Alex Warren has a chart-topping hit with ‘Ordinary.' So why is he his own ‘No. 1 hater'?

Los Angeles Times

4 days ago

Of all the pop hits vying to become the song of the summer, Alex Warren's 'Ordinary' might be the most improbable: A stark and brooding ballad full of lurid Christian imagery — 'Shatter me with your touch / Oh Lord, return me to dust,' goes one line — it's about a guy seeking the kind of sexual-spiritual fulfillment not typically found on the beach or at a barbecue.
Yet the song, which has more than 720 million streams on Spotify, just logged its sixth week since early June atop Billboard's Hot 100 — more than a month longer at No. 1 than Sabrina Carpenter's 'Manchild,' to name one of the sunnier tunes soundtracking the season. (Among Warren's other competitors: Drake, who posted an image of the current chart on Instagram on Monday showing his song 'What Did I Miss?' at No. 2 behind Warren's hit. 'I'm taking that soon don't worry,' the rapper wrote.)
'Ordinary's' somber tone is all the more striking given that Warren — whose father died when he was 9 and who grew up in Carlsbad with a single mother he's described as an abusive alcoholic — first made a name for himself as a founding member of Hype House, the early-2020s conclave of TikTokers known for beaming out goofy bite-size content from a rented mansion in Los Angeles. Half a decade later, Warren is still a faithful user of his TikTok account (with its 18.8 million followers), though these days he's mostly driving attention — often with the help of his wife, fellow influencer Kouvr Annon — to his music, which combines the moody theatrics of early Sam Smith with the highly buffed textures of Imagine Dragons.
On Friday, Warren will release his debut LP, 'You'll Be Alright, Kid,' featuring guest appearances by Blackpink's Rosé and by Jelly Roll, who brought Warren to the stage at April's Stagecoach festival to sing 'Ordinary' and to premiere their duet 'Bloodline.' Warren, 24, discussed his journey during a recent trip to L.A. from his new home in Nashville, where he lives not far from Jelly Roll and Teddy Swims. 'I was just texting Teddy,' Warren says as we sit down. 'I got off tour and immediately was like, 'Oh, I want to buy a go-kart.' Teddy FaceTimes me, he goes, 'You a—hole. I'm trying to buy a go-kart right now too.' Apparently, I bought the last go-kart in Tennessee.' These are excerpts from our conversation.
'Ordinary' is clearly drawing on your identity as a Christian. Yet there's something almost sacrilegious about the song. I get that criticism a lot.
To me it's what makes the song interesting — the erotic energy in a line like 'You got me kissing the ground of your sanctuary.' I'm worshiping my wife in a way — she's the best thing that's ever happened to me. You can't just write a song like that and be like, 'Oh, baby, you're my everything.' Everyone's already done 'You're my world,' you know? I wanted to do something different — almost Hozier-esque. I wrote into it being like, I really love my wife, and I have a relationship with God — that's something I can compare it to.
As the song has gone out, I've heard a lot of Christians' opinions on it, and some people are like, 'F— this guy.' There's also so many people who think it's a super die-hard Christian song and don't like it either. I have to be OK with both sides hating me.
You've led a peculiar life, which obviously lends context to your music for anyone who knows the details. Yet 'Ordinary' is big enough now that many listeners — maybe most listeners — are hearing it without knowing anything about you.This new song I've been teasing ['Eternity'] is about grief, and people are like, 'I can't wait to play it at my wedding.' It's cool that people are making it their own. It reminds me of Lewis Capaldi's 'Someone You Loved,' where people were like, 'Oh my God, this is a breakup record.' No, he wrote it about his grandma.
Are you a Capaldi fan?I love Lewis. I don't look like a Justin Bieber/Shawn Mendes traditional pop star, but it's cool because Lewis kind of made it popular to not give a f—. Lewis and Ed [Sheeran], I would say — I mean, I've seen Ed's closet, and it's just nine white Prada T-shirts.
You have an unusual voice.Thank you — I think?
It's deeper than most pop voices right now. Does it seem unusual to you?No. I asked my wife, 'Do I have a basic voice?' She was like, 'What are you talking about?' I was like, 'I live with this voice, and I think it just sounds like every other bitch.' But I'm my No. 1 hater.
I went back and looked at the series Netflix made about Hype House.I'm so sorry.
There's some significant fluctuations in your weight, and I was wondering how working in a visual field from a pretty young age shaped your ideas about eating and exercise.When I started making money, I didn't know what to do with it and I just used DoorDash every second I could. As time went on, especially in Hype House, you have so many people's opinions and everyone's pointing out your flaws, and the weight was definitely one of them. After that I was like, 'OK, how do I fix this?' I'm 24 now — I was 22, 21 at the time, and I was like, 'I should be in the best shape of my life.'
But it definitely does take a toll on you. Even now, if you go look at my TikTok comments, thousands of people are loving me. You go on Twitter, the first 400 comments are like, 'He's so ugly,' 'His nose is crooked,' all these things. It hits a point where you have a thousand people loving you, but those two people not — you're like, 'Wait, are they the ones telling me the truth? Is everyone else just gassing me up?'
Kind of bleak.It's such a strange career. I have the Kids' Choice Awards on Saturday, and I'm like, 'Should I be eating this the next few days?'
Would you say you're in a good place in terms of how you think about your physical appearance?Looking in the mirror, probably not. But when it comes to having to approve a photo, I don't give a s—. I'll approve whatever, double chin and all.
Is that true?Truly, I don't mind, because I don't think people are watching my videos for my attractiveness. That being said, if I was lighter, I think I'd be happier looking at myself. But at the same time, I don't care because these songs to me are more about what they're about and less about how I look. Also, it gives me some leeway if someone catches me lacking at In-N-Out.
