Artwork by @mystupidsketchbook
WHO is he?
“I’m ALEX. 23. Been writing songs since I can remember. Most of them never really made it off my phone until a few years ago and apart from my family and flatmates hearing it through the door, I never really shared them with anyone.”
“I was living in Berlin for a while and made a friend who showed me how to record into a laptop and all the pieces kind of came together and since then I’ve been recording as many things as I can and getting them out.”
“When I was growing up, I’d play a lot with friends and we swapped instruments often, which gave me a pretty broad scope of sounds to play with when I was writing music.”
WHAT is the inspiration behind his songs?
“I wrote the current tracks a few summers ago at this transitional point in my life and I was trying to capture that feeling of nostalgia and excitement that comes when you’re moving onto new things. I don’t know if it’s just from growing up in England, but for me those feelings are always associated with summer.”
“With the lead track I Want My Friends from forthcoming EP Patterns, I was actually biking down this canal in London and the whole thing just kind of came to me. I pulled up on the side and recorded it into my phone. Musically I wanted a real summery sound, I was listening a lot to that JAMIE XX track Gosh which for me captures that feeling, a weird kind of mix between happiness and nostalgia.”
WHERE did he grow up?
“I grew up just outside Cambridge in a small village. It’s pretty isolated and not much went on really, which I think actually helped a lot with being creative. Being bored after school meant that I was jamming with friends and messing around with music, rather than going and doing other stuff. We had space to make noise without bothering any neighbours and didn’t really have that many distractions. I think that spaciousness is still key for me when I’m writing, I like being outdoors and having space to think.”
“In terms of live music, Cambridge is pretty close to London which exerts a bit of a gravitational pull on the music scene, so I mostly just go there to see gigs and that kind of thing.”
WHY the name ‘Haller’?
His name comes from one of the characters in HERMAN HESSE’s Steppenwolf, a book Haller found particularly influential on his creative escapades.
WHEN can I see him live?
“I’m deep in rehearsals at the moment with a few pals, we’re putting together a setlist with some new tracks and plan to start playing around London in the summer!”
HOW can I get to know him better?
Listen: Soundcloud // Spotify // Bandcamp
Like: Facebook
The Five Ws of 