexa Wildish: Sure. Yeah. Where I’m like, okay, what’s happening here? I guess the universe is playing tricks on me.
Aaron Benko: Let’s go for some big swells in here.
Alexa Wildish: Yeah, big swells in my life story. I’m like, okay, I worked on a cruise ship before for a minute. That’s a long, old story, but I did that. Okay. Checklist. And I’m like, now I’ve been on a reality show. What? Okay. All right, life. What’s next? So yeah. Definitely some cool stories from that time.
Aaron Benko: Do you feel like you’re back to normal now?
Alexa Wildish: Oh, no, I don’t think I’ve ever been at normal. It’s a different pace that I’m going at. I’ve been working really hard with an amazing team right now to help work with the amazing tsunami of momentum that I got last year, which I feel so grateful for. The Voice gave me the opportunity to have more people hear what I do, which is awesome. But now I have these people behind me that are helping me, but it is a 24 hour endeavor. I say 24 hours, that’s exaggerating. I have to sleep, but I’m dreaming about this consistently. So there’s been a lot more push. It’s not quite back to normal, it feels like I’ve stepped into a new iteration of my career and also commitment to sharing. And it’s still very scary, but at the same time I’m like, why not?
Aaron Benko: Are you finished with recording? Are you still working on the recording part of it or mastering it?
Alexa Wildish: No, it’s all mastered. It’s all ready to go. There’s a few final pieces coming together because of time and humans, so that’s part of it. But it’s all ready to go. It was such an amazing process making this After Love cover EP mostly because I felt like I needed a way to cathartically process my time on The Voice in a way that would express myself as an artist. I’m a songwriter, and before doing The Voice, I was like, I write my own songs and all of this. In doing The Voice, I got to feel and experience these songs in a whole other way. Like I was living in another person’s song, but telling my story through their words and their melodies. So it was an amazing experience to get to do that in LA with some absolutely incredible musicians that have made a dream EP. I couldn’t have asked for a better team. Russell Durham, who co-produced my last record with Dan Nobler in Nashville, did this After Love and we’re great friends. This has been such a beautiful process. So I’m excited to share it.
Aaron Benko: I think it’s cool that listening to you, you’re not like a covers artist. You’re a musician performing covers. And that’s a very different thing.
Alexa Wildish: I was hoping that would be the case, but I appreciate that. Cause it’s a little bit of a fear in releasing just covers in this record, but I’m a huge fan of Eva Cassidy and how she made these cover songs feel so like her. That kind of sparked my feeling of, what would it be like to really take these songs and elevate them?
Then I got the opportunity at The Voice to do these covers and I’m like, I’d actually like to see what it sounds like to bring more of my style into it. And cohesively bring the fans that have known me from before The Voice in my last record in my original music with the new fans and bring them into my world in a little offering of, I did live this experience. These are songs that are now so close to my heart and I want to make them so that they’re forever able to be heard without all the hubbub of what’s on The Voice, like without a video. I’m like, I want you guys to have it. So excited to get to announce. It feels like it’s taken forever, but again, time and humans, so we’re doing our best.
Aaron Benko: Yeah, it does take a long time. It takes so much time.
Alexa Wildish: Yeah. But again, it was a really cool experience. Some of these songs turned out even more magical than I could have imagined. And a lot of that has to do with the musicians that were in that studio with me that day. And then the heart behind the songs. Yeah, I’m excited. I don’t want to tell everybody what’s on it yet.
Aaron Benko: How did you choose?
Alexa Wildish: Some of it was a collaborative experience. “everything i wanted”, for example, the song that’s coming out July 19th, was picked by Niall, who was my coach on The Voice. And that was part of my battle song, so I sang that with another artist named Lavender. And, when I initially got it, it’s embarrassing to admit, but I didn’t know the song super well. I’d heard it maybe once. I was like, Oh, I don’t know it. And I was like, don’t say that out loud. But after that I became a big fan of Billie Eilish. I was like, wait, hold on what have I been missing? I can’t believe that I’m too late to this party. But it was cool that I didn’t know it, because I sang it from a position of not knowing it and interpreting it through my lens.
So that was assigned by Niall. A couple of the other songs that I did on the show will also be on the record. I’m not going to give away the extra ones, but the extra ones that we did was a collaborative experience. One of the songs I’m singing with a dear friend, Lennon VanderDoes, who is also on the show with me. That was cool to get his take on a cover together. We were just singing that together and yeah, the other songs were an experience of me and Russell going back and forth. What does this record need to feel full? How can I take a song that’s beloved but not overdone that I can give to people in a new way and a new perspective? And then also just, wow, I get to live in these songs and, what would it feel like to sing these songs? So I’m excited for y’all to hear. Those will come out sooner. So it’s happening. All of it’s happening.
