Alex Hooi

Guitar

Alex started learning guitar at the age of 14 through a video game called “Rocksmith". Though he had previously attained ABRSM grade 6 for piano and violin, and grade 5 for theory, he felt most comfortable with expressing himself through the guitar - and it quickly became an obsession for him. He has now attained Trinity Grade 8 for rock and pop guitar.

Alex fell in love with the liberation he felt through improvising, and quickly got used to playing in front of crowds. This was the result of his father, Chris Hooi, bringing him out on the weekends for open mic jams in venues like The Crazy Elephant, The Barbershop and Blu Jazz less than a year into his journey with the instrument. Alex never took a moment for granted and saw each week as an opportunity to improve and impress. It was through this that Alex learned to use his ears and be comfortable with fitting into most musical situations.

In 2018, Alex participated in MusicRadar's "Young Guitarist of The Year" competition as part of the UK Guitar Show and finished as one of the top 3 global finalists, in which he quoted the famous traditional Chinese song, the Butterfly Lovers. This proved to be a pivotal moment in Alex's musical journey as up until then, he had only seen music as a hobby. After this experience, Alex found that music could be a viable career, and it encouraged him to pursue music even further.

The publicity from the competition also put Alex on the radar and got him featured in the local media - appearing on The Straits Times, Lianhe Zaobao, Bandwagon Asia, Mothership and Goodyfeed.

Since then, Alex has played on stages across the world, some include the Ellington Jazz Club (Perth, West Australia), Strings Attached 2019 (Margaret River, West Australia) and Chinese Bridge (Zheng Zhou, China). He has even played alongside Grammy award-winning producer, engineer and performer Larry Mitchell in the West Australian Guitar Festival as well as in Winter NAMM.

Locally, Alex has played for Beerfest from 2017-2019, Crazy Elephant on Friday nights with the house band and ChildAid 2019.

Alex also has experience in the studio as a session musician, working with producer George Leong. He can be heard playing guitar on CurryPop's single, “阿嬷的歌”.

Alex is now studying for his Diploma in Music and Audio Technology in Singapore Polytechnic. The course allows him to explore different genres with course mates and instigated his love for production, mixing and arranging.

Alex has also been exploring Jazz, to further improve upon his improvisation and music knowledge, and is now the Vice President of SP Jazz Band.