The Band Called Sex is back for Spring Sing, bigger and better than ever.

After being selected for last year’s canceled in-person show, the band will finally get to take the stage this year at the Los Angeles Tennis Center for UCLA’s annual music competition. Trey Smith, a California State University, Northridge, alumnus who graduated in 2022 and The Band Called Sex’s drummer, said the group was convinced by band member Ben Whitley to audition for Spring Sing again. However, he added that everyone was on board once they began the audition process and were reminded of the excitement that came with finally being able to perform in front of such a large audience.

“It’s more fuel to do even better this time,” Smith said. “We never got the chance, so let’s take our chance this time and really do a good job.”

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Having formed in 2020, the six core members of The Band Called Sex are mostly graduates, with Whitley being the only member currently studying at UCLA. Still, singer and guitarist Trevor Brown, who graduated from UCLA in 2023, said the band manages to get together every weekend to rehearse. The band members who live together even converted their garage into a recording studio where they can write and rehearse new music, said Whitley, a fourth-year aerospace engineering student and the group’s guitarist and Spring Sing lead singer.

Though the band has been playing together regularly, when it came to being selected to perform in Spring Sing, Brown said he was originally uncertain about the group’s return to the student competition since not all members are still studying on campus.

“I’m the oldest member of the band and it’s hard for me to be like, ‘Let’s go back to UCLA,’” he said. “But we ultimately want to be able to constantly come back to UCLA because it’s like our home. … It’s not every day you get to be a part of such a large crowd in front of so many people and have the opportunity to share your music.”

Over the past few years, The Band Called Sex has consistently been a staple in the UCLA music scene, with Smith saying the group played shows at UCLA almost every week last year. However, Kyndall Long, the band’s guitarist and a UCLA alumnus who graduated in 2023, said the Band Called Sex has recently taken on a new endeavor – putting together an album.

With Spring Sing being the largest crowd it will have played for, Long said the band hopes that the competition will serve as exposure for their new concept album, which they plan to release shortly after the show. The group will be performing one of the album’s tracks, “Mirage Melting,” giving audiences a glimpse into a new sound that the band is trying, he added.

For its performance of “Mirage Melting,” Smith said the group has added six new members to form a brass section. Though the idea of adding other instruments started as a joke, he said they decided to try out performing with brass players, choosing to stick with it because of the fresh sound it created and how much they enjoyed playing with the added members. Since The Band Called Sex usually sticks with the classic rock genre, Smith said the decision to expand has brought fresh energy to its music and a creative challenge to the group.

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“We have recruited a bunch of very talented UCLA brass players who are playing trumpet and saxophone and trombone,” he said. “The sound is going to be really big and interesting, and everyone’s going to be adding to it in really cool ways that we definitely would not have been able to do if we didn’t have the extra help.”

When writing “Mirage Melting,” Brown said the band took inspiration from the rock band King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard while also incorporating elements of North African Tuareg music – a fusion of psychedelic rock and Afrobeats. The song itself follows a narrative, he said, telling the story of two brothers led by a priest through a desert who grow disillusioned as they begin to suspect that the priest is a fraud.

Whitley said The Band Called Sex chose to play “Mirage Melting” from their album because of its new twist to the group’s typical genre, adding that its upbeat tempo and high energy makes it especially fun to play at a large show. With the song capturing its latest sound, he said it was the perfect choice to both spotlight their upcoming album and showcase how they have evolved as a band as they perform at Spring Sing.

“This is probably going to be the most memorable part of my entire experience at UCLA,” Whitley said. “I’m just really proud that we’ve come this far as a band to be able to play such a show.”