ALYSSA GENGOS INTERVIEW

Los Angeles-based producer and singer-songwriter Alyssa Gengos has been making records auteur-style on her laptop for years. Her music is straightforward but elegant in construction and form.

Her new album Mechanical Sweetness will be released February 25, and the latest single, “Cheerleader of the Universe” is out now.

In this brief chat with INTERLOCUTOR, Alyssa talks about her creative and personal inspirations for “Cheerleader of the Universe” and its video.

Interview by Interlocutor Magazine

You’ve said that your new single “Cheerleader of the Universe,” “is sort of surreal; it’s a bunch of associated phrases that form a comforting lullaby.” When writing the lyrics, did you just kind of free associate the lines without thinking too much about any identifiable meanings? Was this surprisingly challenging in any way or was it mainly just a nice/fun experiment that unfolded naturally?

I’m an artist as well as a musician, and I love to connect the themes in my art to the lyrics of my songs. I’ve developed a deep interest in surrealism over the past couple of years, and while I’ve tried incorporating the principles of surrealist art into my own art, I’ve never brought it into my music — until “Cheerleader of the Universe.”

I started writing the lyrics with that phrase (the first lyric, which also became the song’s title) and a vague idea of this abstract being (a kind of spiritual guide), the Cheerleader. When writing the lyrics, I focused more on the rhyme and rhythm of the words instead of the meanings. That’s usually how I start writing song lyrics, but in every other song I’ve written, I’ll go in later and make sense of my rambling, aligning lyrics to a more focused story or theme. With this song, I purposefully left the lyrics as-is. The song is more about a feeling than a theme. Its working title was “Lullaby,” which I think is fitting since babies don’t understand the meanings of lullabies — they just latch onto the melodies. So, to answer your question, this song came quite naturally to me, and was probably one of the easiest on the album to write.

Both your mother and grandmother were cheerleaders, and you were one yourself, though you’ve said you did it more out of carrying on a “cheerleader mythology that my grandma had started. Now, facing the next chapter of my life, I call upon the Cheerleader of the Universe for guidance.” How do you think this whimsical and playful idea of some kind of mythical/familial guidance fits into the overall themes and sound of your upcoming album?

This album is, first and foremost, an exploration of my own life to date and what formed me into the person I am today. This personal mythology of being a cheerleader is something that I latch onto because I think it brought me closer to my mom and grandma, and also closer to some of my oldest friends, who were on the cheerleading team at my high school as well.

Those family members and friends supported me throughout the process of creating this album, so the song almost acts as an ode to them and the relationships we share. Cheerleaders are essentially guides, guiding the audience along with the game at hand. In the game of life, I feel like we all need cheerleaders…at least I do.

Even if the radiant positivity of cheerleaders isn’t always genuine, it’s been a good coping skill for me throughout life’s challenges, many of which inspired songs on this album. In terms of the sound of the album, being a cheerleader definitely influenced the way I write rhythms and melodies. Cheers are essentially chants, and they relate to pop music in the way that they have to be punchy and catchy enough to grab the attention of fans. They’re also pretty repetitive, which goes along with the classic pop song structure. This album is a pop album at its core.

*Mechanical Sweetness*, 2022, Egghunt Records

The video for “Cheerleader of the Universe” has you wandering around a sunny SoCal beach. The production look is very low-fi as if it were shot on a 90s camcorder, which well fits the dreamy nostalgic feel of the song.

Could you talk a little about the making of the video? Was it actually shot on an old camera or was an aftereffect used for the grainy videotape look? You've also mentioned you wore a dress you sewed yourself. Did you make the dress for the video specifically? And who else was involved in the production that you'd like to mention or credit?

All of the videos for this album were shot on a Canon Hi-8 camcorder that I bought off eBay, so the footage you see is directly from the camera — glitches and all. There’s no color or filter edits on anything. I wanted the videos to look DIY and nostalgic, since that mirrors the feel of the album.

I made the dress I wore in that video during quarantine. Most of the clothes I make, I do with the intention of wearing them for performances or in videos, so while I hadn’t written “Cheerleader of the Universe” yet when I made that dress, I still knew I would use it for the album in some way in the future. The ties on the sides of the dress, along with the ribbons in my hair in the video, have a dreamlike (and therefore, surrealist) way of moving through the air while I frolic on the beach. I’ve always been obsessed with drawing ribbons.

I directed and edited the video, and it was filmed by myself, my mother, and an ex-partner. I like to be really hands-on with my videos, since I want everything for the album (songs, artwork, images, and video) to be cohesive.

Mechanical Sweetness is out February 25 - pre-order vinyl or digital now, and buy and stream Alyssa’s other recent singles “Gothenburg English” and “Mechanical Sweetness.”

Check out all of our other interviews with innovative musicians and bands.

Main page photo by Morgan Hamilton