Meet Taylor Alexander, Host and Founder of Song Swap ATX
Taylor Alexander can play guitar, beatbox and hum a countermelody at the same time. He calls the trick the audible illusion, and from the back of a room it sounds like a loop pedal that nobody is stepping on. It is the sort of thing you only learn by playing a very large number of shows, and by his own count he has played more than 1,500 of them.
"My name is Taylor Alexander, and I play guitar, sing, and beatbox because I have to," he says at the top of his Song Swap ATX interview. Most Monday nights he is at Shiner's Saloon on Congress Avenue, hosting the live music podcast he founded.
Bedtime in Cincinnati
Alexander was born in Phoenix, raised in Cincinnati, and named after James Taylor. He picked up a guitar at 12, wrote his first songs at 16 and played his first shows at 17. Asked in the interview for a childhood memory that still gets him through the day, he did not reach for a stage.
"I grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, and I had a very strict bedtime, and so every night I went to bed when the Reds game was on, the baseball game was on. So I grew up listening to baseball on the radio from a very young age, and I still enjoy watching baseball just about every day. Eight months of the year, at least. Go Reds."
From his sister's band to 1,500 shows
His first professional record came through his younger sister. Mia Carruthers was a cast member on MTV's Taking the Stage, the 2009 reality series set at Cincinnati's School for Creative and Performing Arts, and afterward the siblings formed Mia Carruthers and the Retros with Taylor on lead guitar. Their EP We Will Grow came out in April 2010 and reached number 24 on the iTunes pop chart.
He went solo in 2012 with a five-song EP recorded in Dayton, Ohio, Mia singing on one track, then released Art in 2013 and Bleu in 2014. That September he moved to Los Angeles without ever having visited, and played his first show there 17 days after arriving. The Guardians EP followed in 2016.
In 2017 he played more than 130 shows, among them a music and stand-up tour with comedian Rajiv Satyal that opened at Spotify's New York headquarters. His bio also lists Google's Los Angeles offices and the main stage at Denver's Mile High Fest in 2018 and 2019.
When the pandemic shut down live music in Los Angeles he went home to Cincinnati, then landed in Austin. Those early records are still in his Monday sets. On Episode 16 of Song Swap ATX he played "Emiline" from Art and "Gone" from that first 2012 EP, and on Episode 17 his sister, now making music in Texas herself, was one of the night's guests.
Why he started Song Swap
Ask him why he founded the show and the answer is short. Song Swap exists, he says, for "the reason we got into this in the first place, which is to have fun."
Song Swap ATX is recorded every Monday at Shiner's Saloon, 422 N Congress Ave in downtown Austin. Music runs from 9:30 to 11:30pm. It is a studio setting in front of a live audience: usually four Austin songwriters, Alexander and co-host Mike Bass among them, trade original songs and the stories behind them, and each night is released as a podcast episode. Shows are free with an RSVP. The first taping was March 10, 2025, and twenty episodes have come out since.
The nonprofit behind it
Song Swap ATX is presented by the Gifted Individuals Guild, or G.I.G., the Austin 501(c)3 Alexander founded. Its line is "for musicians, by musicians," and its stated purpose is to fill the artist development gap with a pathway from open mic to paid professional, paying qualified musicians a living wage through tax-free donations. A junior mentorship program pairs amateurs with veteran players.
Donations run through Zeffy, so the full amount reaches the nonprofit and every donor gets a tax receipt. The show costs nothing to attend, and donations fund that mission.
Asked what music gives back to him, Alexander answered about responsibility rather than reward.
"All I know is that being able to make music and share it with people is a gift and I try to use that gift responsibly and do right by the opportunity that I am blessed to have."
Catch the next one
The next Song Swap ATX is Monday, September 14, at Shiner's Saloon. RSVP is free on the events page. The podcast is on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube, and donations to G.I.G. go through Zeffy.
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