Alex G’s

Philadelphia’s indie rock road warrior Alex Giannascoli, known by his stage name Alex G, is driving around his city for our call—talking on the phone hands-free, of course. He’s headed home post-rehearsal, and in a week’s time he’ll be back on the road for an international tour in support of Headlights, his tenth studio album and his first with major label RCA. “We’re just cramming everything in before this tour coming up,” says the singer-songwriter. The “we” he refers to is his live band, consisting of Sam Acchione on guitar and keyboard, John Heywood on bass, and Tom Kelly on drums.

The first leg of the Headlights tour will kick off in Boston and take the band across North America before they head to Europe. Next April, they will perform both weekends of Coachella in Indio, California. Busy calendar aside, the frontman still reflects on his most recent accomplishment—making all the pieces of his major label debut cohere. “I’ll get one idea down one month, the next idea down the next month. All this time I’m just returning to the old ideas as I’m coming up with new ideas. I think that ends up making the album cohesive,” remarks Giannascoli on the process of developing Headlights. “As my taste is changing over the couple years that I’m working on the album, I’m still tinkering with the old songs and nudging them to fit my taste at the moment.” His taste, incidentally, being in lockstep with the zeitgeist: the European and UK legs of the tour are sold out, and he’s added festival dates in Australia and New Zealand, plus a few shows in Japan, to his 2026 itinerary.

Headlights, as its title suggests, is an album meant to be played on the road. On it, Giannascoli sings about driving on highways, walking in cities, trekking through Gulf Coast states, searching far and wide for a place where he can rest. “Songs aren’t as cool as dreams obviously, but it’s kind of a similar thing where it’s like I don’t know what happened between the song not being written and then the song being written,” Giannascoli tells me, mentioning that the dreamlike track “Louisiana” is his current favorite. There wasn’t a glut of material to edit down from for this latest record. The musician estimates there were only about three demos on the cutting-room floor, saying, “I guess the bottom line why they didn’t make the cut is they just weren’t that good, as opposed to them not fitting the story. They didn’t pan out to be very memorable songs.” The twelve outstanding tracks that did make the cut highlight his efforts to capture the raw-toned vocals and jagged sound reminiscent of his early work.

Giannascoli has been touring with the current band for about a decade, with guitarist Acchione being a friend since childhood. They’ve seen a lot of the world together, albeit expeditiously. “I think it’s all places we’ve done before on this tour. As far as the Europe leg that’s coming up after, even those are all cities we’ve done before,” Giannascoli says, noting that his schedule generally doesn’t allow him to take in the sights. “This tour we have multiple shows in the same city more so than we normally do, so maybe I’ll have time to see stuff. But usually we just get there, set up soundcheck, play the show, get on the bus, and go to the next city.”

If you have yet to catch Alex G in a concert hall where you live, you may have heard his spectral, lo-fi arrangements at your local cinema. Over the past few years Giannascoli has scored two of director Jane Schoenbrun’s admirably creepy coming-of-age films, We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (2021) and I Saw the TV Glow (2024). “Jane reached out when she was working on We’re All Going to the World’s Fair and the filming was mostly completed,” he recalls. “Because I’m not in the film world at all, it’s just fun getting to see things get made. Bouncing stuff off of Jane is really great, she’s very responsive.” As a filmgoer (“not a knowledgeable movie person; I like movies as much as most people,” he disclaims) Giannascoli cites the Donnie Darko (2001) score by composer Michael Andrews as one of his favorites.

The musician’s last few years have been so active that this is not even his first tour since becoming a parent. Giannascoli is understandably private on the subject of fatherhood. Yet, family is manifestly important to the singer, who frequently features paintings by his artist sister as his album covers. “For this record, I was asking her to maybe paint a picture of a car. But then she sent back what she was working on, a person holding a sword. I just have so much respect for her taste,” he says. “Whatever she thinks is cool, I automatically think is cool.” (The ultimate younger sibling sentiment!) I ask the performer what uplifts him these days, to which he signs off with the simple, noble list: “My family. Friendships. The people in my life bring me joy.”