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Photo: Rob Tennent 

Living proximate to the ocean is inherently special, its very sequence of tides, variance in turbulence and stillness, capable of giving life and taking it, is analogous to our lives, and Kita Alexander, the majestic Australian rising pop star, embodies that kinetic, shifting energy perfectly. Beginning with a big wave of early success, partially propelled by family tragedy, Alexander went platinum with her early single “Hoitel,” before becoming a mother and now wrapping up a tour wiht Dua Lipa ahead of another set of music to release soon. Keen to dive into more from this bright talent, we zoomed in across the Pacific to learn more about touring with kids, songwriting, and of course, loving next to the ocean.

OnesToWatch: I have a question I love to open with, because I feel like it cascades into all sorts of other great questions. Why are you an artist, which I would say, right now, is probably one of the most difficult professions on earth?

Kita Alexander: It was kind of an accident. I was just always a creative. I feel like I was okay at everything. You know, okay at visual art, okay at drama, okay at music. And I did some of my open mics with my sister back when I was I don't know, 14, 15. And then just a few people in town started being like, “Oh, who's she?” A few people perked their ears up, and I didn't know I was good enough for adults to pay attention. So then I started googling management. I like the story because, like I always say, I never meant to do what I'm doing, and everything's kind of fallen into my lap in a really perfect way for me, but I still hustle. I’m in my room at like 15 sending emails to people, like I'm hustling, but I don't know what I'm doing.

It sounds like you have my job. That's like what I do, you know? Not being good at anything, but just keep hustling, hope no one notices. And then something happens. 

It has been said to me a bunch of times that I'm the hardest working person on the label, and I was like, what the fuck, me? I've got two kids and a family, and they're like, “Yeah, you’re the hardest working person.”

Love it. It sounds like you definitely had competing interests in terms of outlets for creativity, right? Whether it's theater, acting, or visuals. Were any of those as close to music in terms of what you're passionate about? 

I always just liked being creative. I still paint, I don't act, that scares me. I’ve got actor friends who say I could be good at it, but I'm too tall. At 6’1”, I'll just never fit in the frame, so yeah, music's my thing. Writing is what I love to do. Performing, I'm still learning the art. I still feel new to that because, you know, I've taken time with my kids, and I just didn't do any touring for, I don't know, six, six, seven years. With these Dua Lipa shows coming up, I don't even know if we've got stage club layouts yet. I know I'm only supporting, but there’s all these fun things and logistics that I don't know. 

It’s going to be so awesome, I’m excited for you. You mentioned songwriting, which I always love to discuss. Do you have a strategy for songwriting yet? Do you have a technique you employ every time, or is it varied? 

It’s pretty similar. I love to go to a cafe before a session, put my headphones on, and people-watch, write in a journal. Then I bring in my lyrics and find the story that I want to dive into, or the idea, lyrically. Then we kind of talk about that, find the chords, find a melody. We puzzle-piece in the lyrics. I love finding melodies. It takes me a little bit. I’m not instant with melodies, but like when I get in the zone, I love melodies. 

When you're writing, do you already have an idea of what the output will be? Or do you just go into it seeing how it pieces out?

I definitely come into each session with something I’m really vibing with. I've got a song called “Between You & I,” and I give credit to Tears for Fears because that was my inspiration song, and the producers just stuck too close to it. But I mean it worked out, I love it still. But yeah, I go into the song like I love this right now, today I'm jamming on this. And then there’s the voice saying, okay Kita, we don't want to replicate it. 

Does your music exist as collections, coming from a place and time, or are they meant to sort of speak to each other like chapters in a book? Obviously, like you mentioned, you’ve embarked on a motherhood journey during your career, but how do you sort of approach music? Is it something where you're always setting up the next release, or is it just a moment in time? 

