Biography
Washington, D.C. power trio Ex Hex sprang from Mary Timony’s affinity for the brash energy of glam rock, power pop, and punk. Her earlier, more intricate work with Helium in the 1990s and as a solo artist during the 2000s stood in sharp contrast to the group’s tough, melodic style. The band’s freewheeling 2014 debut, Rips, saluted Thin Lizzy, the Cars, and Cheap Trick while charting its own course, and the more deliberately shaped It’s Real, released in 2019, brought added studio refinement to their rock & roll visions.
Ex Hex took shape after Timony’s prior band Wild Flag, which also included Sleater-Kinney’s Janet Weiss and Carrie Brownstein, disbanded in late 2012. Having already composed lean, high-energy songs intended for a second Wild Flag album, Timony sought to keep exploring that approach and began rehearsing with Betsy Wright, formerly of Chain & the Gang, on bass and Laura Harris, who had performed with Benjy Ferree and the Aquarium, on drums. Shared enthusiasm for 1960s garage rock and the punk, power pop, and new wave sounds of the late 1970s and early 1980s provided common ground, while Timony’s experience teaching guitar encouraged her to revisit classic material and employ standard tuning more regularly than she had in Helium or her solo projects.
The trio started tracking material in Timony’s basement and shared bills with artists such as Superchunk’s Mac McCaughan. In 2013 they signed with McCaughan’s Merge Records, and their first single, “Hot and Cold,” emerged in March 2014, displaying an even tighter, more direct approach than Timony had taken in Wild Flag. For the full-length Rips, Ex Hex enlisted producer Mitch Easter alongside frequent Timony collaborator Jonah Takagi; Bobby Harlow of the Go and Conspiracy of Owls handled the mix, and the album appeared in October 2014. The group spent much of the next two years on the road and issued a cover of the Real Kids’ “All Kindsa Girls” in 2015 before members turned to outside endeavors: Wright launched Bat Fangs, Harris joined Death Valley Girls, and Timony oversaw reissues of Helium’s The Dirt of Luck and Magic City.
A year of sessions for the follow-up, again with Takagi and featuring the Rockman—a compact amplifier designed in 1982 by Boston’s Tom Scholz—yielded the more expansive It’s Real, which Merge Records released in March 2019.
Ex Hex took shape after Timony’s prior band Wild Flag, which also included Sleater-Kinney’s Janet Weiss and Carrie Brownstein, disbanded in late 2012. Having already composed lean, high-energy songs intended for a second Wild Flag album, Timony sought to keep exploring that approach and began rehearsing with Betsy Wright, formerly of Chain & the Gang, on bass and Laura Harris, who had performed with Benjy Ferree and the Aquarium, on drums. Shared enthusiasm for 1960s garage rock and the punk, power pop, and new wave sounds of the late 1970s and early 1980s provided common ground, while Timony’s experience teaching guitar encouraged her to revisit classic material and employ standard tuning more regularly than she had in Helium or her solo projects.
The trio started tracking material in Timony’s basement and shared bills with artists such as Superchunk’s Mac McCaughan. In 2013 they signed with McCaughan’s Merge Records, and their first single, “Hot and Cold,” emerged in March 2014, displaying an even tighter, more direct approach than Timony had taken in Wild Flag. For the full-length Rips, Ex Hex enlisted producer Mitch Easter alongside frequent Timony collaborator Jonah Takagi; Bobby Harlow of the Go and Conspiracy of Owls handled the mix, and the album appeared in October 2014. The group spent much of the next two years on the road and issued a cover of the Real Kids’ “All Kindsa Girls” in 2015 before members turned to outside endeavors: Wright launched Bat Fangs, Harris joined Death Valley Girls, and Timony oversaw reissues of Helium’s The Dirt of Luck and Magic City.
A year of sessions for the follow-up, again with Takagi and featuring the Rockman—a compact amplifier designed in 1982 by Boston’s Tom Scholz—yielded the more expansive It’s Real, which Merge Records released in March 2019.
Albums
Singles
