This Waterloo native went viral performing a Dolly Parton song. Now, she’s a country star
Becoming a country music star wasn’t always a goal for Alexandra Kay.
In fact, doing anything in music wasn’t something she dreamed about as a child. The Waterloo native’s life was centered around playing softball until music found her. At 15, she began writing songs to cope with the pressures of being a teenager.
“It was just something that completely found me, and (I) fell into, and I just think that it’s because my soul needed it,” said Kay, who’s 30.
Now, with over 2.6 million followers on TikTok and one million followers on Facebook, Alexandra Kay is gaining the traction needed to become a popular name in the country music scene. She’s on the third leg of her “In Real Life” tour, along with fellow country artists Cooper Alan and Thomas Mac. The trio will stop in St. Louis for a performance at the Red Flag on Dec. 15.
But the journey to get to where Alexandra Kay is now wasn’t seamless.
‘She always kind of did what she wanted, how she wanted to do it’
Coming from a tight-knit family of five in a small town, Kay’s teenage years revolved around family, school and softball. Nothing else mattered. However, softball was actually the conduit that ignited Kay’s passion for music.
“Nobody in my family sings,” said Kay, whose real name is Alexandra “Lexi” Krekorian. “Nobody plays an instrument, so it was obviously a huge surprise to my parents whenever I decided I wanted to do this. All of my inspiration came from just the music that they listened to, which was really just in the car driving hours and hours to these softball tournaments.”
Her parents listened to 90’s country artists like George Strait, Martina McBride and Garth Brooks, whom Kay says is one of her favorite songwriters of all time. That’s when Kay started writing her poems in her diary. Those poems eventually turned into songs.
Although Kay’s parents were always aware of Kay’s creativity (Kay won an award for her poetry when she was younger and often sang in church), they weren’t expecting her to turn down full-ride college scholarship offers for a career in music upon graduating from Waterloo High School.
“Lexi was always kind of the rebel,” Steven Krekorian, Alexandra’s dad, said. “She always kind of did what she wanted, how she wanted to do it. She was an amazing softball player, and she gave all that up for music. I remember we were sitting across from a college recruiter and the recruiter was offering her a full-ride scholarship and she said to them, ‘Well can I do theater as well?’ and they said, ‘No, Alexandra, softball is a full-time sport.’ And she turned that down. Me and her mother looked at each other like ‘OMG she’s turning down a full-ride scholarship.’”
But her parents, who now live in Miami, Florida, didn’t want to prevent her from pursuing her passion.
“We thought about it and we thought how would we look back at this if we didn’t allow her to chase her dreams,” Steven Krekorian said.
It also helped that Kay fulfilled her promise to her parents of securing a record deal within two years of telling them she wasn’t going to college. Kay signed with Nettwork Entertainment in 2013.
“I started putting myself out there when I was 18 to 20,” Kay said. “I started just making any connection I could in the St. Louis area, and I obviously couldn’t afford at the time to move to Nashville to do all of that. I was trying to figure out if I was going to go to college or pursue music full-time, and so I started making every connection I could and started introducing myself to rappers in the St. Louis area who just needed a female voice for a hook, and I climbed the ladder in the St. Louis music scene that way, just using my voice on their tracks for free. That’s how I ended up eventually meeting Nelly and Huey and working with them in the St. Louis music scene and eventually getting a record deal.”
With the label, she released more pop-infused songs, like the 2014 acoustic ballad “No More.” Although Kay said she’s immensely grateful for her work with the label and her experience was a pivotal moment in career, considering she was able to explore genres outside of country music, she eventually left the label because she wasn’t making the music she wanted to create. It didn’t feel true to herself.
“I would never feel satisfied,” Kay said. “Whenever I would get my stuff back, I would never feel satisfied. I would always just feel like I was missing the mark and wasn’t exactly what I wanted. Once I realized that I wanted to go back to my roots in country music, that’s when I really started to find my sound and figure out who I am as an artist.”
Kay took a break from releasing new music and started doing covers of her favorite country songs, posting them on social media. One of her most popular videos is a cover of Dolly Parton’s classic “Jolene”. The video, which was uploaded in 2016, has been viewed over 13 million times on Facebook to this date. It has over 60 million social media impressions overall, given it was posted on other platforms.
Although Alexandra Kay said she wasn’t expecting to go viral, she’s definitely been able to use the momentum she received from social media to re-energize her music. And, she’s a natural at it. She has the eye of an SEO editor, given her “Jolene” cover came from her Googling her name and finding trending searches related to it (prior to posting the cover, one of the first suggestions that she saw in the search bar was “alexandra kay singing jolene”).
Her TikTok content has gained the attention of country legends like Randy Travis and Tim McGraw. She also created her signature “coffee cover” videos in which she covers popular songs while preparing her morning coffee.
“I mean I definitely dove into it, and I feel like I’m kind of on the cutting edge of all of that stuff,” Kay said about her social media presence. “People weren’t getting discovered as artists on social media at that time ....I definitely went full throttle with and learned as much as I could. I think it’s helped me a lot on every other platform. I think it will continue to happen on every new platform just like TikTok did, just like Instagram did.”
Never giving up
Kay’s “Jolene” video led to her being casted in “Westside,” which aired in 2018. The first season of the Netflix reality series followed the nine musicians as they chased their dreams in Los Angeles. The show wasn’t picked up for a second season, but the opportunity ultimately broadened Kay’s fan base. That was the impetus for her return to releasing new music.
Her singles “I Kinda Don’t” and “All the Cowboys,” 2020 tracks that shine for their conversational yet vulnerable lyrics about love’s mishaps (“Why do all the cowboys ride away to find them another heart to break?” she contemplates on the latter single), debuted at the top of the iTunes country song charts. Kay’s latest single, “Tall Boys”, is an upbeat track that was released in September.
With sold-out shows, chart-topping singles and the backing of country icons already under her belt, Alexandra Kay seems to finally be in the position she wanted to approach nearly 10 years ago. Losing a record label and being sent home after auditioning for American Idol (2011) and The Voice (2017) can be discouraging for any artist. But Kay was determined to not give up.
“It’s just amazing,” Susan Krekorian said about her daughter’s success. “We’re just so proud of her. She’s worked so hard, and I think that that’s a huge reason why she is where she is because she never gave up. She went through hard times. One minute, you’re up, and the next minute, you’re down. One minute you have a record deal, and the next minute you don’t.
Lynn Venhaus, who worked with Kay in musical theater when she was a teen, is also proud of how far Kay has come in her career. Venhaus served as the executive director of the Brass Rail Players community theater group when Kay performed in a couple of its shows (Venhaus is a freelance writer for the Belleville News-Democrat)
“She is willing to do whatever is needed to be done,” Venhaus said. “She’s always focused on getting better and collaborating, which is really an admirable quality in the arts.”
Alexandra Kay is currently working on her debut album, which is set to release in the middle of next year. She’ll also continue touring next year. For Wednesday’s show, she said fans can expect an energetic performance filled with covers and original music.
“Cooper and Thomas and I are really good friends, and we just started all of this because we believe in ourselves and we believe in each other,” Kay said. “It’s been really cool to go out every single night and watch the fans scream the songs, show up and pack these rooms every single night as independent artists, and it’s even better to do it with your friends.”
Wednesday’s show starts at 7:30 p.m. and tickets can be purchased here or at bit.ly/kaytickets
This story was originally published December 11, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