This next stage of songs that I'm releasing right now, “Press Pause,” and my next single. I feel like they're gonna breach my world, so I'm definitely going into more songwriting, storytelling, more guitars, probably a bit more folky here, less straight up pop. I feel like I’d be good at pitching songs because I do love pop melodies. But I also love storytelling so much. So I'm coming back into that world. I mean, right now I'm really inspired by Noah Kahan, Zach Bryan, Clairo, Mk.gee, Maggie Rogers. I’m intertwining all those worlds. This next chapter I definitely feel like I'm honing in on the whole concept. Rather than on my last album, I was writing, and then I figured out at the end what it was about. I was like, “Oh, I see what it was.” So I'm being more mindful of where my headspace is at the moment, and what my new body of work will look like. 

Circling back to “Press Pause,” first of all, I love the artwork. Is this a way of revisiting things? It has a very innocent feel to it, but also it’s very Australian. It's the way you it's almost like a memory you didn't have of Australia, you know? What was the sort of approach with that? You look so unafraid… is this motherhood confidence on steroids, or what is this? 

I'm out of my baby-making headspace that I was in. My whole 20s were just babies, and I'm 29 now. I feel like, as an adult, it was a bit of a blur this last little period, but I didn't really get to do the “youth” thing. It's like that was a time period for my family, and obviously they’re still there, it’s not like “see ya later.” But, the difference in headspace… it feels like now I’m 20, 21 again? I don't know if that's a weird thing to say, but I just feel like I'm coming into myself again and finding who I am. 

With the artwork and everything, we're definitely leaning into just me. That's one good thing about my career, everyone who has worked around me has always said, “Just be you.” But finding that and making that okay and cool is also really hard to do. In Australia, we've got something called tall poppy. I don't know if you've heard about it. But if you're kind of proud of who you are and you're proud of where you come from, it’s this weird thing where people cut you down. So I'm trying to go into that and hoping that the tall poppy won't try to talk me down. I love Australia, and I'm really an Australian kind of girl. We live in a town where my kid goes to school without shoes, you know? 

It's just who I am and I feel like this artwork and this new stuff that I'm creating is really gonna hone in on that. I'm really happy with what we created with the artwork. My photographer Rob Tennant, he's an incredible fashion photographer. He pulled this essence out of me. I think I’m trying to say that I'm versatile and I can go any kind of way, and I'm very free-flowing in that.I just follow whichever way is leading me. But right now, pulling it back and honing back into me feels good. I’m asking myself, what am I doing? What's always been me? 

And I do feel like this artwork definitely encapsulates me. I love it. 

It definitely has an intimacy and realness to it. So, well done and credit to your team. Specific to the song, what does it mean to you, and how did it come about? 

I was in LA, and it was the last couple of days of a couple of weeks of writing, and before I went home, I'd kind of popped myself out like melody-wise. I was like, can I just be me? I’m glad that kind of exhaustion kicked in – I stopped trying to be shiny, and I mean, the song's still hot. I know that. But lyric-wise and melody-wise, it's a lot more “me” than the other stuff I wrote at the start of that trip. Whenever I pull on past memory or current experience instead of going, “this is what the people want,” it's just always the best stuff. 

And we know that from every artist who does that, but I don't know. For “Press Pause,” I was touching on a lot of different relationships and a lot of people around me were going through a lot of stuff. My friends have always held space for me, but turning that around and going, oh, I want to help the people around me and go, hey, we're okay right now. We're alive. We're moving.

That's all that matters, you know, we're not dead, we're here, we're okay. I know in therapy, that’s not always the nice thing to do, to try and stop what they're thinking and bring them back here. But I do think I do that well. For other people, I'm like, hey, look around us. Forget about that shit. We're good right now.  And that's what the song is. It's just being mindful, being in the moment and just about being a good friend and trying to help someone through it. The majority of the time you can't do anything for them, but just listen and be here and hold space for them. 

It works. 

I just need people to listen to me. My mother always used to say, "Complaining is coping," so you just need to let people vent, let it out.

I’ve got some more fun questions: if you could pick the best place for a potential fan to listen to this song – anywhere in the world – where would that be? What would you be doing? 

