Alice Merton at Southside Festival 2019.  photo by Mr. Rossi

Alice Merton (b. 9/13/93) is a German-Irish singer and songwriter. Merton achieved mainstream success with her debut single, “No Roots.” She was born in Frankfurt, Germany to a German mother and an Irish-born father. Merton’s family moved frequently due to her father’s job as a mining consultant. When she was three months old, Merton moved to Connecticut. Shortly thereafter, they relocated to Oakville, Ontario, Canada where she was raised until the age of thirteen, learning classical piano and singing. Her family then relocated to Munich. Merton’s return to Germany prompted her to learn German which enabled her to speak with her German grandmother whom she had only seen once annually growing up. While in Germany, Merton wrote her first song and attended a German-language high school before graduating and moving to England.

Merton moved frequently in her early life, living in Oakville, Ontario, Connecticut, New York, Munich, Bournemouth, London, and Berlin, among other cities. Through her upbringing, Merton has stated she has felt connected to Canada, England, Germany, and France where her mother lived. In 2013, she started her studies at the Popakademie Baden-Württemberg in Mannheim, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in composition and song writing, and met the members of her future band.

Merton first drew major attention in 2015 as a songwriter and singer on Fahrenhaidt’s album The Book of Nature. On 14 November 2016 while in Hamburg, she won the annual award for the promotion of talented newcomers in the category Acoustic Pop.

After moving to Berlin, Merton and her manager Paul Grauwinkel founded the record label Paper Plane Records International, and released the song “No Roots” at the end of 2016. The song’s lyrics were inspired by her feeling of “There’s no one place where my home is.” On both Hype Machine and Spotify’s Global Viral 50 charts the song reached number one, and was soon included on the “Hit Play” lists of several radio stations. The song was also featured on episode 5×09 of the NBC TV series, The Blacklist.

On the basis of this success, Merton officially released her first EP, No Roots, on 3 February 2017. No Roots reached number one on the French charts, number two on the German charts, number three in Austria, number 25 in Switzerland and number one in US alternative radio charts. Vodafone Germany even included the song in one of its commercials. Merton signed with Mom + Pop Music in August 2017 for marketing within the United States, and on 2 August 2017 she released her second single Hit the Ground Running with her new record label.

On 8 April 2021, Merton released “Vertigo“. On 9 September, she released “Hero” and “Island”, both of which are from her upcoming second studio album, S.I.D.E.S, which she revealed the name on 23 February 2022, along with its tracklist. Her new work will count with 15 tracks, of which 3 have already been released. On TikTok she released a video announcing the release would be on 4 March 2022.

Discography:
Album = 1, but another one to be released at any time (or may already have been released?)
EP = 1
Singles = 9
Guest appearances = 2

One thing to share:
There isn’t a whole lot of information out there that I could find on Alice. German websites probably have more as that is her base of operation now. I do see she is beginning a major tour to promote her new album in Europe starting in October.

Official website: here

Source: wikipedia