#MusicExchange: Cindy Alter

As the front lady of bands including Clout, Zia and Alter Irving, her four-decade music career has been packaged with no fewer than 13 albums and has taken her to all corners of the globe including Germany, Holland, England and America.

Alter is also a published poet and spent 15 years living and working on the music scene in Los Angeles. She returned to South Africa after beating leukaemia.

Although based in Johannesburg, Alter frequently travels to America, Europe and England and is a full-time working musician who continues to write, perform and record and release new music.

The new decade means:

Let’s up the game, try new things, embrace change, speak our truth.

Fame is about:

Being just well-known enough to get great gigs, but not so well-known that you can’t shop at Woolies in your Uggs!

Retirement will happen when:

I can’t do what I do anymore – if my voice leaves me or perhaps when my desire to keep chasing the moon and following my dreams disappears.

What does music mean to you?

Music is my first love and it will be my last – true story!

What is the most enjoyable aspect of your work?

Making people feel something, getting a reaction to a song you’ve written, seeing the light turn on in someone’s head and the look on their face when they ‘get it’!

Any funny moments on stage?

Too many to count, but one big one stays with me. Doing our last song in a huge concert hall in Germany, with Clout, I’m about to sing my final line – “fire … fire … fire” – and I grab the microphone stand, which has not been grounded and is touching a strobe light, and 500 volts surge through my body, I think I’m dying, and if I don’t let go of the stand, I may very well do that on stage. I managed to throw the stand away from me, run off the stage and collapse to everyone’s dismay. Afterwards, we laughed so hard ‘cause I was singing “fire, fire” and I was practically on fire!

What is your most treasured possession?

I have many; mostly guitars!

It’s your round, what are you drinking?

Tequila and only tequila.

Dream gig to do:

Grand Ole Opry in Nashville.

What makes you stand out?

I think my voice is unique, people hear it and say: “That is Cindy Alter.” I also believe my integrity in this business has kept me in it for the past 45 years with no serious run-ins with anyone. And I care not for fame and fortune, I care only to do what I love, make music, entertain people, write songs, and tell my stories. Hopefully, that is unique too!

If you were not a musician, what would you do?

I may be a psychologist, I love delving into the mind of the human, or a holistic healer, shaman, yoga teacher, living on the beach somewhere.

Pick five words to describe yourself:

Tenacious, funny, fragile, brave, loving.

Five favourite SA albums of all time:

Lucky Dube – Prisoner
Hotline – Help
The Flames – Burning Soul
Zia – Woza Moya
Clout – Six of the Best

Favourite fashion garment:

My fab ‘pleather’ stage pants.

Give us some real proper slang and what it means:

‘Eish’ – love this word – says everything. What? Wow!

Your greatest achievement:

Surviving Leukaemia.

What do you complain about most often?

The depravity of human beings, how they can be so barbaric.

Happiness is:

Cadbury’s Crème Eggs.

On stage, I tend to:

Be in my natural habitat, therefore, completely at ease with singing, performing and telling my stories.

Wishes and dreams:

To find peace in this life, write a worldwide hit song, love someone deeply before I die.

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