Being an actor affords a level of distance. Behind the guise of a role, it's possible to hide or distract, caught between layers of character that in many ways inhibit access to the actual person beneath them. Musical artists don't really have that sort of luxury, especially not those like Bash Croft. Known best for his stage and screen work, notably in Heartstopper, the last year has seen Bash turn to a long underlying passion for music, one that brings him startlingly up close in a way his acting never has. Releasing his first singles at the back end of 2025, he's spent the last 12 months getting increasingly comfortable with a new kind of intimacy. His first single, 'Tokyo', was a soft, tentative venture into the musical sphere - now, he's back with his debut EP, more confident in this being his path than ever.
"Making 'Tokyo', putting it out, making a music video for the first time, doing a live show for the first time, having the song come out and suddenly have a number next to it on Spotify…" Bash reflects, just a week before he is set to make a star turn on Celebrity Traitors, and release the first single from his upcoming EP 'The Great Forever'.
"It was all hypothetical before that. I think the beautiful thing was when the first song came out, and all of my fears had been: what if I hate the song? What if I feel embarrassed? What if people think I'm an idiot? What if? But I did it, and I loved every single part of the process. It just gave me the confidence to hand on heart, without any shadow of a doubt, say I want to do this, I want to go for it, I want to take it all the way.
"I think you need that to do music. It's kind of like starting a conga. You have to be a crazy person just dancing in a room and hoping that someone's going to come and dance with you. Once you get two or three people, then even the people who thought you were a crazy person are like, 'Yeah, this is kind of cool, I'll join'. But right now, I'm a crazy person dancing in a room on my own. And that's okay!"
"I want to do this, I want to take it all the way"
— Bash Croft
That willingness to continue on this road regardless of outside noise proved freeing for Bash and pivotal in the making of 'The Great Forever'. Instilled with newfound belief and confidence in droves, he began to craft eight songs that serve as vignettes of each version of himself Bash has been and continues to be. Recounting a first heartbreak that left Bash questioning why we long for forever, the EP flits back and forth between longing for that longevity and acceptance that some things are fleeting, and that's the joy of them. Looping through the emotions, it hurtles back and forth between extremes, capturing them all in vivid detail.
"I remember my brother said, 'The bad news is, the only thing that's going to fix this is time, but the good news is, the only thing that will fix this is time'," Bash sagely delivers. "There's nothing you can do. You just literally have to exist through time, and eventually, for some reason, it gets better. No matter how many hot yoga classes you take, no matter how many late nights you go out, no matter how many hot boys you kiss - you can do everything you want, but it just takes time, and there is something really beautiful in that, and the fact that these things change and flow. There are times when everything goes really badly, and that feels like it might last forever, but it doesn't.
"Equally, when things are going well, everything goes up and down and left and right. I've definitely felt liberated by not needing a forever. It's been this philosophical thread through the EP, which I wasn't really expecting, and it's felt really meaningful."
Though much of the EP reflects on this journey of healing post-breakup, it never really dwells on the others involved, so much so that it scarcely feels like a breakup narrative. Ultimately, it is Bash at the centre of this project, and it is Bash that these songs unearth revelations about and afford acceptance.
"I ended up writing about myself," Bash explains. "This isn't really about anyone I dated, but who I was when I was dating those people or that person, and who I'm trying to become and what that feels like. I didn't realise until recently that it was way more about me than it was about anyone else. There's something quite nice about that."
That interiority is key to the sound of 'The Great Forever' - soundtracked by the sugar-rush pop of tracks like 'Pretty People', it's reflective and grounded in experience and authenticity. It's something Bash sought across the board. With his acting work using his full name, Sebastian Croft, his musical output being under Bash Croft - the name used by his friends, his family, what his mum calls him - is a testament to the level of intimacy he's willing to operate with now.
"The perspective of the EP isn't a coming-of-age story," Bash says. "It's important to me that it is me, now. I think the first song being like 'I'm your narrator and I'm 24 and I've kind of figured it out a bit more' but then delving into like last year, I would have fucking killed someone because I was so heartbroken, and the year before that, I would have cried… I think it gives it all a nice perspective. The truth is, I can feel like I'm over something, and I am, but you can wake up on a Tuesday morning and open Instagram and see something and feel all the same things. It's never really over."
"I wasn't ready to feel that vulnerability and be cringe and do my own thing"
— Bash Croft
The EP reflects that even in its structure - beginning with the distinctly hopeful 'Heartbreak State of Mind', you might be initially deceived into thinking this was unfolding long after this stage of his life had any hold on him anymore. And yet, tracks like 'Atlanta' exist in the thick of it still. There's nothing linear about it - and it is in that the authenticity of this project seeps through. That willingness to be earnest every step of the way wasn't always innate to Bash, though.
"Part of the reason that I never developed myself as an artist was I wasn't ready to feel that vulnerability and be cringe and do my own thing and this EP both in the subject matter and also the experience of putting music out is me in the fullest possible sense being like I'm not going to give a fuck about what anyone else thinks, I care about this thing, I'm going for it and that's all that matters... It's a constant process of losing yourself and trying to find yourself, and in many ways, a lot of what I end up finding rings truest is closest to how I probably was when I was a kid and was not inhibited by all of the shit we take on as adults."
Reconnecting with his younger self is a fundamental part of the space Bash wants to inhabit musically, too. Having struggled with fear around his sexuality at school, Bash found guiding lights in the pop stars of his parents' generation - the likes of Elton John, Freddie Mercury, David Bowie and George Michael, who he pays homage to in one of the project's music videos. All were visibly celebrating their queerness and entangling that with their art - embodying that and crafting a musical world in which his younger self would've found sanctuary was really important. It's something that took root in his role in Heartstopper, something that he initially was scared would draw attention to his sexuality, but soon became something that made his life "much richer". Creating those art forms where people can take refuge is really at the core of what Bash does.
"I have this really strong desire to make a world that gives other people permission to be themselves and to exist in, no matter what stage of their journey they are at. Seeing the effect that someone like Harry Styles had when he wore nail polish or wore pearls, straight men started doing it. It proved to me that with culture and pop culture, the reason that queer people have always felt so connected to it is that it pushes the boundaries of what's allowed. It's the same with fashion.
"Part of my mission statement of why I need to make art and why I need to make this music is to make that world and to push the boundaries of what people feel like is allowed. I also think queer music has been put in a genre of 'queer music'. I don't want to make queer music, I want to make pop music which is from a queer perspective, and the difference being a lot of the queer identity which is in culture is specific parts that are completely unique to being queer. A lot of my experience is all the same things that everyone feels. Queer people also fall in love, have heartbreaks, feel lonely, feel jealous, and I just feel there are things that aren't being said that I want to say and that feel important."
'The Great Forever' does feel exactly that - important. Across those eight tracks, Bash might not find a complete end where everything is rectified, and every weight is lifted from his shoulders. What he does find, however, is himself, in every iteration - it finds peace in not having ironed everything out, but knowing that the passion embroiled in this EP will be enough to carry him through the rest. With 'Tokyo', he took hesitant steps into this world. Now, he's walking more confidently than ever.
Bash Croft's debut EP 'The Great Forever' is coming soon.
