We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Alex Buhlig. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Alex below.

Alright, Alex thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

I started my musical journey as a young kid in piano lessons which led to Violin and Cello as a pre-teen and guitar and bass as a teenager. I was in my first real band as a teenager. We played death metal which was always a fun conversation with teachers when I would rush out of class at the end of the day to hop in a car to go down town to play a gig at a venue we were unsure if I would get into or not. I was the youngest member of that group and the only one still in high school so it was usually a bit of a toss up if I’d get in or not.

In college I kept playing bass in bands, and was in a few groups but the most active one was a very Rush-esque prog rock/metal outfit which some guys that played in the band at the college I went to. I was able to apply a lot of the knowledge I learned in music lessons as a kid to this group and I felt like I really started to understand how to apply music theory to song writing.

After college I started writing stuff on my own and recorded a bunch of really horrible songs. They did help me find the people I started Sight of Theia with. Sight of Theia started off as a trio but after an entire line up change it ended up as a four piece with the guys I am playing with currently. Throughout these changes I have had to continue to grow as an arranger, musician and band leader.

I do owe a lot of people people management skills to my time in IATSE working on film sets, as I learned from people I worked under how to set a tone and manage a wide variety of personalities and situations.

Lately I have been able to bridge my two passions and have found work writing music for short films so hopefully I’ll be able to continue to bridge the gap between my two disciplines in the future.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’d describe the music that Sight of Theia writes as progressive metal. Progressive metal generally can characterized by blending the heavy and aggressive elements of metal with non traditional song structures, complicated time signatures, and unique harmonic elements. We take influence from bands like; Meshuggah, Tool, Mastodon, The Mars Volta, and Animals as Leaders.

While we are primarily an instrumental group we have been experimenting with the idea of adding vocals to our music.

I am generally the most proud of the fact I have been able to keep this going over the years with some really talented, and smart dudes that have genuinely become great friends of mine.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

When the film industry shut down in 2023 we used that extra time to write and record our debut album. It was extremely challenging to forge ahead with all the uncertainty that surrounded my ‘day job’ but now that we are finishing up the recording process of our album I am really glad we did. The process of recording the album pushed us further than we had ever pushed ourselves as musicians and I am really proud of what we were able to accomplish especially considering it felt like my life was kind of falling apart around me while we were doing it.

That being said, our debut album will be out this fall sometime so be on the look our for it.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

Can’t say this enough but SUPPORT LOCAL ARTISTS. Support local venues too. There is a really vibrant and rich music scene in Atlanta and its not limited just to one genre, you can find great metal, rock, punk, country, and jazz bands playing all around. Personally I am love the electronic music scene here too. All the biggest musicians got started locally too so if the average person going out to a local show, buying their merch, and offering their support means the world. You never know where the band you catch down at Star Bar, 529, or the Earl is gonna end up.

So go to shows, buy merch, put local bands stickers every where, and talk to us! We love it when you do.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://sightoftheia.bandcamp.com/
• Instagram: https://sightoftheia.bandcamp.com/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sightoftheia
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@sightoftheia4811

Image Credits

Jason Lancour