Multi-Platinum & Gold ARIA-certified, ARIA-nominated, and 4x Golden Guitar-nominated powerhouse KINGSWOOD are back with their latest single, “Lovin’ A Girl” – a heartfelt, guitar-driven ode to classic Country Rock. This single sets the tone for KINGSWOOD’s forthcoming album – a pure country rock journey that reaffirms their place among Australia’s most versatile and authentic musical storytellers.
We caught up with Alex Laska to talk about new music, influences and dinner guests…
Sean: Well, how’s things been in the Kingswood camp? 2023 was obviously enormous, with two albums, a huge 100-odd-date tour, and now rolling forward to 2025 and a brand-new single. Exciting times. It’s got a wonderful country vibe, a song that’s definitely going to fit very well into your live sets, especially after the tour for the ‘Home’ album. But where do all these influences stem from?
Alex: Country music and Southern rock and Americana and alt-Country have always been deeply enriched in the Kingswood tapestry and particularly in like our listenership you know like covering Skynyrd in primary school and and even stuff like Aerosmith, you know, big blues albums, which we’ve launched as well, and Tom Petty, and obviously getting further and further down the line to more traditional country stuff as we got older. Probably my first introduction into it was probably Elvis, and The Travelling Wilburys and a bit of Orbison, and then kind of going, “OK, well, who’s playing guitar?” Like, for me, it was fairly guitar-driven, so it’s like, who’s playing guitar on the Elvis stuff? It’s Scotty Moore. Okay, well what is Scotty leaning on? Well, he’s kind of leaning on like Chet Atkins style picking and Jerry Reed and it’s like, well who’s Jerry Reed? And why is he so famous for a particular guitar playing style?
And then you go “oh, well he went and played guitar with this guy named Glenn Campbell” and you go, well who’s Glenn Campbell? Why is he so good at guitar? Well not only is he great at guitar he’s got this beautiful voice and sings these amazing songs and you go, “well, how does that complement who were his contemporaries at the time” and all of a sudden you’re looking at George Jones and a little bit later like in the 70s and 80s and everything progresses and all of a sudden there’s this massive web of music that you would have never encountered purely because you might have been inspired by the guitar playing on an Elvis recording.
And, yes, I’ve always been like that, and that’s not just country music. You know, I started playing classical piano from a young age but moved pretty heavily into jazz in my teenage years. And that was a huge, huge shift in the music that I was being exposed to and what I was being drawn to and how it influenced my playing and you know, I mean I got into the blues through jazz. And alto saxophone like Louis Jordan and Dave Fathead Newman and like Sonny Rollins and Coleman Hawkins and all these great tenor players and great blues players and of course
Coltrane and all this stuff and Cannonball Adderley, The Cannonball Adderley Quintet was so blues focused and soul focused and gospel and of course like David Newman played tenor on all the Ray Charles stuff and you have a good smashing of country and soul and blues in Ray Charles. It never stops for me, it’s always just like, how could I deny one over the other?
Sean: What an incredible plethora of heroes and peers to sort of be influenced by.
Alex: Oh, absolutely. I mean, these guys are the titans. They’ve been the hallmark to a lot of the stuff I’ve developed musically over the course of my life.
Sean: ‘Lovin a Girl’ has got a fantastic country rock roots vibe again. Catchy as hell too. And what a great fun video to go with it. But where do you guys find the time to write because that was a gruelling tour you did last time and releasing two albums so close to each other. What is it?
A few weeks off and then back to the grind or is it something that when you’re on the road you write?
Alex: A little bit. A lot of this in my mind to start off with, particularly after I hear riffs and I hear certain things and I can’t escape them, if they don’t continue to invade my subconscious and my sort of inner creative hearing, then I go, that’s worth investigating, if that makes sense. You know, we were in Brisbane actually having completed that big tour, and I was like, man, I’ve got this riff that just keeps poking around my head. I started it off, it’s just like September 2023. God, you know, that’s like definitely leaning on the (Tom) Petty side of things and the more like American songbook, like, you know, Californian or like West Californian music, I’d call it.
