Sasha Alex Sloan on the “Authentic Experiences” That Shaped I Blame the World

Mary Siroky

May 11, 2022 at 11:30 AM·4 min read

The post Sasha Alex Sloan on the “Authentic Experiences” That Shaped I Blame the World appeared first on Consequence.

“Do I dare say I’m proud of this record?” Sasha Alex Sloan asks. “It feels scary to say that out loud.”

Chatting with Consequence over the phone, the singer-songwriter seems to hold an extremely tentative optimism around the release of her forthcoming full-length album, I Blame The World (available Friday, May 13th via RCA Records). It’s a quality worth noting, especially when she recently described I Blame the World as a “non-hopeful” album.

“I couldn’t write about anything else,” she says, referring to the fork in the road many creatives arrived at throughout the pandemic and in the months of piecing the arts industry back together since: lean into hopeful escapism, or embrace realism. Sloan chose the latter.

To her point, the eleven-track collection is remarkably cohesive and largely centered on the anxiety and chaos of the past few years, along with the epiphanies that come with processing these experiences. Singles “I Blame the World” and “New Normal” offered an accurate window into the rest of the record for expectant listeners, while “Adult,” available with a new music video today, May 11th, includes a touch of the humor she wanted to convey as well.

Lyrics like “It finally hurts being hungover/ But it’s still not worse than being sober” are balanced with “No one ever told me growing up gets kind of lonely,” managing to capture the humor and heart of existing as a young person right now in equal measure.

“I think now I’m in a better headspace now than when I wrote the album,” she says, explaining how she recently gave the record a play in full and found herself excited by what she heard. “I didn’t even really like music at the time I was writing it. I felt like nothing was good, this album isn’t good, the world is on fire.” It’s a feeling with which almost any creative can empathize — but lucky for all of us, it’s one she overcame.

The evolution of the collection of songs that would become I Blame the World is a winding road. It started off in a folkier space, one Sloan quickly grew bored of, prompting her to change gears. She ended up writing over fifty songs for the album and was then faced with the task of narrowing it down to ten. She also wanted to weigh the sonic fun against stories that land differently upon a closer listen; a cursory experience with the album could leave one person feeling uplifted, while paying attention to the lyrics could lead to a more introspective experience.

There’s presumably a bit of a double-edged that comes along with being a songwriter adept across genres — a bluesy ballad like “Dancing with your Ghost” sounds as at home in Sloan’s repertoire as a more indie-country collaboration with Sam Hunt, “When Was It Over.” Things got easier once the theme of the album, primarily experiences that come with navigating young adulthood in tumultuous times, began to take shape.

She mentions later in the conversation that she was struck by the accuracy of Netflix’s 2021 Oscar-nominated film Don’t Look Up, and recently became addicted to Apple TV’s sleeper hit Severance. While this album is still more lighthearted than either of those works, it’s easy to see how the themes in the two might tie into her interrogating and present album.

“It was really cathartic to get it all out and then start living life again,” she says. “What inspires me the most is having authentic experiences and meeting new people — what was so hard about the pandemic was how limited our experiences were.” This sentiment, of course, extends to touring. Sloan hasn’t been able to hit the road for a headlining tour since 2019, but that will change beginning in July. The late summer/early fall trek will see the artist heading out with Jessie Murph and Slimdan. (Tickets can be purchased here.)

That gives fans plenty of time to learn the lyrics, many of which will be just as cathartic to yell in a crowd. Until then, Sloan has a record worth being proud of — and she should keep saying so.

I Blame The World Artwork: