interview with alexis winkle on “ghost of you”

OLIVE: tell us about you, and your relationship to creating. how did you get started in this medium?

ALEXIS: okay, let’s see. so i started playing guitar when i was 12. my dad was very musical growing up. he used to play guitar, all his life, self taught. and when i was 12 he sat me down. he’s like, “you gotta make the family proud. you gotta follow in my footsteps.” so he taught me, and i started playing acoustic. and i feel like i peaked with my musical capabilities guitar-wise at around, maybe like 16 and i never got better—

OLIVE: 16 you said?

ALEXIS: yeah like i just didnt put that much time into playing. i could do like basic chords and stuff. i was in a few bands growing up in highschool—part of a bunch of cover bands so i was never writing my own music. but then i went to cal poly pomona and they have something called the songwriter showcase. and basically what that was was, you write a song and submit it, you have to perform it in front of the judges. if they pick your song, then you go on to the next round basically and they have bunch of people come in — other musicians — to work through your song. you’d perform the song with the musicians; you would have other musicians collaborate. so, [when] i learned about the showcase, i didn't have a song written. i was in my freshman year… i had no friends at school yet cause i didnt know anyone. and so i wrote a song, my first song. i wasn't the music major, but it was open to all majors. i wrote the song, i submitted it, and they chose me for it! so that was my very first time writing a song and being involved in a group that was actively collaborating to write a song. so i just did acoustic guitar and then they had other musicians from the department come in and add things like bass, drums, things like that. to complete the song.

OLIVE: thats so cool. 

ALEXIS: so that was like my first, you know, toe dip into the water.

OLIVE: how long ago was that, queen? 

ALEXIS: that was in, gosh, 2018. that's when i first started school. 

OLIVE: okay. the first dip into your songwriting career. uh oh. she's frozen. i can't hear you if you're talking. where's the… hello? 

ALEXIS: hi! i think my wifi went out. 

OLIVE: oh my wifi is pretty trash so i'm gonna plug the ethernet cable in just in case it was my fault. 

ALEXIS: okay, miss tech.

OLIVE: that's me! 

ALEXIS: i connected to my hotspot, so maybe that'll be better too. 

OLIVE: okay, okay. man, there isn't even a… wait, is there? oh, period. okay. we're hardwired in. 

ALEXIS: okay. okay. love it. 

OLIVE: all right, you said 2018, that was your the first original song? 

ALEXIS: yes.

OLIVE: what was it about? 

ALEXIS: and like looking back—oh my god, it's so bad! like, i cringe. it's so basic and just…it's like a TV love song, and it was just so bad. i feel like i've grown a lot. i've written a lot better songs in my opinion. 

OLIVE: i'm sure you have, but i feel like, you know, the first one, it can't have been that bad either… i feel like everyone feels that way about their first anything. 

ALEXIS: right, right, right.

OLIVE: so, how long has MISS FORTUNATE been around? when did you decide to become her? 

ALEXIS: oh my god. okay, so MISS FORTUNATE started probably like, a little over a year ago, and at first, it was a project that i did with two other of my friends. two gals. so it was like an all girl band. we played a few shows together. it was always songs that i had written and then they, you know, joined in, added drums, added bass. and we came up with the name MISS FORTUNATE… we used a band name generator type thing. like i had this giant list of names and we're all trying to like pick a name and i mean — i have it on my phone somewhere. but it was like 50 different names. 

OLIVE: oh my gosh. 

ALEXIS: yeah. and we settle on MISS FORTUNATE. and it wasn't supposed to be a girl band, that’s just the road we went down. so we played a few shows together and then we kind of went our separate ways after that. i chose to keep the band name, keep the instagram account, keep the name alive. and then i [eventually] had a few different members join and we wrote “ghost of you” under MISS FORTUNATE. 

OLIVE: okay, period. 

ALEXIS: so technically, i guess, MISS FORTUNATE the name has been around like a year and a half now. but, more seriously, i'd say like a year, because at the time, i didn't have any music released under that name, and then i released “ghost of you,” i think, last year. so that was the first release.

OLIVE: okay, so it's been a year. look at you now, queen. look at you now. in a magazine! 

ALEXIS: honored. 

OLIVE: so, can you tell me more about your songwriting process and what your inspirations are? 

ALEXIS: i always start with my guitar. always acoustic. every gig that i play with the band, i always play electric. but when i'm writing the song itself, i always start with acoustic guitar. and i'll kind of like mess around with like a few melodies. i don't know like — the chords that i'm playing — i don't know what the notes are. i just go with what sounds good by ear. and then once i kind of have a verse, a strumming pattern, something that i feel sounds nice, then i'll add the vocals. i'll do a little melody or just to come to it. and i always utilize my voice memos. i have hundreds of little snippets of songs. and then it sort of moves into a full song.

OLIVE: okay, okay, okay. so you always write the melodies, the guitar, the lyrics, and then you'll bring it to whoever else is helping you out for them. 

