'Being vulnerable is a result of so many years hiding who I am' Fife singer-songwriter Jacob Alon
The BBC Introducing Artist of the Year winner talks prizes, a hit debut album and how they found their voice
Jacob Alon has been snatching a nap between gigs with the result that they come on Zoom wearing a silky bed bonnet to keep their curls in check and the effect is relaxed glamour as they recline against the pillows.
With an acclaimed debut album that showcases the Scottish singer songwriter’s amazing voice and contemporary folk sound amassing more than eight million streams, a tour schedule of over 200 live dates this year including Glastonbury and Latitude, winning the BBC Introducing Artist of the Year Award 2025 - the first Scot - being shortlisted for the Mercury Prize, and when we speak being on tour supporting Kae Tempest - no-one would begrudge them a rest.
But Fifer Alon is immediately upbeat and eloquent, with a bright smile and happy to launch into discussing how their life and music defy traditional gender and genre expectations with debut album In Limerence.
The title a reference to the agony and ecstasy of unrequited love, on the album finger-picking guitar and soaring vocals lay bare Alon’s courage and honesty about their journey to self-actualisation. They wouldn’t have it any other way as their music and self are so irrevocably: they are their music and their music is them and it reaches out to anyone who has ever felt the same.
An artist of our times, identifying as non-binary, Alon is thrilled to win the BBC Introducing award as this is what helped propel them into the limelight. After uploading a live demo of their music to BBC Introducing in 2023 - ‘I remember hearing my voice coming through and just being like, who's that?’ - they saw early support from BBC Introducing Scotland.
“I’m so honored and proud,” says Alon. “To carry the flag for Scotland for the first time means the world. It feels like a full circle moment because BBC Introducing was the first thing I did, the transition from SoundCloud into ‘let me chance it and see if I can get on the radio’. It kickstarted this whole journey. I wouldn't have known people I met through that and maybe wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now.”
They pause to name check and thank the BBC Introducing crew Shereen Cutkelvin, Phoebe Inglis-Holmes and Stephanie Cheape for their support and gives a shout out to other Scottish up and coming artists NANI Porenta, Mari Ali and Sanjeev Mann, aka Supermann on da beat and Knockwood Studio in Leith. “In the Scottish music scene we need to build each other up.”
In Limerence refers to the involuntary romantic obsession or infatuation that leaves the sufferer marooned in a limbo of uncertainty, euphoria and despair, identified by psychologist Dorothy Tennov in the 1970s. How would Alon describe his debut album to someone who had never heard it?
“I'd say it's like the spirit of longing. It's a journey through the feeling of limerence, through the phases of it, through the realization you're constructing a whole alternative reality to live in because you're in so much pain and creating ghosts to long for because real people are terrifying because they hurt you in the past. For me it’s coming to terms with this thing I do but also where it comes from. There's so much of me in there, of my young self and so much of the love I feel.
“There’s also this other thing, distinct from love, a longing for the impossible, an obsession with something that isn't real as a distraction from pain and real love. It was important to me to look back to times I called ‘being in love’ and reframe it as being in limerence, because it was never really love. To accept that that was what love is makes love a tragedy and I don't want to believe that.
“So that's how I describe the content, but maybe not the sounds. The sounds, I guess, are just worth listening to,” they smile.
And audiences agree, with Alon enjoying every minute of their tour with Kae Tempest, who the singer describes as ‘one of the most incredible human beings I've ever had the pleasure of meeting, just so real and present and hilarious and deep’. And let’s not forget Tempest’s dog Murphy.
“It’s so funny, says Alon. “Kae would be ripping his heart out on stage downstairs and Murphy's up there in the dressing room, asleep on the floor.
Blissfully oblivious after enjoying his rider?
“Yeah, he's got his chicken strips to chew.”
And Alon, what’s in theirs?
“I usually have hummus. And some beers. I don't get quite the star treatment,” they laugh.
