Curiosity and observation are closely connected in both science and the arts, so Alex Pianovich's early career ambitions as a herpetologist may have pointed him toward his current calling as a professional musician and songwriter. The current lineup of his band, Greazy Alice, finds Pianovich working with vocalist Jo Morris in what amounts to a modern take on the classic boy/girl country duet. The band’s debut EP, JUST ANOTHER ONE was released recently, to be followed by another EP, CIRCLES next month and a full-length album in early 2026. Signed to Loose Music, Greazy Alice are visiting our shores next May to perform at the Kilkenny Roots Festival.
Is your career as a herpetologist still current or in the past tense?
That’s past tense now. I studied biology in college, but at eighteen years old, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I fell into that and ended up working in this very cool herpetology lab for a couple of years and got to travel around a bit doing that. I lived in the woods for a while, and that’s when I started playing the guitar and writing songs. I’ve been retired from the herpetology game for over a decade now, but I still keep in touch with all those people. Once in a while, they will have a convention in New Orleans; they’re party animals, but great scientists and lots of fun to be around. I go for long walks every day, and I found a snake in the park the other day, that’s the closest I’ve come to herpetology in a while, but I do a bit of snake identification for my friends. You have no snakes in Ireland; Saint Patrick got them all out.
Given that the band has been in existence for a number of years, is the current configuration of Greazy Alice a second coming?
I would have previously categorised my music as just solo shit, but to avoid confusion and competing with myself, it's easier to package something under one name, so since Jo Morris and I started working together, it has been more of a consolidation than a second coming. It’s strange because I have my own definition of what Greazy Alice was, but I’ve learned to lean into anything that I’m making, and it will come under this moniker at least for now.
You perform as both a duo with Jo Morris and as a full band.
Greazy Alice is a very collective thing, but at the core of it are Jo and me. We’re all very excited about coming to Ireland. I’ve never been there. We played the U.K. in August, just Jo and me as a two-piece. We had a blast doing that. We’ll have the full band next May for Kilkenny and for whatever else happens.
You took the band’s name from a character in the 1975 Terry Allen album, JUAREZ.
Yes. That’s a classic record; my friend played it for me about ten years ago when I was jamming with the guys in the first iteration of what was to become Greazy Alice. I didn’t have a name for the band, and we were playing the album and track four on it is Border Palace, and as soon as I heard him say, Greazy Alice, in that song, I said, ‘There you go, that’s the name.’
In the review of the JUST ANOTHER ONE EP, I referenced a cross between Mark Lanegan/Isobel Campbell and Lee Hazlewood/Nancy Sinatra, and that also comes across on the CIRCLES EP to be released next month.
That was so cool, I’m really flattered by the comparison.I never would have thought that, but I’m really happy about that. I have not heard that from anyone before. I love Lee and Nancy, but it's not something that I listen to all the time. It’s probably been kicking around in the back of my mind.
When did performing for fun become a professional option?
It was just for fun at first, but as soon as I started making money and got paid for the first time, I said, ‘I’m doing this.’ When I was twenty-one, I moved to New Orleans because the guitar player in my college band told me it was a great place to play music. I’m very lucky at this point that the majority of my income comes from playing my own stuff and gigs with other people. I’ve also worked all kinds of crazy jobs for the past fifteen years, but it’s finally beginning to work out for me. It takes a long time.
Where are you from originally?
I’m from the northeast in Pennsylvania, and a lot of my family is in the Philadelphia area. New Orleans feels like home, but Pennsylvania does too. I’ve been spending a bit of time back there, my dad’s a dentist back there in Central Pennsylvania, in the middle of nowhere. He’s retired for a few years and had a family practice there that I’ve been slowly trying to outfit into a recording space. I’ve been spending a bit more time up there to be close to my family. I’m from a town of about a thousand people in the middle of nowhere, and I do like being there, but if I want to be in a city, I want to be in New Orleans.
The magic and risks of relationships are drilled into in the song and title track of your first EP, JUST ANOTHER ONE.
It’s the recognition that anytime you give yourself over fully to something, there is a potential for massive hurt to occur and the potentially negative side. That runs through that whole record.
Will the full album, due to be released early next year, include all the material from the two EPs?
It will be the two EPs, JUST ANOTHER ONE and CIRCLES, minus a couple of tracks and six more tracks that will not be released in any form until the album comes out. So, it’s six tracks from the two EPs and six more. It may be a weird way of doing it, but that’s the way Loose and I decided to do it, so let’s see how this goes. We have done a limited run of cassettes with the full tracks to have something with my label here in New Orleans.
I understand that you recorded both EPs using a basic reel-to-reel Tascam recorder.
We recorded both EPs that way, except for a few bonus tracks that my buddy and I recorded from an earlier session.
Did that take the pressure off having to decide which to run with among multiple recordings?
Absolutely, I hate that workflow of trying to piece things together. It’s a nice tape machine, a sixteen-track one-inch. I prefer to go in there with guys who can play and try to get it right in the room. We did the reverbs and compression with outboard gear and did some minimal mixing on ProTools, but what came out on the tape was very close to what was released. We were very cognisant of what we were doing at the front end and very precise with that because I hate mixing, I’m not good at it and don’t have the money to pay anyone else to do it. That is the way everyone did it for a long time, and to me it’s more fun.
Where did the countryfied aspect of Greazy Alice’s sound come from?
I came to it the way a lot of people do. You listen to The Rolling Stones, find they’re hanging out with Gram Parsons, and then check out all of Gram Parsons' influences. That’s how I got into country. I liked some of the country that was happening in the 90s, though my father hated country music. He had the country channel on our TV blocked, so that when he was flipping through the channels, he wouldn’t accidentally land on it. My mom liked Mary Chapin Carpenter, and that was often playing in the car when I was growing up. I hadn’t remembered that, but my mom tells me that when I was two or three years old, I’d want Passionate Kisses and He Thinks He’ll Keep Her on in the car. I actually listened to that album COME ON COME ON a few months ago and I knew every song; they must have been living in the back of my brain for thirty-five years.
Interview by Declan Culliton
Greazy Alice play https://kilkennyroots.com/ in May 2026.