Guest: Alex Roberecki
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Welcome to another episode of Honors Spotlight, where we highlight the unique paths and passions of MTSU Honors individuals. I’m your host Robin Lee, and today’s episode is all about transformation through music, faith, and personal growth. Joining me is Alex Roberecki, a Recording Industry major from Canada with a minor in Entrepreneurship. Alex isn’t just writing songs; he’s using his music to share his story of redemption, and the powerful role faith has played in reshaping his life. From facing a destructive lifestyle to discovering purpose through his art and relationship with God, Alex opens up about the healing power of music, the support he’s found in the Honors College, and how his creativity continues to evolve. You don’t want to miss this inspiring conversation. Alex, let’s start by getting to know you a little bit. How did a student from Canada end up in Tennessee studying Commercial Songwriting?
Alex Roberecki: Interestingly enough, it was from another podcast. An alumnus, Hardy, a country artist, was doing a podcast with another songwriter. I was listening to a lot of different songwriting podcasts at the time to learn how to get better at writing songs and how the industry works. He said that MTSU is really a big help for him in that, and they did school a little bit differently than any other music school did, where they were a lot more practical, a lot more hands-on, a lot more teaching you in a way that is going to directly relate to the confusing and challenging competitive music industry, so I came here, and I toured, and that was exactly what it was, and then about a couple of years later, I came down here to go to the Songwriting program.
What drew you to Country Christian music as your creative lane, and how has your background influenced your style?
Alex Roberecki: My style started off with rock music and then went into rap music. I was not raised a Christian. I was secular up until the pandemic. I was just transitioning from rock and rap to country music because, at the time, I had a job that was very country, and I wasn’t feeling the rap. It wasn’t my thing, so I said, let’s try country. I needed some inspiration, so I started watching podcasts, and one of the podcasts was about outdoor stuff, but it also shared the gospel, the faith, and it shared testimonies. It shared direct Bible quotes, and that was something I had never seen before.
My opinions on Christianity were pretty negative, and I had never read the Bible fully. I never heard how it changed people’s lives. I just saw negative things about it and stayed away, but then this podcast put it all together. That’s why the people are Christian, that’s why, and then just learning more and more about that, researching the things I disagreed about with, and that is then just continuously going to actual Bible studies once things opened up again through the pandemic and going into the every day service or a mass, whether it was Protestant, Catholic, I went to them all. Just learning more about it, the more I learned about it, the more I’m, like, this is real. This was not what I was thinking it was, so then I would do country music, then I decided that there needs to be Christian elements to this because there’s a lot that just isn’t, and it wasn’t making me feel good anymore. I moved into the Christian God-honoring music after that.
Since you came to God through music, was there something specific, maybe, in your past that you want to share, or just walk us through what that journey looked like for you? How did you get to God in music?
Alex Roberecki: It’s a lot. In the Bible, music is really praising God. It really helps when you use music to communicate the gospel, different aspects of it, and teach it. I’m currently interning with my church’s worship pastor, and I’m learning about that. Before I thought music was more about entertainment, but I’ve now recently, through the internship, seen that every Sunday when you go, these songs are planned to communicate certain things that if you don’t remember the message, you still have the songs in your head, the melodies and the lyrics in your head, and it’ll just get stuck there, and it’ll keep on coming back, and then you’ll start seeing it as you’re reading the Bible. As you’re going out through life, you’ll start seeing it come out through the songs. Oh, that’s what that means. Meanwhile, it’s been in your head this whole time. Music really does plant ideas in our head, and it validates certain opinions, and it proves certain things. Music is a lot more powerful than people think, it’s a lot more than just entertainment. If the music you’re listening to is, let’s say, vulgar, or it says this lifestyle is good when it’s a destructive lifestyle, that is the lifestyle that I’m going to follow. That was when I was listening to a lot of more rap music before. I wasn’t listening to clean rap music, let’s say that. That was a lifestyle I was emulating. I wanted to be seen in a certain way. I wanted to be perceived in a certain way. I wanted to like the new cool whatever. By listening to that music, it really opened a lot of doors and justified a lot of bad behavior. I just kept on going down and down, and if it wasn’t the pandemic that stopped that all and then for me to see this podcast, then it just would have kept on going bad in that direction.
