Alexandra Lockhart’s project Cumulus has always been a collaborative effort. It may have started as a solo(ish) project, at times literally existing in a bedroom, but for more than a decade now, Lockhart has surrounded herself with friends and fellow musicians to help bring her music to life both in the studio and onstage.
Among them, at least since 2018’s Comfort World, has been William Cremin, who’s worked with Travis Thompson, the Torn ACLs, and Skeletons With Flesh on Them, among others. Last year, while recording the fourth Cumulus full-length We’ve Got It All, Lockhart and Cremin made their music partnership official, announcing Cremin was a permanent part of the band.
“For this new record, I wanted to explore more territory emotionally and sonically that I knew would require being more vulnerable and opening myself up to bigger contributions from William,” says Alex. “So it just made sense to say out in the open: These songs are as much William’s as they are mine!”
We’ve Got It All is drenched in nostalgia but not in the usual saccharine, obsessed-with-our-fleeting-youth sort of way. Instead of getting lost in the good old days, Lockhart remembers the music that shaped her into who she grew up to be and uses those memories as a map to help her find her place in today’s world.
Take, for example, the album's second single, “Lose Your Mind.” Lockhart’s optimistic lyrics are at first only accompanied by piano, but the song blooms into a vibrant burst of harmonies and guitar that almost feel like it was plucked from a jam session from the Band’s The Last Waltz.
For The Stranger’s premiere of the track, Lockhart and Cremin offered a little more insight into the creative process behind the upcoming record, and the music that inspired it.
One thing I’ve always appreciated about Cumulus and your songwriting is your focus on prioritizing comfort, especially when the rest of the world feels so unsettling and scary. Your 2018 album was called Comfort World, in 2022 you offered Something Brighter. You acknowledge the bullshit but then offer not an escape, really, but a cozy place to decompress. A reminder to slow down. Does that trend continue on this album, too?
Alex: Your observation is going to make me emotional! I’ve always looked to songs that I love as like… being in the company of a good friend. When a songwriter is honest about how they are experiencing the world around them, as a listener, I can’t help but feel connected, inspired, and less alone. If my songs offer a cozy place to decompress, I would say that probably has happened naturally out of the fact that it’s the exact reason I go to music myself. I don’t go to music to escape. I go to music to feel things more deeply, maybe think about things a little differently, and connect myself to the world. Thank you for giving me the best compliment a songwriter could ever ask for!
William: Yes! There’s always a balance between taking care of yourself and staying engaged with this increasingly horrifying world, not looking away. That’s obviously something we’re all reckoning with, and it’s a big part of this album. For me, one of the most crucial bits of sequencing was putting our self-care mantra, “Welcome Back to Me,” right after “Bad News.” You have to face the heaviness, and you also have to balance that out somehow.
Related to that, We’ve Got It All also celebrates the music that has shaped you. “Wolves,” “Old Friend,” “Dad Song”—several tracks refer to lyrics and liner notes and bonding with others through music. Who are some of the musicians, or what are some of the songs that were running through your mind as you wrote these?
Alex: I love that you noticed this theme! This was a record where I wanted to be really unabashed about my influences and nostalgia of ’90s/ early-2000s music. “Wolves” is a reflection on growing up in Oak Harbor, a military town, and discovering punk music with these girls I idolized who eventually became my best friends (and still are!). They skateboarded and played in a band, wore their hair in liberty spikes, and in my most vivid memories we would spend hours in the garage just rocking out to the Distillers’ Coral Fang album. They helped me imagine more possibilities for myself.
“Old Friend” is a song I wrote with Aaron Guest, who plays piano on the record as well. We got together in 2022 and started this song just as a fun co-writing attempt, and in 2024 as I was looking at old notebooks of lyrics, the lyric sheet literally fell out, and I was like, “Oh shit, I love this song!” When Aaron and I initially got together, I think this song leaned heavily into the storytelling tradition of John Prine, and Bruce Springsteen, where the finer details are fiction but still telling a very real story. For both the person who stays in the hometown and gives up a dream, and the person who leaves to chase it—there is real sacrifice, and the grass is always greener on the other side.
“Dad Song” is a bit of a long story, but ultimately, it’s about my fandom of my dad and also Third Eye Blind. My dad’s love of live music and radio stations like 103.7 the Mountain was infectious to me, and I fell in love with the pop-rock bands of that era. We went to Bumbershoot together in 1998, and I was 10 years old, singing along to every word on “Semi-Charmed Life” with obviously no idea about the drug references. Many years later, as Blue came out, my dad and I were on our yearly summer road trip to Lake Chelan, listening to Third Eye Blind and reading all the liner notes. We got to “Deep Inside of You,” and it became a true “birds and the bees” moment that still cracks me up all these years later.
You also reference road trips and long drives, so I have to ask (because I love to talk about snacks): What is your go-to road-trip snack?
Alex: I’m a drowsy driver, so I always need caffeine on a road trip, and despite hating most energy drinks, I love the Monster Rehab tea. Maybe some Boom Chicka Pop Sweet and Salty popcorn and some adult Lunchable-type salami-and-cracker snack.
William: On one tour, I brought a huge stash of GoMacro bars, which absolutely saved the day on more than one occasion.
I read that you are donating a portion of your album proceeds to an organization that focuses on mental health. Can you tell me a little more about that and why that’s important to you to do that in connection with your music?
Alex: When I was pursuing music full time, one of the biggest struggles was having health insurance so heavily tied to an employer and being in and out of jobs in sacrifice to gigging and touring. I think this is a big part of what prevents creatives from being able to imagine the arts as a lifelong pursuit. MusiCares is a Grammy Foundation non-profit that provides musicians with resources to therapists, coverage for emergency medical care and regular health check clinics, as well as recovery funds for natural disasters like the fires that just happened in LA. I’ve struggled with depression and financial instability for most of my adult life, so I can’t help but want to support an organization like MusiCares, which is one of the only safety nets specifically for musicians and music industry professionals. Working with a non-profit record label like Share It Music is amazing because we get to release a record and give a little bit back.
You recorded the album with a great group of musicians—John van Deusen from the Lonely Forest, Aaron Guest, Aaron Ball—what will the Cumulus lineup look like for the record release shows in May? Will it be a full band?
Alex: Yes!! We will be playing as a six-piece band for all three release shows. Aaron Guest (Polecat) on Piano, Aaron Ball (Dryland) on drums, Brad Lockhart (Dryland/husband) on guitar, Jeff Ballew (Baby Cakes) on bass, and William on lead guitar (plus me singing and occasionally strumming!).
Preorder We've Got It All on Bandcamp. Cumulus play three record release shows next month. See them at the Wild Buffalo in Bellingham May 1, the Unknown in Anacortes May 2, and Conor Byrne in Seattle May 3.
