Greazy Alice

From central Pennsylvania to New Orleans

Pianovich grew up in Lykens, a small town in central Pennsylvania, and moved to New Orleans in 2012, just before turning 23. He had never visited. “I kind of wanted to go somewhere as different as I could imagine. I moved here sight unseen and really fell in love with it.” Fifteen years later, the distance between the two places still fascinates him. “Culturally, they’re about as different as two places can be in the same country. New Orleans is a one-of-a-kind place. Even compared to the rest of Louisiana, it’s a very specific, interesting place. Pennsylvania is pretty reserved, a very Protestant place; a little more austere, a little more modest.”

Like many people who leave a small town, Pianovich has come to see home differently with age. “When you’re growing up, especially in a small town, you can’t leave fast enough. You just want to get the hell out. But I love going back now. It’s beautiful. It’s up in the mountains, there are creeks running through it, and you can go fly fishing, hiking or mountain biking.” He is now turning his father’s former dental office into a recording studio, hoping eventually to divide his year between New Orleans and Pennsylvania. “As I get older, I miss it more and more.”

New Orleans inevitably changed him, although the clearest evidence may be culinary rather than musical. “Most of the first ten years I lived here, I worked in restaurants. I learned a lot about cooking, mostly in the New Orleans and French styles. I’m very thankful for those experiences, because I can carry that my whole life.”

Choirs, oldies and learning to write

Music was present from the beginning. Pianovich studied classical piano, both his parents were musical, and his father directed the choir at their Russian Orthodox church. “Russian Orthodox choral music is probably some of the earliest stuff I remember hearing. It’s all a cappella; there’s no organ or piano. That was a really important part of my musical upbringing.” Around the age of ten or eleven, he began claiming an oldies station as his own: Motown, Phil Spector’s productions, girl groups, The Beatles, The Beach Boys, the Four Tops and Frankie Valli. “Those songs became the foundation for my musical growth.”

At thirteen or fourteen he picked up a bass because his friends needed a bassist, then quickly moved to guitar. High school was filled with Led Zeppelin, Cream, Jimi Hendrix and late-sixties and seventies blues rock. At college, a piano in the dorm drew him back to his first instrument. Songwriting arrived during stretches of genuine downtime: first at a summer camp, then at a biology research station in southern Alabama. “I had a lot of alone time and a lot of downtime there. I came back with five or six decent songs, and had enough that I could play a set of original songs I was proud of and that people seemed to like.”

His biology degree left a mark too. “The background in biology made me develop an eye for nature. I notice things, and I love being in nature. A lot of my songs come from noticing certain things about the natural world. Developing a keen eye for it has helped me an awful lot as a songwriter.” That habit of close observation – learning one subject deeply enough to see the wider world through it – remains central to his songwriting.

Greazy Alice begins again

Greazy Alice released its album As Time Goes By on Loose Records in January 2026, after two EPs that previewed much of the record. The name itself predates the current lineup. Pianovich had considered starting over under a different moniker, until Tom from the label convinced him otherwise. “He said, ‘Look, anything you do is Greazy Alice.’ He just loved the name. I convinced myself that, yeah, anything I do is Greazy Alice.” This incarnation of the band came together while work on the album began, roughly two years ago.

The second record has had a few false starts. Illness and loss in the families of two band members forced Greazy Alice to cancel plans and step back. Now the group is allowing itself to begin again without forcing the pace. “We’re not in any rush for anything to happen. We love our jobs and we love our life here. I know some good stuff will happen with this, but we’re just letting it take the time it needs to take. The original we played on this session, The Wheel, will be on the next album.” Pianovich has also started teaching at a music school. “I’ve taught private lessons for a long time, but I’ve never had a job in a school. It’s some of the most fun I’ve ever had.”

In Kilkenny, the band adapted instantly to an unusual room, with drummer Lee Garcia helping the session find its natural rhythm. Pianovich was not surprised. “You can give him a couple of sticks and put him anywhere, and he’s going to make something really nice happen.” The pair regularly form the rhythm section for other New Orleans bands as well. “Musically, I don’t think there’s anyone in the world I’m closer with than Lee. We understand each other, and you couldn’t ask for a better dude. He’s such a good person.”