Growing up outside Dunfermline with their mum Louise, the young Alon was listening to her music - 1990s R&B, Beyoncé, Lauren Hill, Alison Moyet and Stevie Wonder - until one day when they were nine and heard a classmate playing the piano.
“I felt this electric excitement, this alchemical feeling of ‘you have turned chaos into form. How have you done this?’ I was obsessed watching her fingers move and dance and suddenly I felt all this emotion. I was wrapped up in this music and taken to another place.”
Young Jacob rushed home and demanded their mother teach them how to play the old family piano.
“She said you have to read music, and I was like, no, just show me where to put my fingers then I YouTube taught myself the rest and wrote little piano pieces. Piano is such a vehicle for my soul - I feel so much when I play it. It wasn't till much later when I was 15 that I picked up the guitar and started singing. I didn't find my voice for a long time. I was too embarrassed to sing. The first song I wrote was just to make my friends laugh.
“I never took it very seriously until Covid hit and then I needed it. I needed to write to process. I was living on my own and songwriting became a way to understand the chaos. I think I'd been carrying around unspoken things within myself for so many years that I needed to lay down conversations I could never have with people. Putting them into song set them free and it helped me come to terms with a lot of things. It still does.”
What is it that Alon wants to come to terms with?
“Lots of things. Past loves, past traumas, things from my past. I think that's how I got started but then I realised I loved telling stories. I love feeling through music and interpreting things that are happening around me. It’s a way to see the world with a very mindful and deeper lens. Art is a way to see something in a way that you wouldn't otherwise, and reflect it.”
When they’re writing, what comes first, the words or the music?
“Definitely the music. It's rare I'll start with words. Words are scary. Sometimes they come together in rare moments of inspiration and it’s such a beautiful thing. My friend described when it comes together as like a little feather floated down gently and landed on the top of your head. That's when the magic happens and a song pours out in its entirety. But I don't really understand how it works.”
I ask Alon which track best reflects what they were trying to achieve when they wrote it and without a beat they answer “Home Tapes”, on which they appear as a five year old.
“It happened just by chance in the studio with Dan [Carey, the producer, who has also worked with Kae Tempest, Fontaine DC and Wet Leg], and we did it in a moment, improvised and it came together.”
Alon was playing guitar and Carey was sampling the sounds of video cassette tapes Alon’s mother had made during their childhood, unearthed during a house move.
“I found them in a cupboard, unmarked, and she had no idea what they were. I got them digitized and it was hours of footage of her from when she finished school to my fifth birthday. It was so special and I really reconnected with it.”
“I think a lot of the things that make us love the way we do and the wounds we develop happen at an early age and it was interesting seeing the innocent beauty of that inner child in real time. It was like a character in a TV show and when it ended I felt a mourning feeling of ‘oh, I'll never see them again’. Then I was like ‘Wait, no, that's me. I get to be that.’
“Before that I was really critical of myself, thinking I was a horrible child but when I watched the videos I had so much love and curiosity and lifefulness. It was beautiful to wrap those things into a piece of music that I think traces the contours of the rest of the album. It felt like I'd touched into my past and given that child a hug. And now they are immortal in this song. I love it so much. When I listen back, I feel the magic still.”
In Limerence has been described by critics as a ‘coming of age’ album, does Alon agree with that assessment?
“In a way. Maybe it's more a coming of heart. It's definitely coming to terms with something, confronting this longing.”
What is the longing for?
“I think, an escape. It’s a deep longing for someone to be the answer to the pain. It's like addiction, or the longing of addiction, to ultimately seek relief from pain.”
As to the pain, the child sampled on the album sounds happy and carefree, so did that come in adolescence, and what is it about?
