Rex Orange County Tickets

A British singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, the Apricot Princess artist found fame as a teenager for his playfully honest take on bedroom pop, combining influences from soul, jazz and hip hop.

Deceivingly not from California, Rex Orange County (AKA Alex O’Connor) was born in 1998 and grew up in a rural village between Hampshire and Surrey. With suitably global ambitions, the young artist soon gained notoriety for his self-produced pop, earning him appearances on several tracks with Tyler, the Creator (a true Cali export) and sold-out shows worldwide.

Starting early, a five-year-old O’Connor joined a choir at the school his mother was teaching at. He soon developed an eclectic love for music which would later shape his own unique sound, for which he cites influences from Stevie Wonder and Queen to Weezer and Green Day. A self-taught drummer and pianist, he enrolled at The BRIT School in London as a teenager to study drumming. There, he was also able to hone his vocal, guitar, and production skills. Around the same time, he found his moniker, inspired by a teacher’s nickname for him; a riff on the classic high school drama The O.C. and his surname O’Connor. Hence, Rex Orange County.

In 2015, O’Connor made good on his newly-acquired Apple Logic expertise, and released his self-produced debut album, Bcos U Will Never B Free. A masterful introduction into his unique blend of sentimental bedroom pop spliced with jaunty piano, the bandcamp effort gained online attention and put the newly-coined Rex Orange County infront of fellow English musician and producer Two Inch Punch. The pair went on to collaborate on several of O’Connor’s singles, including ‘Uno’, a sarcastically peppy track that catalogues teenage angst. 

Apricot Princess, his second album which was released in 2017, marked a more mature move towards jazz and 70s-inspired soul. Featuring platinum-certified singles ‘Best Friend’ and ‘Sunflower’, the album made it to Top 10 of Billboard’s Independent Albums chart, and garnered high praise from press, with The Fader enthusing “to listen to Apricot Princess, with its widescreen blend of strings, synth, and piano, and the chipper half-rapped, half-sung melodies, is to plunge into the sensory overload of first love.”

By this point, Tyler, The Creator had caught wind of O’Connor’s talent, flying him out to LA to record on two tracks from his Flower Boy album (‘Foreword’ and ‘Boredom’), released in July the same year. Cementing him as one of the UK’s most in-demand songwriters and performers, Frank Ocean invited Rex to join his touring band, before also appearing on guitar alongside Skepta at the 2017 Mercury Awards. 

O’Connor’s subsequent album, Pony (2019), continued his trend towards a more ambitious, jazzy sound, earning him a No.1 on both the Billboard Top Rock and Alternative Album charts. It was also his first major-label album release through RCA Records. Who Cares?, Rex’s fourth full-length offering then came out in 2022, having been recorded in Amsterdam with longtime collaborator Benny Sings, and features a reciprocal appearance from Tyler, The Creator. 

Following the announcement of his upcoming fifth studio album, The Alexander Technique, and his double single release, ‘Alexander’ and ‘Guitar Song’, Rex Orange County announced a four-night residency at The London Palladium for February 2025.