As He Embarks On a Solo Career, The Cab’s @alexanderdeleon Is...

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As He Embarks On a Solo Career, The Cab’s @alexanderdeleon Is Out to Prove People Wrong

To see more of Alex’s black-and-white photography, check out @alexanderdeleon on Instagram. For more music stories, check out @music.

“I think my fans, more than anything in the world, hate the word ‘soon.’ ‘When’s the new music coming?’ ‘Soon!’ ‘OK, Alex, you said soon 12 months ago. What does soon mean to you? Do we define soon differently?’ It’s hard.”

That’s how Alex DeLeon (@alexanderdeleon), frontman for pop-rock outfit The Cab, describes the anguish of trying to placate his fan base who are patiently waiting for the follow-up to the band’s 2014 EP Lock Me Up. The bad news is that there’s no imminent release from The Cab, but for a very good reason –– Alex decided to go solo for his next album, an in-the-works project that stems from a few years of introspection, traveling, falling in love and parting ways with the group’s label.

“That’s why I haven’t toured in a bit,” he says over a meal at the riverside New York City restaurant, Hudson Eatery. “When you start a new project, it’s not ‘What do I do with this new album?’ It’s coming up with an entire aesthetic. It’s so much more than just coming up with songs. When you’re in a band, you know what your sound is and you’re staying in that lane, trying to improve. Now, there’s so much freedom.”

He promises that the new music, which he’s been working on sporadically over the past few months, is similar to his previous output, but with a “more villainous undertone.” “My voice is very poppy, so it’ll always have that pop melodic element to it, but it just leans a little more dark R&B,” he says. “It’s like if a superhero went dark for a second.”

Alex, now 26, chalks up the change in direction to taking a break from music for a bit, after basically being in the business since getting signed by Fueled by Ramen as a 17-year-old. Thanks to their past as a featured Warped Tour act, he felt The Cab were getting pigeonholed, and the label wasn’t helping them move forward. The recent stagnation of the band also left him with a chip on his shoulder: “That’s the mentality now, prove to everyone who didn’t believe in you, that let you walk away, that they made the biggest mistake of their career. That motivates an artist unlike anything. It’s not the money. It’s not the fame or the girls. Nothing makes an artist madder than to be told that what they’re creating isn’t worthy.”

Having just returned from a trip to Europe with a friend, Alex is taking it easy for a month or so, spending time with supermodel girlfriend Josephine Skriver, and looking forward to an upcoming visit from his little brothers, ages 13 and 14. Josephine, who originally found out about The Cab from a Twitter follower, is often the subject of Alex’s photos, which are all shot in high-contrast black-and-white.

“My entire life, I’ve had this fascination with black-and-white photography. It’s timeless,” he says. “Italy, especially the Amalfi Coast, is my favorite place in the world, so every time I go there I’m just excited to take pictures of everything. I really like this picture of one of the twisty curved roads in Sorrento. I really love the way the road curved, the one lamppost, the guy coming down on his motorbike. It captures what I saw –– the current mood I was in, the contrast between the clouds, everything. That’s how I saw the world at that moment in time.”

His feed also reveals a pretty amazing, rock-star lifestyle. There he is at Coachella with Kendall Jenner (“We ended up at Drake’s house. No idea how.”), meeting actor John C. Reilly (“Josephine’s favorite American comedy was Step Brothers. She saw him and said, ‘That’s Dale!’”), and enjoying a night out in New York City with Ed Sheeran, Zach Braff and Kit Harington (“Ed is such a down-to-earth, genuine guy. He’s friends with everyone. You can’t meet Ed and not become his friend.”).

Another huge influence on Alex, particularly his current music, is Frank Sinatra. In fact, he named his fashion line, 42799, after the number of Sinatra’s mugshot when Old Blue Eyes was arrested in 1938 for carrying on with a married woman.

“Like my photos, I love contrast. To me, Sinatra always represented the American sweetheart, the gentleman that all the girls loved and all the guys wanted to be, this effortlessly romantic, sexy, cool dude, but underground he was like running the mob. I just love that such a gentleman had that darker side.”

And it’s that side Alex is embracing now. “The music is so different. I’m definitely not ending The Cab. I just needed to step back and let another side of my creativity out and get that off my chest,” he says. “I’m having so much fun. It’s just a newfound of love for music and not overthinking what I’m allowed to do … I don’t care if I become the biggest artist in the world. This is just a point I wanted to make and this is what I wanted to let out at this point in my life.”

–– Dan Reilly for Instagram @music

by via Instagram Blog