In an exclusive interview with A&R Factory, Alexander Yearns spoke from the fragile threshold between isolation and expansion, where songs become small acts of survival, longing, and self-recognition. In this interview, he reflects on writing from solitude, the emotional temperature of long-distance love, and the pull towards a life that feels more electric, open, and creatively alive. He also explores the intimacy of solo performance, the way older songs change shape as the artist changes, and why stripped-back storytelling can reveal the deepest nerve of a lyric.
Your Brooklyn Music Kitchen headline show feels like a major marker in your evolution as a live artist. What makes this performance feel especially pivotal for you?
This performance feels pivotal because it’s probably the clearest reflection yet of who I am as an artist right now. For a long time, I was still figuring out how to merge all the different parts of myself — the songwriter, the live performer, the storyteller, and the person behind all of it. This show feels like a moment where those worlds are finally meeting in a very honest way.
Headlining a room like Brooklyn Music Kitchen also carries emotional weight for me because Brooklyn has been such an important place in my creative life, as all of my studio albums were recorded there. There’s a certain intimacy to this performance that makes it feel different from past shows. I’m leaning more into vulnerability, simplicity, and connection rather than trying to make everything bigger or louder.
I’m also introducing unreleased material that represents where I’m heading creatively, while revisiting older songs through a completely different lens. In that sense, the night really feels like a bridge between past and future — a snapshot of transition, growth, and becoming more comfortable in my own voice as both a songwriter and performer.
You’ll be sharing unreleased material during the set, which always carries a certain electricity in the room. What elements of your personal world have bled into these new songs?
A lot of these new songs were born out of isolation. I’ve been living alone and pretty isolated for almost two years now, and I think you can hear that in the intimacy and softness of the writing. These aren’t songs that came from chaos or crowded rooms — they feel very quiet and close to the chest. You can almost tell they were written sitting alone on my couch late at night. There’s a stillness to them that reflects the environment I’ve been living in emotionally and physically.
At the same time, there’s also this strong desire running through the music to break free from that isolation — to create a life that feels bigger, more electric, more alive. A lot of the songs sit in that tension between comfort and restlessness. I think I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting over the last couple years, and now there’s this growing pull toward movement, connection, and transformation.
Another major part of the subject matter is love, especially through the lens of a long-distance relationship. It introduced a kind of yearning and longing that I honestly hadn’t experienced before. When someone you care about deeply exists out of reach, it changes the emotional temperature of everything. That feeling has absolutely bled into the music. A lot of these songs are reaching for closeness — emotionally, physically, spiritually — and trying to make sense of distance at the same time.
This performance leans into a more intimate, stripped-back format. What does that solo setting allow you to reveal in the music that a fuller arrangement might leave buried?
I think the strength and emotional impact of my music has always lived most deeply in the lyrics and the voice, and a solo setting naturally brings those elements to the surface. When it’s just me and a guitar, there’s nothing competing with the emotional core of the song. Every lyric lands differently. Every small change in vocal delivery matters more. The intimacy becomes unavoidable in the best way.
I’ve been exploring the possibility of playing full band shows again, and I still love the energy and scale that comes with that, but honestly, I’ve never felt closer to my solo set than I do right now. Lately, at home, I’ve been trying to play two or three full sets a day just to deepen my relationship with the format and really live inside the songs. It’s become a kind of ritual for me.
It also brings me back to how I started as an artist. Before anything else, it was always just me alone with a guitar, trying to communicate something real to a room. That still feels like the truest version of myself on stage. There’s a feeling of complete control over the moment in a solo performance that I don’t experience the same way with a full band. The pacing, the dynamics, the silence, the emotion. It all becomes incredibly personal and instinctive. I think audiences can feel that immediacy when it’s happening in real time.
You’re also reimagining selections from your existing catalogue for the night. How has your relationship with those older songs changed as you’ve grown as a songwriter and performer?
My relationship with those older songs is always changing. I feel lucky to have a large enough catalog now where I can follow my instincts with what feels emotionally true to me in the moment. Sometimes there are songs I leave out of a set completely because I just don’t feel like that version of myself anymore, or I’m not connecting with the song for whatever reason. Then months later, I’ll return to it and suddenly hear something new in it again.
