INTERVIEW: LooveX and Gum Disease link on new track

LooveX is the Swedish multi-instrumentalist, producer and genre anarchist who’s been releasing music since 2020, racking up millions of streams while dodging every label the industry tries to assign. With a striking visual presentation that challenges binary definitions of gender, LooveX is making emphatic statements that have struck a chord with countless fans around the world. First making their artistic entrance in 2020 with the debut single “as a bounce,” they’ve since gone from strength to strength with multiple singles, an EP and two full-length records. After taking time out for their mental health, they return now with new musical fire.

Gum Disease, featuring the talents of Avery Holdom, Phoebe Kift and Oli Lake bring a queerpunk sound that blends angsty riffs with radical softness. Known for their riotous live shows and lyrics that sting as much as they soothe, the band has recently linked up with producer Robert Wells to shape the next phase of their sonic adventure.

Now, the latest collaboration between the artists feels like a collision meant to happen. Both fearless in expression and fiercely unique in sonic vision, these acts have come together on “queerannosaurus gex,” a track that channels humour, critique and queer celebration in equal measure. The story of their team-up began last year when LooveX, already a fan since 2022, reached out to the trio with an idea sparked by the brilliant and irreverent username “queerannosaurus gex.”

What initially started out as a tongue-in-cheek concept quickly morphed into a track cut with nuance, turning the metaphor of “queer dinosaurs” into a biting commentary on societal homophobia and the outdated beliefs that fuel it. Serving up a high-voltage fusion of LooveX’s slick, electronic pop punk and Gum Disease’s alternative rock edges, the song is playful on the surface but doesn’t pull punches; homophobes are branded as “dinosaurs,” relics clinging to prehistoric ideals while the world marches forward.

While LooveX handled the backbone of the production, they gave Gum Disease space to inject their character into the track. Kicked off by the screech of wailing guitar tones, the track launches into a charging scene of riveting drums, driving guitars and bright synths capped by LooveX’s subtly spacey vocal leads.

Delivered in a thrilling two minute dose of raucous sonic energy, instantly catchy hooks and colourful dashes of synths, it’s a spectacular collaboration that sees LooveX and Gum Disease lay down an engaging slice of forward-thinking synth rock. It’s an exhilarating outing that’s at once memorable and meaningful, while offering another taste of LooveX’s forthcoming album release, set to fully crystallise their return to the music sphere.

We caught up with LooveX and Gum Disease to find out more about their musical journeys, their new collaborative single “queerannosaurus gex” and what they’ve got in store next. Check out our interview with LooveX and Gum Disease below.

Hey Guys, how’s things?

LooveX: Haii!! Things are good although I feel like I’m melting away. The sun is annoying. I hate the sun. I’m a vampire.

GUM DISEASE: Things are wonderous! Absolutely hating the weather in the UK right now but besides from that we are doing well.

Which artists do you draw most inspiration from?

LooveX: Well that really depends cause I get inspired by everything and everyone. My music reflects what I’m listening to at the time in a way because my music taste is all over the place, but my main inspirations are Nirvana, Poppy and Shakira. It’s a weird fun combination I’d say. Growing up with Nirvana and Shakira made me want to get into music, and Poppy inspired me to be unapologetic about being myself if that makes sense. Other than that it’s a very like “oh I found this new artist in this genre, I wanna try that” type thing I guess.

GUM DISEASE: We draw the most inspiration from artists within our community who make very similar music to us. A lot of the musicians who we look up to are actually people we’ve had the pleasure of working alongside which is really cool. To name a few specifically: Ewy, The Oozes, Comic Sans and Bones Ate Arfa.

How else do you find inspiration for your music?

LooveX: Music has always had a therapeutic purpose for me since I basically write most of my songs about stuff that I’m going through, my emotions, stuff that’s happening in the world, so I’d say that’s where the inspiration comes from.

GUM DISEASE: Most of our music is about current world events or things that we’ve personally been through and “Queerannosaurus Gex” is no exception. We still have a long way to go before queer people are treated fairly across the world and part of the problem is people’s lack of acceptance and tendency to hate and judge.

What’s been your highlight for the year so far?

LooveX: Honestly I’d say releasing “queerannosaurus gex”. It’s my first song in I think 4 months, because I was taking a mental health break. Also, the fact that it’s a collaboration with a band that I’ve admired for years makes it even more meaningful.

GUM DISEASE: We have two main highlights of this year. The first one has been ongoing as we have been welcoming our newest member Oli to the band and it’s been absolutely wonderful. He is our guitarist and also one of the loveliest people to ever exist so our first couple of live shows with him were unforgettable. Another main highlight would be supporting Ewy on their UK headline tour earlier this year.

What do you love about your local music scene?

LooveX: Well for me, we don’t have a local music scene. I live on a tiny island in the middle of nowhere kinda. All my musician friends, I met them online. I basically went on a collaboration spree in 2023 after experimenting with hyperpop and having a song blowing up, and that helped me become part of a bigger music community for like the first time. And even though that didn’t really end well since I left the community, I still got friends from there that stayed with me through all the shit, and I am really thankful for them.

GUM DISEASE: We love the sense of community within our local scene so much, it’s one of our favourite parts of being in a queer punk band. We all take care of each other and help each other out and have a huge sense of solidarity. If you need help or support with anything there’s always someone willing to help and assist. It’s more than just musicians who make the same music and play the same venues, it’s a group of dedicated and wonderful people who make being a queer musician in the UK so much more enjoyable.

You’ve just released a new collaborative single, what drew you to each other creatively?

GUM DISEASE: As mentioned, we always love working with other queer artists, so when LooveX reached out to us it was an immediate yes, especially because Avery had been a fan of their music for just over a year at this point as well.

