Allie X on Exploring New Territory and Enduring Illness to Create Girl with No Face Album (Exclusive)

The road to Allie X’s third album The girl without a face it was not without challenges.

Since the Canadian-born singer-songwriter released her last album Cape God at the beginning of 2020, she overcame the global pandemic and the return of the autoimmune disease she had been fighting for more than 20 years. However, an extended period of enforced layoff led her to take on the challenging task of self-producing an album for the first time — The girl without a facea raw and exciting body of alt-pop music that lets fans into Allie’s head.

“In the past I was really conceptual,” the musician, 38, whose full name is Alexandra Hughes, tells PEOPLE. “This time, it’s like The magical school bus went down my throat, and you were in my womb.”

In most of her past musical and live performances, Allie has mostly used alter egos and abstract art lenses, but she says The girl without a face “the greatest thing I’ve ever done.” She began working on the album while at her parents’ house in Toronto shortly after the onset of COVID, creating herself as she has in the past with songs like 2014’s fan favorite “Bitch.”

“I was enjoying the process so much that I was like, ‘OK, girl, I think this is your time,'” Allie recalls. “I always thought about producing the whole record myself, but suddenly I had the time and the space.”

Managing the production of the entire record has been a long wait for the Los Angeles artist, whose horizons have been constantly expanding since her childhood in Toronto. The only member of her immediate family with dreams of becoming a performer, she spent her time playing classical piano and acting in musical theater while growing up. But ultimately such hobbies were not “unsatisfying”.

Allie X.

Marcus Cooper

One of Allie’s first professional stage appearances was singing rock hits like Heart’s “Barracuda” and Pat Benatar’s “Heartbreaker” in a cover band. “I used to surf. It was really fun, really sweaty, good weather – and the way I was able to pay the rent was so nice,” she says. “I don’t remember when I didn’t want to be a singer.”

After landing a publishing deal as a songwriter in 2013, she moved to LA at the age of 28 and adopted the Allie X persona for her own music. Two years later, he co-wrote several songs on Troye Sivan’s debut album Blue neighborhood and earned critical acclaim with her debut releases. Since then, she’s led her own tours, opened for Sivan and Charli XCX, collaborated with Mitski and written for BTS.

Due to the COVID pandemic, she was unable to hold support concerts Cape God after publication and immediately began to create The girl without a face. For a while, she felt free to create on her own timeline. But after she took a break and returned to the album in 2021, the pressure to release it began to mount. So she started setting deadlines and working “12-hour days non-stop” to meet them.

Troye Sivan Says He’d Be ‘Proud’ Of New Album Released As A Child: ‘It’s Really For Him’ (Exclusive)

Allie X’s ‘Girl with No Face’ album cover.

Marcus Cooper

By the time she was ready to finally begin the official tour for Cape God in May 2022, she faced the return of an autoimmune disease she had been diagnosed with as a teenager. Not only did she have to cancel shows – she felt compelled to tell her fans why, as she had never spoken publicly about the illness.

“I hid it for most of my career because I felt like I was already a problem as an older person doing pop, and I didn’t want to give anybody in the industry a reason to drop me as a client or whatever,” Allie explains. “Having a body that temporarily fails for a period of time and being an artist don’t really work well together.”

Her listeners were sympathetic and supportive, validating her decision to become vulnerable about the illness, although she still prefers to keep its specific details to herself. “I never wanted that to be part of my story,” she says. “But at this point in my life, I’m just coming to terms with it [the fact that] it’s better to just be honest about these things because then it relieves me of the pressure of having to hide.”

Heather Rae El Moussa says she’s filming Selling Sunset He was ‘absolutely brutal’ before he was diagnosed with the autoimmune disorder

After the cancellation of the tour, Allie spent months in recovery, rarely leaving the house and taking a break from working on The girl without a face. One day in August 2022, she went to Erewhon Health Supermarket to buy groceries with her dog Koji in hand and briefly left the pet in the back seat of her car.

During this time, fellow singer Simon Curtis spotted Koji in the vehicle and shared a series of posts on social media claiming the conditions were unsafe as it was an extremely hot day in LA. After learning that the dog’s owner was Allie, he also shared the information online, sparking a wave of hate that left her feeling “shaken” in the midst of a relapse.

“Honestly I just think, because I’ve never been involved in any drama, it was very tempting for the small community that knows me to hear that I did something horrible,” she muses, assuring that Koji was perfectly fine and “oblivious to any problem.”

Allie recently ran into Curtis, who apologized as they talked through the ordeal and explained that he was going through other difficulties at the time of the incident. “All is forgiven,” she says. “I take responsibility for what I did, which was mostly a misunderstanding.”

The difficult period coincided with her continuation of creation The girl without a face. After scrapping the initial deadlines, the pressure was lifted from her artistic process and she quickly wrote several compositions. As the project came to a complete conclusion, she realized its overall theme.

“The girl without a face is a really good title because it captures this idea that I isolated myself, took a serious look at myself, and then those layers kept being revealed,” says Allie. “At a certain point, that thing came out of me — almost like this presence, this spirit — and that’s what I think of as ‘the faceless girl.’ She allowed me to release things that had been stuck there for a long time.”

Allie X.

Marcus Cooper

Alabama Barker reveals she has autoimmune disease amid body-shaming comments: ‘Keep your opinions to yourself’

Today, Allie is in a positive environment, proud of her album and ready to bring it to life. Symptoms of her illness come and go, but recently she was able to perform two sets in one night, giving high hopes for her newly announced North American tour. “The thing is, I never know how my body is going to behave, so I’m afraid of letting people down,” he admits.

As an independent artist, it’s not easy to arrange a tour schedule that is good for one’s physical and mental health while still being profitable. Simple, unforeseen roadblocks can cause financial shortfalls, especially as inflation is on the rise.

“It’s not like I’m going to take this huge health risk and come back with all this money,” Allie says candidly. “It’s like I’m going to risk my health and put my money on the line, and I might come back with tens of thousands of dollars lost.”

Allie X.

Marcus Cooper

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

Of course, it’s worth the risk for a female artist to share her art in a live setting and connect with her fans. As demonstrated throughout her career thus far, Allie is dedicated to her craft and willing to endure less than ideal conditions in the process of fully executing her vision. Fortunately, it pays off as listeners and critics alike embrace the excellence The girl without a face.

“I really have a core belief that if it hurts, it works,” Allie says. “If it doesn’t hurt, then something is wrong. But I don’t want to believe that. I don’t think other people should believe that. I’m just saying it’s a fucking thought that never goes away.”

Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education