Producer Ian Romer walked into George Alley’s Philadelphia apartment one day and found him sitting at his baby grand piano. “I asked him to quickly record what I was playing and singing before I forgot it,” says Alley. “The lyrics weren’t fully finished, but I knew if we didn’t capture it right then, it would be hard to get back to that moment.”
Out came “King In Town,” a track inspired by Alley’s infatuation with Madness, the Specials and other ska bands from the 2-Tone era. “Some songs are a slow burn, but this one hit me immediately,” he says. “I knew I had to honor that energy.”
Music is the fulcrum of everything Alley does as multimedia artist, composer, choreographer, podcaster, curator and educator. Out tomorrow, his self-titled debut draws on every one of his obsessions, whether it’s the music that informs his scholarly pursuits (he teaches the music geek’s dream class “Search And Destroy: Punk’s DIY Rebellion” at Temple University), the pop songs he absorbed as a kid while auditioning for The All New Mickey Mouse Club, the dance music he’s experienced in clubs from New York City to Berlin or the “ska-renaissance” vibe of “King In Town.”
“At its heart, ‘King In Town’ is a story of a ruler being usurped by a new contender to the throne. It parallels my own experience with a guy who was initially interested in me—but after I introduced him to a friend, he decided to pursue them instead,” says Alley. “I enjoy playing with the narrative of not always being the hero. Much like me, they can be driven by revenge, vanity and the love of a good scheme. The bugles give the song a distinct flavor. I think I unconsciously harnessed that vibe, because Ian and I had been spending the week going through recorded sounds from my high-school performance in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.”
We’re proud to premiere George Alley’s “King In Town” video.
—Hobart Rowland
