The release of Alex Hall’s debut album, Side Effects Of The Heart, is the realization of a dream that began forming when he was just four years-old.
That dream was kickstarted after receiving his first guitar when he was in kindergarten. Nearly a decade later, he began playing the instrument seriously.
In the time since, that dream has taken him to hundreds of stages, a home base in Nashville, and most recently, to his debut album release on September 15th.
Before all of that, though, Hall spent his upbringing in North Georgia falling in love with the 1970s outlaw era of country music that he heard his parents listening to.
“I have my parents to blame for that,” says Hall. “That’s what was being played around the house, so that’s what I listened to growing up. You could hear the truth in everything they sang about. That’s something I’ve always been drawn to: the emotion of somebody singing something and making you believe it. Whether I knew it or not at the time, that’s what drew me into their music.”
Soon, Hall was on a path towards making music of his own. Though there were a few hiccups at first, Hall says he eventually took towards the guitar and began connecting with it.
“My parents got me my first guitar when I was starting kindergarten. They took me to my first lesson at the only music store in my hometown. The guy came back out and said that I didn’t know how to read music, and he couldn’t teach me if I couldn’t read. I was pretty discouraged after that. I put the guitar away until I was around 14,” says Hall. “The thing that got me into the guitar as a teenager was the idea of writing songs. I knew I wanted to start playing shows, so my intention was to accompany myself. I never set out to be a real guitar player, it just happened over the years. I connected with the guitar in a way that I’d never connected with anything else.”
He connected with it so much that, with his parents’ permission, Hall began missing more than the allowable days of school to play shows. Facing expulsion, he bartered a deal with his guidance counselor that allowed him more absences, so long as he maintained a passing GPA.
“I knew very early that music was what I wanted to do, and my parents were very supportive of it. Early on, they’d drive me to shows that were sometimes six hours away from home on a school night. My guidance counselor came to me in my sophomore or junior year of high school and said that I’d missed more days than I was allowed to miss, and that I would be expelled if I missed any more days. I basically told them they could expel me because I was going to continue to miss school,” says Hall. “I’m very fortunate that I had great teachers and administrators that were just as supportive as my family. We came up with this plan where they would excuse my attendance if I kept my GPA above a certain point. They knew how passionate I was about music. They saw I had a dream, and they didn’t want to discourage me from chasing it. I agreed to the deal, and being a man of my word, I finished high school.”
It was during those years that Hall would play 125 shows annually, which allowed him to hone his guitar chops and earn respect from audiences.
“Those performances were crucial. I believe that’s where I learned how to play guitar the way I do now. I would play three-hour shows. Being a teenager, you’re not taken too seriously, so you have to do everything you can to get their attention,” says Hall. “It was like my college education.”
Hall was also being educated during his regular trips to Nashville to write songs with some of the best songwriters in town.
“I learned how great the community in Nashville is,” says Hall. “I was a teenager that didn’t live there, and so many folks took me under their wing and gave me opportunities to write with them when I honestly wasn’t ready to be in some of those rooms. I’m so lucky that’s how I was able to learn.”
Those trips also taught Hall that Nashville is where he needed to be permanently to pursue his music career, so after he graduated high school, he planted his roots in Music City.
“I was terrified. I’d never lived away from home. I was fresh out of high school, and I didn’t know a lot of people my age when I moved to town,” says Hall. “As much as the community can be very supportive, it can also be grueling and a difficult city to stick in. I balanced it out and figured it out along to way.”
Though he was making strides in Nashville, Hall also admits to feeling homesick during his early years in the city.
“Going home was always in the back of my mind, especially in the first few years. I was still a kid and figuring out life, as well as trying to figure out an industry where being successful in it is like winning the lottery,” says Hall. “I had times where I had no money or friends, and my family wasn’t here. I got the homesick blues, but there’s something about Nashville and music: I’ve never had a connection in my life like I do with them, so in the back of my mind, even if there was a hint of wanting to move back home and give up on it all, the magic of chasing the dream always kept me going.”
