Tell Us about:

Your latest single you have released:

Martin Rex: We released “Sooner or Later” on September 17. Ryan and I are identical twins, and that just also happens to be our birthday. 

Your favourite lyric in this song: 

Martin: I think the one for me that captures the story with feeling and imagery is “I don’t want to know what you think of me, ‘cause the fading light still reflects the sea.’” The narrative of the song is about coming of age, how life puts us all through the ringer, and the narrator is calling out a person they love who’s starting to lose control, falling into darkness, and the response from that person is basically “I don’t want to hear it, can’t you see there’s still light?” 

I also love a very simple lyric we used; at the end of each chorus the lyric is “Back in the day, you were already gone” but in the last chorus it’s “Back in the day, WE were already gone.” So the person telling the story realizes that the darkness has also been descending on him – has been descending on both of them the whole time. There can be dark times in that period between youth and “real” adulthood – so that simple lyrical switch is really poignant for me, and I think it relates to so many relationships that may be co-dependent or romantic relationships where one is pointing the finger at the other who’s “doing worse,” but ultimately that person has also been getting pulled into the void all along.

Your favourite song that you have created that is an album track:

Martin: So far we’ve put out singles for Soft Skies Inc as we gear up to release our EP in 2025, so if I have to pick a track from a “proper album” I’ll have to kick it back to my and Ryan’s drone/space rock band Lockgroove. Painful to pick just one! But let me go with “A Million Safe Places” off Lockgroove’s album Calm Right Down. It’s very much a nascent Soft Skies Inc sound and theme. Practically a sister song to “Sooner or Later” now that I’m thinking about the lyrics. And the same feeling: Bombastic, driving, joyful almost, but there’s this underpinning of melancholy. We put out “A Million Safe Places” at a time when the concept of listening to full albums – in order – as a full experience was fading, so I never felt like the song got the attention it deserved because we put it later in the flow of the album’s story. If it came out today, I’d put it right up front.

Your favourite song to play live:

Martin: As the drummer I have to say “Top of the Stairs”, which is my favourite drum arrangement I’ve written for Soft Skies Inc. It has a very Gish-era Jimmy Chamberlain feel – the drummer who probably had the most influence on me, along with Stephen Perkins from Jane’s. But tied for first is “Only Paranoid”, which is very New Order-esque in feel, almost a dance beat, but we did this heavy tom-tom overdub that was a revelation in the studio and really builds the song’s tension. 

The song that was the longest to write and why?

Martin: If we’re talking about our upcoming EP, really easy to answer this: “The Dark Drive.” I also think it’s the best thing we’ve ever recorded, but you’ll have to wait until next year to hear it. We labored over the arrangement and orchestration for a few years, really kind of triumphed with that, but then it had no lyrics and sat as an instrumental for I think another two years. The song is really special to me because while I’m heavily involved in writing the instrumental parts for all the songs, I have never contributed to lyric writing, and Ryan let me in on that process for this song, so it’s Ryan and my first lyrical collaboration. I’m so proud of it. 

Your most emotional track:

Martin: Oof, great question, but also very hard. I know all artists say this but they are ALL emotionally charged for me, especially given that Ryan and I really write about struggle, melancholy, anger even, but somehow make it all sound “rock” [laughs]. 

I’m going to have to say for me it’s our first single “Your Small Army”. When Ryan sent me the demo for that song, as brothers, we were at a time where for the first time we were very separated both geographically but also emotionally. And the song was just so beautiful, just tapped into this well of emotion and I remember just crying openly in this park. It’s hard to cry, so it felt good. You know, we had been so connected and done so much with Lockgroove, but that ended in heartbreak and self-imposed hardship, and Ryan and I for the first time were apart both physically and emotionally. 

I think Ryan was living in Australia at the time, so we couldn’t have been farther apart. And there was this question of whether we still had it in us, could still pull from the well and write. So when the demo brought me to tears, there was joy in that as well, like, hell yes, he’s absolutely still got it and I know exactly how to elevate this in the studio. So I knew that was one of the first songs we’d record. It will also be our first video, which will be out next month!

Dream collaboration:

Martin: I mean, Johnny Marr or Robert Smith are the first that easily come to mind. I also had this dream to work with Alejandra Deheza from School of Seven Bells to sing on the extended ending of our song “The Kickaround” and even reached out to her. I just think their work is brilliant and Benjamin Curtis’s passing really hit me. 

Describe the feeling you get when you walk on stage to do a show:

Martin: Right when you walk on stage to an enthusiastic crowd, that part, it just makes you smile, warms up the soul, and makes the nervousness fall away. But the real transformation is when the music starts. It’s indescribable, really, and I feel like anything I say will come off cheesy. There is a true energy transfer, “energy swarm” Ryan sometimes calls it, between the band and the audience. A good show? There are just no words. That’s why musicians, when they get that feeling, they chase it for the rest of their lives. And fans of live music, same thing. When they have that spiritual experience for the first time, they chase it again and again.  

The hardest track to play live:

Martin: Anything where the recorded song had studio trickery haha. 

Essential items you always take on tour with you?

Martin: Earplugs, earbuds, and pillow for the van.

Describe your fans in three words:

Martin: Shoegazers to Skygazers

A song by another artist or band you wish you had written:

“Burn Bridges” by Dom. 

What we can look forward to from your band this year:

Our first video for “Your Small Army” came out in October, then we’ll release a few more singles either later this year or early next year to culminate in an EP (or possible LP) coming out in 2025.