If you check in regularly with the the blog, you’ll be familiar with the music of Alex Lusty. The bequiffed tattooed rapper having appeared many times in his various guises on these pages. Most recently for the farewell from rap/rock/punk crossover band Rats From a Sinking ship, and in a variety of guises from Happy Martyr to Frigid Vinegar and Halfway People..
This solo outing from Lusty, while undoubtedly a Lusty release, is an emotional punch to the guts. Musically, a massive departure from Rats From A Sinking Ship. Stark and minimalistic, with heartbreakingly beautiful arrangements, reflecting the mood and the affecting and impactful nature of the album. The lyrical content is raw and impassioned, it feels like Lusty opening his heart and laying himself bare for all to see/hear, it’s like Arab Strap mainman Aidan Moffatt was reborn as a Southern Hip Hop artist.
The mood is set by the opening song It’s Only Real if You Believe It, both forceful & bluntly bleak, lyrics delivered and over a spartan and poignant piano arrangement. Don’t expect things to get happier, this isn’t the album you’d play at your summer barbecue or house party, but that isn’t a criticism. Far from it. This album is extraordinary in so many way. It feels like a personal exorcism of sorts, take the hip hop beats of single Out of Life, for example, the clean, uncomplicated beats soundtracking a heart-breaking tale of lonelieness.
As with all Lusty releases, despite to starkness of this release, and like the aforementioned Arab Strap, there are plenty of popular culture references and dark humour contained within his lyrics. Take the start of You Don’t Come to My Funeral, I’m pretty sure the bridal veil reference is related to The Smiths, then their are links to Cheryl Cole, Elvis and The Village People, and a namecheck for homoerotic magazine Honcho, all within the first few lines. More sorrowful piano, and a subtle trip hop beat all coming together with the heartbreaking lyric for another stirringly poignant song.
Me, The Bogeyman is I enlists a haunting female backing melody for added near tear inducing impact, the lyrics for We’ve All Gotta Be Someone, Somewhere maintaining this feeling “pyjamas in the daytime, torn bag for life from Lidl, the best place for fag butts is outside the hospital…I hold my breath and sit on the bottom of rivers every time I feel like running with scissors…”. This isn’t a record for the faint of heart. Each time you think your disposition haven’t been dealt enough blows, there comes another emotive punch to the solar plexus
The Cheryl references go as far as a cover of Fight for This Love, so radically different from the original that on first listen I didn’t realise it was such. Slowed down and with a echoing plaintive piano the only music, I initially thought Lusty had merely borrowed the line from the chorus. Piano forms the backbone of Bleed for Me too, added acoustic guitar, somehow making it even more heartrending. While Help the Poor Struggler builds on themes running through the album “I only leave this house if I really have to”.
Every single song on this album draws you in, grabbing you by the heart strings and squeezing the breath out of your body, whether it be connecting with a lyric, or being mesmerised by the sparse song arrangements. I’m sure there are times I forgot to breath on first listen. The closing brace of songs Recounting of a Love Dismembered and Letters From a Deadman takes the raw sensitivity from the the previous 12 tracks and packs it all into two final songs, taking the intensity factor up to the max, Recounting… snapping the very last of your raw and tender heartstrings before Letters From a Dead Man’s dramatically climaxes with a declaration “I burn the candle at both ends” before bursting into a cacophony of noise, then all is quiet.
I may have just sat for a moment not knowing what had just happened before I could move again. Then what did I do? I stood up and pressed play to put myself through it all once again.
Alex Lusty took some time to answer a few questions about his music…
Ginger Quiff: Never one to stand still stylistically, I’m Going to Make Your Death All About Me is radically different from Rats From a Sinking Ship. Before I ask more about the new album, what was the reason for the demise of Rats?