That dream chasing kept Hall busy in songwriting rooms and in the recording studio, with one of those songs landing on an industry heavy-hitter’s desk, subsequently landing Hall a record deal.
“No labels ever told me no, but nobody ever told me yes either. I had a publishing deal, so I was getting paid full-time to write songs. I co-wrote a song called ‘Other End of the Phone,’ and Pete Good, who co-produced it, sent it to Shane McAnally, who is co-president of Monument Records, a massive hero of mine and one of the greatest songwriters of all time,” says Hall. “Legend has it that Shane didn’t even finish the song and freaked out about it. About a month later, I had a meeting with the Monument staff and played them two songs acoustically, and they offered me a record deal on the spot. It was almost ten years to the day between making my trips back and forth to Nashville and signing my record deal. It was an overwhelming, emotional moment.”
After two early single releases, Hall offered his first collection of songs with his 2021 EP, Six Strings, which featured collaborations with some of the greatest guitar players in country music.
“Collaborating with them is the greatest feeling in the world. Vince Gill is one of my heroes. Brad Paisley ruled the radio when I was growing up, and I will strive until the day that I die to be as good as John Osborne at guitar,” says Hall. “It’s really cool that they thought enough of the songs and the music I’m trying to make to put their thumb prints on it. That’s putting your name on something that’s around forever. That’s a huge deal, especially for those folks.”
One of the songs on Six Strings, “Heart Shut,” a duet with Tenille Townes, connected with listeners to the tune of well over 12 million streams on Spotify alone.
“That was crazy,” Hall says. “Tenille and I have played that song all around the world together now. It’s the first song we wrote together of the dozens we’ve written now. Her and I have chemistry together. We’re really good friends, and there’s something about the way we write and the way our voices go together that’s magical. I think people can hear that in the song. It was fun to see it take off the way it did.”
The latest stop on Hall’s musical journey is the release of his debut album, Side Effects Of The Heart, which is the culmination of years of work and dream chasing.
“I’d been working on some of these songs for close to four years. It’s been many years in the making for the album to be done,” says Hall. “I’m excited that it’s here, but I was a little afraid to let it go. I feel like it’s still mine, but it’s everyone else’s now too. I can’t hold on to it anymore. It was a bittersweet feeling, but I’m really excited about it. I can’t say enough about how incredible my team has been through this as well.”
The liner notes of Side Effects Of The Heart reveal co-writes with massively-respected (and even more successful) songwriters like Shane McAnally, Josh Osborne and Brandy Clark; opportunities Hall does not take for granted.
“Sharing those writing rooms is a dream. It truly is. I get nervous every time I go into a write with them and all of these folks whose songs I grew up listening to. I’ll never take it for granted. They’ve become friends, but first and foremost, they’re heroes,” says Hall. “It’s cool to collaborate with them, especially on my debut record, because I feel like you don’t always get those opportunities until later in your career. There’s also the folks who are just now starting to have success that I’ve been writing with for a long time. It’s exciting to have both of those and to share this album with both ends of that spectrum.”
Hall says he hopes listeners feel the same emotions from Side Effects Of The Heart that he felt listening to his heroes as a kid.
“I hope that if people don’t know who I am and haven’t heard my music before that they’ll know who I am as a person and as an artist. As a songwriter, I feel like it’s my job to write songs and stories that I’ve lived, but also to write them in a way where people can see themselves in them,” says Hall. “I hope people feel connected to it and make the stories their own. That means I’ve done my job as a songwriter.”
As 2023 quickly comes to a close, Hall is looking to stay busy on the road, with the potential of more new music on the horizon next year.
“We have a tour with Tanya Tucker, and I’ll be doing my own tour that I’ll be announcing soon. I’m excited for both of those because I love being on the road and playing shows!” says Hall. “We have a few Christmas songs that we’re working on right now, and there may more new music next year. We’ll see!”
*Alex’s music is featured on The Best of Pro Country playlist!*
**Feature image by Dustin Haney**
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