Alice Merton does not suffer fools—or music industry gatekeepers—gladly. She doesn’t write songs years in advance, doesn’t tailor her sound to chase a demographic, and doesn’t particularly care if you think she’s going to be a one-hit wonder. She’s heard that one before.
“I was getting asked a lot from European interviews, like, ‘So do you think you’re gonna be a one-hit wonder?’” she says with a laugh that suggests she’s not mad, just disappointed. “And I just came back to the studio and I said to my producer, like, what? Why are they being like this?”
The answer to that question—the music industry’s pathological need to predict, package, and reduce artists to a tidy narrative—led Merton to write “Why So Serious,” a stomping anti-cynicism anthem masquerading as a pop single. “Why do we take things so seriously in life?” she says. “Why do we get so lost in our problems and not enjoy the fact that we get to… play music in front of people every night?”
At the time of this interview, Merton was prepping the release of her debut album Mint, an early 2019 arrival that followed the global juggernaut of “No Roots,” the indie-pop smash about her lack of a fixed home. “I don’t really write about anything other than what I’m experiencing day to day,” she explains. “I kind of love writing in the moment and releasing them… not waiting three years and then being like, ‘Ah, this song should go well now.’”
That urgency is part of her DNA—possibly a byproduct of living all over the world. Born in Germany, raised in Canada and England, now living in Berlin, Merton doesn’t identify with a single nationality. “I’ve never really felt nationalistic to one place,” she says. “So I do kind of feel like I see things a little bit objectively in some ways.” That transnational upbringing gives her songwriting an unusual perspective—part romantic, part realist, always mobile.
She says that perspective makes the rise of nationalism particularly jarring to observe. “It’s interesting because you feel kind of… not special, but very worldly in a way,” she says. “But at the same time, it’s kind of sad because I almost miss having that one place where I can be like, this is my home. Or rooting for that one team, or one country.”
That tension—between freedom and belonging—is threaded through her music, especially on Mint, a title that came to her without overthinking. “I was actually thinking for a long time how to sum up everything that’s happened in one word,” she says. “And then one day I just woke up and I knew. I was like, ‘It’s supposed to be called Mint.’”
There are childhood associations with the herb—“I used to make perfume out of it”—and practical ones too: “Before a show, I often feel very nauseous. The only thing that helps is mint gum or mint tea. It’s the only thing that calms me down.” So mint is not a metaphor. It’s just Alice, doing Alice.
In an era when most debut artists are molded by committee, Merton is refreshingly independent. She co-founded her own label with her best friend Paul and works primarily with a small creative circle. “There’s really no one who can say, ‘This has to sound different,’” she explains. “At the end of the day, the decision will always be mine.”
Not that she’s closed off to collaboration. One of her recent guest appearances was on a duet with Tom Odell called “Half as Good as You.” The collaboration came from a backstage meet-cute at a German festival. “We both really liked each other’s music… a few months later I got a call from his manager saying they’d like to see what it would sound like if I came in and sang a duet.”
More of that, please.
She says she avoids the classic trap of trying to write the crowd-pleaser. “I can’t ever imagine myself writing a song just because I know the majority of people would like it.” There’s no calculation. “I still make music because it’s a way of dealing with things. Understanding why I feel a certain way. Why I think a certain way.”
Some of her most dramatic moments, like “Light In My Face,” lean into her love of classical and musical theater. “That for me was a song that also represented the emotion I was feeling back then. I loved how it was very theatrical, very dramatic.”
She relishes those moments, the ones that let her go big. “I think it’s very important to be open-minded,” she says. “To go at certain situations and problems with an open mind.”
Merton isn’t playing the game, and she doesn’t need to. She’s writing the script in real time, singing in real time, living in real time. She’s got no roots, but she’s never lost. Just moving forward.
And if you think she’s a one-hit wonder?
“Well,” she says with a smile, “that’s just the way it is.”
Listen to the interview above and then check out the video below!