Aaron Benko: That’s cool. When I saw what was coming out, I was like, oh, I need to go back and listen to that Billie Eilish song again, too, because I know of her and she’s great, but it’s something I haven’t listened to in a while.
Alexa Wildish: Totally. And it’s a deep song. The way that she performed it was really internal. It’s very subdued and internal. And there’s this really interesting pulse happening behind it. It’s almost mesmerizing, the song. We took that inspiration and turned it into a kind of folk-tinged Americana sound. There’s a dream-like quality to it. I was really excited with how it turned out, and I was like wow, what a neat way to take this and then when I did it on the actual show, it sounds different too. So it’s like there’s these different versions of it. Yeah, that’s fun.
Aaron Benko: That’s the song coming out this Friday, right?
Alexa Wildish: Yep. “everything i wanted” is the first single coming off of this cover record.
Aaron Benko: How many instruments are on it?
Alexa Wildish: Multiple, multiple instruments. Yeah. Many. We went in and we recorded these songs live and then did overdubs for some of the extra things. But yeah, there were four main musicians and then we added a bunch of beautiful background vocals. It’s really interesting. It makes me feel things. And I’m not saying this just because I recorded it. I want to make that clear. But working with Russell is honestly such a great feeling for me because we have such a similar musical taste. Sometimes I’ll be like, I don’t know what I want on this. And he’ll be like, this is cool. And I’m like, that’s what I want on this. I felt really grateful for that experience to get to live in these songs and also interpret them in a new fresh way.
Aaron Benko: So it’s always fun to hear that studio process and how much depth and change goes in after the initial recording happens
Alexa Wildish: For sure. It’s an evolutionary process. It sounds one way and then all of a sudden, the background vocals get put in and you’re like, Whoa. Cool.
Aaron Benko: Maybe I should just sing in a cavern more often so I can sound like this all the time.
Alexa Wildish: For sure, I’m like, my voice sounds cool. Who’s that? Elise Leavy actually did the background vocals. And she’s really an amazing artist herself too. So that was fun.
Aaron Benko: Where was it recorded?
Alexa Wildish: We made it in LA in a studio called 11A Studios. Benjamin Lazar Davis owns the studio. That was a really cool, nice experience. Cause it’s a home that was converted into a studio, so it’s such a sweet little space. But it’s just used for the studio. So I was like, this is nice.
Aaron Benko: It’s not just a kitchenette, a whole kitchen.
Alexa Wildish: I know. It’s a whole kitchen. Yeah. We had some cool fancy coffee drinks while we were there.
Aaron Benko: Maybe I’ll take longer than I expected.
Alexa Wildish: Exactly. But yeah, maybe I can sing the blind audition song that I sang. If these listeners are not watchers of The Voice, I’ll just give a little background of it. It’s a television show that’s a competition show and oftentimes you’re having artists that are from all different genres and all different places. It’s a strange thing to compete against people that are in totally different genres. But I was very fortunate to get to weigh in on what I wanted to sing for my blind audition song. Which means the coaches are sitting with their backs to you and they turn around if they like you. So you’re in a position where you’re begging for one spot on the show. But when they turn around you’re in no matter what, even if it’s just one coach. I had no expectations, but I was grateful to get to mention that I wanted to do “Songbird” by Fleetwood Mac. And I was like, okay, that’s fantastic. Also, I’m scared because it’s really intimate. It’s a really intimate song and it’s not a flashy song. Of course the version that I was so compelled by beyond Fleetwood Mac’s version is the Eva Cassidy version, which heavily influenced my sound of it.
So there were these legends that I was coming after, like Christine McVie who had just passed away and of course Eva Cassidy, who are so powerful and amazing and I was like, how am I going to do this? I was intimidated. So I just let go and I was like, if I get to sing one song on television and I don’t get any chair turns, then I’m done. It’ll at least have been worth it because I will have gotten to sing a song that is so meaningful no matter what. These lyrics basically express how much I love humanity and I love the earth and even though we’re messed up a lot of the time I’m like, I love this place. I love life. I got to sing that. But nonetheless I was extremely nervous. I had never been more nervous in my life and I still can hear the nerves in my voice, but I just pretended like I wasn’t nervous. I walked on that stage in my snakeskin boots, and you could hear the click of my boots only. It was like, ladies and gentlemen, the next artist is coming up to the stage. So I walk on up, hear the click of my boots. I see Reba, Niall, Gwen, and John, all mega superstars, turn their backs to me with their names on the chair. And I start to sing “Songbird”. “For you, there’ll be no crying”. Click, three chairs turn around.
