From Pandemic Beginnings to Bloodstock: WREX Shares Their Band Journey

0:04 Hi, you love then too? Here Censure. Florida see wow, crazy you. This is the pipe man here on the Veterans Pipe Man W four C Y Radio, and I'm here with Rex. Hello. How are you doing? How are you? Oh? We're great, melting but great, thrilled to be bloodstalk. I know. I feel like I'm back home already. I think it's some game prepared to go home because I live in Florida and it's like this all the fucking time. I don't know how you do it. It's roasting. I don't know how you do it here. Okay. So I love the UK. I love the people here. They've asked me, like the publicists asked me, you should move here so you can do all the festivals here.

0:48 I would actually move here, But the bipolar weather I can't deal with. Okay. I can deal with the cold when it's supposed to be cold. But if I'm sitting here during summer in one hour, experiencing all four seasons, I'm out. Yeah, it's a roll of the dice. It's like unscheduled. Weather every day, no doubt. Like I don't even bother looking at the weather when I'm going packed to come here, I just pack all my winter and summer and rain like, so I have to I want to bring a carry on instead, I bring a big suitcase because I don't know what I'm gonna fucking mean. It is mental, but today it's pretty freaking hot, even for me. Yeah, it's roasting.

1:29 It's my pasty Yorkshire skin can't handle it. I'm built for down the mines. I had the battle earlier of I can sweat and keep this shirt on, or I can take it off and burn and I'll look like over here we have the Refresher sweets where one half is white and the other half's pink. Right, I look like that? Oh yeah, totally. And like I always wonder what it's like in this kind of weather to be up on stage performing, Like I know, once the MIC's on, you're not thinking about You're in the zone and you don't give your self permission your head to feel. But fuck you must die after the set's over.

2:09 Yeah, I imagine we will all be fairly damp. So the jeans I've chosen for today are exceptionally heavy, and I expect them to not benefit me at all. They do look cool, So what are you gonna do? Yeah, you got that cool. And I've like said to certain artists before, I'm like, how are you dressed like that? I would say, fuck it, I'm not doing my you know, concert outfit. I'm just putting some fucking shorts and T shirt on. I'll give a hell. I do feel bad because the boys in the band are wearing Dicky's jumpsuits. Oh my god. Yeah, they're gonna cook. We've had it once where Greg our drummer, thinks he got heat stroke from like playing a tent and was just like I I've cooked.

2:53 And so it happened at Hellfest where the drummer mid set had heat stroke like mid set and like passed out. I know, right, Drink lots and lots of lots and lots of water. We're on it. I think maybe it's a good idea. If I were a drummer, I would just take a cold shower and not use a towel and then go on stage. Yeah anyway, exactly might as. Well be wet already and cold water. You know, future we just. Need to ask for a boocket of ice and a rider, a cold plunge, A cold plunge.

3:36 There you go, Matchine, if you had one on stage, like you could just take a break. The front person talks to the crowd for a minute while everybody else takes a cold plunge and then yeah, and then you gots solo so that the singer can go and do the cold plunge. Genius. Yeah, Greg will be at the back with a John Soda and we'll all get nice and cool and then he can take a little take a dip. I saw a band recently though, like an older band. I can't remember who it was because they all swim in my head because I do so many festivals that, like, you know, don't even remember half the time which one you're at. And that's exactly what happened. He just had the band like do a solo and he was off stage for like five minutes. Guaranteed he was fucking cooling off.

4:25 Oh for sure. I mean to be fair, every big band we've seen it, like Wembley or O two or somewhere, they've all done a tactical drum solo, so I think it happens and the drummer just unfortunately pays the price exactly. And yet in fairness, then they have like the acoustic song. So yeah, yeah, you know, I think we've not really done over on festival sets as well. We've not done over like twenty five thirty minutes, so we're able to like kick it and keep it up with that energy pretty high. When we started getting into like forty five to fifty minute shows. We did our first, like we flew out to Tenor Ethan did a show and it was a forty five minute show and we roasting and we were just like, Oh, we haven't thought about this, we haven't. We haven't thought about this being a thing and how we tackle.

