‘It’s Never Too Late to Start Over’: Inside Alisa Xayalith’s Empowering Rebuild

When Alisa Xayalith left The Naked and Famous, it wasn’t just a break — it was a full reset. “It was about being slowly crushed by the thing you love most — and for me, that’s music,” she says. “But I also fell back in love with it.”

Her debut solo album, Slow Crush, is exactly what that sounds like. Soft-edged but emotionally sharp, it feels like the afterglow of crying in your car and finally coming to terms with things. It’s the exhale after the long-held breath of her 2022 EP Superpowers. “It’s like a warm hug,” the New Zealand-born artist tells Rolling Stone AU/NZ over Zoom from her LA home. “That’s what I wanted it to feel like.”

That process of coming back to herself started in the aftermath of Recover, The Naked and Famous’ 2020 release – a slow emotional landslide made messier by a breakup with longtime bandmate Thomas Powers. Then the pandemic hit; cue total shutdown.“I couldn’t even think about making another record,” she says. So she didn’t. Instead, she got a therapist and started what she calls “re-meeting myself in my 30s.”

Xayalith has been in LA for 13 years now, a period marked by chaos – Trump’s inauguration, California wildfires, creative burnout. “I texted Aaron Short, our keyboard player – he also mixed my record – and asked, ‘Do you remember when we moved here?’ He said, ‘April 28, 13 years ago,’ and sent a photo of Tom and David on our Laurel Canyon stoop. I couldn’t believe it.”

That stretch of time – romantic fallout, a band dynamic reshuffle, pandemic pause – was, in her words, “a condensed stretch of life.”

“Eventually I stepped away and started building something new – somewhere I felt safe creatively, where there was peace and support,” she reveals.

Slow Crush represents a full-circle moment for Xayalith. The lyric she wrote years ago for The Naked and Famous’ breakout hit “Young Blood” – “fall back in love eventually” – has turned out to be less indie-pop nostalgia, more prophecy. “That tension – between the world I’m stepping out of and the one I’m stepping into — that’s where this album lives,” she now says.

Starting over wasn’t easy, though. No guidebook, no management, no machine – just Xayalith figuring it out from scratch. “Coming out of the band, I didn’t know how to handle the business side of things,” she laughs. “It was like, ‘Alisa, you write the songs and sing, the boys will take care of everything else.’ I didn’t realise how much that held me back as a creative adult.”

So she did what any overachiever in their healing era might do: absolutely everything. “It became really empowering doing everything myself. I taught myself how to upload to DSPs, format videos, hire a social media team, borrow clothes, do my own glam for music videos,” she says. “But I also realised, just because I can do it all doesn’t mean I have to.” Today she’s signed to Nettwerk Music Group (home to Mallrat), and surrounded by a female-led team. “I’ve got people around me now who really believe in me,” she adds.

What cracked everything open was writing. First solo, then co-writing – a new experience after years of insularity. “Before, it was just me and Tom. No outside writers.” In LA, she started walking into rooms full of strangers. “It’s like creative dating. You meet at 1pm, spill your guts by 7.”

“Some songs were bad. But some were good,” she laughs. “It’s like a muscle. A lot of young artists get crushed if someone doesn’t like their song. My partner’s super critical, but I started seeing that as fuel. I always had something to prove. So songwriting became something I just wanted to get better at.”

A turning point came at an APRA songwriting camp in New Zealand, where she met producer Harry Charles. He became part of her core creative team, alongside her now-husband Tyler Spry (who’s worked with OneRepublic and Tate McRae). The pair recently eloped in Aotearoa.

“Tyler helped me get the EP over the line,” she says. “But eventually he told me, ‘I believe in you – but I’ve got my own career to focus on.’”

She smiles. “‘It’s time for you to fly,’ he told me. So I did.”

And Slow Crush really does soar. “Chaotic” is dreamy and quirky in the best way – Studio Ghibli synths meeting wistful guitar lines. The melancholy’s still there, but it’s wrapped in soft pastels now. “For so long, I thought I had to be miserable to write songs,” she concedes. “Like a creative martyr. My 20s weren’t the happiest, and I felt a lot of pressure to take everything too seriously.”

That honesty is the quiet superpower of this record. “What the Hell Do We Do Now?” is a standout – a morally messy moment of being the anti-hero for once. “I’m always trying to be good, to do the right thing – it’s how I was raised coming from a big family. But this song? It’s from the perspective of someone not trying to be the good guy. I thought, ‘Oh yeah, I’m an exceptionally flawed human!’ It was a revelation.”

And now, the next leap: performing her solo album live. “Honestly, it scares the living daylights out of me,” she admits. “I feel like I’m 13 again, playing guitar at school talent shows.” But she’s doing it. “I’ve figured out who I am outside the band. Now it’s about getting onstage and owning it. It’s scary – but exciting.”

It’s paying off already. The twinkly, upbeat “Roses” landed on The Sex Lives of College Girls – her first sync. “That meant so much to me,” she beams. Soon after, glowing album reviews started pouring in.

Her goal now? Keep creating – but only for the right reasons. “In my 20s, I put so much pressure on myself to succeed. I still do. But now I just want to make music I love, with the tools I’ve got.

“I hate the word ‘journey,’ but that’s what it’s been. I’m the happiest I’ve ever been making music, which is a strange thing to say for someone who’s been doing it for as long as I have.”

But Xayalith isn’t naive. The industry is still brutal, especially for women. “Of course I’ve had those fears – about being aged out,” she says. “But I remind myself, I’ve been doing this a long time. If people don’t get it, that’s okay. I know who I am.”

“It’s never too late to start over. I feel like I’ve lived so many lives here in LA. Wherever you’re at, you can always start fresh. That’s one of the biggest blessings.”

Slow Crush is proof. A restart. A reckoning. A quiet flex. “And now,” she says, “it’s mine.”

Alisa Xayalith’s Slow Crush is out now via Nettwerk.