By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Country singer-songwriter Alexandra Kay has blazed her musical journey on a twisted path through bars, YouTube, and TV realty shows.
Kay scored attention with her YouTube videos, especially her version of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene.”
That led to an appearance on “The Voice.” She’d already competed on “American Idol.” All that helped prepare her for her role on Netflix’s reality series “Westside.”
Now Kay is hitting the road, tapping into her roots, and giving her fans a more intimate look at aspiring country star Alexandra Kay during her “Dive Bar Dreamer Tour.” The third stop on the tour will be at Howard’s Club H, Monday, July 8. The doors open for the show at 6 p.m., with music starting at 7 p.m. Tickets are $15.
The tour borrows its name from Kay’s original song. She remembers the song coming to her quickly, growing out of frustration.
She was back home after being eliminated from “The Voice” in 2017. “I was still getting calls from my friends in competition, and they were still moving forward,” Kay said.
She seemed instead to be moving backwards. “I’d gone back to playing the same bar circuit I’d been playing for years.”
That was a necessity. “I was putting food on the table and money in my pocket.”
Still playing cover songs in places where no one was listening was “soul-crushing,” she said.
Sitting on her porch, thinking about this, she wrote “Dive Bar Dreamer” in 10 minutes. The song captured her disappointments, fears, and hope.
Looking back Kay believes that “The Voice” was a blessing, “God’s way of preparing” her for what was next. “It’s an insane story. It could have only been God’s work. There’s no other explanation how it happened.”
One evening she was heading into a club for a gig when she got a call from a friend in Los Angeles. A fellow performer, Scott Springer was driving for Uber to make ends meet. He’d just had “the craziest Uber ride.”
His fare was a music producer who was on his way to an audition. Netflix was producing a new entertainment-based reality show, and they were looking for one more cast member. Specifically the show wanted a female country artist.
When Springer heard that, he pulled over and showed him Kay’s videos. The producer loved what he heard, Springer told her.
Kay thanked him, went on to play, then she got the call to join the cast of “Westside.”
Growing up, Kay didn’t intend to become a singer-songwriter. She and her two sisters played softball, seriously. The aim was to land scholarships and play in college.
Kay did demonstrate a flare for words when a story she wrote in third grade that won a statewide contest in Illinois. She kept a diary, which turned into poetry, and then song lyrics. “Anything what was in my head I wanted to get on paper,” Kay said.
As much as she was keeping her eye on the ball, late in high school she was bitten by the musical theater bug. So when she started visiting colleges, she was interested in performing. She’d already done voice over work. But as a scholarship athlete “they wouldn’t allow me to do both.”
Though she still loved the sport, she quit softball and didn’t go to college. She dove into performing.
“It was really hard for my parents,” Kay said. They’d committed to having their daughters play elite travel softball from age 11.
“That’s expensive,” she said. They were prepping her for this opportunity, and then out of left field she turned it down.
“It was a really hard time for me and the connection I had with my parents.” Given they were not a musical family “it was hard for them to understand any of it.”
Since then she’s concentrated on performing. Her parents pushed her to audition for “American Idol” in 2011 even though her focus had been acting.
Kay was reluctant about the move. “I was so nervous,” she said.
After three rounds, she realized that “maybe my voice is better than I think it is.”
She started posting recordings on YouTube.
One of those, her cover of “Jolene” earned a direct lane to an audition with judges on “The Voice.” Her run lasted about a month — stymied she feels by the song selection — before she as back on her porch writing about being a dive bar dreamer.
“All the time I spent in front of the camera really was prep work for ‘Westside,” she said.
The project was hard. She’d been away from musical theater and acting for eight years.
And Netflix was making it up as it went. It had no blueprint, Kay said. This was the first reality show they’d made, a show about staging a show.
“At first I was really skeptical,” Kay said. “I went in with eyes and ears wide open.”
As it turned out to be “one of best experiences of my entire life,” she said. “I became best friends with these people. We laughed and cried together.”
In the editing room, producers emphasized “the dramatics,” she said. That’s what viewers saw.
“I wished they had focused more on our friendship. That was something entirely of its own beauty.”
Once the show was over Netflix opted not to do a second season, and if they had it would have been with a new cast. Kay headed back to the Midwest.
Working with manager Brittany Adams, she pulled together the “Dive Bar Dreamer” tour.
Backed by Jeff “Schmitty” Schmitz on guitar, she’ll play smaller venues in this intimate setting.
Usually when she tours it’s with full band. This “is just to give my fans a new experience, and just get to sit down and listen to the music rather than me putting on a huge production type show.”
It’s a format familiar to those who follow her on YouTube. “It seems to be what sounds best with my voice and seems to be what the listeners want to see and hear as well.”
The focus will be on her own songs. Kay finds that when she started singing her own songs that’s when she stopped trying to sound like her idols. “When I honed in on my own writing ability and singing my own songs, that’s when I was like: ‘This is my own voice. This is what I sound like.’”
Her fans hear it was well. They hear even more beauty. “It really comes out in the emotion from connecting with the lyrics.”
