While studying for a physics test, senior Alex McGarry asked her Amazon Echo to play her debut single, “Petals.”
“I think my first thing I thought was ‘It’s me,’” McGarry said.
It was just a very surreal moment, McGarry said.
“Petals” was released on Youtube, Spotify and Apple Music at midnight on March 1.
McGarry was scouted at talent convention iPOP, for singing, modeling and acting in 2021. She drew the attention of music producer Dean Kramer, who connected her with Tom Michael, McGarry’s co-writer and the producer of her single.
“She’s super, super intelligent and has a really great sense of melody, and her lyrics are really beautiful,” said Michael. “She uses lots of very beautiful metaphors and picture words that I was very much impressed with.”
Zodlounge, the production studio Michael works for, is located in Nashville. During the summer of 2023, Michael and McGarry tried to meet on Zoom for one hour every week. During meetings, they wrote the lyrics to seven songs, which McGarry plans on releasing throughout the year.
“The biggest challenge is always just long distance,” said Michael. “Having her in Chicago and us in Nashville, there’s always just a little bit of a challenge to keep everybody on the same page, but I mean, it went flawlessly.”
According to McGarry, the songwriting process took a long time because balancing her busy schedule was difficult.
She often had to focus on schoolwork and activities instead of songwriting, McGarry said.
“Every two to four weeks, we’d have a meeting, but I had to put [songwriting] aside for a while which was really sad because I really was passionate about it, but just, I overwhelmed myself a bit” said McGarry.“But I think especially during the summer and less busy parts of the year, it’s pretty easy to do because the actual meeting is just one hour a week.”
McGarry and Michael worked on lyrics together on a shared Google Document.
“Oftentimes, the lyrics would always come first and then I’d create the melody, and Tom would create a track around that melody,” McGarry said.
According to Michael, McGarry wrote a lot of “Petals” by herself.
“Because she was already doing such a great job on [the song], it was just a matter of not messing it up,” Michael said.
McGarry flew to Nashville to record at Zodlounge last summer. With her production team, she recorded “Petals” in four hours.
While writing “Petals,” McGarry was inspired by a garden of blooming Alexandra roses in Melbourne, Australia planted by her grandfather the year she was born.
“I wanted it to be very reflective of me and almost like a story because that’s what I like to do,” said McGarry. “I like to tell stories and make people feel heard throughout my songs.”
Hearing the song lyrics and the melody together was a memorable moment for McGarry.
“I think finally seeing it through and hearing Tom playing it back in the studio, hearing it like all these exact lyrics that were really meaningful to me, it just felt like I put a part of myself into the song, and it felt very heart warming,” McGarry said.