5:15 This, and yeah, five k thirty minute set is more like suddenly turned into like seven and a half k, like a seven and a half k run equivalent. Right, Yeah, So I'm a bit of a well, not as much as I was, but like last year, I was doing a lot of running for really like the fitness of tracking it to be fit for gigs because we were starting to talk so much, and I tracked it and a live performance of our band was the equivalent to my training runs on a treadmill where I would do five k in interval sprints, so walk for a minute, sprint for two minutes, and I would burn the same amount of calories and have the same heart rate. Wow, I actually do a five K just normal, steady, normal run.

6:02 Like that's actually lighter than a gig. Right, well, that's kind of like me is Like what I love about festivals is is I can go and do go and jump in the pit and I've done my cardio for the day. Oh that's exactly how it is for us. Like if you are around to watch us, you'll understand. See Now I would love that too, because like, and I had so much fun the other day. I was in a pit with a bunch of dinosaurs. Oh I saw that right online. Yeah, for heavy Saurus. It was, oh my god, it was the most fun. Like I've been in a lot of pits, but that was probably the most fun pit I've ever been in. But also those guys in inflatable costumes because we were inflatable costumes before, not on stage, they have like the little fan inside to keep them in plat. Oh it's not that bad.

6:53 See now, I'm gone, man, that's gotta be honest, Like fuck. Probably not ideal, but it's probably not Like it's not as bad as it looks. Me. But if you have your built in air conditioning, going on. Okay, Yeah, we did a We did a obviously being Rex, we did a play on that, and we did Shreks for Halloween. That was not the one. All the makeup ran into my eyes and my microphone and my guitar strap and now stained green. And there's a really funny video of me somewhere filling the van after the gig, because obviously I couldn't get it off. There wasn't any way of changing. So there's a really funny video of me filling up at the petrol station dressed as Shrek.

7:39 And and to be fair to him, the guy at the counter was like, oh, you got you got far to travel, mate, And I was like, no, not far, just back to bright and He's like, not far far away, and I was like, oh you got me. That was banging. That's fucking cool. You know. I used to have blue hair, and then weather like this, I'd be doing air and then I'd be bleeding blue down my face and not even know it off in there. So I did have yellow hair up until maybe month and a half ago. I had a yellow mohawk. I saw that I did. I did enter my face a few times. I was telling him before he came back. I was like, I texted him, you know that I was your next interview.

8:21 And then I looked up and there you were and his tattoos because your hair didn't match. And so I'm like, is that damn? Like it looked like him, but it didn't necessarily look like you. I looked for that. That is what I'm like, Well, that's got to be him. How many other people have. That great tattoos as well? I can't got any, but he's getting all the tattoos on behalf of my fus. Yes see, shout out Miamy. Gee see. I love that too, you know, because I don't have tattoos, but I'm surrounded by people with him, And you know, it's funny. I have a brother. He's only few years older than me, but he acts like he's like fucking decades older.

9:04 He's like a boot. He's a boomer. And we're sitting at some restaurant and he saw somebody with a tattoo or something. Oh no, he didn't, he was. We were talking about the shows I did, and he said something about tattoos and he was like, oh, man, like, you know, nobody has tattoos. And I'm like, well, I don't know about that. I'm like, we live in a time where pretty much everybody does. He goes, well, maybe we're with the people you hang out with like that told judge bullshit. I'm like, open your fucking eyes, man. Even the fucking preppies have tattoos now, Like, come. On, it's kind of more like uncommon to be not tired now exactly that way, Like a few people have won somewhere like yeah, I mean for me, like my old housemate, uh started a shop and I just got sort of not like sucked into the shop, but like, you know.

10:04 Just just lowered the practice. Oh yeah, yeah, I've got some of my legs that other practice one of them. He he he thought his machine was broken. So he's tied in my leg and he goes, oh, this machine's playing up, and he gets one of the other artists to look at it. That just like pulls a line on my leg like continuing in the bit, and he goes, now, man, it's fine, it's fine, And then he continues and I'm starting there like what Jesus, this is one of the worst titles I've had. Turns out he was going so deep the needle was stopping in my leg and like. It was, it was killing man. I feel that right now. Man, that was shout out, Joe Phillips, the worst, the most painful time I've had.

