Alex Clare On ‘Tail Of Lions,’ Moving To Israel [Video Exclusive]

British singer-songwriter Alex Clare found inspiration close to home for his new single, “Tell Me What You Need.” “I got married maybe five years ago. And after a couple of years of marriage, if anyone’s in a relationship, they’ll understand that the hard work actually begins. There’s a lot of hard work to be done to maintain a healthy relationship. A lot of work on yourself, and your spouse has to work on themselves,” Clare told uInterview exclusively.

Alex Clare’s Inspiration For ‘Tell Me What You Need’

“I wrote ‘Tell Me What You Need’ after we had a little, not really a falling out, but we weren’t quite seeing eye to eye on something,” Clare continued. “From that frustration, I wrote a song called ‘Tell Me What You Need.’ Like ‘oh my goodness,’ what do you actually need? Can you talk to me?”

On his new album Tail of Lions, the singer describes, “The album deals with a lot of offense happening in the world right now. Big, big shifts.”

“For instance, ‘Open Your Eyes,’ I wrote that after the notion for a Brexit vote was first passed, which I couldn’t believe, and I was very sad about,” Clare lamented.

“Another song, ‘You’ll be Fine,’  was written as a homage to all those people who find it frustrating dealing with the books on mindfulness and self-help and everyone’s going to be so positive and growth-oriented and sometimes people are just frustrated and they can’t get out of the rut they’re stuck in. They need help to get out of the rut they’re stuck in through many different ways and means, but the trick is to not get frustrated,” Clare said.

On the title of the album, the artist elaborated, “The title of the album itself is based on an old Jewish proverb, which is: it’s better to be a tail to a lion than ahead to a fox. Which is something that I always thought was amazing. Be a small part of something great, as opposed to being the head and leader of something morally corrupt and ridiculous.”

The artist also described his musical influences as coming from a wide range of places.

“My influences come from everything from UK drum and base and jungle to Bob Dylan and Donnie Hathaway, Stevie Wonder, Leonard Cohen, very diverse,” he said. “From electronic music to soul music, to folk music, to rock music.”

The singer also discussed his past relationship with Amy Winehouse, whom he dated for less than a year in 2006. The pair met while Clare was performing at a bar the soul singer frequented in North London.

Clare recounts for us the memory of hearing Winehouse play the guitar.

“When I first heard Amy play a song on the guitar, I was sitting alone with her, in a bar, and she was just writing the album ‘Back to Black,’ and she played me a song. And I didn’t pick up a guitar or sing for a month, I was like, what is the point? How can you touch that? It blew me away so much. She’s an incredibly gifted person,” he praised.

“But like a lot of incredibly gifted people, they come with baggage,” Clare said regretfully. “And she didn’t have the ability to deal with it in a healthy way. Emotionally very draining if you have someone you care about who has problems like that.”

“But she’s an incredible musician,” he added. “A big heart and a big soul, that’s maybe just a little too big.”

Tail of Lions was released worldwide in November 2016 to high acclaim.