Alex Giannascoli’s dumplings aren’t coming. It’s been thirty minutes, I’ve had my food for fifteen, and tables have come and gone, so I ask if we should say something. But Alex isn’t bothered in the slightest. It’s all good. He goes with the flow. He tells me to start eating.

The quiet guy seated across from me is so unassuming that it’s easy to forget he’s (Sandy) Alex G. He’s collaborated with Frank Ocean, appeared on magazine covers, and is considered one of the most talented songwriters of his generation. At age 26, he’s set to release his eighth (!) album, House of Sugar. Like Alex’s best work, the album pairs elegant melodies with sounds and lyrics that seem to have been beamed down from another planet; it’s another brilliant, hypnotic rock record that sits in the center of the uncanny valley. But when I met him for a cheap lunch in Chinatown, you’d never guess it. He seems like just another guy visiting the city for the weekend to see a few friends, maybe catch a show.

A musician with his résumé could wrap himself in the trappings of a rock star—studio time, big name producers, expensive shit. But Alex G prefers to keep things simple and close to home. He lives in the city where he grew up and plays almost exclusively with his closest friends. He met his guitarist Sam Accione in sixth grade, when they sat at the same lunch table and, later, played AC/DC covers after school. His brother plays sax on the new album and his sister sings on a track; she’s provided the artwork for all his albums to date. He recorded most of House of Sugar at his apartment, where the biggest change from the last album, he insists, was a new microphone that he borrowed from another buddy.

Sticking to his DIY roots has proved a winning strategy. It lends him the creative control on House of Sugar to balance sing-along ready hooks like those on “Gretel” and “In My Arms” with the eerie vocals on a song like “Taking” or a spasmodic electronic experiment like “Project 2.” Those polar qualities of Alex G’s music, the unsettling and the infectious, are what make it so compelling.

On break from rehearsals with his band, Alex G caught up with GQ to talk about his new record—“a sex, drugs, and rock and roll album from hell” —his interest in writing fiction, and his influences, from Bruce Springsteen to the Knife to novelist Donna Tartt.

GQ: Are you still living in Philadelphia?

(Sandy) Alex G: Yeah. I moved to Francisville. You know St. Joe’s High School? I live in that area.

Do high schoolers ever recognize you?

No, never just walking around, but a teacher did ask me to come in and talk to a class about music, or I guess just the music industry. It was a class on popular music and poetry and how it represents certain time periods. It seemed like a cool class.

Tonje Thilesen

What did you tell them?

Nothing of value! I focused on how I write stuff, how I appropriate, because one of the subjects they covered was appropriation. So I talked about—I hope not in a bad way—how I hear stuff I like and take it.

Did you give them an example?

Yeah, you know Grouper? I used to listen to her a lot. She has a song, “Heavy Water,” it’s one of her more famous ones. I remember hearing that and making some songs that sounded so much like it. I’m not making a conscious choice to rip it off but it just bleeds into my stuff.