10:45 He's killing it now. It's in there. It's in there. That that's not going to fade. No, no, but yeah, he's killing it now. He's done one of my favorite on my leg. I've got this like goofy tiger like kind of like almost like Frosty's tiger like prop about Old sailor Jerry's tatoo, and it's just yeah, he's just goofy and it's he killed that and yeah. Just slowly filling filling up. I was looking like a bit of a T shirt for a while because I think everyone starts a bit top heavy on their arms. Yeah, I'm doing the shorts now and the full body suit bit. You've got a few gaps left. Yeah, I've got one gap on my arm that does a redding because in every photo it's.

11:28 Shirt, it's like it just looks really bad in comparison to the rest, like everything else is like look at all these cool tattoos and. There's like just a huge patch here. I'm like, you've got to fill it. Right, it looks weird. And see that sounds great coming from somebody with no tattoos, because it's like funny nowadays when I was younger, But now I kind of feel embarrassed not having one. I do, you know what, I did feel really naked for a little while, and I think I've just kind of you know, it's it's just it's just me now, it's just part of my skin. Like right, it's not that I will never get one, it's just that I'm not ready. I'm not I'm too indecisive. Well see that's what me too. Like you know, I was always like I would probably never have one, But now I keep thinking about it, but I don't. I can't figure out, especially because I have so many different interests and I'm like, what is one tattoo that I know that I would always like?

12:22 And I can't think of one. You know what the Rex logo? There you go that that'll be my first tattoo. Right there. We had someone, our first, our first person, get like a Rex tattoo, and they came to a show and showed us it and I was like, hey, it was really well done, and b I was just like it was a huge moment of like, wow, you like our. Band so much that much? Yeah, like and like yeah like it. It gives me goose bumps. It's like it's like wow, they they Yeah. I think that's the biggest compliment you could ever get. I could say they love your music, but that's a whole other level. Yeah, that was. It was.

13:03 It's been a wild moment that they've got the we've got a little matchstick guy that and it's it's wild. It's kind of like tattoo esque, like the robber Hose kind of characters. So it does it. It suits it. It suits like the rest of their tattpiece as well, you know. And I keep looking at your hat. We talked about it before that. I fucking love tell him what your hat says. Oh this fun. I just do what I mean. It goes in hand in hand because we played Rebellion yesterday but anti fascist nice. You gotta swilled at the minute. See, I want to cover Rebellion. But every year except next year, it's the same weekend as Bloodstock because I'm both a male head and a punk, so it's like, but I do Bloodstock every year, and like one of my friends who's a photographer I do download with. He does Rebellion, Gary from Devolution. Do you know him?

13:57 Yeah, So. He told me it's like next year it'll be on two different weekends and now you'll have to come. And I know a lot of people have like a lot of friends that do Rebellion and you know, and it is another cool fricking festival. It was our first first time there, like even as people going to the festival, and yeah, it's incredible. It's also a really cool vibe like very different to Bloodstock, but like the community. But that's the point. It's got like the same community feel. Everyone's so lovely, you know, like exactly the same as here. And it's not too. Big either, right. You know. I hadn't been to a festival until for since I was a kid, really like when I was for eighteen hours a few hadn't been to a festival till this year again, Wow, and I forgot how important they are for the community of like, oh, here's all these other people that like we're all on the same like similar pages or and like we all like the same things, and like maybe you don't, well it's exactly think like you don't all like the same bands.

15:00 But you've got these common threads. I think it's like there's. We're outsiders on the inside. Well yeah, it's kind of like you know what, like the problem, like the problem with like YouTube or like internet culture that say can be that everyone either has to be completely aligned or they're not right. You're either in my a co chamber or you're not. And what's cool is like I feel when you go to festivals, it helps you realize the common threads that run through everything and so as together as a society. And I think that's you know, you know, part of the conversation that actually really needs to happen for for like, there's too much polarization of left and right. And that's so because it's obviously very broad in the US, it is very wide commonside to.

