ARXX are on a mission to spread queer joy: the sort that they longed to see when they were younger, and that they’ve been increasingly visible champions of since emerging with their first material half a decade ago. It’s a message that’s always been a core tenet of the Brighton band, formed of vocalist Hanni Pidduck and drummer Clara Townsend, but that’s become progressively more loud and proud as the duo have explored and embraced their own identities. And, following a concentrated period of monumental growth - both as a musical unit and, crucially, as people - second album ‘Good Boy’ arrives as a bright and brilliant testament to this journey.
“This album is queer in its very nature; everything about it is queer and you can’t get away from it,” smiles Hanni. “The songs are very personal, and a celebration of being who you want to be in whatever way that manifests, and being fucking honest about it. By the time you get to your thirties, you think you should know yourself by now. But actually, you continue to learn about yourself the entire time.”
Formed back in 2017 after a mutual admiration for the other’s playing led the pair to finally attempt a shy first rehearsal together (“We’re both so awkward, but when we met we felt safe with each other instantly,” says Hanni), ARXX have been on a path of sonic self-discovery since those first days. Starting life as an “angry punk band”, it would take a few years of playing on bills that never felt quite right for them to take a step back and reevaluate. “We kept getting put on shows with bands that were lovely but they weren’t our music,” says Clara. “A big turning point was when we discovered MUNA. We became obsessed with them and how they were really cool and pop but with a rocky undertone. We realised that we’d outgrown where we started.”
Leaning into their pop side, and citing luminaries such as Maggie Rogers and Charli XCX as other influences, last year’s debut LP ‘Ride or Die’ saw the duo blossom into an evolved form. Revelling in sparkling melodic hooks as well as the riffs that still give their live show a jolt of electric energy, the process was a lesson in never limiting yourself to be one thing. “When we play live we’re still heavier than your average pop band, but I think that’s exciting,” says Hanni. “Then on record, we have a lot of freedom and we don’t inhibit ourselves. When I’m writing I really care about feeling euphoric and happy, even when it’s a sad song. The world is progressively becoming a shit-fire so you just want to give yourself a break and an excuse to have a good time!”
The 18 months since the release of their debut, meanwhile, have been a rollercoaster for the band. Full of objective highs including a bucket list slot supporting MUNA (more on that later), a beautiful experience supporting Fletcher on an all-queer tour where they “found their people”, and a charity ARXX & Friends single - released in aid of trans collective We Exist and featuring pals such as Phoebe Green, CLT DRP and Merpire, there were also moments of difficulty. Ahead of the Fletcher tour, Hanni had to undergo surgery for a polyp on their vocal chords. Put on vocal rest for a fortnight, the first day they were allowed to sing was on the opening day of the run, playing to 2,500 people. Throughout it all, meanwhile, both Hanni and Clara were going through periods of real personal change. Hanni came out as non-binary, and Clara - raised in Dubai, where homosexuality is still illegal - fully began to embrace her own queer identity.
“It’s been a massive experience for me of relearning myself and getting to know parts of me that I had compressed, and so much of that is reflected in the new album,” Hanni enthuses. “I wouldn’t even say it’s pride, it’s a sense of just not giving a fuck about what anyone else thinks of me. Being trans, you’ve got to be grateful that you’re still alive because the odds are stacked against you and it’s a very difficult life. I’m just really very happy in who I’m discovering myself to be and I want to aggressively celebrate who I am.”
“Growing up in Dubai, when I came back to the UK, it took me a while to look around and be like, ‘This is OK’,” says Clara. “It was so alien to me; you wouldn’t even see queer people on TV because they’d block it out, so it took me a long time to come to terms with things in myself. But over the past few years of finding a community and finding similar artists and people, I feel really confident to be in this scene.”
‘Good Boy’ - named after a “queer and saucy” slogan on a T-shirt that Hanni loved - is a tour through all these emotions and more. Written quickly in a flurry of creativity, and produced in Brighton alongside long-term collaborator Steve Ansell of Blood Red Shoes, it saw the duo work in completely new ways, steered by the limitations put on them by Hanni’s vocal surgery. They wrote the music first for the first time ever, purposefully aiming to create songs “that felt big and expansive and joyful”. They opened up their sonic palettes, allowing new instruments and genres to seep in and not saying ‘no’ to any good ideas. “From the first album, it’s got more experimental,” enthuses Clara. “It was taking that pressure away to be one thing, and realising that we can make whatever we want to make.” And so, ARXX’s second arrives as a record that’s in turns poppy and dancey, riffy and sexy, but also contains “the saddest song Hanni has ever written”.
Recent single ‘Crying In The Carwash’ is emblematic of ARXX’s willingness to lean into euphoria. Written after they found out about the MUNA tour as they were putting Hanni’s car in for a clean, it’s a document of a gloriously surreal time that they were then able to play on the tour itself. “We played it during those shows and it was a real shift in our way of thinking, it gave us such confidence. It was like: ‘I’ve supported my favourite band in the world and now I really believe I can do anything’,” Hanni grins. Elsewhere the warm synths of ‘Swim’ hold up a tender ode to the vocalist’s gender journey. “There are a lot of queer stories out there that are really negative and sad, and they’re important but sometimes you just want a queer story to be positive and happy and that’s what we’ve tried to express,” they say. “I feel so safe when I’m performing to our audience, and that feeling of being held has helped me to embrace myself more. I want to put a mirror up to the audience and do the same thing for them.”
‘Trouble’ finds them analysing a break-up over a “bassy, electronic” palette that marks some of their most prowling, experimental sounds yet, while ‘Forgive and Forget’ takes a more straightforward guitar path, allowing for Hanni’s affecting lyrics to take centre stage. “It’s an angry song. It’s saying, ‘I’m good now, but there were experiences in my life that I grew up thinking were normal and they were really fucked and I’m really angry that I was expected to think it was OK’,” they explain. Then, the sparse and piano-led ‘Dublin’ clears out all the noise, acting as a poignant tribute to an important father figure in Hanni’s life, who passed away just as the band had to leave for a tour.
Pulling together a huge range of feelings and emotions, and inhabiting them within songs that feel like a cementing of ARXX’s true, joyful musical approach, ‘Good Boy’ might be arriving less than two years after its predecessor but it represents a lifetime of incremental progress and important lessons. With their biggest summer of festivals yet, including slots at Glastonbury, and Reading and Leeds, alongside an upcoming October tour and a soundtrack for Happy Valley creator Sally Wainwright’s new TV show Riot Women about to drop, it feels like everything is slotting into place for the duo - proof that, when you fully learn to love yourself, good things follow.
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