Robin Lee: Just as a side note, we have a Christian rapper who graduated from the Honors College. He goes by No Big Dyl. Have you ever heard of him, by chance?
Alex Roberecki: I have not. That’s why I mentioned rap music isn’t bad in itself. It’s just more about the content of the music I was listening to. It could have been pop music. It could have been the same style of Christian music I’m listening to right now, but the lyrical content was emulating that lifestyle. That is what brought me to those bad places. That’s how Christian music can bring you out, but it has to be mixed in with stuff like the Bible and everything.
Was there a specific moment, song, or experience that marked a turning point in your life?
Alex Roberecki: A turning point experience. That’s probably when I was watching that original country podcast, I’d say, when I started to realize that, because I was just writing things down to write country songs, words that they would say. It was from the show, “Duck Dynasty,” and that was the only country thing I knew at the time. I’m, like, I need to write these words down and get accustomed to the language and the things that are being said, so I can put them out in the song, like, we’re talking about the songs emulate the lifestyle. It solidifies what’s going on, so that’s what I was doing subconsciously, but then this other stuff started getting thrown in there. Before you knew it, it was mostly just a Bible study. They weren’t even talking about hunting or fishing anymore. It was mainly Bible study.
Robin Lee: What drew you to “Duck Dynasty” then?
Alex Roberecki: That was just a show I watched when I was a kid. It was on TV all the time, and it was fun to watch. Then the show ended, and it became a podcast and a few other things. I just went back into that, and I said, it’s the only country thing I know right now. That seemed pretty good to start learning about country music, to start learning about how to write country songs, to just get accustomed to the culture. That was the only thing that I knew about the culture at the time. I put it on, and that’s what drew me to that.
What stuff were you interested in as a kid? Were you always interested in music?
Alex Roberecki: Yes. I was always interested in music. I wrote my first song at, like, 3-years-old. I could naturally hear it, and we just do it. It was always something I was interested in it. I always wrote songs, but I didn’t actually start learning an instrument till my 12th grade, when I started playing guitar, and I didn’t sing, I didn’t do anything, so since then, I’ve been doing a lot of lessons and training and stuff like that. I’m at the point where I’ve been recording and playing shows for the last 2-3 years.
Robin Lee: That’s awesome. Now you’ve said that music saved you from that destructive lifestyle. What was that lifestyle like, and how did your faith help you break free from that?
Alex Roberecki: The lifestyle I wanted to emulate was the rap, rock star, party lifestyle, very self-seeking, very whatever. There was no moral compass in the sense of. It was whatever was good, and whatever I wanted to do, that was the way it was. It was the drugs, there was alcohol, it was sexual immorality, I think that’s the rock star lifestyle. It obviously was not extreme. It probably would have gotten to that extreme, continuing down that path, but that was something that was just in the beginning stages of really getting bad before I came to God or God came to me through the podcast and through just researching it and reading the Bible. That was stuff that I was into, and the negative effects of that was it was all my relationships. Whether it was my family or with my friends or whatever, I was choosing the wrong relationships, and I was choosing the wrong ways to behave in those. It was all self-seeking. How can I become a famous person? How could I become the best? How could I get more of this? How could I get the hottest women? It was all about me.
What God has focused me on the Bible is making it not about me, and it’s a sanctification process. This is big because I was deep into trying to self-promote and do a lot of music stuff, and one of the big verses that stuck out for me was James 3:16, “For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder in every evil practice.” That was a lot of my music journey. It was just being envious of other people and wanting to be better and wanting to do that. As a result, everything I was surrounded with was disorder and evil practice. It was because that was my ambition. That was my drive. Now I’m in a stage of turning that and actually trying to follow God and release all the things I’m holding onto.
