Jack · Joe · Frankie · Bingo Beanbag
The Zesty Dreams story
Zesty Dreams began during lockdown, when Jack and Joe met and started swapping songs, ideas and rough recordings from their bedrooms.
They had plenty in common. Both were young, queer and already used to being noticed for the wrong reasons. Neither was particularly interested in making themselves smaller to make other people more comfortable.
Joe had even acquired the nickname “Zesty” at school, originally intended as an insult. Rather than get rid of it, he reclaimed it. Somewhere between the late-night recordings, unfinished songs and increasingly ridiculous ideas, Zesty Dreams was born.
Jack and Joe were never a couple. That has occasionally disappointed people who would prefer a more dramatic origin story. They were friends who discovered that they could write together.
Joe gravitated towards acoustic guitar, production and shaping the songs. Jack preferred an electric guitar, a microphone and, whenever nobody stopped him, considerably more chords than the song actually required.
The problem was that two people did not really make the band they could hear in their heads.
Then they met Frankie and Bingo Beanbag in a pub.
Frankie was clever, confident, played keyboards and cello and seemed remarkably capable of surviving the chaos surrounding her. She also became the straight member of a band in which that fact was inevitably treated as mildly exotic.
Bingo was harder to overlook. A drummer built more like a rugby player, permanently happiest in a vest and apparently operating at twice the speed of everybody else, he brought noise, energy and a complete absence of restraint.
Jack and Joe asked them to join.
Against all sensible advice, they said yes.
The four of them became Zesty Dreams.
They are not quite a punk band, not quite an indie band and certainly not interested in behaving like a respectable one. Their songs move between loud guitars, acoustic confessionals, pop melodies, dark stories and moments that probably seemed like a good idea in the pub.
Underneath the noise, though, Zesty Dreams is built around friendship.
Joe is the producer and acoustic heart of the group: coloured hair, loud clothes and a talent for looking far more provocative than he claims to be.
Jack is the impossibly tall, skinny ginger singer and guitarist, frequently half-hidden behind his instrument and forever threatening to turn a three-minute song into progressive rock.
Frankie brings keyboards, cello, intelligence and glamour — as well as occasionally being the only person in the room behaving like an adult.
And Bingo Beanbag drums as though somebody has told him the song will disappear if he slows down. Behind the chaos is a fiercely loyal friend and a father, with considerably more tenderness than he normally allows anyone to see.
Zesty Dreams can be ridiculous, confrontational, vulnerable and occasionally filthy.
Sometimes all in the same song.
They are four people who found one another, made something together and decided that fitting in was never really the point.
Zesty forever.