Early Life
Ebert was born in Los Angeles in 1978, the son of Michael Ebert, a psychotherapist. His mother, Lisa Richards, is an actress. His father would often take the family on long car trips through the desert. On one such trip, his mother shot footage of his father chanting in the desert, cradling Alex's baby sister Gabi, which would one day become a part of the video for the Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros song "Desert Song". His full birth name is Alexander Michael Tahquitz Ebert. His father took one of his son's names, Tahquitz, from his favorite climbing rock. Alex later on discovered that the name means "demon" in a Native American language. His father influenced young Alexander by playing him music by artists like Patsy Cline, Willie Nelson, and Johnny Cash. He also cites 60's R&B, Pavarotti, and Beethoven as influences, as well as his elementary school teacher, a woman from South Africa named Ruth. As a teenager he had a difficult and tumultuous relationship with his father. He enjoyed listening to hip-hop as a teenager, and originally intended to be a rapper.
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Famous quotes related to early life:
“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)