“That's a good question. It's hard to pin down what led me to long for people in the way I do, but ultimately my heart is afraid to let people in and be seen for who it is. Because to be really seen and be rejected feels like death. So I think my heart finds it easier to create fictional versions of people and long for them in an impossible way, knowing deep down they could never love me back. And that isn't love. It's not an exchange. It's a mix of infatuation and something deeper. It's like that person becomes a projection of the emptiness within me, of the absence in my heart. And like other addictions, alcohol or heroin, you know it's not good for you, but you can't help it. I can feel the conflict, feel myself being pulled in and thinking ‘oh f***, here I go’.”
“It was validating to learn it has a name. Even the sound of the word captures the feeling. It's a feathery, glowing, sparkly feeling that dazzles and draws you in. But it's too good to be true. It's like a crush on steroids.
“Confronting it head on and putting it into art helped and I hope brings that to someone that feels stuck in it. They're not alone.”
Listening to Alon explain their music, it’s impressive how much of themselves they are willing to put out there. Does that make them feel vulnerable or is that their strength?
“I think it's the only way I can be. Being vulnerable is a result of so many years hiding who I am, and I think as queer people we know that all too well. To me, freedom is not denying myself to myself anymore. It's living my truth, living as me. And in the music that's the only way I can be. I can't hide behind any pretence or alter ego because I've hidden for so long it would feel like returning to a place less free than I am now.”
Did they feel the pressure to conform to societal stereotypes in adolescence extreme and do they still feel pressure?
“As queer people growing up you're put into boxes you don't fit into and it's not your choice. I think it's a lifetime of unlearning that. And I don't think it's just queer people. Everyone's put into these boxes. It's just some of us have to confront them much sooner because it kills us quicker.
“I think it's the root of all hatred of ‘the other’, the fact we're all in these prisons, and we construct them for ourselves. The natural patriarchy is a disease that not only affects non-straight men, and I think the hatred some feel for queer people comes from the fact they know they are in prison too and it's more scary to see the bars of their own cage than look past and see the person outside as the fault of whatever pain they're in.
“It’s still like that. The amount of vitriol I experience for not conforming… and I've not got it as bad as lots of queer people. I think people find it hard to understand that if this was anything less than who we fundamentally are, we wouldn't face it. We wouldn't go into the world and be ‘this is who we are’.
“As our society takes steps backwards we are weaponised against each other to distract from the real people that are siphoning resources away. We've become the target, the threat, and it's a really hard time. So it feels more than ever our responsibility to face that head on and give love in the face of it. I'm really lucky to be able to do that. I feel there is such a purpose to my life and I'm so lucky because I see that purpose every night performing. Their eyes. I remember that I want to be in the world with these beautiful people that just want to shine.
“When I'm on stage and see my queer siblings, my community and chosen family, I want to live for them, with them. And I want to be around to give love and get it back. It makes it so much more bearable and possible. It's an ecosystem of love and support and shared understanding that it's f**** difficult to exist but we find our moments that remind us why it's worth it, our spaces to celebrate. And that is the greatest gift I could ask for. That is what I want to do with my life. And I'm so lucky to have found that.”
Now that they’ve found it, and audiences have found them, what’s next for Alon and what are they most excited about?
“I'm most excited about writing new music and getting back into the studio. I'm going to do two nights in Glasgow at the Mackintosh Church next month and KOKO in London on 8 December, end the year with a bang. Then it’s back in the studio and I feel really inspired. Being creative is when I feel most alive.
So will it be a second album, a follow-up to In Limerence?
True to form, Alon comes back with an answer that demonstrates their happiness to fly in the face of expectations and labels and in so doing let their creativity shimmer through.
“We'll have to see. It's whatever comes. I would love to get to know it, and just see whatever it presents itself as.”
We expect nothing less.
Jacob Alon appears at Mackintosh Church, Glasgow, on 5 and 6 December; KOKO, London, 8 December; 24 August 2026 at Royal Highland Showgrounds (on the bill with Florence + The Machine and SELF ESTEEM).
For Tickets see www.jacobalon.scot
In Limerence is available from Island Records and EMI Records and to stream.
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