You've said you don't really drink or do drugs but that you get drunk once a year. What would be the occasion?I just got drunk with Ed Sheeran — I drank two Modelos and I got put on my ass. This was at Santa's Pub [in Nashville] — me, Noah Kahan and Ed Sheeran. They had just played something, and Ed was like, 'Do you want a drink?' I was like, 'If I'm getting drunk this year, it's getting drunk with Ed Sheeran.' So he gave me a Modelo, and I was like, 'Whoa, I'm feeling this.' He's like, 'OK, dude, I'm on my 11th.' He hands me a second one, and my wife had to drive me home.
So I've been getting a little loose with it. But it's always beer — I don't really drink any hard stuff. Nothing against it, I've just always preferred Diet Coke. I wish I liked alcohol.
I mean, you can cultivate this. It's easy to do.I've been trying. I had a sip of my friend's old fashioned. I thought it was interesting — sugary, but I liked it.
Your song 'The Outside' on this new record talks about the illusory nature of happiness and success.I went into it wanting to write about the things that people go through to turn to God or another power or something to get out of their own heads. I wanted to depict people finding a sense of purpose.
'Hollywood wasn't all that she thought / City of Angels but her wings got caught / She got high enough to think she met God.'You move to L.A. to pursue a dream and you see God after doing a hallucinogenic — that's referencing a friend of mine who's now a Christian buff who did ayahuasca. The other [verse] is about health care — watching my friends who don't have it because it's so expensive.
''It's just stress,' so the doctor says / His young heart's beating out of his chest / Student loans and medical debt.'The Luigi Mangione case happened around the time we wrote that record.
Luigi was in your head as you were writing?That second verse is literally about Luigi Mangione. Not to get political, but the things that I feel are necessary in life — you have to pay for it, and it causes people to turn to something like God. The song ends with me being like, 'I talk to my dad in the sky, hoping he talks to me back.' That song means a lot to me.
Your music is extremely tidy, which stands in contrast to the singer-songwriter mode of the Zach Bryans —And the Noah Kahans, where they're flat in some parts and it doesn't matter because the emotion's there.
Why is your instinct as a musician to go for something neater?Because I don't have the luxury of being able to make what some people view as mistakes. Coming from TikTok to music, I feel like it needs to be neat — it needs to be, 'Oh my God, this guy can do this.' The next album I'm working on, it's more rugged. I'm finding different parts of my voice. I've been listening to a lot of older music too, which has been really good.
Such as?Hall & Oates — dude, 'Rich Girl'? Billy Joel too.
Is there still a Hype House group chat?I have a group chat with not all of them but the ones that — I'm not gonna name-drop them, but the ones getting popular with music. It was formative years in my life — my college experience, I guess. We're able to look back on it and have a moment of, like, 'That sucked, but it was also awesome.'
Would people in the house have called that you and Addison Rae would be the ones to break out as musicians?No, I don't think so — especially not me. Maybe Addison — Addison has always been cool. Everyone loved Addison, even in the house, and she's always been so kind. Even to this day, she's a good friend of mine. But no one would have guessed me. I don't think anyone liked me.
In the house?Just in general. The Netflix show — a lot of it was fake, but looking at that, I feel like I'm such a better person now.
Are you glad that 'Ordinary' happened after the influencer moment in your life — that there's a bit of separation?I started this in 2020, 2021 — I put out my first song then, and I was still an influencer, vlogging, doing all those things. Everyone's like, 'He came out of nowhere,' and I'm like, I've been doing this for five years.
But nobody cared until well after your time as an influencer — which might be a good thing, right? I'm not sure the overlap served Lil Huddy. In a weird way, you might've gotten lucky.I think about that often. I made videos with my wife — I never really made videos with the content house — and those videos were successful in their own right. I think a lot of my fans today were watching me at that time, but not for the Hype House. Actually, no, that's not true.
It's hard to generalize about the audience for a song this big.All I do is put my head down and promote the records. I'm not paying attention to the scope of things.
Of course you're checking the numbers.I'm not understanding the scope besides the numbers. My monthly listeners [on Spotify], someone told me it was 50-something million — that's sick. But I can't contextualize that. If I'm walking down the street, how many people have heard the song and how many people know who I am? I know the song is big, but I'm under the assumption that the record's bigger than I am.
That seems true.OK, so what does that mean? I can compare it to a Lola Young, or is it a Benson Boone? I think that's two separate things right now. Also, I don't know the age demographic. If I walk into a bingo night, are they gonna know who I am?
A bingo night?You know what I'm saying. The song is No. 1 on Hot AC — that's adult contemporary. Is it someone's mom? I don't know who's listening to the record. But I write songs about people passing away, and most people — no matter rich, poor, whatever — it's typically gonna be your 40-and-up who are gonna relate to that record. Kids don't necessarily deal with loss the same way.
Is it weird to think that a significant portion of your audience is people twice your age?No, that's f—ing rad to me — the older audience is the hardest to grab. I think it's safe to say that most people judge notoriety on whether their mom knows who they are, right? If that's where I start, that's cool.