(Beach) Sex Sells

Caitlin Billard
Aug 21, 2017
3 min read

Beach Sex is DJ Edwards, Ryan Alexander, and Avery Greeson. If you haven’t heard of the band before, let’s fill you in.

DJ (“Showbiz Baby”) and Ryan (“Peppermint Slim”) started Beach Sex around August of last year and recorded their first track during the infamous hurricane. Avery (“The Kid”) teamed up with the guys a few short months later.

DJ and Ryan, both experienced members of the Charleston music scene, apparently committed themselves to wearing ski masks during their live shows to ensure that Beach Sex fans were drawn in based on the merit of the band, not the reputation of the members.

The ski masks also provided a sense of security while the Beach Sex members perfected their act and grew more confident being front and center in a new band.

After approximately a year, they were over the whole covered-face-itchy-ski-mask situation and said: “we’ve got the goods to go, so let’s take the ski masks off and go.”

Not to say that they’re totally comfortable, “I don’t think anyone should ever be comfortable. We’re going to outgrow this EP and continue growing.”

DJ’s musical background is in the punk/metal scene while Ryan’s has been primarily in folk and Avery has been playing with college-aged friends in local indie outfit, Whitehall. Somehow, the culmination of their musical influences has manifested itself as lo-fi surf rock, which they describe as sometimes being grunge-y, but they “still have manners.”

All of Beach Sex’s songs are Ryan’s idea first, then the band reconstructs it in such a way that “everyone has a voice within the song.” Ryan, despite a background in folk, has been getting into math rock recently. He’s digging “weird time signatures + weird guitar tunings. It combines the best of distorted craziness but also simplicity.”

The surf pop EP is full of polar tensions, oscillating between pop + punk, modern + traditional, artistic + mainstream. They strike a delicate balance, but you don’t have to worry about these guys selling out. While they’re radio-ready, DJ eloquently states that “we’re also going to whip the dicks out and you’re going to see us full force.”

Beach Sex has a busy sched. on the horizon: they are dropping their full EP on August 24th, celebrating the release with a show at Redux on the same day, releasing a music video for each track on their EP, and hitting the road to travel the southeast.

Though they formed relatively recently, this will be Beach Sex’s third tour. They have been honing their sound through lots of practice time and gracing stages across the Carolinas with their ski masked presence. DJ confidently states, “even though we’re a ‘new band,’ when you see us you’re not going to think so.” Expect to see something “polished and badass.” (& this time we even get to see their faces.)

Along with the EP, Beach Sex will be releasing a….. LYRIC ZINE. (How rad?) They are of the opinion that, since everyone streams, if you want a physical memento to support the band, you can cop a zine filled with local photography, cool graphic design, and... potentially something requiring 3D glasses???