Alexander Stewart, the 25 year old singer, songwriter, and social media personality started his music career posting song covers on Youtube. Now, with over half a billion streams on Spotify, Stewart has appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and Late Night with Seth Meyers, and touring with artists such as Charlie Puth, Benson Boone and Eric Nam. Originally from Toronto, Stewart participated in his high school’s co-op program, at his father’s recording studio. One thing led to another, and the aspiring singer found himself moving to Los Angeles to get a head start on his music career. He released his debut album, bleeding heart, last May. 

“I packed my bags and went [to Los Angeles]. I didn’t know a single person, I didn’t know what I was doing, but I just knew that I had to be there.”

_

You’ve gained a massive following on Tik Tok and you’re well-known within the community. Has the app helped shape you and your career in any way? 

One hundred percent. That app is crazy and I think it’s amazing, and it’s done so much for me. I remember back in 2022 when I started posting on it, because as an independent artist, I was sort of sitting at home just thinking, how can I try to get other people to pay attention and listen to my music? I believe in my music, of course, because I make it, but I really think other people would like this. So I’m sitting in my room trying to figure it out and I decided, you know what, I’m just going to start doing what I used to do, I’m going to post some covers, just me singing in my kitchen and maybe I can get people to pay attention that way. I was making a tuna sandwich one day and I just put my phone down, sang a song and posted it. I wasn’t thinking much of it, but I woke up and I had a ridiculous amount of views, I think it was 20 million or something crazy. And I was like, whoa, I can make people care, I just have to think about how to do this.  

I started this whole series where I was singing in my kitchen, getting people interested, and then I pulled the old bait-and-switch. I was like, “OK guys, I make original music, can you guys please give it a listen!” From then, it somehow connected and I just started posting every day about my original music and it was so validating to have people care a little bit. I would do anything, I would get in my car with friends and get their reactions to my songs. I would film music videos and post them on there and I just started building this really beautiful community with people that I felt really loved and supported by, people that I love and support so much and through that I get to talk to them every single day, which is amazing. I get to go on tour now, I get to meet them in person, it’s all wonderful and Tik Tok has played a huge role in this and I am really grateful for that. 

Have you had to deal with the unfriendly side of Tik Tok or mitigate any bad feelings on the app? 

Oh, completely. There’s always this joke people say about getting on the wrong side of Tik Tok because everyone’s for you page is exactly that: for them. Usually, hopefully, when your videos are shown to the right people it’s pretty minimal, but I mean, I get so much hate, as does anyone who shares their life and music publicly. I remember one time, last January actually, I would say there was quite a large amount of not nice things being said about me. That was the first time I really experienced it to that extent. I remember I was going to London while it was all happening and it was just me and my team, I didn’t have any family around me. I remember calling my mom and I said, “I’m feeling emotionally vulnerable. Would you please come on this trip with me?” And she did — she came to London, she stayed in the hotel with me and she was there for me because I really didn’t know how to sort of deal with it to that extent. It turned out to be one of the most beautiful trips of my life, and I learned a lot from that experience. I learned to really not take what other people say to heart because unfortunately, the internet can be a really mean, mean, mean place.  

This is also why in my music I talk a lot about mental health and it’s a huge, huge thing I stand for as an artist and I really don’t shy away from talking about it. Also during that time was when I released a song called “if you only knew”, about some really heavy stuff. I just thought it was funny, almost, to be having this whole thing happening and people not being too nice to me and then being like, “OK, here’s a song of what I’m actually feeling about my life,” because I think it’s really important to be so open and honest when it comes to mental health. 

You have your sister and your family in a lot of your videos. What does family mean to you?

I can’t even express this enough, family means absolutely everything to me. They’re the three people I have — my mom, my dad and my sister — that I will never have to question their intentions in my life. I know that they love me unconditionally no matter what and it’s completely vice versa as well. I feel very, very, very lucky and grateful to have the family I have, and to have the love and support around me; there’s no way on this planet I’d be able to do what I do now without them supporting me since I was seven years old. The hardest part about moving to Los Angeles was moving away from them, and it’s been a thing recently where basically almost every week I take a flight back to Toronto. It’s almost like living in both cities now,  because as I live here I do the what I do here, write music, and if I have a little time off, I just go back home because family is truly the most important thing to me and seeing them makes my heart so full. I’ve been taking a lot of trips out there to just make sure that I see them as much as possible and that those relationships are as strong as possible because, like I said, those are the three people in my life that I’ll never have to question their intentions and I feel their love so unconditionally. I just love them so much. 

Where do you pull inspiration from for your music? 

I draw inspiration from a lot. I would say that I’m a human that feels things really deeply and I have a lot of big emotions. You know, I do have these feelings inside me and music is a way for me to get it out. So a lot of it comes from heartbreak and relationships, but then another huge part of it again, is the mental health aspect where for the last time I didn’t want to talk about it because I didn’t even know what was happening in my own brain, and that was quite a scary thing for me. But then as I went to therapy and got help, and figured out what was actually happening, I was like, what if I can speak openly about this and hopefully help even one other person not have to deal with it the way that I dealt with it, that would be completely worth it, I felt this obligation almost. 

