Class Of 2025 Class Of 2025: Jacob Alon

“It’s pissing it down outside. It’s freezing and the Edinburgh streets are pouring with rain, and then from a distance you see the warm glow of this rustic tavern that’s skinnier than a ballerina with an eating disorder,” narrates Jacob Alon. “All the windows are steamed up, and people are pressed against them, smudging the condensation across; cheeks and arms and shoulders. You go in and you can barely move, but it’s completely silent with everyone listening to this one person in the circle, singing their heart out.”

The scene the Scottish songwriter is setting might sound like the opening sequence of a particularly poetic Christmas film, but in fact Jacob is walking us into The Captain’s Bar: the charmingly pokey folk pub that first allowed them to road-test their talents, and that has helped nurture Jacob into one of the most vulnerable, gorgeous and utterly devastating musicians we’ve heard in a long time. “At first, I thought it was quite intimidating, like it was a place you could only play if you were trusted and one of the ‘good folkies’,” they smile, “but I realised so quickly that they just wanted you to give your truth. I feel like this group of folkies were all the shoes that didn’t fit, that know what it’s like to stand on the outside, so their hearts are so much more open. There are certain spaces I’ve felt that aren’t as kind as that.”

Kindness and acceptance are concepts that filter throughout Jacob’s conversation; music, for them, has provided a sanctuary that for a long time felt out of reach. Growing up in Fife, they explain, there were not a lot of opportunities not just for creatives, but for personalities to thrive away from the delineated, traditional paths. Non-binary and neurodiverse (Jacob has Tourettes, which manifests particularly in heightened, pressure situations), they explain that a lot of their early life was one categorised by different forms of disconnect. “The world with a neurotypical standard means that, if you deviate from behaving in a certain way, it can feel deeply lonely sometimes,” they say. “And then [the local scene] was just bands and straight guys all doing their thing. Even though I felt such a home in music, it was never anything I saw as something I could take further.”

Riddled with a lack of self-belief and in pursuit of the approval of their family, Jacob set about studying for a career in medicine. Clearly an ill fit, the way they speak of that period of self-supression is heartbreaking. “When it comes to love, it’s very conditional in my family. I think part of me just really wanted to be loved and to be seen, and I thought the only way I could feel that is if I was exceptional or the best or if I saved the world. But I just don’t think anyone should carry that on their shoulders,” they say, softly. “I became really depressed and I just didn’t have the words to say: ‘I’m here. I’ve worked hard to be here. Why am I not happy?’ And I think it was just part of my soul that knew I was living my life for someone else.”

Eventually, during lockdown, they finally made the decision to quit and, bolstered by the support of their new chosen musical family, give their art a real go. “I just felt like I was wasting away and it was there the whole time: music had always been the companion,” they say. “For my whole life, I’ve looked back and reminisced and worried about the future, but for the first time I’m just certain that this is where I should be. And it feels like I’m making an impact through this; I don’t know why I never thought that could be a thing…”