Alexus Lee has been pretty busy these days. The Providence based artist has been bringing her blend of soul, jazz and R&B to numerous venues including The Bowery Electric in New York City, Newport Vineyards and River Island Art Park in Woonsocket. She’s also performed at a few illustrious events including the Providence City Hall tree lighting and the Hope Street Summer Block Party in Providence’s east side. On top of all this, Lee has recently released her debut record along with starting a career in the radio industry. On December 23rd, she’s going to be exhibiting her talents at The Blue Room located in the heart of Pawtuxet Village on 2197 Broad Street in Cranston.

We had a talk ahead of the show about that new record, attending the Berklee College of Music in Boston, how she started working in radio and her plans for performing at The Blue Room on Saturday night.

Rob Duguay: Back on September 1st, you released your debut "Offerings" EP. Where was it recorded and did you have any specific vision going into the songwriting and recording process?

Alexus Lee: “Offerings” was recorded primarily at Big Nice Studio in Lincoln, it’s one of my favorite places to work. I did a couple songs from my apartment as well, but the majority of it was recorded there. My vision for the project was really to create a collection of songs that I love and serve as sort of an introduction to the world. I wanted to write songs that let people get to know me a little bit and I was hoping to start opening up a little bit as well through the process of making the EP and offering it to the public. That’s kind of where the title came from, it’s an offering of myself.

RD: Very cool. When it comes to the production of the EP, did you work with Bradford Krieger at Big Nice or did you work with someone else there?

AL: Bradford did the mixing and mastering and I spent the days primarily working with Emma Newton there.

RD: That’s great. You fine tuned your approach to your craft while attending the Berklee College of Music in Boston, so how would you describe your experience there and how vital do you consider attending there to who you are as an artist today?

AL: I had a great time at Berklee. I hear a lot of different feedback from those who have attended, but for me, when I went to Berklee I had very little technical music knowledge. I’m talking about the music theory side of things and I didn’t know that much. I took some piano and violin when I was younger and I had been writing songs, but I didn’t have the theory knowledge behind it. When I got to Berklee, I was drowning for most of my time there and I was really struggling to just pick it all up pretty much from the ground up.

I worked really hard, I graduated in three years and I made it through, but a lot of what I feel like I got from attending Berklee came afterwards. In the years following, I continued my own personal studies and I continued to read the books that I used for class. I studied all of those things because it was sort of like when you’re cramming for an exam, you learn it to pass the test and then it just goes away. That was my whole Berklee experience, I got through it to graduate and then it kind of just left. I recommitted myself in the years following to learning and really holding on to that theory and reteaching myself everything again.

RD: I totally get that, I was a similar way in college. I always had things go in one ear and out of the other after studying and taking an exam. Outside of music, you're also in the radio industry due to being part of the morning show on Hot 106. How did you initially get into this field? Did you do any radio while in college or did you just fall into it?

AL: Joining Hot 106 was actually super random. Mike D reached out to me two summers ago to do what they call the “Artist Spotlight”, which is an interview where they feature local artists and they have them come in to talk about their music and do an interview on the air. Sometimes they play a little bit of their music, so they had me on for that and then recently Bekah Berger, who was originally on the morning show, moved to 92 Pro FM. I didn’t know that they were looking for a new co-host or anything like that, but Mike D reached out and told me how they were looking to have some people come in and do a few guest spots and he wanted to see if I was interested. When he reached out I was like “Me? I don’t know anything about radio.”

He said that he really enjoyed our conversation and he felt that we had a natural dynamic, so I was like “Sure, I’ll come in and do a few shows to see what it’s like.” I think I had done four or five of them and then Mike told me that corporate wanted me to apply for the job. Then one thing sort of led to the other and here I am.

RD: What are your thoughts on performing at The Blue Room in Cranston? Can we expect any Christmas songs?

AL: I’m going to be having my five-piece band with me, which I’m really excited about. The Blue Room is one of the only venues where I can bring my full band. We don’t always have the opportunity for all of us to play together, but this is going to be our third show where we’ve had the entire band, which is really special. We’re going to do a mix of things, we’re definitely going to be doing a lot of the “Offerings” EP and we’re going to be doing some new music from myself that people haven’t heard yet. We’ve got some covers in the mix and Christmas is this Monday and there are three Christmas songs that I tend to like to sing so we might work a few in but not too many.