I put a song out called “I’m trying” about a year and a half ago. That song was the first venture I had into writing about stuff like this. I love that song so dearly and I listened back to it and I was like, “You know what? I love it, but it’s not, it’s not honest enough.” And that’s when I wrote, “reflection” and “if you only knew”, and “reflection” is about my relationship with my body and “if you only knew” was just about how I was feeling. I was just as honest as I possibly could be about how I was feeling and the thoughts that were going through my brain that I was so scared to put out. But, you know, the reaction I got when I put them out was so validating but some people connected, which is also so heartbreaking at the same time. It really just comes down to, very simply, honesty is where I draw most of my inspiration from. It’s just how I’m feeling in that moment and saying it as point blank as I possibly can. 

Is there anyone you’ve ever previously worked with or maybe hoped to work with in the future that you are also inspired by? 

Oh my gosh, so many people I would love to work with that I was inspired by. If we’re going like absolute dream collaborators, my favorite artist of all time is Stan Smith. They had the first album I ever bought In The Lonely Hour and you can probably still hear a lot of inspiration from that album in my music today. Also, Shania Twain. I love Shania Twain so much. My dad is from Timmins, Ontario, where she’s from and we would go to our cottage up there all the time and I grew up listening to her music, so those two are probably on the top of the list. Oh, my God, The list could be forever. I’m inspired by so many new people daily.

One of your latest releases, “put you first”, is about letting go. Is there a special meaning behind this one song specifically? 

I feel like in heartbreak there’s basically all the stages of grief that go along with it, and I wrote that one from the anger perspective because I was heartbroken for so long. You can hear that obviously in lots of my songs, but I went to the studio that day and I was truly just feeling anger. I was upset at the situation and I kind of understood what had happened and I understood I was being manipulated and gaslit, and all these things that I put up with for so long because I thought that’s what love was, and it wasn’t. I sat down and I just wanted to tell it how it is, because the whole situation was unfair and it taught me a lot, but it was crappy. So I sat down, and basically what usually happens in a session for me is I’ll start ranting and I’ll just say one thing and that thing will inspire the song. I ended up saying, put you first in the sense of, all you ever did was put you first in every situation you were ever in. I don’t write a huge amount of songs from the standpoint of being angry and upset, not sad and upset, so it’s been really fun because in my new project, all the new songs are coming from this same place. It’s sort of like liberation, I can be upset because this time it really wasn’t my fault. 

You have a month of upcoming Canadian tour dates. Are you excited to be back performing across your home country? 

I’m so excited, it means so much to me. I’m so proudly Canadian and I absolutely can’t wait to move back. I was talking with my team because everyone was asking me how I want to end the year, and I was thinking that I would love to do something with home. I really didn’t even know what that meant at that time, maybe it meant writing music in Toronto, but then we all came to the conclusion of, why don’t we end the year doing seven Canadian shows and just end it by being where I love. So we put the tour together, and it’s going to be so exciting, and the venue I’m playing in Toronto is The Danforth Music Hall, it’s been my dream venue to play since I was four, I used to walk past it every single day because I lived so close and everyone on my entire team knows that this has always been my goal. The whole thing is going to be so incredibly special. That day specifically, I’ll be an absolute mess. I’ll probably be crying the whole show, I’ll be so happy. It means a huge amount to me to be able to end the year in the place that I love the most, which is home. 

What advice would you give the younger version of yourself — back to when you were posting  covers on Youtube?

So many things. I would probably say, “Little Alexander, you need to chill out and have fun, and stop taking everything so seriously!” Life is long, and you’ll have a million different opportunities to do a million different things. If you have the opportunity to have fun, have fun! Take in the moment. Take in the things that are happening around you in the moment, instead of focusing so hard on the things you want to happen. Life will pass you by, and really special moments will go unappreciated. Take it all in while it’s happening!

Alexander Stewart has an upcoming series of concerts across Canada:

– November 17, 2024 – Vancouver, BC at Vogue Theatre (Alexander Stewart)
– November 19, 2024 – Calgary, AB at The Palace Theatre (Alexander Stewart)
– November 20, 2024 – Edmonton, AB at Midway Music Hall (Alexander Stewart)
– November 22, 2024 – Saskatoon, SK at Coors Event Centre (Alexander Stewart)
– November 25, 2024 – Winnipeg, MB at Park Theatre (Alexander Stewart)
– November 29, 2024 – Toronto, ON at The Danforth Music Hall (Alexander Stewart)
– December 1, 2024 – Montreal, QC at MTELUS (Alexander Stewart)

Like what you saw? Here’s more:

Mark Ambor: Road from Rockwood
The October Releases We’ve Set Reminders For
Kaytranada’s ‘Timeless’ Tour 2024 Kicks Off in Vancouver