Alex Coley
For musician Alex Coley (BSc 2017: ESS & BIO), the process of crafting, preparing, and finally releasing his first full-length album into the world has been “pretty surreal.” In late February 2024, indie folk/rock band Alex Coley & Afterlove launched their debut album The Arc and held a celebratory concert at the Sanctuary Arts Centre in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.
“There’s a lot of heart and soul—blood, sweat and tears—put into a project like this, so the stakes are higher,” says Alex, who provides lead vocals and acoustic guitar. “What that means is that it’s more exciting and more anxiety-inducing, and it feels really important. I think the overwhelming feeling is gratitude and pride. I’m really proud of doing this at all.”
The Arc is described as being “about heartbreak and loneliness” and was strongly influenced by the isolation of the early COVID pandemic years. A musical narrative threads through the album, inviting the listener on a journey through the different tracks.
While Alex has always loved music, it is only during the past few years that he has begun sharing more of his creative work with others. His songwriting inspirations include Laura Marling, The Tallest Man On Earth, and Ray LaMontagne, with Fleet Foxes and Big Thief cited as some of his other favourite bands.
In 2021, he started getting together with friends to play music regularly, beginning the collaborations that would gradually evolve into something greater. Alex Coley & Afterlove came up with their band name during a weekend of music practice and dancing:
“A Cher song came on, and we had already told ourselves we would let the universe tell us what our band name should be, and we were singing the lyrics ‘Do you believe in life after love,’ and it kind of just stuck.”
Alongside his music, Alex has explored different passions and skill sets professionally. Since 2019, he has worked on the south shore of Nova Scotia as a full-time Youth Engagement Coordinator for UpLift, a health literacy program developed and run by Nova Scotia Health and the Dalhousie Healthy Populations Institute. He visits local schools to support student-led projects.
“In general terms, we’re supporting young people to identify opportunities to make schools happier places to learn, healthier places to learn,” says Alex. “It’s a pretty fun job.”
His interest in community health and sustainability was nurtured at Dalhousie, where Alex completed a combined honours degree in Environment, Sustainability & Society (ESS) and Biology. He was inspired to take the ESS program after hearing about it from his older sister, and was struck by how much the smaller, more conversational classes and tutorials contrasted with other first-year offerings.
“I felt more seen there, I felt like part of a community, and I also really valued just not being in classrooms with 800 other people and doing multiple-choice exams,” says Alex. “I loved how there was a value at the centre of the work, talking about climate change and planetary health, and there were all these ways to engage with that, and I loved being able to learn about economics and physics and geology and geography and bring it all together.”
Alex enjoyed his time in the ESS program, both as a student and later as a teaching assistant. He remembers playing in the campus Sustainability String Band, which was one of his first experiences being part of a band.
After completing his ESS honours thesis on the topic of food security in Nova Scotia, he graduated from Dal in 2017.
He went on to study at the Blekinge Institute of Technology in Sweden, where he completed a Master’s of Strategic Leadership Towards Sustainability in 2019, picking up additional consultancy and leadership skills.
Reflecting how the ESS program has contributed to his professional life post-graduation, Alex notes that the program taught valuable soft skills, enabling students to better collaborate with others of different backgrounds and specialities.
"I think it gave me a lot of skills to navigate the complexity of the world we live in and the work we’re trying to do."
Since coming back to Nova Scotia, Alex has found balancing a full-time job with a new musical career rewarding but challenging. He says the flexibility of his work with Nova Scotia Health has allowed him time and space for music—but the album has ramped up the pressure in recent months.
“The music has been really demanding in terms of decision-making. So I’m definitely experiencing some burnout and some decision fatigue,” says Alex. “Hopefully as I have space to take a step back and breathe now, I’ll have some more clarity on how to do this more sustainably.”
He is looking forward to touring with his bandmates this summer, but is otherwise keeping future plans open and relaxed.
“There will be more to come, but I am happily not planning it too much yet. I don’t plan on quitting my day job anytime soon!”
Alex Coley & Afterlove’s The Arc is now available on streaming platforms, and can be purchased in CD or vinyl format at the band’s upcoming shows.
(April 2024)