Stepping out from her father's long shadow

Stepping out from her father's long shadow
Syracuse Post Standard - Syracuse,NY,USA
Life is good for Alexa Ray Joel, and it's not because she and her boyfriend, Jimmy, are readying for a sail around Chesapeake Bay courtesy of a new friend they ...

Life is good for Alexa Ray Joel, and it's not because she and her boyfriend, Jimmy, are readying for a sail around Chesapeake Bay courtesy of a new friend they met at Baltimore's Hard Rock Cafe.

Although that's pretty sweet, Joel admits during a recent phone interview.

What really works Joel up is that the new pal and excursion on this day off came about because Joel and her band of Jimmy Riott on bass (yes, that's boyfriend Jimmy), Demian Sims on guitar and Scott Garapolo on drums did their thing on the Hard Rock's stage the previous night.

"It's great. It's the most liberating, freeing thing I've ever done," Joel says. "It's really sort of me continuing to prove to myself that I can do this. It's amazing how well these shows have been doing. I'm really happy."

This is a breakout year for Joel, 20, who brings her band to play the main stage at Taste of Syracuse on Saturday.

The daughter of music icon Billy Joel and supermodel Christie Brinkley talks without hesitation about her growing career, her relationship with her parents and

life in the public eye.

First, some basic introductions are in order.

Does she like to be called Alexa Ray or just Alexa?

"I go by either. Friends call me Lex," she says.

About that middle name . . . does it honor Ray Charles, perhaps?

"It does," she says. "That's why it's spelled with an 'a.' "

Joel explains that she's always known that she loved music.

"Since I was born, pretty much I've always been singing," she says.

However, it took awhile before she decided the time was right.

"I procrastinated about it because I was scared to do it," Joel admits. "I was a shy teenager and going up on a stage before thousands of people pushed it back on the list of things to pursue."

After graduating from private school - she says she split her childhood between the Hamptons on Long Island and Manhattan - she enrolled in the musical theater program at New York University.

"I wanted to pursue music, and I was feeling lost and confused," Joel says. "I didn't know what I wanted, which is why I ended up applying at NYU, which I went to for my freshman year. But I didn't feel like I fit in there."

However, she learned a bunch.

"I'm glad I did it," Joel says. "It influenced my songwriting and musicianship. And I can always go back to school."

After leaving school, Joel enlisted the help of a vocal instructor who, "after one lesson said, 'You don't need vocal lessons. What you need is to be out there working with a band.' So he helped set me up with these guys," she says.

So far, her live set includes nine original songs that straddle the genres of pop, rock, soul and jazz.

"Obviously, I'm very influenced by Ray Charles," she says. "Of course, I'm incredibly influenced by my dad. But the style is different, more jazzy and soulful. A little bit of Norah Jones . . . Joni Mitchell. Fiona Apple. It's really all over the place."

Joel listens to what her famous dad has to say.

"It really relaxes me when he comes to the shows. I know he thinks I'm good or else he wouldn't tell me to do this," she says. "He always has a little bit of something to say because you can always do better. He's always the first person I'll call after I write a song."

Her dad tells her to "treat my songs as if they're my babies," Joel says. "There will be a lot of people who say, 'Change this and change that.' He is very much telling me to trust my own instincts, that my first instinct is probably the best one, that there will be a lot of people throwing advice at me, to trust myself. And that the music industry is ruthless."

Her mom's career in TV and films comes into play, too.

"She's very much my biggest fan now," Joel says. "She's supportive. She sort of helps me with advice about how to take care of myself on the road, and health-wise. I'm stuck on a bus with a bunch of boys, so I miss that maternal thing. She worries about me more than my dad."

Joel says she realizes that some people think her famous folks have helped her become famous.

"I think it actually makes it harder," she counters. "It would have been one thing if my dad was a teeny-bopper back in the day and his career didn't have the longevity it had. But since he's so respected in the industry, it's so hard to break out of his shadow, and I'll continue to be compared to him. In terms of connections, of course it helps. But overall, it's harder."