And then I’m shocked because the audience erupts in applause and I’m like, this is such a weird experience. What am I doing here? And I got way more nervous. Then at the end Gwen Stefani turned around and I was like, oh my god what. Where am I? People are screaming during a song that’s not a screaming song. And I look like I’m in a spaceship. If anyone wants to rewatch that first audition, it is funny because I’m looking around like, where am I? And Gwen comments on it. But the beautiful thing is that they all commented on me being a songwriter, which was so relieving to me. I think it was because I sang it as if I really felt it and wrote it. In a lot of ways I do feel that this song is extremely special to me. I have sung this song thousands of times now, we had to practice so many times, I still love it. So this is “Songbird” by Fleetwood Mac.
Aaron Benko: Hopefully not as nervous in a small office lighting room.
Alexa Wildish: Very different experience under these fluorescent lights. Yeah, it changed my life, so I always want to come back and honor it. It still touches me, which is a cool feeling.
Aaron Benko: Yeah, that’s such a good song. And it sounds different, and like the original, but still like a whole new song.
Alexa Wildish: Thank you. Thank you so much. It’s definitely drawn from a lot of these inspirations. Before I did the show, I got to do a bunch of research and really understand the song. And it turns out that this song sits in the center of the record Rumors by Fleetwood Mac and Christine McVie actually dreamed the song and then brought it in the next day. So I feel like it’s this channeled song that is about love and universal love, not just a love of one person or one thing. It’s just love, which is a really cool thing to sing about.
Aaron Benko: Cool. Yeah. I’m looking forward to hearing this new album. I think they sent me The song that’s about to be released on Friday. Yeah. We’ll do a little “everything i wanted” premiere.
Alexa Wildish: Yeah. So anyone that’s listening, this is the first time it’s ever going to be heard by multiple people. So if you tuned in, lucky you. It comes out this Friday on all streaming platforms. And today we’re going to do a little premiere of it, which is exciting.
Aaron Benko: And we’ve got tickets for your show on August 4th. I’ll do that ticket giveaway after that song. It’s at the Riverside? Have you played there, been there before?
Alexa Wildish: No. I was there before it was the Riverside, you know, it’s been multiple things over the years. But yeah, it’s a really beautiful spot near the river as the name is called. If anyone does win these tickets, please do say hi to me after the show. I’d love to hear if you come from this.
Aaron Benko: Yeah. I wonder how big the capacity is.
Alexa Wildish: It’s about a hundred. And we’re doing pretty well on seats. So please get your tickets soon. Cause I’d love to see you there.
Aaron Benko: It looks like a fantastic, fun venue, and I bet the acoustics are cool.
Alexa Wildish: It’s gonna be cool. No idea, I’ve never played there, but, it’s gonna be a great surprise for all of us.
Aaron Benko: Then Swallow Hill a couple months after that.
Alexa Wildish: Yeah, Swallow Hill in a couple months after that with a full band. And that’ll be the record release show.
Aaron Benko: Who’s opening? Do you remember?
Alexa Wildish: Courtney Hartman. She’s fantastic! If you haven’t heard her, she’s also playing in my band that night. Which is really amazing! She’s the best.
Aaron Benko: Great! That’s awesome. For all of you in Denver and Boulder, we’ve got some great shows coming up for Alexa Wildish. Anything else we should cover or talk about? Anything else you’re interested in?
Alexa Wildish: I think I’ve said it all. The only thing I’d like to mention is that if, after you hear this song, if you would be open to pre-saving the song on any platform that you really like to listen to it on, that does really help artists because ultimately it’s going to go straight into your library as soon as it comes out. So that’s really fun for us. And then you’ll be right in the loop as all my other songs come out too. So I would love to have you and thank you for all of your support. Could not do this without you. Honestly. It’s such a gift to do what I do. And it’s just so amazing to have listeners, so thank you all.
Aaron Benko: And it’s been really fun. When Carrie reached out and offered, said hey, are you interested in it? I was like, of course. This is awesome. What a great album. Looking forward to it.
Alexa Wildish: Thank you so much for having me, Aaron. This has been really sweet. And so cool to recognize you, like, oh we know each other. What a small world I’ll tell you. Thank you.
Aaron Benko: Thanks so much Alexa and appreciate you coming in and looking forward to seeing you either at the Riverside on August 4th or down in Swallow Hill later in the fall.
Alexa Wildish: Yes, I would love that. One of those would be wonderful.
Great to see you.
Aaron Benko: Let’s hear “everything i wanted” from your new EP coming up.
Alexa Wildish: Thank you.
