JXCKY on 'THIRSTY', Revenge Rituals & Resurrection Through Chaos
- Ben Preece
- Jul 28
- 6 min read
Updated: Jul 31
Dark-pop shapeshifter. Chaos alchemist. Unflinching truth-teller.
A Waxx Lyrical Heatseeker 🔥
That bitter thrill. That flash of heat when revenge stops being reaction and starts becoming ritual. For Naarm-based dark-pop provocateur JXCKY, 'THIRSTY' isn’t just a single—it’s a resurrection. One born from flame, silence, and the hell of public disappearance.
After a year-long hiatus that included a missing-person scare and a clean break from his former label, JXCKY re-emerges ferocious, independent, and unfiltered. 'THIRSTY' hits like a live wire, sparking with lust, anger, and accountability. Co-produced with long-time collaborator SB90 and vocal polish from LAIUS, the track channels the nocturnal pulse of dark-pop while borrowing swagger and venom from hip-hop’s most emotionally raw corners. There’s distortion. There’s grit. And most of all, there’s intent.
Gone is the polished heartbreak of 'Ghost You' or 'Kissing Other Boys'. In its place is something heavier—both sonically and spiritually. “I got a handgun habit / And that’s the way I planned it,” JXCKY sings, not for effect but as confession. It’s a line that slices close to the bone for an artist navigating life with borderline personality disorder, reflecting on a time when emotional chaos was the only constant.
But 'THIRSTY' isn’t a wallow. It’s a warning. A document of survival. A deeply personal scorched-earth comeback that dares to unearth the rot and dance in the fallout. After nearly 600,000 streams, national playlisting, and a Converse All Stars nod, this next chapter feels less like a return—and more like a reckoning.
We had a chat with JXCKY about finding clarity in chaos, reclaiming control through catharsis, and why 'THIRSTY' isn’t about making peace—it’s about making noise.
LISTEN TO JXCKY 'THIRSTY'
‘THIRSTY’ hits like Ye and Prince hanging in a dark nightclub. Who’s the voice in your head when you’re writing—an egomaniac, a heartbreaker, or a revolutionary?
I love that you mention Ye and Prince because I definitely surprised myself in the studio this time around, having had a vast array of references and influences I’ve never channelled before. When I’m writing, I’m somewhere between the heartbreaker and revolutionary mindset, but it’s always more of a reflection of those past versions of myself that I’m actively shedding yet never had the chance to speak.
You sing about chaos being addictive. What’s the kind of chaos you still secretly crave—even when you know it’s bad for you?
I’ve mostly steered clear of chaotic circumstances lately. I try to let God or karma handle it. For a period of time, I was moving in silence and creating art in my sacred space, but now there’s this other part of releasing the music where I have to be loud and try to get on everyone’s radar. And there’s a strange kind of satisfaction in watching karma come back around through my music. That just may be the dangerous and addictive parts I’m facing at the moment. I’m trying to be careful to not feed too much into that satisfaction because I want to protect the peace I’ve worked hard to maintain.
That line, “I got a handgun habit / And that’s the way I planned it,” feels like a loaded warning. How close to your real life does it cut?
That line is closer to real life than I’d like to admit. I live with borderline personality disorder (BPD), so I’ve always felt wired to react first and process later—if at all. The line came from reflecting on a time when I had no emotional filter and no pause between trigger and response. Writing this song and project gave me the space to finally sit with that part of myself and start learning how to move differently.
After leaving your label and going independent, was there ever a moment you thought about walking away from music entirely?
Definitely. It was the only thing I ever thought of. After leaving my label, my priority was my mental health. Everything in my personal life—my finances, my circumstances—was pulling me away from music, like I was being pushed toward some kind of permanent silence. But I think I needed that distance from music. Straying so far from it made me realise how much of my side of the story was untold and the many gaps I needed to fill. It took a lot of my mental capacity and courage to return.
Your missing-person scare last year was intense. Did writing ‘THIRSTY’ help you process that time—or did it pull you deeper into those feelings?
For me, 'THIRSTY' acts as the “tracing back to where the rot began”. I wanted to go back to the beginning and show everyone exactly how I ended up becoming a missing person. I’ve always sworn to be brutally honest in my music so if I was going to open up and take accountability, it meant revisiting past versions of myself I’ve been ashamed of. I can tell you that in the 'THIRSTY' music video, the opening shot alludes to the scare—but honestly, my catharsis only came about halfway through writing my sophomore EP. There’s a song off the project that describes that day in-depth.
The teaser video with friends reading cruel comments about you is raw. What line stung the most—and why choose to share that publicly?
The lines that stung the most have got to be “either don’t do it at all or you take it all the way” and “I think JXCKY is more than capable of reaching out to his friends himself”. I mean… who even thinks to say that kind of stuff to another person? But thank you! I feel like there’s been a lot of mixed reactions to it. And you know what—I love that there has been. If it made anyone shocked and uncomfortable that I’m airing it out like this—could you imagine how it felt like for me? Or even my mum or dad to hear these things? The main takeaway is that it is raw because it’s real—I didn’t have to make any of this up. I wanted to share it publicly in this format because I wanted to sort of make them meet me on the same page. If I’m about to unearth my past mistakes to the fullest extent, bare my soul and show sorrow and shame on this record, can the people who said these words to or about me do the same? (Spoiler alert: no).
‘THIRSTY’ feels bigger and grittier than your earlier work. Were you intentionally trying to shake people up with this comeback?
For sure. Sonically, I wanted to make it very obvious that this is a departure from my previous work and almost an evolution of dark-pop. The distortion had to be dialled up. The verses had to have cadences similar to the bars you hear in rap or hip-hop. I wanted to be ambitious visually—from the teaser to the cover art to the music video. Everything was meticulously planned to be colossal. There’s never really a dull moment for me and my music when I believe I have a lot to prove.
When you’re writing venomous lyrics, is it about purging old pain—or pulling listeners into the fire with you?
The old pain is purged the moment I write it in the studio. Because once it’s out there in the world—it’s all about luring listeners into the blaze and immersing them in the chaos. These songs may be about my real life experiences but it’ll only ever be heard and felt with total intensity if it resonates with others and their own emotional terrain.
You call revenge a ritual. In your perfect world, what’s the ultimate revenge fantasy—no consequences?
In a perfect world, the ultimate revenge isn’t about destruction—it’s transformation. That’s becoming everything they said I couldn’t be. No confrontation. No chaos. It’s continuing to foster, grow and care for the community that others turned their backs on. Forced to watch from the sidelines whilst I turn pain into something unforgettable.
If someone only knew you from your earlier dark-pop, what’s the biggest shock waiting for them on ‘THIRSTY’?
I think the biggest shock waiting for them—even for me as I was writing the song—is how much I tapped into the spoken-sung rap cadences in the verses and pre-choruses. I had to really get out of my comfort zone to record those lines but it had to be done—I’ve been on a year-long hiatus. I’ve got a lot to say!
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