Ep. 233: Alex Warren | Surviving on Delusional Self-Belief

And The Writer Is...with Ross Golan

And The Writer Is

Music Creation, Songwriters, Songwriting, Artists, Music Interviews, Music, Interviews, Education

4.9 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 23 December 2025

⏱️ 94 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

And The Writer Is… Alex Warren.

Alex joins the podcast to talk openly about resilience, finding his voice, and what it actually takes to turn pain into songs that connect.

In this episode, he breaks down:

Overcoming homelessness and instability while chasing music
Earning credibility in an industry that didn’t immediately take him seriously
How vulnerability became his songwriting superpower
What his writing process looks like when the emotions are real — not manufactured
The difference between being seen and being heard

And the single most powerful way to get your music heard against all odds..

This ones about humble beginnings, trusting your voice when no one will listen, and learning how to write your way out of survival mode.

A special thank you to our sponsors…

Our lead sponsor, NMPA — the National Music Publishers’ Association.

Your support means the world to us.

And @splice — the best sample library on the market. Period.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	I wrote songs about grief and at that time, whenever I would walk into a session and say, I want to write about my dead parents, people are like, that doesn't sell. You've earned your place here, and I want to hear it from the beginning. I remember when my dad passed away, we all stopped. When did your father pass? I was nine. What happened? Cancer. He had beaten it twice or three times, and then the fourth time he couldn't beat it. And so he
0:22.4	spent his entire, well, at least my entire life, trying to make it memorable. And I can't imagine
0:27.5	how terrifying, waking up every day knowing that you're on a time clock, and you have to grow up
0:33.3	and not show that you're in pain. Anything I can do is easy. Because if he could do that, what?
0:38.9	What you've done so well is be unafraid to promote your music. Everyone's scared to fail and it's
0:45.8	perception. Ordinary got shit on for two to three weeks straight. And I was like, no, this is the
0:52.0	fucking song. This is going to change my life. And no one
0:55.0	believed in it. I think that everything I attribute to my life is because of God and because of my
0:58.4	parents. And I don't think that anything in my life has been an accident. This season is presented
1:04.1	by NMPA, the National Music Publishers Association, champions of songwriters and publishers everywhere.
1:12.6	Welcome to And The Writer is.
1:14.6	I'm your host, Ross Golan.
1:16.6	Today's Rising Star is hard to call a Rising Star because rising stars aren't arena headliners,
1:22.6	and yet here we are with an arena headlining Rising Star. From internet fame to Best New Artist nominee, his viral storytelling has literally broken records.
1:34.9	Not so ordinary, if you ask me.
1:37.2	Ho, ho, ho.
1:38.8	From rock bottom to rock star, this man is genuine to his core, which should remind us that honesty isn't just
1:46.0	moral currency. It's commercial currency. And the writer is my friend Alex Warren. That was awesome.
1:53.2	That was so sick. Watching you do that was amazing. We were just talking about it, but we had our first session
2:00.6	July 20th, 2002.
2:03.6	Which is nuts considering at that time, I can't imagine.
2:07.4	I mean, we had just listened to the record that we made.
	...

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