Photo credit: Luca Ventor
Heading into 2018, Alaina Moore’s New Year’s resolution is the same as it was last year: to “kind of jokingly but definitely seriously” carry herself with the confidence of a mediocre white man. That she tiptoed into her statement speaks volumes, but at least she’s self-aware.
“I was always more likely to doubt my skills or my right to be somewhere than the men around me,” Moore said. “I just adopted the ‘Fake it til you make it’ mentality because I didn’t know any other way around it, and I actually feel like it’s working.”
Anyone who’s followed Moore’s music as Tennis over the past seven years would notice that thoughts of womanhood have been increasingly on her mind. Moore is the band’s lyricist, vocalist and keyboardist and her husband, Patrick Riley, plays guitar. She and Riley are creative equals in the band, but after three records worth of run-of-the-mill love songs, it’s Moore’s feminist dialogue guiding Tennis to their potential new niche in nuanced pop.
The band’s latest record, Yours Conditionally, is their best yet. While still melodically driven and intensely romantic, the lyrics are also philosophic, sardonic and sharp. Moore’s honeyed voice probes situated concepts like gender roles and monogamy both subtly (“Baby Don’t Believe”) and blatantly (“Ladies Don’t Play Guitar”). “Ladies don’t play guitar / Ladies don’t get down to the sound of it,” she sings sensuously on the latter, caustically embracing an archetypical female role. “Maybe we can play pretend.” There’s just enough bite in her tone to know it’s a personal subject for her.
In a binary world that fosters gender-based feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt, even many highly successful women struggle. Despite having a banner year with Tennis—the duo released an album and EP on their own record label, made their Coachella debut and sold out the legendary Fillmore in San Francisco—Moore still describes herself as self-deprecating and psychically fragile.
“All of my confidence is just, like, a paper-thin facade that could easily be blown away in like the slightest gust of wind,” she said through a laugh. Then, more seriously: “I felt for years just completely out of my depth. I didn’t feel like I was really an artist—I felt like an imposter just trying to live an artist’s life, and it’s taken years of practice and pushing myself, and including failures and all sorts of experiences, for me to finally feel equal to the life that I’m living. In that sense, it finally feels like a really healthy relationship between two equal, autonomous forces.”
While it isn’t always fun, Moore has learned to revel in the tension between fear and transformative meaning. She actually chases discomfort in certain contexts, like sailing (which she’s scared to death of). “It’s a really parallel experience to walking on stage every night,” she said. “I’m afraid I’ll forget the songs, I’m afraid I’ll lose my voice, I’m afraid of a million things. It never ceases to amaze me the new absurd fears I have before a show begins. But, I’m convinced it’s that pain and rising up to meet a challenge that makes the feeling of completion so deeply fulfilling. Living in the tension of that anguish, I guess, means that once I arrive on the other side, it’s like this incredible opening of joy and contentment and pride, and a deeper understanding of who I am as a person—what I can do, what I’m capable of.”
Tennis embarks on an expansive U.S. tour this month, the last before they take a break from music for a while. It won’t be the last time we hear from them, though. Moore, in particular, is just getting started.
Tennis headline Turner Hall Ballroom at 9 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 12 with openers Overcoats.
