Hailing from Calgary, Albert, Alex Hughes has recently released her new single Until This Fire Dies. Alex’s dynamic and commanding vocals has resulted in over 200,000 collective career streams and performances at Nashville North at the Calgary Stampede and other festivals across Canada. Her debut single “Strong As You” garnered attraction from fans, which led the song to being placed in the tenth spot on the most downloaded indies on Canadian Country Radio in its first week. Since then, Alex has placed #12 in the esteemed "Project WILD'' competition hosted by WILD 95.3 (2022) and was nominated for 2022 Horizon Female Artist of the Year from Country Music Alberta. With this latest release we caught up with Alex to find out more about her latest release
What is the story behind the new song? “Until This Fire Dies” is about intense and undeniable passion that eventually burns into love. You wrote the song with Aaron Pollock, what was the writing process like for this track? Aaron is one of my favourite collaborators to work with (and a songwriter to watch!). The song started with a loop of a guitar part that Aaron played, once we had that some of the melody ideas started to flow. It was clear that this song needed interesting and sultry lyrics to match the smooth melody and guitar which we built around the idea of fire meaning passion.
What stood out about this track to you to release it as your next single? This has been a longtime fan favourite at live shows, and I was just never sure if it ticked all the right boxes as a single. I eventually brought it to my producer, Dan Swinimer, and he felt really strongly that this song was special. I love the infectious production he did and the way he was able to take the song to a whole other level.
Have you had a chance to play the song live yet? Yes! Many times! I’ve played it live since 2020 - I actually posted a clip to my Instagram of the first time I played it live with a band if readers want to check that out. I’ll also be posting a video of it with my full band at the Calgary Stampede - Nashville North Tent from this summer so stay tuned for that!
This is your first release of 2023, will there be time to get more new music out before the end of the year? I’m going to focus on this release for 2023, although there might be a collaborative Christmas song in the works - stay tuned! Other than that I’ll be looking to release a follow up by early spring next year.
Having once again been nominated for Country Music Alberta's Horizon Female Artist of the Year, how much of a boost did this give you moving towards this release? It was an absolute honour to be nominated, there are so many talented artists in Alberta and being recognized amongst your piers is amazing. This was definitely a confidence boost for me in my career and encouragement to keep releasing music and performing.
Earlier this summer you played during the Calgary Stampede including shows at Nashville North, does it get better than playing to a hometown ground at an iconic event? It’s hard to put into words how special it is to perform a hometown show on that style of festival stage. It's pretty surreal to get to see friends and family out in the crowd taking in a show that big with the amazing production. It has been a bucket list performance for me for a long time so it's very special to be able to perform there!
Be sure to follow Alex on her socials to stay up to date Instagram: @alexhughesmusic Facebook: /AlexHughesOfficial Twitter: @alexhughesmusic Website:https://alexhughes.com/