| Kilroy was born in the Transylvanian town of Bistrița into a family where music was constant. His father, Iulian, had been a guitarist before turning to management, and his aunt was a nationally recognized singer who competed in Romania’s Eurovision selection. Music school began early, with years of classical piano training inside Romania’s conservatory system before everything changed one summer when his father imported a car from the United States with a DVD tucked inside: Stevie Ray Vaughan – Live at Montreux. Kilroy pressed play. “Texas Flood” filled the speakers. “I could feel what he was feeling,” Kilroy recalls. “It clicked. That’s me. That’s what I want to do.” What followed was years of relentless pursuit. By his teens, Kilroy was fronting a Stevie Ray Vaughan tribute band performing across Europe. At twenty, after raising money through wedding gigs and even appearing on The Voice Romania, he secured a scholarship opportunity at Berklee College of Music’s summer program. Though finances prevented him from enrolling full-time, the trip marked the beginning of his eventual move to the United States. From there came Chicago blues clubs, visa complications, months back in Romania waiting for paperwork, and eventually Nashville, where Kilroy rebuilt his life piece by piece – sometimes literally, after teaching himself auto repair on YouTube and rebuilding a totaled car from junkyard parts. Eventually he relocated to Florida, where a meeting with industry veteran Clyde Harris and his partner Pat Armstrong helped bring years of ambition into sharper focus. “We’ve got to start with the product,” Kilroy recalls telling them. “We’ve got to make a great album.” Working closely with Sasser, Kilroy shaped Break My Chains into a cohesive statement that honors the blues lineage he grew up idolizing while refusing to stay boxed into imitation. Across the album, moments of fiery guitar work sit alongside reflective songwriting and deeply personal material inspired by his fiancée, young daughter, and the recent loss of his father. Through it all, the through-line remains freedom – freedom to leave home, to claim another, and to honor the past without being confined by it. His father, Iulian, was the first to hear the masters and the one who taught him respect, dignity, and the discipline to never give up on the life he imagined. Iulian passed away earlier this year after a long illness, but his influence remains deeply embedded throughout the album and Kilroy’s journey forward. Now, with Break My Chains officially out in the world, Alex Kilroy arrives at a moment years in the making. The boy who once insisted he was only visiting Romania now stands firmly inside the music tradition he dreamed about as a kid – guitar strapped on, finally telling his own story. | 