Another verse is in Proverbs. You just open that up here. Why not? We’ll do all the verses I have planned right now. It’s in Proverbs 3, I think, here. It says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, submit to Him, and he will make your path straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord and shun evil. This will bring health to your body, nourishment to your bones.” That is what will bring you peace and prosperity, it says, up there. That is true because it was not a peaceful lifestyle. No matter if I succeeded or failed, I felt the same way. It was the self-seeking and the training. I’m going to watch this video, and then I’ll know what to do. I’m going to read this thing, I’m going to know what to do, but it was weird because I’d do it, and the people I was trying to impress in the industry or whatever. Now you need to do this, and now you read this, and you do more, and you do more, and you do more. I was seeing other people succeed, and then I’m, like, I’m doing all this. Why don’t you do more? They’re not even doing all this. I was wondering I was going down, I was reading these books, doing all these different things, and trying to do it my own way, trying to live life like I knew what I was doing. It just never worked. When I just let God do it, go to church, serve at the church, read the Bible, do all that stuff, and not try to have any angles or anything like that, things work out, and I’m much happier that way. There are times when I feel like I want to go; this happened to me. Therefore, I have to figure it out, read this, how to do this, how to improve on that, put this out, post this, whatever, it just leads back to that same negative side. It’s very good that “Trust in the Lord with all your heart.” It’s just go to church, read the Bible, don’t listen to the noise of the world, and they’ll find that peace.
Robin Lee: I can completely understand where you’re coming from. As you’re sitting here talking, I’m reminded of an Eminem lyric about how Will Smith doesn’t have to cuss to sell records, but he does. Your journey and your story are very inspiring in a way that a lot of times, even people in the movie industry feel pressure to conform to a certain way, and you are saying, no, I’m going to put my foot down. This is how I feel, this is what I believe, and I love that. I want to segue a little bit more to your creative process now. You mentioned that you release music regularly.
What is your songwriting process like? I imagine that faith somehow manages to find a way into your lyrics every time, but I’ll let you go more into that.
Alex Roberecki: The songwriting process is changing a little bit more. For country music, it would be co-writing with people in Nashville or here, or whoever. You just write, get in a room, and save some ideas. You just talk like we’re talking right now. It’d be pretty personal talking sometimes, because that’s just with the random person you just met, because that’s what it takes to make these songs happen. Then you’d throw out a couple of ideas, get some hooks going, something catchy. Then you’d write the song, and you’d base it on other country songs that were already successful country songs, and stuff that you like to listen to, and songs that you like, and you base it on that, and you see what you could see. Then, now, what I’m doing with this internship is a bit different because we were, before, making music more for entertainment, relatability. Now we’re writing music for our church. It’s to prepare the message that will be preached by our preacher, and there’s a lot more to it. You have to have certain melodies, like the hymns. Our church really likes hymns. You have to be okay. To prepare them to hear the message, to listen to the song, and to remember the message throughout the week with the lyrics, we need certain melodies here. We have to say certain things here, to make sure that the gospel message is presented in the whole music. Basically, what our worship pastor said is that you have to make sure that if someone were to leave right after the song, before the preacher comes up, they’d understand. They walk out understanding the gospel if they listened to the lyric. You could choose certain songs, but you have to write certain songs for specific things. You’re writing a lament song, a song about having issues and how God deals with those issues and those tragedies in your life and how He helps you and how He comforts you. Is it a song of praise? Things are going good and praising God for what he’s given you? Is it a song of calling out for God, desperation? Is it a song of learning about what God has done for you? There are very specific things you have to put in there now, and there’s more of a structure, so that’s the process we’re writing now. We get in there, we take a psalm from the Bible or a verse from the Bible, see if there’s anything in there that sticks out, and then we write a song based on that.
Is there a particular song that you’ve written that feels especially personal or powerful to you?
Alex Roberecki: These more recently because, like I said before, those songs that I was writing in country music were for entertainment. I like those songs. They’re fun songs. They got little witty parts to them. I had a fun time writing them, recording them, and performing them. They’re fun songs for entertainment. Now if we’re talking about songs that are helping me on a personal level or a spiritual level, those are the songs that I’m writing now where, if I’m going through something, I turn to the Bible and then how I see God working to solve that, or I see what God has done for me in my life, and I write a song based off of that, or I see something, like a problem that’s happening in the church or problem that a lot of people are having, including myself. I use the Bible to explain that, then I write a song, and I’m like, this song helps me. Remember this. Those are the songs I’m writing right now. They haven’t been released. We’ll release them soon, hopefully put them through or have them played on a Sunday, write them with the people I’m writing with right now, and expand on them. They’re not just entertainment. They remind me of certain things that I’ve learned through being a Christian, through learning more about God. That’s how I got through this. Those are the songs that are helping me the most, because hopefully they’ll help other people, but they’re actually really helping me get through things. I process things. It reminds me, when I go back to that, oh yeah, that’s right. I don’t need to worry about this because of this, this, and this.
