Teen musician reinvents a classic pop style
Lex Bauman performs on stage. Photo by Mark Peters
By Tom Victoria
Lex Bauman brings dynamic energy to his music and the stage.
The teen musician described his style.
“I would describe my music as high-energy power pop like an old genre that hasn't been rediscovered in a long time,” he said. “Like power pop, Cheap Trick, The Cars, bands like those. Our shows are like very high energy and a lot of fun to see.”
Lex’s latest debuts are Evangeline and Rock n Roll Heart.
“The inspiration for Evangeline was the way the girls treated me in school,” he said. “Getting fed up with someone treating you badly and finding someone who treats you better. Rock n Roll Heart is about trying to impress a girl that is much cooler than me.”
Among Lex’s prior releases is My Girlfriend's Best Friend, a sequel of sorts to a prior song, Taylor Swift.
“It’s a rock and roller wanting to get the preppy girl,” he said about the older tune.
Photo by Mike Markowitz
Lex, an Ohio resident, said the new song tells what happens next.
“We were thinking about what would be when the rock and roller guy has gotten the girl,” he said. “Now he knows her friend.”
Lex’s prior release was a new version of Taylor Swift.
“My last release was the acoustic version of my song Taylor Swift,” he said. “It's a very rock and roll power pop song. And then we wanted to do something a little different on the record, so we did an acoustic version of that. It has these two different energies when you listen to the two different versions of the songs.”
Lex has more music on the way.
“I am going to be releasing So Damn Hot at the end of January and the full album will be available in the spring.”
Lex performs live throughout the year.
“I played a sold out show at the House of Blues Chicago opening for Lucky Boys Confusion,” he said. “I did a small acoustic tour of the Chicago area as well. I now have new management and have the booking agency TKO representing me. I have been submitting for several tours and festivals for 2026, just waiting to see which ones work out.”
Photo by Kirstin Daw
Lex also performs for students.
“I am also doing a thing where I am going to high schools and talking to kids about being a working musician and I play a few songs,” he said. “I did one in Chicago and it was a great experience so my management is getting more of those all over the country.”
Lex is next headed to the City of Angels.
“I’m going to L.A. at the end of the month for NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) as guest of Ernie Ball (instrument and guitar accessory company),” he said. “The boutique guitar brand Rock N Roll Relics made me one of their artists and are building a custom guitar for me. I have a show scheduled at Hotel Cafe on January 24.”
Lex enjoys perfomring before a live audience.
“It's one of the best parts of the job,” he said. “It's one of my favorite things to do. There's just something different about playing on stage. You can do a bunch of social media content and that is a lot of fun to do. Just play your guitar next to the camera and post that. But there's just something different about going out and playing to an audience live.”
Lex doesn’t get butterflies before going on stage.
“I used to get them when I first started playing around 9 or 10 years old,” he said. “But as I did more shows and became a better musician, I got over them and haven't had them since.”
Photo by Caitlin Layne
Lex finds inspiration for his music from almost anywhere.
“We'll take parts from something that maybe I've experienced and then maybe someone else did, and then we just mash that together to make this really good song,” he said. “But we just have to have one goal in mind.”
Lex typically comes up with the sound of a song first.
“It's mainly melody,’ he said. “Because then you know how to structure the words. But sometimes, the words come first, so it's whatever feels right at that moment.”
Lex was inspired to make music by the rock duo The White Stripes.
“The song that made me really want to do this as a career and play guitar was Seven Nation Army,” he said. “It's one of the first songs that every guitar player learns. That just made me really want to do this.”
Lex was a preteen when he started playing.
“It was around 9 when I did that,” he said. “I started guitar first and then a few years into guitar, I wanted to improve and then be able to sing. So I started singing around 10 or 11.”
The talented musician is modest about his abilities.
“I wish I had more of a range for singing, but I do enjoy both,” he said about playing guitar and singing.
Photo by Mark Peters
Lex will take his music as far as it can go even if I means sacrificing a normal life and achieve international fame.
“I would totally do that,” he said. “Music is one of the things that makes me happy and it's just what puts me together. I love playing music. So, yeah, totally.”
However, Lex won’t sacrifice the quality of his art to achieve success.
“I would want to get to that point with integrity and make sure this is the way that I want to get to that point,” he said.
