Q&A: REX Brings to Attention The Issue of Gender-Based Violence in “broken”
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY IVONA HOMICIANU ☆
“BROKEN” SHEDS LIGHT ON A SOCIETAL ISSUE THAT DESERVES ATTENTION— REX watched the TV show “Adolescence” and was struck by the subject matter at hand. The socialization of young boys who perpetuate violence against girls and women should be discussed in a largely present manner. “broken” takes on the perspective of someone who attempts to understand where boys’ education goes wrong. In doing so, the song places the primordial conversation at the front.
REX is an Australian artist whose essence lies in genre-blending production and striking songwriting. She mixes pop melodies with R&B and metal elements, creating a gritty experimental pop that stands out. Before she pursued a musical career, REX was a professional dancer. Through her diverse skills in artistry, she creates a project that is wholeheartedly unique and stays in people’s minds.
“broken” begins with muted metal sounds, but it doesn’t take long to explode into an imposing production while her voice conveys the desperation of a woman. It switches between this grandiose atmosphere and a more quiet one, producing a significant contrast that works in step with the lyrics. Between trying to understand what causes these young men to resort to violence and the defeatism felt at the state of our society, REX’s meaningful track is remarkable.
Luna spoke with REX about her new release and her upcoming plans.
LUNA: Could you tell us a little bit about yourself?
REX: My name is REX. I have been making and putting out music since mid-2023 after I finished my short professional dancing career. I have been making pop music for my whole career so far, but I like to dip into a bit of R&B with this song, a little bit of metal influence. I'm steadily releasing singles, just constantly making music.
LUNA: Congratulations on the single “broken”! You said it was inspired by the Netflix series “Adolescence.” What made you want to talk about this subject in particular?
REX: I watched that and it was so emotional, it's one of those ones I was thinking about for days after. In particular the really long scene with the psychologist talking to him. She meets him and he seems like a very sweet boy, and he's sharing his food with her, and this flip switches, she's almost a grown woman who's afraid of a 13 year-old boy. I think the whole concept most people could relate to someone in their life, cousins around that age, that kind of thing. And I think the whole concept of the show, to me, was that it's not one person's fault that's making young boys like this.
It's not one person's fault but many people blame themselves, so in a way, it's not the young boy's fault, but it's not his mom's fault, it's not his dad's fault, it's not the school's fault, but it's also all their faults collectively. It's trying to place blame that makes people really angry. Not being able to place blame makes people really angry. I wanted the song to sound angry in that way. I felt like the psychologist character was like, whoa, where did this come from? She can't figure it out, and even the boy can't figure it out. I had been thinking a lot about that after watching the show.
LUNA: It blends pop and metal, which I think is such an intriguing sound. Who were your biggest musical influences growing up?
REX: My all-time girl, and this will have absolutely no correlation to the song whatsoever, is Ariana Grande. She's my girl. I definitely was a big pop diva listener, which is interesting because in starting to make music I realized I love listening to this stuff, but I don't like to make this kind of stuff. I like to listen to clean pop but when I go to make it, it doesn't feel right necessarily for me, which is interesting. A lot of the time people think, “Oh, what do I like to listen to? I'm just gonna make that.” It's not always the right path, and some of my first singles were definitely that.
I don't have parents who are massively into music, so I was discovering everything for myself. This is a crazy thing to say, but I did not understand the concept of an album until I was probably 15. I got Spotify when I was 13, I'd hear a song I liked and it didn't connect that I could go and listen to the whole album, which is so crazy. I feel like I'm almost late into understanding music like that.
The reason I was inspired to go a bit heavier with this one was that I started to change slightly in music listening. I still am a big pop and R&B listener, but in the last year, I've gotten into… There is a local act in Melbourne called Mudrat, who are amazing. Super heavy political metal stuff. My partner, who is also my producer, used to be a big metal guy, like that's all he listened to. He was able to help me bridge the gap, because I don't feel that I even have the understanding to go full metal, and I don't want to, because I always want to hold on to a bit of pop. Being able to take bits from that was really cool for this one.
LUNA: It makes such an interesting sound— it’s beautiful.
