Fresh from her appearance at Download, BEX thrilled an excited crowd at Denmark Street’s Lower Third. The band brought a performance along with great music, and it became a shared experience between BEX and the audience. A true creative, having a clothing range alongside her music, this year, things are moving at a good pace.
You can soon see BEX at 2000Trees Festival. “We’re opening the main stage on Friday,” BEX told MetalTalk’s Monty Sewell. “We have a warm up show two days before on the Wednesday in Kingston upon Thames [The Fighting Cocks]. I don’t know where that is. I thought it was Kingston, Milton Keynes way because that’s where I live. So I was like, oh yeah, we’ll play that. Then I found out it wasn’t, and I was like, Oh, well.”
How will BEX feel opening 2000Trees? “I feel like I’m gonna be half asleep,” she smiles, “but it will be great. I’ll be like, good morning. It’s the first time I’ve ever gone on stage and said good morning.”
If there’s one person that’s going to wake the crowd up and get them into the grove, it is BEX. “We’ve got loads of flyers to give out the day before, so that everyone comes. We’re going back to basics but we have some little surprises on the stage.”
BEX is the ultimate DIY queen.
Fight was recently released as a single, and all things lead to a big show this year. “We do have another song coming out this year and then something bigger next year,” BEX says. “But it’s expensive being a musician.”
DIY is fine because you have all the control, but at the end of the day, it’s very expensive with everything to produce. “Save and then spend it all in one go,” BEX smiles. “I try and find the money somewhere, but, it’s fine.” Full control and no inkling of label supervision. “It’s the way I am.”
How does she feel when new music comes out? “That’s the way I want it,” she says, “because when it does come out, and then everyone gets it. I know that it was entirely me. It was my idea, my execution and my money. That was the idea. Then, when they like it, that’s good because everything was done by my little team and me.”
2024 will feature a headline performance at London’s Omeara. “I keep forgetting 1 November,” she smiles. “It’s our biggest one. It’s really big. I need to start telling more people about it. I posted it like two months ago and then forgot. It’s gonna be spooky because it’s Halloween.”
The aesthetics are bound to be a highlight. “I’ll be in costume,” BEX says. “Last year, I painted my face blue, but it didn’t come off. It was like Corpse Bride. We did a little Halloween tour last year, and I went as Corpse Bride for one of the nights. The next day I was like, I’m gonna have to do it again. But I’m still blue. What do I do?”
You feel BEX could pull off anything. “Someone gave me their number that night as well,” she smiles, “when I had half washed off my blue. I was like, this is bizarre.”
Watching their show at The Lower Third, you could sense the crowd really embracing BEX. “A lot of them were posing at me,” she says. “It’s like I was a camera. It was the Mötley Crüe, rock ‘n’ roll vibe that DeVere have. I think their fans have that as well, so a lot of them in the crowd were into it.”
With both bands, there is an element that comes from the look, the fashion, and the way that people dress, but it all comes from the music. “There’s a whole persona as well, I think,” BEX says. “The way people hold themselves, everyone was very confident in there tonight.”
There is certainly an element to BEX where she gives people the confidence to do what they want to do. I love when she performs because, from the get go, it says to the crowd do what you want to do. If you want a head, bang your head bang. If you want to rage on the floor, you rage on the floor, and she gives people that confidence. Does BEX feel that?
“I do,” she says firmly. “That’s like the main thing that I wanna do because some people don’t wanna mosh. They just wanna dance. Some people wanna nod their head. I don’t care what you do. I’m not gonna force you to mosh if you don’t wanna mosh. It’s your night. It’s not my night. I’m just standing here dancing like everyone else. It doesn’t make the night. They’re just gonna do what they wanna do and wear what they wanna wear, and then I’ll have fun, too.
“Sometimes when I really think about it, if I see my favourite band, I’m like this for the whole thing [mimes standing still]. I don’t move. I see The Pretty Reckless whenever they come to the UK. A year or two ago, I literally stood there for the whole thing. Then I cried and then it finished. I turned around to Josh, and I was like, that was so good.
“But to them, I probably just look bored out of my mind. So if they [my crowd] don’t want to do anything, they don’t have to do anything, ‘cos sometimes you’re so lost in it. You’re just like, wow. What is going on?
“Just do what you want to do in the crowd. Dance. You’re in a crowd. So if you want to mosh, you wanna nod your head, that’s ok. I want everyone to do what they want to do and dress how they want to dress. As long as they are not mean.”
With BEX kicking off 2000Tress, you are invited at 1pm on Friday to print and design a tee together with her. With the Omeara show in November, and everything else coming up, you should keep your eyes on BEX.
MetalTalk will be keeping in touch because this is an artist on the rise—guaranteed.
Tickets for the Omeara show are available from here.