15:53 The same coin. Yeah, and they're all on the same team and it ain't mine. Yeah, I mean like and over over here, it's like it's growing. And I think I kind of had this question to myself. I was like, what would you do if someone who was the opposite values to you, like came to a show or was there and they believe that And I was like, would you like ask them to leave? And I was kind of like, no, Actually, I think I'd ask them to stay and enjoy the space and be like, hey, like I want you to learn what this is about and what we're about, because I don't want to. I don't want to. I think alienation is the problem, yep. And from my own experiences understanding with like alienation and addiction, it's it's dealt within the exact same way. And you know there's this when you talk about it in terms of addiction, there's this thing of like you are an addict, therefore there's this thing wrong or you have to be on the outside stay away until you fixed it, and actually it's like, no, no, we're going to help you through this.

16:49 I think that's more important. And there's a huge thing with huge study in Portugal done where they basically just legalized everything because they were like it came from a study called like rat Rat Island basically rat Paradise. Yeah, but it was basically aren't going to it too much. It was really interesting. I think that unity is the most important thing, and that's one of the things we tried to like celebrate in our music because we came as two people who were we started this band during COVID nineteen in the pandemic. We were that was brave. Yeah, yeah, I mean we started like writing songs and we were just you know, to the point of like being being in each other's bubble where you're only allowed five people, and it's like, well, I want to write these songs with May, so we're gonna do these and then coming back and being being able to access these these communities, coming back to life.

17:44 It's so important. So yeah, I don't know where I'm going with this, but Blood. Starts a total family. And to your point, I have a solution to all the world's problems that I've been talking about. We need to have one major music for us that the whole world is retired and required to attend, but no political leaders. Security is told they are not to be allowed in under any circumstances, and we just put everybody in one big mash pit and we'll all work it out and have a big hug afterwards. The megapit and needs to happen. That's it, right, you know, because that's the point. If we're separated from the fucking asshole fascist leaders, then we will get along, you know. And your idea is great. Like, yeah, let them stay, because that's the problem is that if you don't sit down with people different from you, you're not going to be able to, you know, influence them to think differently.

18:47 It's something I'm so grateful for my time being in a band. It's taking me all across the UK and Europe and wider field and you meet people of different culture religions. I grew up in in the. Middle of the UK in Doncaster, which is sort of popularized now by the artist's young blood, but it's a very sort of working class hub and you know, being able to you know, one of the things for me being in the band and being able to go and do all that and meet new people and experience all sort of horizons with it all. It is part of that, and I think it's festivals are important for just meeting people and then getting on and staying in touch and you know, come back to today. Actually, I've got a friend who we met ten years ago through our friend at university. His band played yesterday and he's coming to Seals today and I can't wait to see someone. I haven't seen it in ten years and we just stayed in touch and it's like that's what these things are.

19:54 Beaut that's fest of all life right there, all my friends. People that don't understand because I do festivals like almost every weekend practically like on tour like you guys would be And people are like, well, how are you going to meet a bay? You know you need to be in one place. I'm like, oh, my friends are there. Like when I'm at home, I don't want to deal with anybody, you know, it's when I'm out at the festival. It's because here too, I don't have to see the news. I don't give a fuck what's going on out there. The world could be blowing up right now, and I'm just happy being here at Bloodstock And that's the key. Yeah, blood Stuck is the place this weekend, and.

20:34 Definitely we're happy to have you there here and tell everybody real quick how they can reach out to you, connect to you and buy your merch because they can't listen to my show. And let's say buy your merch. So all socials we're at we are Rex and that's Rex Spell with a WWRIX or you can find everything that we have to offer on our website, which is we Arerex dot com. Easy and well I'm glad you're here at Bloodstock and able to kick our ass with your great music, and thanks for being on the Adventures of pipe Man. Thank you so much for having us, we appreciate it. Thank you for listening to the Adventures of Pipemin. I'm w for CUI Radio.