“EVERYONE’S BAND IS ENDING, NOW IT’S JUST OUR TIME”: IRISH HIP-HOP DUO TEBI REX ON SAYING GOODBYE

The Irish music scene has always boomed with talent, and whilst it might be having a blossoming spotlight currently bands like Tebi Rex have always been there making noise. For the past ten years members Matt Ó Baoill and Max Zanger have turned over their lives to music and produced genre bending hip hop to tell their story. However, they’ve decided that the project has finished.

Saying goodbye to the sound is never easy but the band have given their ten year project the most beautiful send off. Their final record Fin, released in August this year, is an emotional walk through not only the last decade from a professional perspective, but a personal one too. Matt sat down to talk us through the record and answer the looming question, is this really goodbye?

Can you tell me a bit about the record?

Fin. is the final installment in the Tebi trilogy. It’s our final album. Sonically I’d say it’s a mix between dance music and alt-hip hop, and thematically it’s all about endings; The small ones we deal with on a daily basis, and the big ones we deal with once in a lifetime. From the end of a film, last orders in the pub, and the heavier themes like the end of your single-self and dating, and the grief that comes with losing the people closest to you. It’s all in there, along with the ending of the band you spent 10 years working on, of course. 

The track ‘Fin’ is incredibly emotional, as is the video. What was the writing/ producing process for that like? 

Funny enough, we started making the album with that track – which is the album closer. We released it as a debut single because it really set the tone for what this album is. It’s dancey, it’s beautiful, it’s vulnerable, and it’s a goodbye. Everyone’s band is ending, now it’s just our time. 

Produced by Evan Kennedy, we wanted to feel warm and intimate, so you can hear lots of snippets of us chatting in the background of the takes. Things like “more diction” “Do a Chance The Rapper version” “Keep dancing”, silly stuff, but that’s what happens in the recording process, we want the listener to feel a part of that. We decided to keep that as a motif throughout the album process then. 

What felt odd for me about this track was it being the first time I really pulled away this far from being lyrically dense. I’ve always wanted to say a lot, and was scared of empty space. But  dance music allows for that, and often thrives on it. So I really only have two lines in this song that I repeat, but it still lands and hits home, and does the job I needed it to. That was a really fun challenge for this song and for other similar tracks like “Not with a fizzle fr”.

There’s such a love and a welcoming for the music coming out of Ireland at the minute, did it feel like a strange time to say goodbye to this project?

No, I think it’s perfect. When we started releasing music, there was no appetite for Irish hip hop, or any independent Irish music really. It all felt very “notions”-y, unless you were a few white lads with guitars. I’m glad that’s not how it is anymore. I’m delighted we saw the change and were a part of that shift. There are young musicians killing it right now, and they are rapping proudly with their own accent, talking about topics that are extremely nuanced and niche to their area, and getting a lot of love for it. I adore that. To leave the scene the way it is, feels so suitable to me. I’d hate to say goodbye to it in the same state we entered it. 

How would you describe the past ten years?

That’s a big question haha Jaysus I dunno. We started the band when I was 20. So my entire 20’s has been Tebi Rex. I didn’t just become a better musician over that time, I became a better human being. I grew up with this band. Next year I’m getting married and Max is a groomsman, like. We’re not the Maynooth kids shooting budget vids in student accom anymore. I don’t think I’d be half the person I am today without this band. But personal growth aside, I think it was just FUN. I pray that my kids start a band with their friends and experience some of this, because it is ridiculously special. 

Gigging, touring, tv shows, radio interviews, festival appearances, they’re all great and cool and insane; but I’ll always reminisce on the long chats we had on the drives there, or the meals we ate on tour, or the laughs we had in the studio, the buzz backstage after a big performance. Just sharing a stage with your best friends is something I could never explain and could never recreate. I wouldn’t trade those memories for the world and I wish everyone had the chance to experience them with their best mates. 

Your headline show, December 22, finishes the year off. What can we expect in the new year if anything? Is this true goodbye?

This is it, sincerely. It would be CRAZY to make a final album about endings and not actually finish hahaha. 

Max still has magic left to release in his solo project, “Filmore!”, that I’m so so excited for. For me, I have a wedding to plan, and a future wife to take care of. So I’m gonna focus on that and just sit back, and take a sec to be proud of what we built. I also own a clothing brand called Forever Worldwide Studios that my co-founder, Gori has been leading whilst I was working on this album – so I owe him one for all the work there. 

But for Tebi, that’s it. If you want to see us, come see us ASAP – cause we won’t be back. We want to gig as much as we can between now and December 22nd, but we recommend coming to the final headline. We’re preparing a really special evening there. 

Feel free to add anything else you would like to say!

Just thanks, it’s been real. And please listen to the album and enjoy. It’s the product of two kids who just loved music and wanted so badly to create something authentic to themselves. When we started, we sucked; and that’s the best part, for me. This album was something that grew from nothing but our younger selves’ hopes and dreams. I’m really proud of those two young lads, and I think they’d be proud of us. Maybe. 

You can catch Tebi Rex’s final performance on December 22nd at The Button Factory, Dublin – and this will be your final chance.