A hopeful boy transmuting sadness into hope

Whatever shape a song takes, Pianovich keeps returning to the same emotional movement. “The central subject matter has always been with me: those classic themes of sadness and hope. What makes me want to write is having a melancholic feeling and then trying to transform that into something cheerful or, if not cheerful, at least hopeful and forward-looking. Something that keeps you moving on down the road. It always feels like transmuting sadness. That’s the central core of the good songs, anyway.”

When I ask whether people would describe him as hopeful, he laughs. “Yeah, I’m a hopeful boy. You can’t not be. There’s not really a choice. You have to be, or you’re going to have a bad time. It’s hard sometimes, but it’s always worth it.” Hopeful Boy was even a working title for the Greazy Alice album. Perhaps, Pianovich suggests, it will become a real title one day.

Warren Zevon sits naturally in that same territory. “It’s some of the most evocative writing, and great music, great chord structures.” Pianovich singles out Desperados Under the Eaves: “It’s melancholic, but there is something vaguely hopeful in there. Maybe I’m imagining it, but I seem to find things in that song. His characters are so evocative and interesting, and his writing is so beautiful.” Greazy Alice nearly played a Zevon song for The Influences. Next time, perhaps.

Bob Dylan: It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry

Pianovich first heard Highway 61 Revisited in eighth grade. After the force of Like a Rolling Stone and Tombstone Blues, the third track stopped him in his tracks. “It’s got that cool little intro with the guitar and the piano. It’s such a break after Tombstone Blues. I remember the first time I heard it. It’s just a beautiful song.”

What he admires is its economy. “It’s just a handful of little stanzas, not much going on, but every line is perfect and it just goes with the feel of the song. I love the blues, and I love things that come pretty directly out of the blues. Of Dylan’s songs, that’s one where you can really feel his connection to it.” For the session, Pianovich reshaped the harmony around an arrangement he kept hearing in his head. “I changed the chords around a little bit. I had a way that I kept hearing it, and I figured out how to make that happen. I’m very happy with that arrangement.”

Gram Parsons: The New Soft Shoe

Gram Parsons is one of Pianovich’s foundational influences; his only tattoo is the cross from the back of Parsons’ Nudie suit. “He opened the door to the world of country music for me. I liked rock ’n’ roll and the Rolling Stones, and from the Stones you get to Gram. From Gram, it’s a window into the entire spectrum of country music.” Beyond the songwriting, he admires Parsons’ instincts as an interpreter: “His ability to pick songs, arrange songs and sing songs is unbelievable.”

The New Soft Shoe appeals to the same part of Pianovich that loves the image-rich Dylan of the mid-sixties. “It’s impressionistic. What’s really going on in it? I don’t know, but you feel it. You start to make out shapes from the different little vignettes and stories. I love songs like that, where you’re hinting at things and trying to create a mood, never saying anything directly.” It is also the kind of writing he strives for himself: “A lot of times I don’t know exactly what a line means; I just know how it makes me feel. The juxtaposition of images creates a third image in people’s minds. Everyone can have a different interpretation of what the song means, and everyone is probably kind of right.”

Greazy Alice: The Wheel

The Wheel was written a couple of years ago and is intended for the next Greazy Alice record. It has not yet had an official release, but it is the song Pianovich’s songwriter friends tend to remember. “I figured it would be a good one to do for this. We didn’t have a recording of it yet, so it’s nice to get a version of it out into the world. I love the version that came out of that room.”

So did we. Covers are often the obvious draw of these sessions: familiar songs opened up by a new voice. In Kilkenny, Greazy Alice gave Dylan’s blues a fresh set of chords and let Parsons’ impressionistic country drift through the room. Yet when David and I walked away, it was the unreleased original we kept talking about. It simply is that good.

Photos

2026 Alex Pianovich Americana session As Time Goes By bob dylan cover country rock band covers Gram Parsons cover Greazy Alice Ireland music session It Takes a Lot to Laugh It Takes a Train to Cry kilkenny roots Lee Garcia Loose Records music New Orleans folk rock New Orleans music onder invloed session video Smithwick's Experience Kilkenny songwriter interview TakeRoot Festival The Influences session The New Soft Shoe unplugged session warren zevon