Stereo League’s Alex Savoth drops the act in debut solo release

Alex Savoth has been making music alongside childhood friend Dan King in Stereo League for about 10 years.

“I play a bit of a character in Stereo League,” Savoth said. “It’s a bit of an amalgamation of Dan and I’s personalities.”

But now, Savoth is putting his true self on wax with his first solo album, Midnight Sun, out Friday.

He was working on some songs that were initially planned to be part of a Stereo League release. During that process, he came to notice something novel about them.

“I was writing these songs in my home, sort of late evening sessions by myself,” he said. “I have two little kids at home and my second — my son — had just been born. They were very personal songs and the more I got down the road, I realized that I didn’t really want anyone else’s opinion on them.”

Without the collaboration with King, Savoth said  there’s no character to be played. The uniquely personal album leans into his Americana and folk roots, and Savoth cited John Prine,  Damien Jurado, Nick Drake, Leif Vollebekk, Songs: Ohia, and Blake Mills among those who influenced his writing.

“This is vulnerable, it’s very personal, and it’s very me.”

Savoth has released two tracks from Midnight Sun, “Wild Sweet Love” and “All Time;” he played both a Free At Noon on March 13. “All Time” happens to be the first song he ever wrote on a keyboard, and that’s due in part to his daughter.

 ”I wrote that song on a little Casio keyboard that I bought for my daughter while sitting in her room,” he said. “I had the melody in my head, she was on her bed maybe looking at books, and I was just sitting there and I wrote the melody and everything to it.”

The track also features some local heavy hitters: Eliza Hardy Jones, who sings backing vocals on three additional songs, and Logan Roth on keyboards.

Other personnel on the album include drummers Chris Giraldi and Gusten Rudolph, each of whom played on four of the album’s eight tracks; Brendan McGeehan on bass, who also produced the album; prolific steel guitarist Mike “Slo-Mo” Brenner; and Rob Hyman of The Hooters, who owns  Elm Street Studios here in Philadelphia where Midnight Sun was recorded.

“ The whole time we’re producing this album, Rob would be in his office and he would often come in on sessions and just sit down,” Savoth said. “Rob gave us really great feedback throughout the process.”

His presence can be heard on the track “Bound To Be,” which features The Hooters’ signature accordion.

“We were working on one of the songs and we were like, ‘hey, we’re thinking maybe we could use some accordion in this one.'” Hyman obliged and laid down an accordion track that defined the song, Savoth said.

Another contributor is Savoth’s younger brother, Nate Savoth, who cowrote the album’s final track, “Daybreak.” The song features a section that the Nate wrote many years ago.

 ”I was in college at the time, he was finishing up high school and playing a lot of guitar, trying to find what type of instrumentalist he wanted to be,” Savoth said. “And he wrote this a little acoustic piece that was very simple and I just loved it.”

When it came time to put Midnight Sun together, Savoth asked his brother about the ditty written roughly 20 years ago.

 ”I sent him a text message and I just said, ‘do you remember the acoustic song in D?’ And then 20 minutes later I got a voice memo back. He remembered the whole thing and played the part for me verbatim.”

That bit became the verse section of “Daybreak.” As Savoth was working on the rest of the song around his daughter — a common theme of his writing process — he came up with the closing refrain: “know that I will be there, too; know that I will be there, too.”

He finished the part and decided to take his daughter out for a walk in Wissahickon Valley Park.

“I’m sort of singing it as we’re driving, I still had the end of it stuck in my head,” he said.

While on the hike, his daughter up on his shoulders, he heard something that struck him deeply.

“We’re just like looking at nature and just walking along and then outta nowhere, I just hear her above me: ‘know that I will be there, too.’ I teared up and thought, ‘man, how lucky am I to just live the life that I live and create the music that I do and have this little girl, and a son now too, that sing these songs.'”

In that moment, focusing on the familial bonds through music, Savoth knew “Daybreak” would close out his first solo album.

Midnight Sun drops Friday, and Savoth will play an album release show at Johnny Brenda’s June 11, with Max Davey and James Clark supporting.