I would have headphones in – not noise-cancelling – wired headphones, so you can hear your surroundings and be present. I’d want you to be walking down the beach or by a body of water, by yourself, and it's sunset. The sun is setting or it's sunrise. 

I think people would welcome that opportunity, so that's great. You’re about to head out on tour with Dua Lipa, do you have any rituals, or wisdom as an artist also navigating motherhood, for embarking on tour?

You know what? This is the first tour that my kids and husband are going to come. 

Oh, they're gonna travel with you? That's amazing. 

I've been doing a lot of traveling lately. My youngest is four, and she doesn't cope too well with me being away, like she misses me a lot. I’m like, come on the road, it’s a month and a half tour, I've got their headphones and they're all ready to go. But let’s say they weren’t – probably an hour and a half before I’d be going on stage, I'd be saying good night to them. I'm done with you now. I'm like love you, mommy's got to go now. Also, I just did my first singing lesson since school, so like 12 years. So I'm going to like breathing back into my exercises, and I'm going to do my walks. And then I do like a bit of hypnotherapy before I go on stage. I've got this thing where I stand high, and it puts me into like a sleep state. So I do this right before I go on stage, and you are kind of peripherally aware of your surroundings. I've done it side stage of a festival with people bumping into me, and I look like a robot just standing there. But that to me is like okay, I come into myself, and I’m not forgetting everyone's there.

I'm aware, but I'm centering myself. So that's my favorite part, this five-minute little meditation I do before I go on. And I've noticed my Oura Ring will say that’s the chillest I’ve been. My heart rate will slow at the time, which is really fun because it's supposed to be up and excited for going on stage. It's nice to have that little moment. That's like my ritual. I love it. 

Do you wear it on stage as well as I imagine?

I mean, if it goes with my outfit, of course, yes. As soon as you start moving, it just thinks you're doing exercise. I like to look at the stress part of it, but as soon as you work out, your heart rate jumps, and you're stressed. But it is a workout, I've been on the treadmill with my guitar and trying to get my head in the game of going, no, no, you are working out when you’re on stage. 

Yeah, it's a workout. I’d love for your take on the perfect tourist visit to your part of Australia. 

Okay, you’re coming to Byron Bay. It’s a tourist destination. I think it's the biggest one in Australia, but I live there and it's probably the most beautiful place in the world. 

You know, we travel, we've got a lot of friends who travel constantly, going to travel destinations, and you come home and you go, no, this is the best place in the world. It's clean. We have good healthcare. Good schools. The water, there's no rubbish anywhere. It's white sand, it's a healthy community, so you go to the café and you're getting your mushroom coffee, and I love it. I never want to leave. Charlie XX was just in town, we had the CEO of Disney come out to go surfing there. 

I mean the people you bump into, it's such a weird little town. It's tiny. The other day, my husband bumps into Clint Eastwood's son, Scott Eastwood. We bumped into the famous snowboarder, Shawn White, and his wife Nina, who’s an actor. Every time we go there, we're bumping into someone from Hollywood. It is so odd. You just go there and you see the stars and you see a beautiful place. 

Yeah, it sounds like you have your own celebrity track there. That's pretty impressive, you know? 

It's a funny little town. It's like a unicorn place, but you know, strip away the people, and it's the most beautiful place you've ever been in the world.

Who are your OnesToWatch? 

I'm really into country spoken word. I mean, Zach Bryan does great country spoken word, but that's what I've been listening to. Adrienne Lenker, I’m new to her, but she was in a band, I found out. And she has this song called “Free Treasure” and I absolutely love it. It's about the simple things in life and how the best things of life are, you know, coming home to a home-cooked meal and sitting under your apple tree in your backyard. So that's what I'm relating to, bringing it back down to just the most beautiful things in life. I love Chris Stapleton, and then I've become a new fan of Kendrick Lamar, but I mean, that's not up and coming.