Brighton rock!

ROB FIDDAMAN this week chats to Mae of Brighton-based WREX about their upcoming city gig, the year's highlights and why British bands don't have number ones anymore

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Please start by introducing yourselves and tell us who plays what in the band.

The band is predominantly just the two of us, however it's much more than that behind the scenes. Despite appearing as just “Mae & George” online, we do go out with a live band, which often has revolving members depending on the specific tour. For our Independent Venue Week tour we will be running as a three-piece. We will be joined by Greg Walton on drums for all shows, while George is on guitar and vocals, and myself (Mae) on vocals.

Where are you all from?

George is originally from Doncaster, but came down to Brighton just over 10 years ago. I'm from King's Lynn in Norfolk and also came to Brighton around 10 years ago, I think one or two years behind George.

How did the band form?

We met at a local venue, one we're actually playing at for our WREX-mas show actually: The Green Door Store in Brighton. George was playing a show there, and despite totally missing the performance (not on purpose!), we met at the bar later and hit it off.

How did you come up with the band name?

The name WREX is a play on wrecks - neither of us were in the best headspace when we met, so it's a reference to that. We are in a much better place now, thankfully, and we put a lot of that down to the music as a release for us, and the friendships that this project has built around us.

How would you describe your musical genre?

This is always a tricky one. We usually say alt-rock, purely because it’s a fairly broad genre, but there are elements of everything we grew up listening to and being inspired by - some tracks you might listen to and think it's fairly heavy, verging on pop-metal, but more recently we've been described as electro-punk, which I think is pretty cool! We love a singalong chorus so there will always be the pop element to it.