Singer-songwriter Best Ex on debut album, name origins and the future

Singer-songwriter Best Ex creates music that explores the complex relationship between womanhood and the outside world. Her soft-spoken lyrics connect emotions to words when everything seems to be up in the air and life becomes a jumbled mess. Best Ex released her first single, “Someday,” in 2017, and focusing on her craft has had the ball rolling ever since. In 2023 she released her debut album, “With a Smile,” in which the twelve song album explores the emotional ups and downs and with each song peeling back every layer.

We sat down with Best Ex before her Heaven Can Wait show on December 10th where she answered a few questions for Off The Record Press.

Can you give your best elevator pitch into who Best Ex is?

That's a good question and that's really hard. The way I see myself is writing songs for the sort of introverted underdog who really wants to be out in the world and connect with people but struggles. I suppose that is the elevator pitch.

You played under Candy Hearts before Best Ex. Can you talk about the transition between bands and into this project?

I was doing Candy Hearts since I was 19 years old and maybe even before that. It was cool and I liked playing pop punk. I think something I wasn't aware of when I started until I got out of the DIY scene into the more mainstream pop punk scene was just how depressing it was for women. I was feeling really isolated. Every tour I'd been on, there was always some incident. It was really depressing and when it was time for the next album I wrote a bunch of demos for Candy Hearts. They were not good. I was thinking about what I really want to do, and so I went on an acoustic tour as Candy Hearts. I went on one tour, and I was like this is not Candy Hearts. It just became a solo project. I moved forward with that, which was nice because I feel like moving into the pop/indie singer-songwriter space was much more women-friendly, which was what I wanted.

What is the origin of the name?

I was thinking about how I used to date all these band dudes and they were mostly disappointing. And every time they would date me, the women they would date after me were so lovely and so sweet and so pretty and the girl next door. And I am just the complete opposite of that. I wanted to reclaim that thought of myself. They might have found the best woman for them, but I'm the best ex.

You released a single and EP in 2017, a single in 2019, and then your next single in 2020. Between projects there was a year hiatus. What prompted the break and then to come back with an EP in 2020?

The first time was because I was shattered by a breakup and I just didn’t know what to do, and I needed time to reestablish my life. The second time was because it costs a lot of money to make a record and there was the whole pandemic where I was writing. So that took a long time. Even though I had these songs, it took me a long time to get in the studio to do them, and it takes a long time to afford twelve songs. When I first started recording, I didn't know what I was really doing. During that time I really focused on being a better performer with my voice and guitar playing. And I guess a better songwriter too. But I really focused on the more technical aspects that I didn't have time to do before.

You released your debut album this past October titled, “With a Smile.” Can you talk about the inspiration behind that?

The inspiration behind the album was I wanted to create a concept album about the pressures of womanhood and the idea that were supposed to internalize so much pain and anger and not outwardly express it. A lot of the album has to do with the idea of when society wants women to smile. I wanted to peel it back and see where a woman is her most true self. That was really the idea. Of course there's songs on it that are happy but that's also a reason to smile.

What was the creation process like?

I wrote some before, during, and after the pandemic. The creation process is kind of always the same. When I'm like, ok we're doing this, we're making an album. I lock myself in a room and ask what kind of song I need to write. It's a long process.

The album begins with the song “With A Smile,” which is the shortest song on the album at 1:36. Can you talk about that song? Is it kind of an introduction to the album?

It's interesting because that was the first song that I wrote for the album. But I didn't know I was making an album. I didn’t know I was doing anything. I just wrote it. I always loved really short songs and songs that don’t necessarily follow a typical song structure, songs that tell a story. And that song I wrote on ukulele. I was just singing about how I was feeling. I had a line I had taken from a song I did a while ago, and I never released it because it never came out the way I wanted. And I was really feeling that line at the moment and was like, let me just sing. That's just what I wrote, a story of exactly how I feel and exactly this feeling of the fear of the outside because life is so hard. And the world expects you to show up and be ready. I wanted that song to be the pause before you hype yourself up to do that and then you go.

One of the lyrics that stood out to me was the line, “Sometimes I feel like I've got more in common with the flowers on the shelf that I forget to water.”

That's the lyric that I took from the other song!

Along those lines, you have explained your live show as an introvert’s dream. In a sense do you feel that the lyrics really put to words feelings that sometimes you really can’t?

I have a hard time putting the exact words to it now because right now I think life is really hard. Not like medieval times; we have the best life quality of any generation, except we are struggling with so much. So many people are looking at life through a filter and not seeing the reality behind it. And it can make you feel like you're not measuring up and the only person who's struggling with these things.

What's the goal?

To be a successful songwriter. I want people to come to me and be like, ‘we want you to help us write a song.’ I've been doing a lot of songwriting. It's really exciting and I love it. That's all I want to do.