Few artists go viral with their debut release and attract attention from some of the hottest names in music, but for Alec Duckart that was just the tip of the iceberg. Going by the alias of Searows, the 23-year-old from Portland, Oregon, broke through last year with his groundbreaking debut ‘Guard Dog’ – an album that encapsulated his moving take on folk and indie. The release saw his music spread like wildfire across TikTok and soon galvanise praise from the likes of Ethel Cain, Gracie Abrams and more.
Now, curled up on the sofa of his London Airbnb, a few hours before he takes to the stage as Abrams’ European support act, Duckart talks about the emotionally vulnerable themes on his new EP ‘End Of The World’ (due November 10). He also shares his his thoughts on being the first artist signed to Matt Maltese’s new label, Last Recordings On Earth – another accolade which has yet to quite sink in.
“I still have so much that I want to work on,” he says, sounding equal parts humble and determined. “I’m not at the stage where I’m releasing my first stuff into the world, but at the same time, it still feels like each thing I release is the first. I feel so new to everything still; I don’t yet feel like I am really seasoned in any of it.”
As NME chats to Duckart, it’s easy to forget that in a few hours he will be performing for thousands when he opens for Abrams at London’s O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire. Still, as he delves into the deeply personal but fundamentally relatable inspiration behind his lyrics, it becomes obvious why his music is resonating with so many.
Welcome to the UK! How’s the tour going?
“Thank you! It’s pretty good. It’s the most people I’ve ever played for, so there is so much to take in: the variety of feelings, reactions to my music, people being responsive to what I’m playing. Then there’s like the anxiety of it, also. It’s a lot of different emotions, but it’s ultimately fun and something cool to get to experience.
“A highlight of the whole thing is seeing Gracie perform, too. She is such a good performer and has so much more energy than I do… I can’t even understand how she does that every night. Her voice is crazy, too.”
Tell us a little bit about the EP, ‘End Of The World’. What was the inspiration behind the songs?
“I got a lot of inspiration from noticing how much I write about the same things over and over. It was almost like I got stuck in the middle of these thoughts. It came after writing an album, which then led to writing more songs about similar feelings.
“I got ultimately inspired by repeating the same things because I write a lot about anxiety. I just feel like I’ve been a very anxious person throughout my whole life, so I find myself writing about that over and over. That is another symptom of the anxiety itself — the repetition of thoughts, so those things repeat in my life and in my songwriting.”
We were introduced to you through your debut album, ‘Guard Dog’, last year. What made you want to create an EP this time around?
“I felt like having something more compact. With an album, I get carried away because you can put so many songs in. When I think about that, I’m like, ‘Oh, I’m going to do like 15 songs.’ I think I needed to focus on [just] a few songs this time. Even though six tracks is still a lot for an EP, I needed to just focus on those songs and make them exactly how I want them to sound.”
What’s the meaning behind the track ‘I Have More Than Enough’?
“I wrote it the day after [my summer single] ‘Older’ came out, and it was at the point where I had been in my room for days, trying to make another song to give to my label as the next release. I had several options and none of them were what I wanted, and I was feeling crazy being like, ‘I can’t write a song that I like right now.’ I was going in circles of not knowing what to do, then I took a walk for the first time in a few days and wrote down random thoughts that I had — then I came back and wrote the whole thing.
“It’s ultimately about stepping back and being like, ‘Look at all these things in my life that I have.’ I’m very grateful to so many people, and the things I get to do, and the fact that I can have times where I can just walk around and be peaceful. So it’s about being grateful for things that we forget to be grateful about.”
How did it feel to be the first artist signed to Matt Maltese’s label?
“That was really crazy and another thing that I’m grateful for. I did not think that would happen. I was so in awe and inspired by him, so when I toured with him, that was so cool in itself. I’m so glad I got to do that and got to meet him. [But] I thought that would be it!”
There must a big connection there for Matt to have signed you. Do you see any parallels in your music?
“Definitely. My first album has a lot of bleakness to it, and some of the songs and topics I write about are the thoughts that I catastrophise – which is also the theme of the EP! He also writes about the apocalypse and these world-ending emotions that are actually just normal feelings.”
Not only do you have support from Matt Maltese, but you also have fans in Gracie Abrams and Ethel Cain. How does that feel?
“It’s been very hard to comprehend because I couldn’t register it in the moment. The fact that it’s my song that I made in my room, and now these people that I admire are listening to it? I can only really process it looking back.
“I was about to play a show at this venue called Mississippi Studios in Portland when I found out Ethel Cain was a fan. It was the same venue where I had seen her perform a few months earlier. I was about to play on the same stage, and I was like, ‘That’s so cool!’, so I made a post about it. Then around three minutes before going on stage, I was anxious and I checked my phone and somebody had sent me her story where she posted one of my songs! I was like, ‘This is a prank… like this can’t be real.’
“Then I had to go on stage! I forgot some of the words to my song, I forgot my capo, I was like, ‘Sorry guys, But, wow!’ That was crazy.”
“A theme throughout the songs is the reminder that things are not as terrifying as they sometimes feel like they are”
Is it ever strange to see your deeply personal, vulnerable songs reach such a wide audience?
“A lot of the time I don’t think too hard about it. But sometimes I’ll have a moment where I’ll think of a lyric, and I’ll be like, ‘Oh my god, a lot of people have listened to that.’ Then I have to not think about how vulnerable it is. I have to kind of forget that I put so many details of my inner monologue out into the world.
“There are times, too, when I’m playing something live and I will realise there is another meaning to one of the lyrics that I didn’t think about before, because I’ll suddenly acknowledge that so many people are hearing it at that moment. It gives me a lot of realisations to new meanings in [my] songs. It happens every time I play it, in little ways, so that’s very cool.”
If you could get people to take one thing from the EP, what would you want that to be?
“I feel like a theme throughout the songs is the reminder that things are not as big and terrifying as they sometimes feel like they are. I remind myself of that both with the songs and in my personal life. The songs meant that for me, and now I can release them so they can do the same thing for other people.”
Searow’s new EP, ‘End Of The World’, is out on November 10 via Last Last Recordings On Earth
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