Sitting With the Mess: Alex Ray on Art and Survival
- LJ Portnoy
- 6 days ago
- 4 min read
Messy, fan community, and choosing artistry over the “perfect” life
Article Contributed by LJ Portnoy.
Alex Ray has the kind of origin story that sounds like a dare.
Manchester, Kentucky. A home shaped by faith and learning. A path that led her to law school, graduating valedictorian, and into commercial litigation. On paper, it looked like an arrival. In reality, it felt like an erasure.
“I was losing my hair,” she told us, remembering her first year practicing law. “I was working constantly. I just remember thinking, something’s gotta give.”
What gave was the belief that she could survive by shrinking herself into something more acceptable. The version of herself that fit expectations was not sustainable.
Now, Alex is building an alt pop world grounded in grit, melody, and unfiltered storytelling.
Her debut EP Messy does not promise growth arcs or clean conclusions. It documents the middle of things. The uncertainty. The damage. The clarity that arrives without comfort.
And she has no interest in softening it.
We had a chance to sit down with Alex Ray to talk all things Messy, from the emotional weight behind the EP to the community that’s grown alongside her music. In our latest Underground Radar interview, Alex opens up about songwriting, mental health, and choosing a creative life that feels honest. The full conversation is available on YouTube and provided below.
Writing without resolution
When Alex talks about songwriting, she does it with the urgency of someone used to telling the truth before it gets smoothed over.
She wrote the title track “Messy” with collaborator SayWhen, approaching it chronologically. Line by line, top to bottom, without searching for a conclusion that might make the story easier to digest.
“We wanted to talk about giving into your vices, feeling like you weren’t good enough, and sitting with that failed potential,” she said. “Without any resolution. There was no ‘and then it gets better.’”
That approach defines the EP.
Messy captures mental health as it exists in real time, not as a lesson or a recovery narrative. The songs do not aim to inspire. They aim to be honest.
For Alex, that meant dismantling the illusion that vulnerability is the same thing as openness.
When oversharing stops being enough
Alex describes herself as a chronic oversharer, a survival skill many people develop online. But a conversation with her therapist reframed what she thought she was offering.
“Just because you have an easy time sharing doesn’t mean you’re being vulnerable,” she said. “Real vulnerability is supposed to be hard.”
That realization reshaped the EP. Instead of writing what felt familiar or performative, Alex leaned into what felt embarrassing. Insecure. Uncomfortable.
On Messy, she names thoughts most people keep internal. The fear of being too much. The belief that affection is conditional. The quiet conviction that everyone else is pretending to like you.
“It’s those feelings of ‘I am annoying, I am too much, nobody actually likes me,’” she said.
The specificity is the point. Messy does not generalize pain. It documents it.
A series of midnights
Alex described the structure of Messy as a set of standalone emotional moments. Each song exists independently, but all belong to the same internal landscape.
“I approached it like each song was its own moment,” she said. “They’re separate, but they’re connected by the same feeling.”
Tracks like “Driver’s Side” and “yours to use” trace the progression from attraction to attachment, and the devastation of realizing the emotional balance was never equal.
“‘yours to use’ is realizing you were the one hanging on,” Alex said. “You just have to watch them slip away.”
The EP does not moralize those moments. It allows them to exist as they were experienced, without apology or correction.
Sound shaped by instinct
Sonically, Alex lives in the tension between grit and clarity. Distorted guitars sit alongside softer textures, while melody and narrative remain central.
She gravitates toward sounds that feel worn in rather than polished. In the studio, she pushed production choices until they matched the emotional weight of the lyrics.
Even when the instrumentation leans modern, the songwriting stays grounded in storytelling. The melodies hold their shape on their own, built to carry meaning as much as sound.
Alex Ray on leaving a life that looked right
Alex does not romanticize her time in law.
“It’s a weird feeling to have what so many people want and want to throw it away,” she said.
Living that life fully clarified what she already suspected. Without doing it, she believes she would have continued wavering.
“Now I know I can’t,” she said.
Art was not something she could return to casually. It was the only place she could exist without fragmenting herself. That certainty drives her work now, not as fantasy, but as necessity.
“There really is not another option for me,” she said.
Community before the music
Before releasing her own work, Alex rebuilt her relationship with music as a fan. Through YouTube, streaming, and Discord, she created a community rooted in conversation rather than promotion.
People met up in different cities for shows. Friendships moved off screens and into real life.
“Don’t you love when the friendships leave the Discord?” she said.
That community shaped her understanding of why music matters. Not as content, but as a connection.
“Absent my YouTube community, I wouldn’t really have any community,” she said. “It’s so hard for indie artists to stand out anymore.”
The connection runs both ways. Alex writes the kind of music she would want to believe in as a listener.
What Messy leaves behind
Alex does not frame Messy as a turning point. The EP captures awareness without pretending it comes with answers.
For listeners navigating unfinished chapters, her message is simple.
“Messiness doesn’t make you a bad person,” she said. “The fact that you’re thinking about it means you’re not.”
Messy stays with that truth. It trusts listeners to recognize themselves without being told how to feel about it.
Alex Ray is not offering closure. She is offering honesty.
And that is more than enough.
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