REX: Thank you. We started with a slightly more electronic production. About two weeks before I uploaded the song to be released, I was like, “Let's change it. Let's add metal drums.” I was listening to it, and I was like, “It doesn't sound heavy enough, it doesn't sound angry enough.” We changed it quite last minute and I'm so glad we did because I listen back to that original demo now, and it’s almost lifeless. It's not, but [the drums] added so much so I'm glad that I did that. In doing that, I recorded it to a slightly less intense and a slightly more pop-leaning instrumental. I kept those vocals which sound more pop and then we added the metal over the top. If I recorded the vocals with that instrumental to begin with, I think it would have sounded different. I don't think it would have sounded as pop, which is what I like about it.
LUNA: What do you generally get inspired by for your songwriting?
REX: If I'm going to write about my own experience, it has to be that I'm experiencing it right now. I actually find it quite hard to go back in time and write about that with any kind of emotion. It's something I'm detached from. Unless I'm going through something I want to write about, then I will often pull from TV shows, movies, books and characters, typically something that I can relate to, to a degree. I consume a lot of media so I always find that I can pull something from there.
It might have been my last single before “broken”... “hollow” I wrote about domestic violence and a situation from my childhood where one of my best friends' parents was killed from domestic violence. That was something I pulled from the back of the mind. That was also something I had never really fully processed, and it's also something that I still feel is massively an issue today. Similarly to this song, I sometimes will write about societal problems if it is something that I feel connected to. I'm a little all over the place but more often than not, I'm not doing a diary entry song. It's typically pulled from something outside of just me.
LUNA: What pushed you to pursue music?
REX: I sang a lot when I was younger. I was in the choir, but I danced from when I was three years old. I was just really good at it. I was good at ballet. I'm tall and long, I'm built for ballet. From five years old, I was locked in on this path of doing ballet and being a dancer. I was like, “Well, everyone tells me, I'm good at this. It’s easy for me, I'll just do it.” That took me to doing it full time. From when I was 14, I moved from Brisbane to Melbourne to train full time until I was 18 but in the years that I was doing that, I had a little Instagram account where I would post my acapella singing videos. Horrible acapella singing videos. I knew I wanted to still be able to sing.
It was getting to the end of my graduate year, and I was like, “I actually don't want to go into a ballet company like everybody else's.” I ended up moving to Japan and working at Universal Studios, and then China, working at Universal Studios as well. In doing that, I met a lot of people who did music, because there are a lot of singers who work there as well. I was able to sing a little bit, but I still didn’t know where to start. I didn’t know anyone who records music, or anyone who's in pop music.
When I moved home in 2022, I met my partner. He is an amazing producer, and I very quietly said to him, “I want to make music.” His friends and now my friends were all in music, and for some reason I didn't want to look like I was just jumping on the bandwagon and copying them, which is ridiculous because I'd always wanted to do it. They all knew me as this dancer, and I told him I wanted to make music. He made me a beat for Christmas to write to as a gift, so then I made my first song from that beat, and we've been working together ever since.
I jumped in full swing. I really wanted to get into music and start releasing quickly, because I wanted to start performing again. I missed being on stage. Everyone's telling me, “You don't need to rush putting out your first single.” I was like, “Yeah, I do. I want to do a show now, and I'm offering, I'll open your show for free.” That ended up working and I, very luckily, continued to book shows after that.
LUNA: You release singles consistently, as you said. Is there an upcoming project that they’re going to be part of?
REX: New Year's resolution of 2025 was to start a project. Since I've put out “broken,” I almost feel like it's been so clear that I don't just have something on the back burner, ready to go. Now is the time to sit down and put something together. I am inclined to go for an album. Now that I know what an album is, I'm a big album girl. I want to put a whole project together, five to seven songs doesn't feel like enough, if you're going to put your whole whole back into it.
I've recently started recording myself and I've got my own at-home setup. I've made a couple songs that have sparked the feeling of, “This is something that I want to be part of a project.” In 2026, I will have a project but I still want to put singles out. I don't like when there's like a year gap in someone's catalog, particularly if you're a smaller artist. It's not that people are going to be sitting there going, “Oh my god, come on. Put something out.” People just forget about you. I think it'd be so fun to start from the ground up for an album. I'm not about just pulling songs together.