You mentioned previously that the Hardy podcast drew you to MTSU. How has being part of MTSU and the Honors College helped shape your development as a musician and a student?
Alex Roberecki: It’s the reason why I’m down here. That’s because I’m from Winnipeg, Canada. That is not close to where the country music is. That’s not close to where the Christian music is happening. There are a lot of really good churches and big churches, but here, there’s a lot more. It’s a lot easier to develop my faith. When I first came down here, it was more about country, more about wanting to get to Nashville, more about wanting to go into that, but through going to my church and just being at MTSU and seeing all the different opportunities they’ve had, and I really got to experience a lot of the music industry through MTSU. There are a lot of good volunteer opportunities that I’ve been going to in Nashville. I got to go to the Country Radio Seminar. That was just like, four days in Nashville, and you just get to see all the biggest country artists perform for the radio. You get to see all the labels, how everything works. Everyone is there, and it’s just this big event, and the way they teach how the music industry works. I was trying to find out for years how everything was working on my own, and they would just be like one class. It’s not as common knowledge as most people think about. What are the song splits? How do you make a career of being a songwriter? What is a publishing deal? How do you get a good publishing deal? How do you know what to look at, what to look for? You’re just basically immersing yourself in music and in what goes behind it, and you just see it all. It’s just that the last two years have been developing.
And then on the Christian side, just so many churches and so many events and so many pastors and just going here, going there. We went to Alabama for this training thing. There’s just so much opportunity. That has been the biggest. I actually joined the Honors because I wanted a certain history professor, because he was good at teaching the first American history, which I’ll take. I didn’t take that in high school. I’m not from America. I took American History 1, and it was really good, but the only class was American History 2. That was taught by him at Honors, so I joined Honors. I’ve now been really enjoying being a part of Honors. I go to the Honors library. I read. There’s, like, the classic literature books. I always wanted to read those, but they’re organized nicely here in the library, but they’re all spread out. I don’t know what to look for. I don’t know what to search for. I go in there. Here’s this, here’s that. There’s a lot of really good options there. I think there’s a lot of different things, such as getting the students to vote and stuff like that and just seeing that all around campus, that got me into an event that the former vice president was there, and that’s how I knew about it was through the Honors thing, and I went there, and I met the former vice president. That was my first year here. I was, like, it’s pretty cool. You’re not going to see stuff like that in Winnipeg. That was just my first year. It might have been my second semester here, and meeting the vice president of the United States, that’s pretty interesting. That’s something that I didn’t have. I didn’t see any other universities that have that. It’s been a pretty good time here. I’ve had a really good time and am thankful for all these different programs and opportunities, and I’m going to be taking two more Honors classes. I might be taking one, actually, a speaking one. It’s how to public speak and how to give presentations, interviews, and stuff like that. It’s going to be an Honors class. We can do another one of these after that class and see if there’s any difference, see if I learned anything in that class.
Robin Lee: You’re doing a great job so far, so I think you’ll do well in that class.
Alex Roberecki: Thank you. I’m in another one, the Honors Music History. I like it because the classes were small. Everyone was participating. We went into the Honors building. We sat down and there was no messing around. Everyone was very interested in the subjects. Everyone was very participatory. They had a lot of participation in the classes, a lot of good discussions. I got to know my class a lot better than I did in non-Honors History. It was a lot bigger than non-Honors History. There were fewer engaged students. I had a lot of friends and Honors, too, so I got a friend in my class, and now we’re going to be roommates. He’s moving off campus. You make a lot of friends in the Honors, then you grow a lot of friendships because you have a lot more common interests, and people are actually engaged in the class, versus I have to take this class, whatever. You’re going to find a lot more common interests if you’re interested in that stuff, and that’s what I like about it. It shaped me just in making connections and growing in that, and a lot of the faith is living it out with other people and learning. That’s what the Honors school has helped me do, and it’s made college a lot more enjoyable and easier for me.