ALEXIS: yeah, i also have a lot of solo songs. my first solo project that i ever had was under the name lex in august. i released my first song under [that name] like three, four years ago. and then i just dissolved that name, i threw it away. and now i'm already disliking the name MISS FORTUNATE. i'm so picky it's terrible. but yeah, some of the songs i write, i don't bring the band in. some of them are just like my own solo stuff. i'm hoping to record those as a solo project, but still under the MISS FORTUNATE.

OLIVE: so you you'll keep MISS FORTUNATE then. or do you have other ones that you're working with, other names? 

ALEXIS: no, i think i'll keep MISS FORTUNATE because i feel like at this point, changing another time is insane.

OLIVE: that makes sense.

ALEXIS: i'm my own hardest critic. like everyone is, but… 

OLIVE: that's how it goes. but i think that's kind of also how people often create really fantastic works of art at the same time.

ALEXIS: exactly. 

OLIVE: but you got to balance it out. 

ALEXIS: you get it. so for now, it's MISS FORTUNATE. 

OLIVE: okay. MISS FORTUNATE, indefinitely. 

ALEXIS: yes. 

OLIVE: okay. now. let me get into the specifics. can you tell me how your relationship with your song “ghost of you” has changed since you wrote it, if at all? 

ALEXIS: okay, so at the time i wrote it, it was a really heavy time in my life. my grandfather had recently passed away, then i went through the death of my friend who passed away from brain cancer, and then my relationship of two and a half years ended. all within like six months. 

OLIVE: that’s awful.

ALEXIS: it was a very heavy period of loss. so “ghost of you” would be with the first song that i'd written after i had suffered all this loss. it was just one thing after the other. i sort of kept [away from] music and [wasn’t] writing anything. because i was just feeling really depressed. and music is a big outlet for me if i'm feeling that way but i was feeling so bad that i didn't write anything. i remember, sometime in January of last year, i decided i’m going to try to write something. and it all kind of flowed, and i wrote the song kind of commemorating the love that i had lost. and i guess now that time has passed, my relationship with the song has changed now in the sense that I'm more at peace and have grown to accept everything that's happened. whereas at the time when i was writing about it, i was still deep in the active grieving stage. now it’s been about a year and a half since writing the song. i’ve accepted everything. i’m more at peace. 

OLIVE: right. that's beautiful. you wrote it january of 2024? 

ALEXIS: yeah, january of 2024 and i remember i posted a little Tik Tok, like snippet of it. and then the whole thing came to fruition in like, March. my guitarist at the time commented on my Tik Tok video and he was like, you know, this is really good. i feel like you can make it into like a circa survive type song. 

OLIVE: A what vibe?

ALEXIS: circa survive, it's a band that i really like. i take some inspiration from that band. the lead singer anthony green, he has solo project where he does a lot of acoustic stuff and i feel like he’s the one who really inspired me to start writing. i like to build my music off my guitar…my guitarist at the time was like ‘we could make this into sort of a circa survive-esque sort of song.’ then we just went from there and released the song. 

OLIVE: thank you for sharing all this. i'm glad that you've healed and i’m excited to see what you’ve got next. thank you. 

ALEXIS: yeah, absolutely.

OLIVE: so, in your artist statement, you likened yourself to alice in your pursuit of escapism. can I ask, who or what the white rabbit is meant to represent? 

ALEXIS: so when i was writing it in my head, i was going to alice in wonderland. i was thinking it was very fitting because the white rabbit in this case was kind of symbolizing leaving the path behind and following the white rabbit was my pursuit of a new journey. something new that i wanted to follow and a new reality that i wanted to go into… leaving my past behind, following this new reality.

OLIVE: and here you are.

ALEXIS: here i am. 

OLIVE: evolved. healed. 

ALEXIS: a new dimension... 

OLIVE: popular, published. 

ALEXIS: a million listeners on spotify. 

OLIVE: exactly, yes!

ALEXIS: i’m manifesting that, but yeah. 

OLIVE: yeah, one day. one day.

ALEXIS: we're close. 

OLIVE: all right, queen well…last question. what other projects are you working on and where are you headed? 

ALEXIS: so currently, my band and i have been recording — we have like six songs we’re recording right now. and i think the goal is to either release an EP or release them as singles. so we do have a few already locked down… [but] it’s kind of up in the air right now. and then i would really like to do on my own side project release for all the acoustic songs that i've been sitting on for so long, i have like so many of them. and my goal is to release like a little… kind of raw and intimate version of some of these songs and, you know, none of the whole works, just like very simple.

OLIVE: it reminds me of, what's her name? oh! liz phair.

ALEXIS: liz phair. I don’t think I’ve heard of her.

OLIVE: oh i think you’d like her. there’s a collection of rougher, first versions of her songs called girly-sound. you should give it a listen.

ALEXIS: okay yeah send it over.

BONUS QUESTION: who was the first person you sang “ghost of you” to?

ALEXIS: the first person i ever sang it to was my sister. she’s always been my biggest supporter and the first person i share my songs with :)