A Thank You to Swarthmore
Alex Kilroy
I moved to the United States from Europe in 2018 to pursue my music career. At first, I lived in Havertown with great friends who I now consider to be my American family. I also met Bruce Scott, the front man for the band The Dope Pinheads, and we soon started playing together. We played a bunch of shows around Havertown and Media, and then one night we played at the waR3house3 in Swarthmore. I totally loved the vibe of the place and the awesome crowd. And the owner, Robert Borgstrom, was an amazing host.
After a couple of months, I decided to move to Nashville, Tennessee. I had bought a car for that purpose, and I was ready to go, but then I wrecked it. That would have been a major step-back for my career, if it were not for my amazing friends, and the waR3house3, and the people of Swarthmore. On January 25, 2019, my friends helped me put a show together at the waR3house3 called “The Road to Nashville,” which helped me raise money for my adventure. I’ll forever be grateful to everyone who was in the room that night.
Nashville was tough at first, but after three weeks of uncertainty I got my first gig on Broadway, a major thoroughfare in downtown Nashville. After that, I played in different bands with amazing musicians, and I learned a lot from them about music, the music industry, and songwriting. In a way, living in Nashville has been like going to the greatest music college in the world.
When the pandemic hit, I was living with members of a band I’d been performing with on Broadway. Since we were stuck at home at first, we had to find new ways to bring our music to people and earn a living from it. We decided to broadcast our show on Facebook, so we turned our garage into a video broadcast studio, and named it “Garage Ole Opry.” That worked great for a while. Then, after three months, the governor of Tennessee allowed bars to re-open—although with smaller crowds—so we were able to play live in public again. That’s when I started my own band, Alex Kilroy and the Nashville Vampires.
These days, I’m writing a lot of music. I’ve released two singles, called “Cry” and “Miss My Loving,” that I produced with Brent McCollough (the keyboard player for the country singer Trace Adkins). I’m also playing and touring with the band Presley & Taylor—two beautiful and gifted songwriters whose single, “Everybody Sees It,” recently reached number one on the Country Music Television charts.
I have a pretty busy schedule, but when I realized I was free this week, I decided to come back to Pennsylvania and enjoy spending time with my friends here. And I realized that, while I’m in the area, it would be great to get together again with The Dope Pinheads and jam. We’ll be playing at the waR3house3 this coming Saturday night. Hope to see y’all there!
Doors open at 7 p.m. at the waR3house3, 100 Park Avenue, Swarthmore.
