Future popster beaux has a string of EPs behind him, and a new one just dropped - but what really shines through his ambition to keep pushing things further beyond the music he made in his bedroom. What comes next could go anywhere.

Words: Neive McCarthy. Photos: Sarah Louise Bennett.

In a sense, the last year was the ideal time to be a bedroom pop star. However, emerging on the other side with a fistful of EPs that managed to hit a million listens was naturally quite the jarring adjustment for beaux. With no clue how the reaction to his music would be out in the real world, it was a daunting return to normality for the 22-year-old. Thankfully, he seems to have taken it in his stride. “I’ve never had audience feedback for any of the songs, so it was so interesting seeing an audience react to the music. We did some warmup shows before we did any festivals, and for the first one, I was a bit nervous,” beaux admits. “Mostly about all of the equipment – we were running off of laptops, and I was just thinking, something is going to go wrong, and do I know how to fix it? I don’t think so. But luckily, nothing went wrong, and after the first show, it’s been really good. I’ve not felt worried about the shows; it’s just been really fun.”

Rich, effortless vocals and layers of experimental production define beaux’s sound across his earlier two EPs, ‘I Don’t Want To Make It Alone, I Want To Make It With You’ and ‘a love letter to the moments spend outside’ (apparently, as do long titles). Fast forward to the present day, though, and those qualities are pushed to the stratosphere as he approaches his third EP, ‘memories written down so I won’t forget them’. After signing with Dirty Hit back in 2019, the world effectively became beaux’s oyster. “I make all these songs at home, but I was like, I’ve got this label who are so great and happy to facilitate my ideas, so what can I get? I recorded all these vocals and thought it’d be so cool if a choir was doing this, so I wondered if we could get a choir. I asked the label, and they said we could use the London Community Gospel Choir, who are so good. Then I had some strings that I just programmed, and I just thought, I wonder if we can get real strings, that’d be so cool. It was a moment of exploration of what can I do that I wouldn’t be able to do in my bedroom, by myself? What can I do that’s fun and cool? I was just trying to do stuff that was exciting. It was just a matter of what is possible. It inspired me to be more creative because if you’re doing something like that, you want to make sure it’s worthwhile.”