“It’s definitely been hard being in front of a camera. Even doing this interview is difficult,” Tex Crick remarked to Radio TinTin during his Montreal tour stop with Canada’s indie giant, Mac DeMarco. Soaring to success as an internationally touring musician after signing with Mac DeMarco, Crick offered Radio TinTin a look at how he balances fame with authentic artistic expression.
On December 7, 2025, Crick opened for DeMarco at MTELUS. While such a gig is a remarkable achievement, the significance of this feat seemed to be lost on much of the crowd. Crick noted that while performing his opening set, “the crowd seem[ed] to talk a lot over us,” a distraction which he contrasted with his band’s “very quiet, chill music.”
Crick’s musical language consists of buttery piano licks, introspective lyrics, and measured pacing. He makes music perfect for curling up with a book in one hand and a cup of tea in the other. While he doesn’t exactly make moshing music, one would still expect a greater level of respect from the audience, especially from DeMarco’s fans of lo-fi music. Crick even remarked, “[The crowd talking over us did] make me want to write music that people want to dance to.” Nevertheless, his authenticity ultimately shines through, finally settling on the fact that “[he] still want[s] to write chill music.”
This self-assurance has followed Crick throughout his musical career. Crick grew up in Coledale, a small coastal village in Australia’s New South Wales. “When you grow up in a small town,” Crick muses, “everything seems so much grander… you work hard and dream big.” Eventually, those big dreams became reality for Crick. The singer-songwriter had his first taste of musical success right after graduating high school in 2012, when he toured with Australian pop-rock artist, Kirin J. Callinan, as a backing keyboardist and bassist. While on tour, Crick met DeMarco, and the two eventually became close friends after multiple run-ins at stops in the US and Australia. While Crick would send his recordings to DeMarco expecting nothing in return, DeMarco would offer to mix these recordings in his own studio, polishing them for Crick’s sophomore album, Live… In New York City, released in early 2021.
Crick wrote the cozy pop piano album as an ode to day- to-day life in the city, while he trained as a piano repair apprentice. In fact, he recorded the album using the very piano he dragged off the street and repaired himself. In signature Crick style, he mixed it on an vintage eight-track tape player, not owning a computer at the time. Despite being a major milestone in his career, being that this was his first album released under ‘Mac’s Record Label,’ Crick remained humble when discussing the project. “I hadn’t really ever sung — no one in my family knew I [could]. I kind of just recorded the album to see if I could do it.”
Crick’s stripped-back style followed him into Droplet, his most recent project: a mellow album filled with 27 short, delicate piano grooves and instrumentals. Despite its playfulness and dreamy melodies, audiences weren’t as supportive. The album received a 58/100 rating by audiences on Album of the Year, whereas Live… In New York City received a 77/100. He released it while riding the wave of fame that came with signing with Mac and his successful 2023 complete album release, Sweet Dreamin’, so audiences seemed to have been expecting more. Crick described how “It got some weird reviews because people expected it to be Tex’s new album, but to me, this is a fun little soundtrack I did on the side, all recorded on one keyboard. It’s all very simple and raw.”
Just like any other art piece, music is another form of self-expression. Through deliberate technical choices in instrumentation and structure, the artist is able to communicate what they want to express at that moment — a feeling, a thought, an idea. There are no boundaries to what the right kind of music can or should look like: artists can produce atmospheric vocal albums like Live… in New York City or they can also create fun and playful instrumental projects like Droplet.
Crick’s experimentation with the role music plays as an artistic vehicle has incurred less-than-savoury reactions, via critics and audience reactions on tour alike. Yet, many forget that pieces such as these can serve a purpose outside of just instant gratification. Crick hopes that his music can serve as a source of comfort to listeners above all else: “[When listening to my music,] I hope listeners can relax and forget about the stress in their lives. Just enjoy the music.”
Crick’s work reminds us that an artist’s ability to remain authentic in the face of criticism or apathy is of the utmost importance. His musical quirks are precisely what makes him so charming. It’s this timeless quality that comes about because he’s “really terrible at keeping in touch with new music,” that is actually a strength of his rather than a weakness.
Perhaps the audio clips of the bustle of the streets of Manhattan and the clinking of glasses at a classic New York bar featured in Live… In New York City aren’t designed for a live audience performance, but they immerse you in a moment and feeling that you can’t escape while listening. So while Crick’s stripped-back production may sound unpolished to the general public, its raw flair is precisely what makes his work so fresh in a music scene saturated with ultra-polished production.