LUNA: I'm excited to see where it goes.
REX: Could be anything. Now, I feel like I'm always taking from different sounds and evolving a little bit, but there's that fine line between having your different influences and something feeling cohesive. I'd like to walk that line so there are all the influences I want to be in there, but making it sound like a project that flows together will be the hard part, with all of the different avenues that I sometimes want to take. Narrowing it down will be a fun adventure.
LUNA: The cover art for your singles have such a cohesive line between them, with the black and white theme. It’s also reminding me of the surrealist painting movement. How did you come up with it?
REX: For this one specifically, I worked with my friend Bo. They're newer into photography but they've got amazing vision. We had a few meetings beforehand where we did the idea of styling together. I wanted it to feel a little off-putting and anytime I shoot, I've got my leg up by my head, making it look a little bit weird, a little bit broken. When I'm putting together an inspiration board for a shoot, I always come back to vintage and circus imagery for some reason. When I inevitably do an album, there will be a lot of that. This is the first time I feel like I've executed that in a way that I'm like, “Yes, that's the off-putting spookiness that I wanted out of this.” I am always trying to come up with something new for cover art, and they seem to tie together quite well without me necessarily trying.
The one from “hollow,” where I'm in the tutu, I did the full ballet thing. I thought, “Well, I've got the skills. I may as well use the ballet for something.” That was the one that I had written about a family friend who had passed from domestic violence and she was a dancer. I listen to the song. I put my little pictures together. I like to be in the cover. I like to have some sort of vintage feel but then something a little bit spooky, a little bit ominous. Anytime I make music, I listen to the first draft and I go back to my producer like, “Can it be spookier?” I always do something a little off-putting. I think I'm really traumatized by my earlier music that was a lot cleaner.
LUNA: Is there a song that you're working on that you're excited for people to hear?
REX: I don’t have a bunch of songs on the back burner. The one song that I do want to put out soon is a song that I made a year and a half ago when I was in London. I was traveling. I did a solo trip to England, Ireland and Germany. I had a mutual friend, I didn't really know him, but he was the only person I knew who did music in London. I reached out to him because I wanted to do a session while I was there. I ended up working with his producer, Benji, who was so amazing. He knew what he was doing and would help me write as well. We were writing a couple things as a big group, a bunch of writers and musicians, and then I was getting really overwhelmed, because I wasn't used to that. I ended up doing a session with just the producer, and we wrote this song called “Brick Lane.”
It's a shorter song. It's a little moment in time and I want to release it that way. I wrote it about running into my ex-boyfriend from when I was 17. Running into him when I thought he lived overseas, looking at him and being like, “Wow, I actually held on to a lot of anger about this but when I zoom out and look at it now, we were 17. It just was what it was.” It’s a sweet song about that realization. The whole song is all pitched up, like a little chipmunk. It sounds like the credits of a coming-of-age movie, it's so pretty.
I was recently talking to Benji about, “Can I put this song out?” He was like, “Yes, I love it too.” I think in January I'm going to put that out. I'm going to let people breathe and enjoy “broken” and then I want to put that one out. I don't want to do a big promo for it because it just feels like a very raw moment. I really liked the way we did the demo. It feels raw and pretty. I did it on a stage mic, and there's talking in the background and stuff like that. I think it captures the essence. I don't have anything in my catalog like it, so I just want to kind of put it there and see what people think.
LUNA: What are your hopes for this upcoming year?
REX: Definitely starting the album is one. I think you have to say things out loud for them to happen. I really hope for this year to do a support slot for an international act. I see a lot of people I know and artists in Melbourne getting that opportunity, and I'm like, “That amazing.” I'd love to perform at the Forum. Recently, I went to see BANKS at the Forum, and Australian artist Darcy Haven opened for her. I was standing there like, “I could do this.” My girl Ashnikko is coming to Melbourne later next year. I have a ticket to the show but I'd like to be backstage. I'd like to book a lot more shows to perform. I would perform every night if I could. Booking more shows, bigger shows, that's a big goal for me. And definitely starting and finishing an album.
