Mathematics, Boygenius & Viral TikToks: Behind The Unexpected Fame Of WA’s Alexandria

Alexandria’s voice is angelic – the title of her breakout track, Always An Angel, is thus fitting.

The single, which interpolates what is boygenius’ most popular song, Not Strong Enough, went viral on TikTok, accruing over three million streams.

She builds on from the Grammy Award-winning indie rock supergroup’s original lyrics – “Always an angel, never a God” – to create a mounting, poetic exploration of inadequacy: “Always the finder, never the found. Always the listener, never the sound. Always trying, never enough. Always below and never above.” 

Indeed, the interpolation is something that she officially received permission for from the band itself. And her second track Fire And Ice, hit over one hundred thousand streams in just four days. 

So it seems likely that this Western Australia-based artist is heading for huge and exciting things. 

“It was originally just a fun idea that I’d do a TikTok,” Alexandria says over Zoom. “I did not expect that it would blow up in the way that it did. I started getting all of these comments asking me to properly release it and I was like, ‘I can’t, I have no idea how to.’ 

She explains the process of being granted permission by boygenius: “I tried a couple of ways. I tried DMing them, which was never going to work.” She laughs. “I tried contacting their label. It took a good eight to ten months to get permission. 

“But the way that it actually worked, I found a producer who worked on the track and I messaged him. And then he gave me their management contact and it went from there.”

But why did Not Strong Enough in particular speak to her?

“I think it’s just the way the lyrics build,” she explains. “It’s just so powerful. Having that idea of the alternating lyrics progress throughout the song, it almost felt like writing a poem, in a way. It also just felt like it would speak to a lot of people. 

“So it was really exciting to write it, but then it was even more exciting to get to release it.”

Her second single, Fire And Ice, was produced by Adrian Breakspear, the Grammy Award-nominated Sydney-based record producer and audio engineer who has worked with such starry names as Gang Of Youths, Pharrell Williams, and Ricky Martin. Alexandria has nothing but praise for the way that Breakspear handled the collaboration process.

“He was so great with his communication.” She saw his name on the credits of a song she loved the sound of, and chucked him a hopeful DM. “We found each other that way... He was very open with me every step of the way, which really made everything run very smoothly.”  

Their collaboration is just another example of her persistent, unshakeable drive when it comes to making music.

“With Always An Angel, I’d already decided in my mind that there was no way I could ever release it,” she explains. “So when I got permission to release it, it was already a bonus. And at that point, I wasn’t sure whether I was going to keep music as a hobby, or whether I was actually going to pursue it. 

“So when Fire And Ice took off it was a very lovely surprise. It also pushed me into the direction that I think I always wanted to go in, which was to create more music. It was really nice confirmation. It was all quite organic the way that it happened.”

Alexandria is based in Western Australia – a state which is, rightly or wrongly, often considered quite isolated from mainstream artistic culture in Australia. But, she says, she believes this fact has made her a more "independent" artist.

“All of my recording and my songwriting I do completely on my own at home,” she explains. “And I actually think that process makes the songs just more meaningful for me. And I feel like you can hear that in the music as well. I feel like it’s also led me to meet a lot of cool local artists in Perth, but then also make those connections over East as well, which is also exciting. 

“I mean, with Fire And Ice, the violin and the viola are done by a strings player over in Victoria that I found on TikTok. So it’s been a cool little collaboration of Australians around the country.”

Though her musical star is undoubtedly rising, Alexandria is currently balancing a day job teaching mathematics to teenagers. It is easy to imagine that juggling these two vastly different outlets could become quite overwhelming, but Alexandria is extremely positive about it.

“It works quite well, because obviously I teach and then I get school holidays,” she notes. “Even though there are of course still things to do as a teacher over the holidays, it does give me time where I can get my recording and my writing, all the core things, done. 

“It makes the balance a little bit easier. It is stressful, to have both going on, full transparency. But it’s worked out well at this point. And my students have started to find the music, and they think it’s very cool, which I think is very sweet.” 

It is, however, important for her to keep those two worlds as separate as possible from each other. “I think that that’s the best way I can juggle both. I just go into teaching mode and never really speak about my music. Obviously they try to bring it up, and I’m like, ‘Not now!’”

Music is something she ‘always’ wanted to pursue. “Even when I was young,” she says. “I entered songwriting competitions in year one. In high school, I was part of the choir. I was always writing songs and performing them at those mini school assemblies. I did The Voice when I was 16, 17. And I got to the blind auditions, but I was so terrified that I feel like my voice – which is already very high-pitched – went even more high-pitched.” 

She laughs goodnaturedly. “I got into the top 100, which I was really happy with. But I definitely wasn’t ready at that point. I was super young.”

When I speak to her over Zoom, she is gearing up to release a collaboration – a song called Lust – with indie artist Marino. She explains how the collaboration came to be. 

“I covered his song, The Devil In Disguise, on TikTok, and it went quite viral. And from there, we started reaching out to each other, and he came to me with this song, asking if I’d like to be on it. Which is amazing.”

At this point, it doesn’t appear that Alexandria will be slowing down any time soon. Right now, she is sitting on four other songs that has written that she is extremely excited to release. The goal is eventually to work up to an album release.

Releasing music – an act which inevitably renders one vulnerable, open to criticism, especially on social media platforms, which her career is so wrapped up in, and which can famously be so brutal – has come surprisingly naturally to her. 

“The way I see it, is that when you put out songs, it’s great when they’re relatable not just to yourself but to other people,” she says. “And I think when you have that response from people who say that the music helped them or they related to it, it just makes it so worth it.”

She dazzles the screen with her grin. “It’s been so wonderful to build that community of likeminded people who enjoy the music I create.”