Brighton based Punk duo Wrex use the power of their lyrics and genre-crossing music to bring awareness to mental health struggles and aim to tell their listeners that “it’s ok not to be ok”. Thier emotive and powerful lyrics explore topics that modern punk often ignores, and their strong collaboration as songwriters and musicians makes Wrex distinctly original, and distinctly united.
Their new album ‘This Hell Goes A Long Way Down’ is their most powerful and personal album yet, with songs that are reminiscent of 90s punk songs, yet are timely and relevant to today’s struggles.
To start, Wrex is such an unusual and original band name. Where did the name of your band come from?
Wrex: That's actually kind of a play on how we met. We met in a bar late at night. We weren't very emotionally stable and were wrecked in every sense of the word.
And when you guys met in a bar, was it kismet, in your opinion? In terms of finding another singer-songwriter to vibe with and to make music with?
George: It was! When we met, I was playing in another band, and we met through mutual friends and then the music kind of came. Like a year or so after Mae was like I've got some songs, and it went from there. It was quite organic in the fact that Mae sent me there's the bare bones of a song, and I could just hear that it had the makings of a great song! After writing four songs together, we said “right. We have four great songs. Let’s put together a band”. And the rest is really history.
And how have you both grown in terms of creativity since you started your music project? What has inspired you to grow? Are you inspired by your own situations or other people’s situations? I ask this as your new album feels deeply personal.
Wrex: There's a lot taken from our own experiences, but also it's watching other people go through other scenarios and kind of wishing you could you help or give advice. But you can’t, so we write a song.
We think its a little bit of everything truly. Especially with the new record, there"'s kind of pieces from everywhere. There's a lot taken from our own experiences, but also it's watching other people go through other scenarios and kind of wishing you could you help or give advice. But you can’t, so we write a song. We feel like we are far more collaborative on the songwriting on this record and it has been one of our most collaborative albums.
What inspired this album? Is there any one thing that inspired the creation or the metamorphosis of this album? The songs on the album seem to have a common theme.
Wrex: Lyrically there wasn't a particular theme, but there was a turning point. Which is the title song for the album. That song was the turning point. We put out two songs before the album called Recovery, and the other called Static Waves and then we wrote the title song, and it was just completely different. But it was the most exciting thing to all of us involved. The song inspired multiple other songs and we sent them to people we respect and they said “This is the best stuff you all have ever written”.
The album title and the title song This Hell Goes A Long Way Down is an emotive and provocative title. Do you want to talk about where that came from?
George: All these songs May and I have written for the album are about not only our experiences with metal health, but also the experiences of others. This album was really cathartic to write, and it was a healing process for both of us both personally and creatively.
Mae: The song was written in like 15 minutes and then it started happening. I've actually got the voice notes of the lyrics on my phone. It felt great to release this song and let it write itself. The title wasn't a title that was written before, it all came out due to creativity.
George: It also comes from a deeply personal place I think. All these songs Mae and I have written for the album are about not only our experiences with metal health, but also the experiences of others. This album was really cathartic to write, and it was a healing process for both of us both personally and creatively.
The album contains such raw emotion. Was that something that was conscious or unconscious that you wanted both this album to have?
Mae: For me, unconscious. Like I've just got more excited, so it's just naturally came out.
George: For me , I think it was quite conscious. Because we wrote a lot of the lyrics and vocals quite early on and demoed the songs, quite a lot of stuff stayed from the demos, and I think maybe that's where the rawness stayed in. I don't think we overcomplicated anything. We tackled it head on and let all the emotions flow.
I found this album to be emotive, powerful and at times angry. Did you all mean to channel these emotions and energies into these songs?
Mae: I think I really enjoyed being angry because it's not something I do in day-to-day life. I'm very much like I can sit at the side kind of person, but I really had fun being angry.
George: I think we both never really write something that's super happy and positive. It's such a vent for us, not an alter ego, but sometimes you need to let these emotions out. When we write these songs, that's our way of letting it out.
Many of the songs on this album show the importance of dealing with the ones emotions and dealing with one's mental health, and the song SAD on the album, really preaches the message that it's OK not to be OK. And I listened to the song, and then I looked at the lyrics and the lyrics were quite powerful. What was your inspiration behind that really powerful song?
Wrex: That song was really important for us to write. And I remember we were starting to write something one evening, and Mae sang something really high .The lyrics just kind of came out organically. We were both discussing feelings around panic attacks and anxiety, Sometimes our emotions are desperate, and they’re desperate to get out.
What I love about your band is that it's collaborative and it's so cool to have a punk duo in which it's a female and a male vocalist united in music. And I think it's really awesome to have one singer sing one verse, another singer sings the second verse and then to come together in unison. I think it's really great and such an original thing that took me off guard when I first listened to your music. But in in a good way!
Wrex: We’re very collaborative, and we each have our own things we bring to the songwriting and performance aspect of the band. We both come from different musical backgrounds, and we seem to collaborate well together! Due to our diverse backgrounds in music, we both are inspired by our own experiences, yet we collaborate well together. Especially in songwriting and performance.
Your collaboration together is what makes Wrex so unique! Wrex truly is, what I call, progressive Punk. In terms of the future, what do you hope the near future brings for Wrex?
It is one thing to dream about opportunities, but you have got to plan them and make those dreams a reality.
We’d love to get on a couple of small festival line ups. That would be amazing. "I'd love for our summers to be festival season. We would love to play every weekend at festivals, and even though it's pretty brutal playing every weekend, that's our dream. We set our goals for our band. We have planned goals up until 2026. We map out our goals and dreams for the band, and plan how to make those plans and dreams come true. It is one thing to dream about opportunities, but you have got to plan them and make those dreams a reality. We have many dreams for Wrex, and we are excited to make them happen!
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Article By James Reeves
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