The first time that Jacob Alon held the hands of Adrianne Lenker they felt they’d found an ally. On a crisp spring evening in April 2023, Alon met their musical hero, having put on an impromptu busking gig outside Edinburgh’s Usher Hall for Lenker and her Big Thief bandmates. “In the moment, it felt as though I was seen for who I am – spiritually and emotionally,” the songwriter recalls. “I have never met a more present person than Adrianne. It was beautiful.”
As the rain skitters outside the windows of a bustling pub in central London, Alon continues to paint a picture of the night that opened up their world. At the time, the 24-year-old had been drifting, following a few turbulent months of drinking and near-homelessness, having become estranged from part of their family. But moving from Dunfermline to the Scottish capital – where Alon is now immersed in a vast, inclusive, idiosyncratic community of young creatives – has allowed them to nourish their identity as a non-binary person.
At the foot of Alon’s TikTok profile is a clip from this storied evening, in which they can be seen leading a stomping jam session as the members of Big Thief cheer along. A large yellow scarf twirls in tandem with Alon as they leap around with their guitar bouncing against their hip, while Lenker stands beaming. It shows a moment of unfettered joy, a musician galvanised by the camaraderie fanning out before them.
“Embracing spontaneity in the moment is what makes magic happen,” Alon continues, nursing a half pint of cider. In moments of deep thought, they gently run their purple-painted fingernails along a pair of sequinned Dr. Martens. “It’s something that I felt the night I watched Big Thief live and an energy I try to bring into my own shows now. When I perform, it’s essential to me that I feel connected to the room; to the people that are giving their hearts to the music.”
For Alon, it was a gradual understanding that their past and present do not have to be in conflict with one another that cemented their faith in the path they were on. Their gorgeous, sprawling debut LP In Limerence (due May 30 via Island) celebrates and interrogates what it means to navigate this world as a survivor of trauma, while reckoning with all of life’s uncertainties. Gliding between sublime melodies and grimy, guttural dissonance, the record is cinematic in its acoustic grandeur and intimate in its inspection – à la Mitski and Anohni and the Johnsons.
Gallows humour is also a vital outlet for Alon, too. In their songs, they traverse everything from exploring poppers and futile Grindr hookups (“Liquid Gold 25”) to the mundanity of sticking to a routine with anti-depressants (“Sertraline”). There’s moments, too, where they expose the darkest parts of their psyche, sounding audibly close to tears (“Don’t Fall Asleep”). It’s this unguardedness that makes Alon so hugely likeable; you can’t help but want them to thrive.
Speaking to Billboard U.K., Alon unpacks working with production maestro Dan Carey [Fontaines D.C., Wet Leg], touring as a neurodiverse person, and the “good c–-ts only” policy they uphold within their inner circle of collaborators.
What does a strong support system look like to you?
This is something that I have been reflecting on a lot recently. I mean, when you don’t necessarily understand all the aspects of your own personal qualities, it can be hard to ask other people about that. At the moment, I am coming to terms with my neurodiversity and still finding ways through which I can better understand how my brain works.
I am grateful for the people who make space for that; this industry is not very friendly to artists who are struggling with similar issues. It is so f–ked up. I appreciate open, active listening and people who look out for each other. My managers and I have this philosophy of surrounding ourselves with “good c–ts only”; we really believe in doing things the right way!
You previously described coming to terms with your queer identity as “frightening”. Do you see yourself as having gotten closer to reaching a place of acceptance?
Yeah, I guess by the nature of being queer, you don’t consent to be a singular being, you know? I mean, that’s the beauty of a they/them pronoun as well – it’s both singular and plural. It falls without the binary and any boundaries, it exists as a continuum between spaces and allows a person to not feel constrained by definitions. It can be really liberating.
As queer people, we’re always learning who we are. Acceptance can be tricky, but I am always working to forgive and learn to love parts of myself and parts of the people around me. Learning about and observing others without judgment is something that I’m trying to practice continually.
Does the artist you are now feel inclusive of all these past versions of yourself? Or do you feel more of a rift between them?
I think we all contain within us all of our previous reincarnations, all the way back to our inner younger child. So much of one’s own shame can come from denying the needs of those previous versions, and I’m working on that. I’ve not got it right yet. I’m not the same person as I once was, but all those previous versions are connected to an individual. You know, it’s our duty to take care of them as they took care of us when it was their turn.
When did you realise that the people around you – or your chosen family – had the potential to change your life for the better?
It has been a continuous thing where I have realised that my closest friends have helped me through really challenging times and always showed up for me. There were a few years where I felt quite ostracised from my biological family, and I didn’t have a sense of home.
I’m still reminded all the time of how precious these people are. But also, if we were to look at this through Venn diagrams, I think biological family can fall within the circle of one’s chosen family. My mum is part of my chosen family; there are some ties that mean more.
At the start of working on the record, what ideas or stories were you excited to express?
Dan and I were very keen on preserving this “untouched” feel to the music, we wanted it to maintain a delicateness and a fragility in order to match its message. A lot of the songs were done via one take. I could probably sing and play “Fairy In A Bottle” way better than I did it on the record, but if I were to do it again, I’d do it differently. We didn’t want to be too precious, which was super refreshing.
I wanted the record to feel like different sleep cycle phases. I wanted it to feel like it had a narrative structure: a beginning, where you step into the world of dreams, and it has a sobering resolution. I’ve been through cycles in life of feeling “in limerence” [an intense state of romantic infatuation] but I never had a word for it. I would feel confused and tormented by it, but yeah, it wasn’t until years ago I wrote “Fairy In A Bottle” that I was able to confront my own emotions.
When did you first encounter the term ‘in limerence’? It seems like it sparked a real lightbulb moment in you…
On my Notes app, I’ve got this list of words that really interest me. I think I first came across the idea of being “in limerence” on YouTube, via a trauma psychologist channel called The Crappy Childhood Fairy. In one video, she explained how the idea of being ‘in limerence’ is very distinct from being in love, on the grounds of how intense it can feel. Up until that point, I thought I was in love with these people that I kept crushing on.
YouTube became a place of solace and reassurance for me when I was growing up. It’s where I learned to sing and how to play piano. I would put ASMR videos on to relax when I was 12; I have grown up using that resource so much. It only made sense that when I was in deep, emotional turmoil, I would go there!
After everything you’ve been through on this journey, what makes you feel the most proud?
I just feel so proud of myself for not ever giving up. It can be hard to exist in a world with so much pain. A special moment, however, had to be when Dan and I recorded my song “Home Tapes.” When my mum was moving house, which happened during a gap in the creation of the album, I uncovered this box of unnamed VHS tapes. I got them digitized, and found 10 hours of footage, which I binge-watched as if it were a TV series. In doing so, I feel like I forgave a lot of things that I once hated myself; I’d had such a different idea of who I was when I was younger.
When it came to recording the song in the studio, it was all done live. Dan triggered the samples that I’d taken from the video footage, and we just played guitar and responded to the feeling in the room. After we finished the song, we lay on the floor and cried – taking stock of the journey that we had just been on together.