You mentioned that specific class and that you wanted that professor specifically, so shout out to that professor. Who is it?
Alex Roberecki: Brady Holley.
Robin Lee: For anybody interested in a good history class, Brady Holley.
Alex Roberecki: Great history guy.
For someone studying both songwriting and entrepreneurship, how do you balance creativity with the music or the business side of music?
Alex Roberecki: It’s difficult. I don’t think anybody really likes the business unless you are going into business. I think it’s either you’re business-minded, or you’re creative-minded, and you just have to learn the other one. A lot of people who are business-minded go into the business side of music, but they must learn creative elements because you can’t just be all numbers when you’re working in a creative industry. Now, when you are a creative, you can’t just be all creative and not understand the business side, not understand what people want and how people will be, because that’s what it comes down to in the end, and this is how I balance it. The business is what people want, and then you give that to them. There are the technicalities, but what MTSU is doing is teaching me all the technical stuff. You know that you have that, and then you know, but what it also does is it gives you people who really do know that. If you do have a question about the technical business side, you can contact them. The professors have been helpful with that in helping me sort that out, but as far as creative goes, what are we creating for, and let’s best do that. What I’m looking at right now is how to provide the value. It just naturally through that comes to fruition. That’s basically going back to this. The business side is trusting the Lord with all your heart and leaning on your own understanding. That’s how I take care of the business, then.
If somebody listening is struggling with purpose or is stuck in a dark place, what do you want them to know based on your experience?
Alex Roberecki: Everything comes from God. That’s good. If you want to experience the freedom from any depression, anxiety, any addiction, any sadness, any controversy, any arguments, basically, any negative thing, it’s in the Bible. It’s through a relationship with God. I think there’s a lot of cultural stuff that the cultural Christianity has put people away. This has cut people off from thinking about it or trying it or going into a relationship with Christ. The cultural stuff, the negative stuff, that bad thing happened to me at church, or I’ve seen someone say this negative thing, or I have this opinion or that opinion, on the other end, I’m too far gone. I can’t. But it says in the Bible that no one is too far gone. I’ve seen people who are way worse than I was, and through the Bible, again, they have that peace. You get that peace that you can’t get anywhere else. Nothing else. No drug, no fame, no relationship will give you that. Only this and just doing what it says and then will give you that. That is the advice. I wish I had that advice a long time ago, because that would be a lot farther. We didn’t have to go through a lot of things that I went through. It would have been a lot smoother. Everything comes from God, and it’s just that we could choose to accept it, or we could choose not to.
Robin Lee: One of the verses that I’m reminded of that I think of often, and I don’t know why, but “if the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.” That, I think, would resonate even with people who aren’t religious. To me, there’s so many things in the Bible that can resonate, even if you’re not a religious person.
What are your hopes for your music going forward, and do you have any big projects coming up?
Alex Roberecki: The hope is music going forward. I’m going into the ministry, and that is worship leading, possibly preaching, and still writing songs from my church and releasing songs to other people. It’s going to be a lot more collaboration than I’ve done in the past. It’s going to be a lot more fun. It’s going to be a lot less “I need to do this. I need to do that.” It’s just trusting in God. Here are these musicians. Here are these guys that are here. We’re doing it, we’re willing to do it, we’re going to do it together and release songs as they come. We’re going to be writing songs right now for our church to show on Sunday, to display them on Sunday, and to see where that goes, maybe recording them, maybe having other churches, if they’re good, do that, but it’s just wherever God takes me at this point, that’s where we’re going. That’s what we’re doing.
Robin Lee: That’s wonderful. To wrap everything up, is there somewhere people can find your music or follow your journey?
Alex Roberecki: I am on Spotify. My country artist name is Alex Eastman, because I’m from Eastern Manitoba. On Spotify, on Apple Music, that’s my older country music. I recently released a song called “God, Family, Country,” and it’s about my time down here, my faith journey, and the culture and Christianity that led me to go to church more and deepen my faith. Then I also have some more fun songs that are more, like, traditional country. I’m getting away from that now, but they’re still on there, and you can check them out at Alex Eastman Country.
Robin Lee: That’s awesome. Thank you very much for your time and for coming to talk with me.
Alex Roberecki: Thank you very much for having me. It’s some great conversation.