Allie X
Artists I've Worked With
Role: UK Drummer/Programmer
I got the call to work with Allie X just 2 weeks before she was due to come to the UK and do a run a run of shows and filmed sessions. Allie X’s music is very synthesised, and the songs are huge with great production. I was given the responsibility of programming the show and with a 2 piece band (Drums and Bass) plus Allie X doing some synth parts) it was a big task to get this right and still make the show sound as big as the records. I used triggers on my kit as well as extra trigger pads for a real hybrid drum set up to fully allow me to re-create the sonic identity of the record, but still have the energy and drive of live drums (as seen below).
My set up at The Premisis Studios, while working with Allie X (L.A) on a UK promo tour.
About Allie X:
Country: Canada/USA
Label: Universal Music
Genre: Electro-Power-Pop
Drawing comparisons to Chvrches, Ellie Goulding, and pre-Silent Shout Knife with her airy yet edgy Electro-Pop, singer/songwriter Allie X made her debut in early 2014 with a pair of attention-getting singles, ‘Catch’ and ‘Prime’. Born Allie Hughes, she studied classical piano and voice at the Interlochen Arts Academy and graduated from Sheridan College’s Musical Theater Performance program. She began making music in her hometown of Toronto in the mid-2000s, playing with local bands and writing and recording a handful of self-released albums. In July of 2013, she moved to Los Angeles with the intention of becoming a full-time songwriter after signing a publishing deal. However, she continued to work on her own material, by herself and with Billboard and Cirkut, a pair of producers affiliated with hitmaker Dr. Luke. In February 2014, she released her debut single ‘Catch’ — which cleverly compared heartbreak to illness — online to praise from sources as varied as Time Magazine and Katy Perry. A month later, the brassy, brittle ‘Prime’ arrived. In April 2015, she released ‘CollXtion 1’, a set of seven songs supplemented by visuals and a comic. Allie X contributed to singer Troye Sivan’s album Blue Neighbourhood, co-writing a total of seven tracks, including two of the album’s three singles, ‘Talk Me Down’ and ‘Youth’. Allie X, describes her melodies as being “soaring pop, borderline theatrical Disney,” while her lyrics, “always seem to be darker.” She compares songwriting to a science-experiment in which you put two people’s brains together for a few hours and see what they can come up with. In explaining the X in her name, she stated that it represents the unknown variable in algebra.