Lusty: My problem is, I can never just stand still. My mind is constantly racing with ideas, so I think it was a case of working at different paces. IGMYDAAM was an album I had wanted to make for years now and an album I could only make alone to make it as authentic as I wanted. Also, although I am extremely proud of the RFASS back catalogue, six albums, and two EPS in seven years despite Jamie and I living two hundred miles apart, there’s only so long you can bang the same drum before you can make everyone listen. The door is always open, there were no creative differences or accusations of one or the other hiding the money from the hug and the pint gig under the mattress!
GQ: Lyrically, you’ve never been afraid to speak your mind on a variety of topics, animal rights, mental health, politics…This new record hit me straight in the feels, both lyrically and in the minimalistic arrangements. It feels very personal. Like a baring of your soul. How did it feel to write these songs? What inspired you to write this album?
Lusty: I’ve never been one to hide my feelings or not talk about any sort of issue. You can trace that throughout my career. This is my 18th album I’ve made and on every one, you will see I am forever the underdog. I’m lucky enough to be able to say no topic or feeling is taboo, I know unfortunately not everyone is able to be the same. This was a record that needed to be made, for me. I have struggled with mental health and depression all my life. I’ve played for 25,000 people at one event without a single butterfly in my stomach, I thrive on it. However, put me in a room with three or four people and my anxiety can go through the roof!
It is definitely the most personal record I have ever made, and I’m very proud of it. It was quite cathartic, writing the whole thing and producing it alone, something I’d never done before. As we speak, the follow-up is already halfway through, and I plan on releasing it before the end of the year. Then I’ll begin work on the follow-up to that. The inspiration came from all those bands and artists I love who have also never shied away from their demons. Morrissey of course, Radiohead, Arab Strap they have all played their part in me making this album.
GQ: Once you have written songs with such personal themes, how does it feel when you come to verbalise them when recording, and finally putting them out there in the public domain?
Lusty: Aside the usual trepidation of how it will be received, you kind of feel a massive sense of relief. Like a bag of cement has been lifted from each shoulder. It’s like collecting all your thoughts, fears, memories, paranoias and experiences, loading them into a rocket and firing them off into the ether. The slate doesn’t remain wiped clean for very long however, the rocket is barely in orbit before the thoughts and fears etc are filling the page once again.
GQ: The themes may be serious, but it still has your trademark wry humour throughout. Do you use humour as a sort of coping mechanism?
Lusty: Yes definitely. It’s the British way, isn’t it? Humour, and a decent cup of tea of course. How would we ever get through life without taking the mick out of our situations or putting the kettle on? We’d never leave the house, which sadly I do, even if it’s just to buy more tea bags.
GQ: As usual there are cultural/musical references throughout. I can think of at least two links to Cheryl Cole. What is it with Cheryl?
Lusty: We’ve all gotta have a crush, right? I love Cheryl, that much is pretty clear to the whole world I’d say, as I’ve left quite a trail. I mention her on my first solo album in 2014, Rats did a cover of ‘No Good Advice’ by Girls Aloud on the Glamorous Terrorists album, I wore a Cheryl T-shirt in the Rats Epitaph video and even recorded a tune with a Super Whip ‘Sex, Drugs and Cheryl Cole’ in 2021! And now the cover of Chezzas ‘Fight For This Love’. I wanted to do a cover of it, but also a complete reworking, slowing it down. There’s an Irish artist I like called Trick Mist. He did a cover of ‘Walking in the Air’ from the snowman and turned it into almost a dirge. I was obsessed and listened to it over and over, and it inspired Me to do something similar. I think she’s great, and I love her music. It is good, proper pop music, and I listen to it a lot. I get loads of music snobs tutting and sneering at that. How can a bloke whose favourite band is Half Man Half Biscuit, has seen Morrissey over 80 times and has the Public Enemy logo tattooed over his ribs like Cheryl and Girls Aloud? Very, very easily actually.
Thanks to Alex for sharing his thoughts, not only in this quick interview, but across the very personal album that is I’m Gonna Make Your Death All About Me. I’m already curious as to what the follow up will be…