Spring came roaring in like a lion for Sydney drag king Sexy Galexy with a whirlwind for the (last ever) Broken Heel festival, DJ sets up and down the east coast and the world premiere of adults-only cabaret Ken’s Dream House at Sydney Fringe. And that was just September!
On stage as Ken, Sexy Galexy makes the already dreamily handsome doll much butcher – and camper – with a well cut gym-bunny body and cheekbones to cry for. Curiously, for someone whose artistic expression involves a whole lot of exquisite makeup (and wigs and other bits), Sexy Galexy’s originator Lexi wasn’t into the whole getting-dolled-up-to-go-out thing – at first.
“Lexi had no idea and was terrible at makeup for a long time,” she laughs. “Growing up in WA, I rebelled against makeup because it was a girly thing. I was trying to live in a man’s world, fighting to show I can do whatever a man can do.”
Young Lexi was very good at making stuff from almost nothing and although her family didn’t support her creative ambitions, her self-taught handyperson skills got her into set design at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts.
“I was always standing on the side of the stage enviously looking at the performers and thinking that because I hadn’t had any training, I’d never be a performer,” she remembers. “Then when I started going to gay clubs in the early 1990s, I saw a drag queen and I was like, ‘I can do that’ and this massive burst of passion came over me – a feeling that this is what I’m supposed to be doing.”
Awakening the drag (on) king
The term ‘drag king’ had been bubbling around the globe for ages but hadn’t reached suburban Perth – yet – when Lexi gave drag a go. As a drag queen.
“I just thought drag was drag. So I thought I was being a drag queen by doing girl drag and boy drag. The whole idea was I was a camp lesbian, which was unheard of back then. It wasn’t about being a man or anything like that. It was about being camp and performing – and I found who I was by being camp.”
She admits she was freaking out before she stepped on stage with some friends to perform drag at a club night called Lipstique in Perth (“I was so anxious I thought I’d have a heart attack”). Then the music came on, she heard the crowd wooooo with excitement and all that anxiety melted away.
“It’s this amazing feeling of empowerment, this freedom to be whoever you want to be up on stage,” she says. “After the show, the club sat us down and said, ‘That was great – can you do it every week for $50?’ And it became an obsession instantly: I knew this is what I’m meant to be. It wasn’t about gender for me, it was about ‘What crazy-arse character am I going to dress up as today?’”
And it wasn’t just on weekends. As a club kid, she was living a mad, crazy, awesome life treating every day as a kind of hyper-performance. She made outrageous outfits from op shop finds (a lot of vinyl to be had in those days!), learned how to do face and body painting and did a bunch of shows. Then in 1998, Sexy Galexy rocked up in her life.
Becoming Sexy
Neil Taylor, a longtime friend, was colouring Lexi’s hair when he declared her performance persona needed a permanent name: Sexy Galexy. Out of drag, Lexi never wore makeup, but Sexy Galexy adores it.
“Sexy Galexy was created through my love of glamour and my love of doing whatever a man can do, and doing it even better,” she says. “I decided I can be a fabulous man and I can do drag – all those things people said I can’t do. Makeup is just makeup. It isn’t necessarily feminine. Sexy Galexy loves makeup and he wears heaps of it.”
Still, Sexy wasn’t called a ‘Drag King’ for another year, until Lexi saw the term in bold type next to a photo of drag king act D’vinyl and the Behinds on the cover of LOTL (Lesbians on the Loose).
“Before then, we weren’t quite let into the drag scene. Some people were dismissive of women doing drag – even though there’s a very long history of it – and so when ‘Drag King’ was on the cover LOTL I was like, ‘Right, now I’m set’. I moved to Sydney in 2000 and started doing shows like Kingki Kingdom at the Sly Fox Hotel in Enmore. I also kicked open the doors and worked hard to get drag kings covered in the queer media because for a long while we were underrepresented. Media coverage is everything when you want your name out there.”
And by Ken, did Sexy’s name get out there in the 2000s! Oxford and King Streets were fly-postered with his visage advertising his nights at Arq and the Newtown Hotel (where he performed with Porsche Turbo and Maxi Shield), as well as frequent frivolities with other drag kings at the Venus Room (Kings X), the Lewisham and Stonewall. As Sexy’s buff profile grew, more bookings came for gigs across the country, from Tropical Fruits and Byron NYE parties up north to queer parties in Newcastle, Melbourne and some old stomping/strutting grounds in Perth.
If you can remember back to the days of television before streaming, before The L Word and the Ellen Show (and just after the Pittsburgh version of Queer as Folk) Sexy Galexy and friends like Pandora Box brought a whole rainbow of LGBTQI+ talent to Queer TV on community station Channel 31.
“Mardi Gras parades were always fun back then because Pandora and I could still stand right in the middle of Taylor Square to host the show among so many fabulous friends. Those were amazing experiences; pure joy.”
Other shows Sexy Galexy produced were so R-rated they couldn’t be aired: “Lots and lots of nudity!” she laughs. “I think the biggest thing as a performer is not to give yourself a hard time. Nobody is saying all the intricate stuff you’re saying about yourself.”
For the Queer Film Festival launch one year, a friend asked if she could pierce Sexy Galexy on stage with acupuncture needles, and Sexy was like, ‘Yeah, OK’. But secretly, behind Sexy’s fierce 5 o’clock shadow, Lexi was super nervous and really scared.
“I’d read a book called Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway so I used to dare myself to do things as a way of breaking through anxiety. I found it worked: if you can face your fear and just do it anyway, it doesn’t matter how much of a heart attack you think you’re having in the moment, it dissipates. So that’s how I live my life. When you can get through it you realise you’re more powerful than any emotional issue. You can ride over it and you come out stronger. The thing about life, is the only way not to fail is to not try anything. Life is full of more failures than successes but if I had stopped because I had failures, I’d never have done anything in my life.”
Sexy Galexy Glamourboi’s dancefloor anthems
- Love Hangover by Diana Ross – “I love, love, love this song, it’s my all time favourite. When I play it at nights like Slay4Pay at Universal it might not be a song younger clubbers really know but everybody still goes off.”
- Dancing Queen by ABBA – “You can’t not. It’s the best written pop song ever and it’s such a joy watching young queers enjoy it as much as I do – it’s incredible.”
- You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real) by Sylvester – “Sylvester was a superstar back then and still is. What Sylvester created, with those looks, that voice and a proud defiance of gender norms is so valid and so joyful.”
- Wake Me Up Before You Go Go by Wham – “I’m performing my tribute of this song at STUN’s George Michael party in November. It’s such a fun song! I’ve also been playing amazing mixes of Careless Whisper, Flawless (Go to the City) and the great song he did with Aretha Franklin called I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me).”
- Outside by George Michael – “I love George for this. He took everything that happened with the media trying to shame him for his sexuality and getting caught looking for trade and he just turned it all around with a hit song. I love that. I think that was really empowering and good on him for doing it.”
Sexy Galexy Glamourboi DJing at Newcastle Pride’s Fair Day on October 19 and Bernie’s Bar on October 19 and 26.
Then he is performing at SpringOUT Fair Day in Glebe Park and STUN Magazine’s George Michael tribute party at Cube from 6pm, both on Saturday 2 November.
