Spotlight: Alexa Cappelli is Still Opening Doors to Her Voice with 'Confused @ 22'

 

☆ BY Lanie Brice

 
 

ALEXA CAPPELLI WENT FROM SEEING KELLY CLARKSON AS HER BIGGEST VOCAL INSPIRATION - to joining Team Kelly on The Voice at the age of 18. After finishing in the top 24, Cappelli left the show with a commitment to developing her style and artistic voice in a way she’d never considered before. Four years later, Cappelli has a project Confused @ 22, marking a new chapter for the rising artist. 

Her pop sensibilities and a spark for songwriting were first cultivated by attending the Orange County School of the Arts, specializing in commercial music. There, she was able to take songwriting classes and reinvent pop hits with her peers. The additional training and opportunities to perform further cemented her love for the craft that started when she was little at church, and the school being a long drive from her hometown was an early lesson that she would have to make certain sacrifices to pursue singing as a career. “It showed me just how hard it is. I gotta work to do what I love,” she says of her time at the school. 

Cappelli was later able to secure a spot on The Voice, which had a profound effect on her outlook on her career going forward. “Before I was on the show, I was a singer, and I liked singing. I liked performing. But after being on the show, I realized, ‘Oh, I want to be an artist.’ I want to have something to say. I want to have a style and a voice. That just propelled me to figure out those questions.” Her first step towards that came in the form of a 3 song collection in 2019 called The Colors That Make You. 

“I’ve been getting better at finding more and more of my voice in the songs that I write, and every release has been like another door unlocking to who I want to be as an artist,” she says of her evolving process. Over the last handful of years, Cappelli has further explored that through releasing half a dozen singles. Many of these were first previewed by a handful of neighbors who attended her “cul de sac acoustic shows” in 2020. Playing these songs for her neighbors further instilled a confidence in her words that has carried into the creation of her new EP, Confused @ 22. 

Lead single “Body Language” finds inspiration from a situation in her life where she felt held back by a long distance situationship. “It’s about a situation where you’re getting to know somebody, but you haven’t spent a whole lot of time in the same room,” she says of the origin of the song. “I think being able to spend quality time with someone is really, really important, especially if you want a romantic relationship with them,” she explains. 

“Body Language” also dropped with a brand new music video. While discussing the meaning of the song, she mentions that watching the video will offer fans even more insight into the moment of her life that inspired the song. She summarizes the elaborate story in the video saying, “This video is about judging a book by its cover. We see an innocent sweet looking girl, getting love letters from someone complimenting her on all her surface characteristics. He doesn’t know she has a dark side & flaws & imperfections too. It’s a take on the potential difficulties of getting to know someone without being in the same room.” She mentions that one day she’d like to take even more of the reigns over her music videos, possibly editing one herself. 

As for the new EP, Cappelli reveals her favorite lyric from the project, “In the last track of the EP, the second verse “If their grass is green, I’d rather mine be pink, but when’s the last time I watered it?” insinuated the idea that maybe the grass isn’t greener on the other side, but where you water it. It considers the thought that maybe I don’t want my “grass” to be wrapped up in money, success, or fame, but more-so in love, truth, and kindness,” she says. Cappelli adds that the EP is full of her most honest songs and delves into loneliness, confusion, and even wishful thinking.

The EP’s title, Confused @ 22, has a bit of a double meaning as she is currently 22, in 2022, and 22 happens to be her favorite number. The EP offers a further look into her evolution as an artist and her feelings that have accumulated over the last year as she’s navigated young adulthood. Cappelli also notes that fans can expect a second project this year sometime in the summer but kept further details on that project quiet. 

CONNECT WITH ALEXA CAPPELLI

INSTAGRAM

SPOTIFY

 
Previous
Previous

Q&A: Perel is Making Her Mark in The Electronic Music Scene

Next
Next

Spotlight: Taking a Ride to South by Southwest With Best Move