LooveX: Yeah, so I have been listening to Gum Disease since 2022 and they’ve always like been part of my inspiration especially because I’m a queer artist myself. I’ve always been into queer punk and I feel like that’s helped me shape my sound in a way. So when I got this idea of making the “queerannosaurus gex” song, I knew immediately that Gum Disease had to be part of the project. I reached out to them in 2024 and asked them to collab and since then we’ve basically like become friends.

What themes were you exploring when making this song?

GUM DISEASE: I feel like it’s very obvious that queer rights and dinosaurs are the main topic and theme of this song, but we also wanted to incorporate a metaphor comparing those who are against equality to fossils/dinosaurs because they’re trapped in the past. We think this adds to the overall dinosaur theme really nicely and we love it.

LooveX: gay dinosaurs :3 we hatched the metaphorical egg of a brand new dinosaur breed or type or whatever it’s called. In a different dimension where dinosaurs still exist, there is now, a queerannosaurus gex, and it’s eating the homophobic ones :3

GUM DISEASE: I wish we came up with that metaphor first, it’s great. We love our dino hatchling song child.

Can you walk us through the creative process from the first spark of inspiration to the final mix?

LooveX: Well the queerannosaurus gex idea came from one of my discord friend’s username, so I asked him if I could steal it and use it for a song and he said yes and I’m very happy he did. I’m currently working on an album which is almost fully finished, and I decided to make this song for the album. Honestly most of the song just came to be by just improvising some random stuff on guitar and my synthesizers. I recorded the instruments and basically just produced the whole thing in my bedroom, which basically is my studio. And so I wrote the main concept for the song in my part of the lyrics and left and open spot for them to do whatever they wanted over the instrumental. I love when there’s full creative freedom because I hate feeling limited within my own art, you know? So yeah, they wrote and recorded their parts and then allowed me to mix them however I wanted.

GUM DISEASE: On our side of things, we spent a really long time listening to the track and editing/adapting/writing our lyrics to make sure they really fit the vibe of the song. LooveX gave us complete creative freedom so we wanted to put in a lot of effort into making the final song as perfect as possible.

Were there any unexpected detours along the way?

LooveX: nope :p

GUM DISEASE: Not necessarily a detour, but when we were writing the lyrics there were a couple of ideas/metaphors that we really wanted to incorporate but couldn’t. Avery spent a long time trying to add references to bones/museums but we couldn’t quite make it fit.

LooveX: That would’ve been cool thooo, maybe on an extended version?

What sonic or stylistic elements did each of you bring to the table that helped shape the final version of “queerannosaurus gex”?

GUM DISEASE: We definitely brought our queer punk grit and energy onto this track, especially within the vocals and lyrics. We love the way that LooveX made our ideas work within the song and managed to synergise two genres together.

LooveX: I feel like I definitely brought my usual genre-bending stuff. I love having electronic elements within rock music and so there’s a bunch of like hidden synthesizers and stuff all over the track, as well as some harmonies in the background.

How did you find making the music video for the track?

LooveX: It was super fun but definitely a challenge since I have social anxiety, I mean I avoid people all I can but yeah, doing this also helped me be more extroverted I guess.

GUM DISEASE: We weren’t involved in the making of the music video because not only are we very far away from Sweden (where LooveX is based) but Avery was also having health complications at the time of filming so we weren’t able to contribute much. We still absolutely love the final video though 🙂

Can fans expect any collaborations from you all in the future?

GUM DISEASE: We really hope so! LooveX has been amazing to work with and it’d be a pleasure to make some more noise with them. As a band we have been planning on doing a mini European tour for quite some time now and if we ever do, we will absolutely be getting LooveX on board in any way we can. It’d be great to perform the song live together.

LooveX: I’d honestly love that. Performing the song live together would be amazing too. This has definitely been the most fun collaboration I’ve had so far, so making more stuff together would be great.

Who would be 3 artists to headline your dream festival? And where would it be?

LooveX: I have no idea to be honest. I feel like Mannequin Pussy and Poppy definitely need to be included. I’d probably include Cherry Glazerr too because those are all artists and bands that I wanna see live but haven’t. It’d be super fun to throw in something completely different genrewise too like Shakira or Ice Spice just for funsies hehe.

GUM DISEASE: We will give individual answers to this one because it’s a fun question and we all have different music tastes.

PHOEBE (BASSIST – GUM DISEASE): Limp Biskit, Don Broco & Bring Me The Horizon at Alexandra Palace.

OLI (GUITARIST – GUM DISEASE): This is a difficult one, if I had to pick three, it’d be Mcfly, The Cranberries and Guns N Roses, but specifically like, 80’s Guns N Roses, when they were in their prime and not the way they are now. Sadly Dolores from the Cranberries passed away in 2018 so this would not be doable for multiple reasons because resurrection isn’t a thing, but if it was, I would pick Mcfly, The Cranberries and Guns N Roses at the Royal Albert Hall. Plus Space Hog as special guests, if I’m allowed to mention one more haha, it’s hard to just pick three.

AVERY (DRUMMER – GUM DISEASE): Dead Poet Society, Grandson & Pierce The Veil. The festival can be in my back garden purely so I can bring my lizard.

Finally, what do you have lined up for the rest of the year?

GUM DISEASE: We have a new single coming out everywhere on August 8th! It’s called “The Definition” and it’s our first solo release in over a year which is exciting. We also have a couple more live shows coming up working with some bands we adore, so that’s something we are looking forward to 🙂

LooveX: Hopefully I’ll be releasing my album this year, if everything goes according to plan that is. I have a few more singles to release before that though hehe.

Listen to queerannosaurus gex below