Singer-songwriter Alexander Gallant is as honest as they come.
Sure, there are plenty of folks out there who can pick up a guitar and play a tune or twelve. We’ve all heard the acoustic picking and soft vocals behind the splashes of beer and accompanying chatter. Where Gallant stands alone is in his darkly humorous introspections, tying his booze-bottled past together with a jovial sense of uncertainty.
Based out of Dartmouth, Gallant popped onto the local scene with his first solo album Waiting Table Blues in 2023: a self-guided reflection on newly-found sobriety after years of living the rock and roll life in Toronto and elsewhere. The album was laced with fingerpicked acoustics in the style of 1960s folk tunes, accompanied by strange stories of Gallant’s life before now.
“I feel like it was about being a waiter and being an alcoholic and then not being those things anymore,” says Gallant. “I wonder what all that stuff was about.”
His newest record, Rubber Monster Suit, is a further reflection of everything he’s experienced. Recorded with his friends at Tibet Street Records in Toronto, Gallant layered his usual acoustic stylings with jazz influences while delving deeper into his post-sober life: his love, loss, aging, and some silly jokes in between.
The first single from the album, “Pretty Boy Hacks”, came out in early March and set the ground for his new record. It’s a psych country track evoking a Bonnie and Clyde narrative, pairing restless ambition with aging cynicism.
“I feel like that song is like a don’t give up on yourself kind of a song, which is like a normal kind of song to write, but then obviously it’s catching all this other stuff,” says Gallant. “I’m in my thirties. I’m a bit older than a lot of people that I sort of play shows with around (are often) still full of hope and everything.”
But despite his age and his increasing jadedness, “Pretty Boy Hacks” is a song about throwing all of that away to do something explosive.
“Sometimes you want to get a tommy gun and just start blasting,” says Gallant.
The second single, “Me and My Oldest Friend”, harkens back to the glory days of rowdy drinking and stupid decisions. Sober people giving each other their best war stories, one-upping each other as they reminisce, inspired by the adventures of Gallant and his friends as 20-somethings in Toronto.
“It’s sort of like a little sitcom, like a webcomic that we lived in where we’re all just tuned up all the time and getting up to trouble,” Gallant says.
And while it would be typical to write somberly about days gone by, Gallant looks back on it in a uniquely humorous way.
“Like anything, things are kind of sad and funny,” says Gallant.
This humour was spawned by sobriety for Gallant. He gave up drinking during the COVID lockdowns, and while doing so ended up writing a bunch of tunes that weren’t at all like what he was writing prior with his rock band. While his old music was intentionally vague so people could project themselves to it, Gallant eventually found a path to sincerity.
“It’s over now, like, I’m not going to be some kind of rockstar,” says Gallant, reiterating his thoughts going into the pandemic and after his band broke up. “I can just do whatever, which was really freeing. I think it kind of got me out of my own way, my ego kind of died a little bit and I feel like I was able to finally start writing honest material.”
That honestly is all over Rubber Monster Suit, whose eight tracks are bound to give your heart a stir and your belly a laugh when it releases on May 25. That same day, Gallant will be joined by his friend and fellow artist Sal at the Sanctuary Arts Centre for a double-album release show, also featuring C.A. & Sonny. Tickets are $15 and doors open at 7:30pm.
This article appears in May 1-31, 2025.