Alex Warren‘s duet with Jelly Roll, “Bloodline,” was released in May, but it’s only now climbing the radio charts. It’s ironic, considering that Alex says he and his collaborators specifically designed the song to be a summer bop.
“I actually wrote that song for a DJ,” Alex explains. “I was in my [songwriting] camp, writing my album, and we had been reached out to by someone and they were asking us to, you know, write a summer song. Like, a really cool summer song.”
“We were like, ‘Heck yeah, we can do that,'” recalls Alex. “We sat around a fire. It took us like two hours and we wrote ‘Bloodline.'”
However, “Bloodline” isn’t exactly a happy summer song. Although the music is upbeat, the lyrics convey a powerful message about breaking the cycle of generational trauma. It was specifically inspired by Alex’s brother, who was in a dark place following the death of their alcoholic mother. But according to Alex, that’s just how he rolls when it comes to his music.
“Besides the love songs, there’s no happy music,” he says of his catalog. “It’s all sad, but I make them sound happy. So that way I feel like it’s not depressing when you’re trying to feel better about yourself.”
Despite its personal lyrics, Alex believes the message of “Bloodlines” can be universal.
As he notes, “I think even the sentiments, like, you know, ‘You always have tomorrow’ is such a cool sentiment, regardless of what it’s about.”
In other Alex Warren news, after teasing a special guest on a new version of “Eternity” — another one of his upbeat sad songs — he’s revealed the artist is Gigi Perez. The song is dropping Thursday.
Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