A lot of the songs kind of come and go from my sets naturally. Some disappear for a while and then find their way back when my life catches up to them emotionally. It really depends on where I am mentally and creatively at that time. I think that’s one of the beautiful things about songwriting — songs evolve alongside you. The meaning changes as you change.
As a performer, I’ve also become less interested in recreating songs exactly as they were originally recorded. I want them to feel alive. Reimagining them for this show has allowed me to strip them down and reconnect with why I wrote them in the first place. Sometimes removing all the layers reveals an emotion or lyric that had been hiding underneath the arrangement the whole time.
Storytelling seems central to this show, both musically and emotionally. What kind of emotional thread do you want the audience to feel running through the set?
I think the emotional thread is ultimately open for each individual experiencing the show to decide for themselves. Of course, as the person creating the setlist and performing the songs, I have my own hopes for what people might feel or discover throughout the night. There are certain emotional currents intentionally woven into the performance — longing, reflection, intimacy, hope, restlessness — but I never want to force a singular interpretation onto the audience.
What I care about most is what the listener brings to the music and what they walk away with afterward. Sometimes a song reveals something completely different to someone than what it meant to me when I wrote it, and I actually love that. I think that’s where music becomes truly alive — when it stops belonging entirely to the artist and starts becoming personal to the person hearing it.
So more than trying to dictate an emotional conclusion, I want to create space for people to discover something within the setlist, or maybe even within themselves. Whatever follows them home after the performance — whether it’s a memory, a feeling, a realization, or simply a moment of connection — matters more to me than my own expectations for how the music should be understood.
How has playing live changed the sound, identity, and emotional weight of your music over time?
Playing live has changed the emotional weight and delivery of my music more than the actual structure of the songs themselves. For the most part, the songs remain intact at their core, but the way they’re presented is always evolving. I think performing regularly teaches you that songs are living things — they shift depending on who you are at that moment and what kind of energy exists in the room.
What I really love is exploring new ways of playing, producing, and presenting the material. Sometimes a song becomes quieter and more intimate over time, while other songs grow heavier or more dynamic emotionally. A lyric can suddenly land differently years later simply because I’m delivering it from a completely different place in my life.
You’ve described this performance as a bridge between where you’ve been and where you’re heading next. What parts of your past are you carrying forward, and what feels ready to transform?
Honestly, at this point in my life, almost everything feels ready to transform — both personally and creatively. I think I’m in a season where I can feel old versions of myself slowly falling away, and there’s both excitement and uncertainty that comes with that. A lot of the themes in this performance exist inside that tension between holding on and letting go.
What I’m carrying forward is the emotional honesty and storytelling that have always been at the center of my music. No matter how much the sound evolves or how my life changes, I never want to lose that human element — the desire to communicate something real and vulnerable through a song. That instinct has been with me from the very beginning.
But beyond that, I feel very open to transformation right now. The way I live, the environments I’m drawn to, the kind of art I want to make, the risks I’m willing to take creatively — all of it feels like it’s shifting. There’s a growing desire in me to step outside of isolation and familiarity and move toward a life that feels more expansive, unpredictable, and creatively alive.
I think this performance captures someone standing right in the middle of that transition. It’s not a final statement or a conclusion — it’s more like a snapshot of becoming.
For anyone grabbing tickets, what do you hope stays with them after the set?
More than anything, I hope people leave with a sense of faith — in themselves, in life, in love, in whatever it is that keeps them moving forward. Spoiler alert, but the final line of every set I play is, “keep the faith,” and I think that phrase has become the emotional thesis of these performances for me.
Not necessarily faith in a religious sense, but faith in the idea that beauty, connection, transformation, and meaning are still possible even during uncertain or lonely periods of life. A lot of these songs wrestle with longing, isolation, change, and hope, so ending the night with those words feels important. It’s like a quiet reminder to both myself and the audience.
If people walk away carrying anything from the set, I hope it’s that feeling — the willingness to continue believing in something larger than the difficult moment you might currently be inside of.
Discover Alexander Yearns’ discography on Spotify.
Connect with the artist on Instagram.
Interview by Amelia Vandergast
