Alexandra Savior isn’t playing a role—she’s directing the whole damn movie. “I kind of took it on more like a big art project,” she says of her debut album, Belladonna of Sadness. “It’s like a fantasy land… your own star, which is what everybody’s life is to themselves, I guess.”
Equal parts femme fatale and indie auteur, Savior emerged with a trio of cinematic singles that shimmered with noir-ish cool and just the right amount of menace. “Mystery Girl,” in particular, took on a life of its own. “That was one of the most visual songs for me,” she says. “It felt like I was spreading these big black wings and being able to tap into a character that didn’t have to be vulnerable. That could be angry. That could be vengeful.”
She’s not wrong that the media ran with it—"Mystery Girl" practically became shorthand for her entire image. But Savior’s careful to distinguish between character and mask. The visuals, the videos, the persona—none of it is accidental. “It’s nice to be able to relate to something more structured,” she says. “We’re not structured as people. So it’s nice to have a character you can define.”
The result is Belladonna of Sadness, named after the 1973 Japanese animated cult film of the same name, and drenched in the same lush, gothic drama. Savior handled the album’s artwork herself and meticulously curated every detail, pushing back against a history of others trying to shape her into their own image. “I think people kind of took me up and were like, ‘Oh, you’re gonna be a version of me,’” she says, referencing early support from Courtney Love and Linda Perry. “And I didn’t really want that. I just wanted to be myself.”
For a minute, that identity got muddled. “It was exciting, but also frustrating,” she says. “Because I think I also have strength. And it really took some deep tapping into my creation to find that again after all this craziness.”
At just 21, Savior had already weathered a strange kind of artistic adolescence, praised before she could fully develop. “No artist could be fully formed by then,” she reflects. “To champion that is almost to discount that anything new is going to happen.”
But new things did happen. Belladonna of Sadness is proof—part revenge fantasy, part fever dream, and entirely her own. “I’m excited to see what people think,” she says. “I took a lot of time to make sure it was a visual piece that represented the time I was making it.”
She may still be young, but don’t mistake her for anyone’s ingénue. Alexandra Savior’s already writing her own legend.
Listen to the interview above, and watch the "Mystery Girl" video below.
