“I moved here in 2023, and I’ve been loving every minute… I feel like it’s the Midwest of the Northeast in my mind, with old-old history, but really real people… the art, the murals, the diversity of all kinds that you have here,” says singer/songwriter Alaina Stacey, who originally hails from Chicago, but resided in Nashville for the first chapter of her adult life, prior to making her way to the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection about two years ago. This Friday, May 23rd, Alaina Stacey will be headlining The Lounge at World Café Live to celebrate the release of brand-new single “Think of You.”
“Think of You” is the first single off of Alaina Stacey’s third solo EP, DUSK, which drops this July, following up 2023’s DAWN and 2024’s DAY. “With these songs, I kind of recorded them all together, but I was excited about different musical sounds,” Stacey tells me during a recent phone chat, going on to explain, “I sometimes struggle to put a name to my genre, so this was my attempt to take songs I’ve written over the past 15 years and separate them by the feeling they give you, instead of being like, ‘This is my country EP, this is my alternative EP, this is my Americana EP.’”
“It fits the overall theme of the upcoming EP,” Stacey says of “Think of You,” which she characterizes as having, “kind of a nostalgic vibe.” The song is about, “walking down the street at dusk, feeling feels,” and the experience of seeing a recent ex in the things all around you. She also tells me the song isn’t necessarily one of the newer ones: “It’s kind of an older song that I wrote years ago with my friend Sam Gyllenhaal in Nashville, and it was recorded with my friend Evan Redwine.”
When not doing her solo thing, Stacey actually plays in the Sam Gyllenhaal Band, making music whose sound she characterizes as “pop Americana.” She also plays with pop-rock outfit Smart Objects, in addition to making “pure pop” with her brother Julian, who also produced The Other Side from her country duo Maybe April. Alaina tells me she’s really loved finding her own sound as a solo artist, but admits to having lots of fun exploring other sounds that interest her through the various projects.
Alaina Stacey first played The Lounge at World Café Live last March, when she double headlined the listening room with Madeleine Kelson, and she tells me she’s very excited to return to the venue, although admits that that’s the only time she’s been in the room. However, she has apparently been to the Music Hall at World Café Live a number of times since moving to the 215, attending recent shows from Lori McKenna, Tony Trischka, and The Paper Kites: “I love the venue!”
As for what can be expected of Friday night’s show, Alaina tells me it will be a rather intimate experience: “It’ll be a lot of storytelling and some acoustic music… It’ll just be me and a guitar player, but I love to bring the audience into how the songs came to be… I love getting to tell the stories behind the songs and getting to connect with the audience.” Stacey says she’s hoping and planning to spend some more time on the road, playing these songs for people, with dates currently scheduled throughout the summer, but also admits that she does have another recent priority in her life: “I have a newborn baby, so that will be taking up a lot of my time [laughs].”
*Get your tickets here.
