Pop music, says Andrew Espinola, doesn’t have to be the insincere saccharine you hear on the radio. The third album, “Who said I was Running?”, by the 22 year-old Texan songwriter and his band A. Rex contains beautiful and sometimes heartbreaking pop songs that never feel forced or insincere.
Andrew began playing music with serious intent when he was 17. He joined several bands, started a few of his own, and wrote 100 or more songs, all within the course of about 2 years. When he was twenty he decided to finally settle into his new soft rock project, A. Rex. “I needed the autonomy and control of my own project.”
Shortly after forming A. Rex, Andrew found one key collaborator in Mark Addison, who met Andrew when he was 19 at an open-mic. Together, they played all the instruments on the first two A. Rex albums. “He’d play a great guitar part”, says Andrew, “so I would make a competition out of it and try to outdo him with a great piano or keyboard part.”
With the newest A. Rex release, “Who said I was Running?”, Andrew decided to try something different. “A matter of pride arose”, as Andrew describes it. “In order to call this my record I felt I had to play everything on it.” The result is a stronger rock sound with danceable beats, memorable keyboards, and succinct songwriting.
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