Anyone who dates Lex doesn’t have to fret about being named in a song a la Taylor Swift, but the relationship would be fair game.
“There's always that chance,” he said. “If it really meant something, it would totally be in a song like that. Their names won't be put in there. Locations and stuff like that would.”
Lex takes care of his voice.
“I used to not really care about that, but then I learned the hard way,” he said. “My voice was really, really hurting. I practice every day. I was singing incorrectly for several days in a row and I started to hear my voice slipping. I couldn't sing notes that I know I can hit. Plus, my voice was just hurting all the time. But now, I take better care of it. I'm doing warm-ups and tea helps a lot.”
Lex is careful not to strain his voice the week before a performance.
“I'm mainly not that type of person that's screaming,” he said. “But if I am singing along at a concert or something, I'll make sure I don't have anything going on the next week. But if I don't have anything, I'll just sing.”
Joining Lex in the band are Preston French, Jackson Daw and Angelina Petticord. Photo by Kirstin Daw
Lex has his own band backing him on stage.
“We can all sing,” he said. “And it actually helps a lot because my songs have a lot of vocals. There's probably 10 tracks of vocals or something like that. And it's hard to recreate that with more people, but we get the job done.”
Lex attracted other talent to join him.
“I have a bass player,” he said. “She's an amazing bass player and singer, Angelina Petticord. And my drummer, Jackson Daw, he sings, too. Then I have a guitar player named Preston French, amazing lead guitar player. And then me, just guitars and vocals.”
Lex and Preston split up the heavy lifting on guitar.
“We break it up a little bit,” he said. “He does some of the solos, I do some of the solos or sometimes, we harmonize the solos.”
Lex said it wasn’t easy forming the band.
“It's very, very difficult because where I live, there's not a bunch of musicians,” he said. “And when there are musicians, they're not totally committed to it or they can't be at the same speed. I met my drummer through rock and roll fantasy camp. He was in a band with Angie, so that's how I met Angie. And we thought, okay, this is just going to be the band for now. It's just going to be a three-piece.”
But fate had other plans for Lex’s ensemble.
“But then my guitar player reached out to me through Instagram,” he said. “He saw one of my music videos and he was like, hey, I love this. I want to be a part of this any way I can. So that's how we got that together. My bass player and drummer, they live in L.A. and my guitar player lives in Seattle.”
Lex’s band members coordinate their practice time since they’re scattered across the country.
“Everybody will fly into Columbus and then we'll have one day to practice and then it's just show days,” he said. “We'll spend that one day just practicing as much as we can and then we're doing the show the next day.”
Lex doesn’t let being a musician impact his appearance.
“I don't feel pressured,” he said. “If I want to work out, I just want to do better and feel better, just healthy. And then getting my ears pierced, I got the stack right here. But it's mainly just: oh, I like that. I like this. No real pressure.”
For Lex, music is a way to express himself better than just talking.
“I'm mainly not a very talkative person, but having music helps,” he said. “Even listening to music helps me be focused into something, but music across the board helps me.”
Photo by Caitlin Lane
Lex weighs all factors when deciding what to release next.
“It mainly is you look at like the last release and see, oh, yeah, this will go well with the audience next or this one is really good but this doesn't make sense to put out right now,” he said. “So that's how we like what feels right.”
Lex uses both rationales for posting social media content.
“Some of it's like, oh, check this out,” he said. “We're already here, let's do something. Or let's go to this place because this would look really cool on my social media. So it's a little bit of both.”
Lex offered advice to aspiring musicians.
“Don't let other people take you down if you really believe in something,” he said. “You definitely take notes from other people, but don't let people like push you down and make you forget about the dream that you had.”
Lex doesn’t have to worry about his girlfriend getting jealous of him drawing attention from female fans.
“My girlfriend is a musician, so she understands, you have to talk to fans,” he said. “When you're talking to a fan, definitely give them love and all that stuff.”
Lex stays motivated to make music.
“What keeps me motivated is this is the goal: to make this a career and make this what I've always wanted,” he said. “Because there are going to be tough days. This part's so hard to write and all that, but then getting your head back in the game and, okay, this is the reason why I'm doing it.”
Lex’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lexbaumanguitar/