The Alex G x Monster Children Zine
Photography by Gabe Long in NYC, 2025.
We have collaborated with Alex G to create something special, something physical, and something ephemeral.
An Alex G zine - a nice piece of printed matter dedicated to and helped produced by one of our favorite artists, Alexander Giannascoli, better known as Alex G. Featuring an extensive interview and exclusive photography by Gabe Long in New York City, with new insights into the man and his music, we are printing only one hundred copies which can be found through our shop releasing next week. Scroll down for a peek.
What do you think has been the biggest challenge getting it together for this album?
Maybe, so far, just giving the songs some type of… excitement? Or something? I think the songs on this record - maybe people don’t perceive it this way, but I guess they felt a little cerebral for me. They kind of go from point A to point B and don’t do a lot of… they don’t have a lot of pizzazz as opposed to other records that have a lot of big weird sounds. I mean, maybe that’s not the case, but that’s how it felt when we were playing the songs, so we’ve been working on just making the songs more exciting for the show.
Is that a self critique or are you okay with that?
Oh yeah, I think I was trying to avoid the ‘look at me’ type of stuff sonically on the record. Even though there’s still a ton of shit like that, I guess I was trying to be a little more understated. I think that’s just where my taste was at on this record.
You’re trying to avoid a ‘look at me’ kind of thing, but it feels sort of built into your profession. You’re up on stage.
Yeah, right. I guess what I mean is that I was trying to let the songs be growers instead of…
Showers?
Yeah. I was trying to avoid the big drum fill and the big electric guitar sounds and stuff like that, with the exception of ‘Louisiana’. Everything I say, there are exceptions, but when you’re asking what the challenge is, it’s that. Me and the guys were playing this song, ‘Headlights’, and it's a lot of time spent strumming the chords and not much is happening, so we were trying to make that more exciting.
Sports come up a lot in your work, and I was wondering why that is. Sports and religion come up a lot, especially on this album. Can you address that a little bit?
The disclaimer that I always say before I talk about my lyrics is that it’s not very calculated. I truly approach it the way that I approach the music, which is that a certain word gives me a certain feeling and that there’s not a calculated message behind the sum of all of the words. But I guess I come back to sports because there’s something innocent, or pure about sports in a way. I want to be able to follow this train of thought but I’m just not sure… there’s something about it that is…
Childish?
Yeah, but not to say that sports are childish. Everybody has immense respect for athletes and sports and stuff. Maybe it’s that you’re locked into a set of rules maybe? At least, I can answer this for ‘Beam Me Up’ specifically. In that song, there was something appealing about that framework- being locked into a game, and it just felt relevant to the theme of money and this inescapable scenario.
I don’t want to put words into your mouth… a struggle?
Right, in sports, you’re playing to win. In that song, I’m not adopting a money philosophy where I’m like playing to win because that sounds fucking crazy, but there’s this concept of like giving everything and there’s a microcosm of life in a way… I wish that I had a coherent statement about it, because I have a coherent feeling about it.
