Percussive Fingerstyle

Singer/Songwriter

Alex Toast grew up in small-town Minnesota, where he performed with a variety of bands. He moved to Colorado in 2011, where he spent time working with the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, learning to grow cannabis, and playing solo acoustic music at various open mics. While working in the newfound legal cannabis industry in Colorado, skills and opportunities amassed, and he found himself with a promising business offer that took him to Portland, Oregon in the summer of 2015.

There, Toast spent almost 6 years making cannabis extracts for Beehive Extracts by day while filling his evenings with the offerings of the Portland music scene. He could frequently be found smacking his guitar at small clubs and coffee shops, singing hooks and riffing guitar parts on his friends’ hip hop tracks, and attending live music events put on by his many, many talented friends. He even played bass for Liam St. John in his developmental years! In early 2020, Alex took home first place in the Singer-Songwriter category in Local Roots Music NW’s songwriting competition.

In September of 2019, Toast attended the first Fingerstyle Collective Guitar Festival, held in Morrilton, Arkansas collaboratively by Candyrat and Fretmonkey Records. Regularly referred to as the best week of his life, here Toast not only got a one-on-one personalized lesson (and severe ego-shattering) from Kaki King, but he also saw intimate performances by, attended special workshops from, and spent six days generally hanging out with artists like Kaki, Don Ross, Alexandr Misko, Daniel Champagne, Antoine Dufour, Trace Bundy, Alexander Boldachev, Muriel Anderson, Kevin Blake Goodwin, Adrian Bellue, Nick Johnson, Christie Lenee, R.D. King, Travis Bowman, and many more. There was also a special international fingerstyle competition that brought together some of the best players from over 20 countries. Special thanks to Amber Russell & Nick Johnson for encouraging attendance, and to a close family friend for helping fund the trip!

Toast went back to his roots and moved to Minnesota for family-related events in the summer of 2021, nearly 10 years after he first left. He worked a monotonous 3rd shift job at Kwik Trip’s dairy plant for a year before getting the opportunity to travel on the road running the merch table for Daniel Champagne for 3 weeks in the summer of 2022.

After the merch stint’s completion, the opportunity arose for Toast to become a full time low-dose, hemp-derived THC edible manufacturer for Carbon Cannabis. He spent four months getting trained by and working side by side with the original creator of Carbon’s gummy recipe, Josh from The Dirty Dozen Donuts. At the beginning of 2023, Carbon built an in-house kitchen, and Toast took over all of the edible manufacturing.

Toast played a handful of local shows in 2023, and he was runner-up in the Great River Folk Festival’s song contest. After GRFF 20203, he decided to join the planning committee for 2024’s event and attended their monthly(ish) meetings throughout the year. He currently serves on this non-profit committee.

Alex Toast's music infuses elements of percussive fingerstyle guitar with jazzy folk that gives his music a truly unique sound. His introspective lyrics are carried by layers of rhythmic smacks, progressive chords, and lead guitar, and they offer a hopeful view of the future and the now.

He also occasionally performs his educational cannabis songs, which have amused audiences across the country. On 4/20/2024 the “Cannacentric” EP was released, featuring these songs in bluegrass form.

Check out the “Links” tab to find some tunes!