You know, there’s a country thing to it, but it’s certainly more like I guess pop rock driven as well. It’s got the country tilt. And I was like, yeah, what if we lean on that a bit more and even lyrically and the phrasing and there’s a little bit of Fleetwood and stuff and it’s kind of all the worlds that we love combining. It wrote itself pretty quickly actually to be honest, on the bus that night and I guess it’s just a continuation of that sort of approach to song writing. I mean song writing is something that I do professionally for other people as well, so it’s certainly not uncommon to me to sort of focus something on, focus the attention on something I’ve been feeling or something that I’ve been observing or something that I’ve been pondering and kind of putting it to a soundtrack that sort of feels like Kingswood’s next progression, whatever that may be at the time.
Sean: Well, of course before we kicked off the interview you just said that you’re in the studio working on the album, so we are excited to hear that that’s progressing. Obviously I haven’t seen a release date or a title as yet so we’ll sit tight and wait but certainly one thing I have spotted is some shows coming up this month. It must be great to get back out and play live, I’m sure.
Alex: We just love it, I mean we really do. You know, people go, you know you’ve been on the road 15 years and especially from 2023 onwards it’s been an in excess of over… if you include Europe as well, we’re well into like the 300 mark for shows. You know, at the end of the day we’re musicians. We live and breathe music we love being musicians and we’re so fortunate as to be in a position where we can tour that much. I mean there’s certainly a time where that may not be the case and it wasn’t at one point so we’re going to play as much as we can and be as musical as we can because that’s our job. I always say this, it’s like a doctor gets up every day and goes and helps people and nurses and bus drivers and plumbers, they go to work every day. What’s the exception for us?
Sean: Well knowing how busy you are I would love to ask a couple of general questions before you go. If you could invite three musicians, dead or alive to join you for dinner on evening, who would you invite?
Alex: The one on the list is one of the greats. It’d be Mozart. Just because of his age, and I expect a very wicked sense of humour. Bit of a grunt, old Wolfgang. Paul, obviously. Like, as much as everyone’s like, you know, John… Paul, I think I resonate a lot more with Paul. He’s still here and he would have amassed a wealth of stories. I’ll take Paul, I’ll take Mozart, and I’ll take… Who’s my third? I’m going to take… Is it someone like Miles Davies? Or is Miles too loopy? [laughs] Like, he’s an interesting guy, but was a huge influence of mine. Nah, I’m skipping again. I’m skipping forward. Oh, I’m going to take Dolly Parton.
Sean: [laughs] Well, there are a few jumps there! Are you sure?
Alex: [laughs] I think so. I think Dolly would be a hoot because she would have so much insight and maybe give me the real dirt on the stuff that I’d want to know about the guitar players that I idolize, and all the steel players, or Lloyd Green and Buddy Emmons and all the guys who pioneered pedal steel playing. I’d maybe do Orville Gibson or Leo Fender. Maybe. In exchange for Dolly, just to like, you know, they tell me heaps of cool stories. They tell me heaps of cool stories about the artists and stuff. I don’t know, man. That’s a tricky one. [laughs]
Sean: I’ll let you have all five. You did do a 120 date tour, so you’ve earnt a couple of extra chairs at the table [laughs].
Alex: [laughs] That’d be amazing. Let’s do that.
Sean: What was the last album you listened to?
Alex: Oh, the last full album I listened to, which wasn’t that long ago was Vince Gill, ‘When I Call Your Name’ I reckon. I’ve got all his albums.
Sean: Finally, if you could be credited with writing any song ever written what song would you choose?
Alex: Oh good Lord above! Chopin’s ‘Fantaisie-Impromptu’ as a composition for sure. Maybe Beethoven’s ‘5th’. I’m trying to give you examples of pieces that I am floored by. ‘Yesterday’ by Paul McCartney. ‘Black Dog’. ‘Sunshine of Your Love’, which has one of the all-time greatest riffs ever! Of course, someone wrote that but it’s mind blowing, but the way they did it. Oh god there is so many… too many!
Sean: Well, let me add those to my playlist for starters. Alex, thank you so much for your time and great to hear there is a new album underway. Excited to listen out for release and tour dates, and a huge congratulations on ‘Lovin A Girl’.
Alex: Great to catch up and thanks for your time & support as always Sean. Always a pleasure mate.
Sean: Regards to Fergus and hope to see you when your next over in WA.
Alex: We can’t wait to get back over there and we’ll see you then. Thanks mate.
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