Aleksiah Is Letting Her Guard Down
“I can't think of any songs that really talk about this want or need to be intimate with someone, but not being able to,” the pop star says ahead of her upcoming single.
aleksiah (Supplied)
I’ve had aleksiah’s Clothes Off stuck in my head for weeks, and it isn’t even out yet.
There has been a huge build-up to the official release of the Adelaide pop sensation’s latest single, the first track of hers to be released since she absolutely swept the SA Music Awards. The hook of the song has been circulating around aleksiah’s perfectly curated Instagram account for weeks now, and it is impossible to ignore. I just wanna touch you babe, but I can’t take my clothes off, she sings, her voice helium-light and bubblegum-sweet. She has been offering snippets of the song to her rabid fans in promotional reels, accompanied by cute little captions like, “hi i’m lex and i’m scared of having seggs bc i hate my body but instead of going to therapy i wrote a song abt it <3” In case anyone is unsure, seggs is internet parlance for sex.
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“It is one of those songs that has secretly quite depressing lyrics with a very fun, catchy beat,” aleksiah explains. Laughing, she adds, “I can’t escape the genre. I am her, she is me.”
She describes the song as being about issues such as “body dysmorphia” and “general hatred of yourself, so much to the point where you can’t be intimate with someone that you love, or just with anyone. I’ve had it happen with so many people where I just literally can’t look at myself.”
The subject matter of Clothes Off is obviously extremely personal. She wrote the song last year, and was ecstatic with how it turned out. And then she realised, “Oh, wait, shit. People are actually going to listen to this.” After initially struggling with the thought of being so vulnerable with people the world over, she eventually came to the following conclusion: “You know what? Screw it.”
She expands on her journey to the “screw it” mentality. “At the beginning I was very like, maybe this is something that should stay in the vault. Maybe this is more of a writing exercise for myself. But then I realised, after talking with some mates, that this is not just a once-off issue. There are so many people that have the exact same feelings as me, and maybe having a song out there that literally makes fun of it in a way, or uses humour to cope with it, can make it a bit more accessible to actually start talking about it. I can't think of any songs that really talk about this want or need to be intimate with someone, but not being able to because of self esteem issues. That's why I wrote it, and I'm glad it's gonna be out.”
On social media, the response to the themes of the song has been colossal.
“It makes me feel better to know that it's helped other people, because I've gotten a bunch of messages from people inferring their own meaning of the lyrics. And their interpretations of it are completely different as to what I went in with writing the song. I've had so many people who are ace, for example, so many people who are trans, queer people, people in general just finding their own meaning as to why they can't be intimate with someone. Sometimes it's a body dysmorphic thing. But sometimes it's just like, I have no want or need to do that. My intimacy isn't necessarily a physical thing. And just seeing all these messages from people finding their own ways to have the song mean something to them is really special.”
Channeling her emotions through upbeat pop has made it far easier for aleksiah to unpack some of these issues. “I dance around everything in my life,” she laughs. “I need to use something to soften the blow for myself.”
She describes herself as having experienced body dysmorphia issues “since I can bloody remember. These issues have just been sitting in my stomach for a while. And then when I started being intimate with people and having sex, they just kind of bloomed into this horrible, ugly flower.”
When she wrote the song, the lyrics uncontrollably “poured out” of her. It was clearly something that she had to properly unleash.
“I was raised in a culture that was pretty sex-phobic,” she explains. “And you didn’t really talk about that shit. To this day, I don’t mention my period to my father because he just doesn’t want to hear it.”
Have her parents listened to the song?
aleksiah confirms that they have. “They actually really like it! The parents approve.”
Though it’s definitely an ongoing battle, facing these issues has gotten far easier for aleksiah as she has gotten older.
“I definitely feel a lot more comfortable with it now,” she says. “We all kind of just feel like shit sometimes about ourselves. And it shouldn’t stop us from doing something that we want to do with someone that we care about and love. Or even if it’s not love. Even if it’s something that we want to do because you want to have fun. Those feelings shouldn’t stop you.”
In any case, aleksiah isn’t slowing down any time soon. She’s set to perform at the world-class Primavera Pro festival this June in Barcelona.
“I’m really excited. I haven’t been to Spain. I’m excited to see what the music scene is like over there, and to delve into European music and culture. I’m interested to see if it’s going to be a different vibe over there, and to meet some other musicians I’ve never met before. And make new friends. I hope they like me,” she giggles. Though she is understandably nervous, she is mostly, “incredibly grateful that I’ve been given this chance to do something really fucking cool.”
Until then, we have Clothes Off to look forward to. The track will be out in a matter of days, and the launch, along with aleksiah’s actual birthday, will be celebrated on March 28th at The Vanguard in Sydney.
Clothes Off will be out everywhere this Thursday, February 27th, at 6:30 pm AEDT.
This piece of content has been assisted by the Australian Government through Music Australia and Creative Australia, its arts funding and advisory body
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