The Irish musician Sarah Dexter had a diverse and didactic musical upbringing. “I’ve been singing since I can remember,” she tells Post-Burnout. “I played cello when I was seven, and I started playing trombone when I was eleven, picked up guitar on my own when I was ten. I picked up drums, as well. My whole family is musical, and it’s something that I always did. It was always lessons, and theory, and choir, and orchestra.”

When we asked what kind of music she was exposed to while she grew up, Sarah responded, “There was loads of classical music, but that was never the music style of choice; it was the music that I had to sing and play and perform. But, my brothers, they were in bands – I’m the youngest of seven – so, I had so many older siblings, and so many of their influences trickled down onto me.

“I loved Thin Lizzy. I loved loads of other rock bands, as well, so rock ‘n’ roll was definitely in my soul. [Laughs] That was always going to happen, you know? Rock ‘n’ roll, that was at the heart of it. I wasn’t ever much into pop, and then, obviously, my brother getting me into metal; that was almost like the Devil. Can’t like pop, anymore! [Laughs] But, yeah, definitely a lot of Beatles, and Queen, and stuff.”

Despite her background, it wasn’t until Sarah picked up the guitar that she truly discovered her passion for music, songwriting and performance. “The guitar was the one that I picked up for myself,” she explains. “And that was the one that I wanted to play. That was how I expressed myself. It was never a choir; once I started playing guitar, I started writing music, at the age of ten.

“Then I started playing in bands, from thirteen onwards. I was playing a lot of rock and stuff, but I really started getting into progressive metal from, like, fifteen/sixteen onwards. I just really, really fell in love with Periphery and Animals as Leaders, and now I really, really love bands like Haken […], and Sleep Token is my current love.”

Post-secondary, Sarah studied music further. “I did a one-year course at BIMM, in Songwriting, and I made loads of connections,” she says. “We were a bunch of songwriters playing in bands, together, but it was all our own genres; our own, different music. So, it was never one band; it was more like, ‘Oh, my music now,’ and ‘Oh, his music now,’ and so on and so forth.”

The major result of Sarah’s time at BIMM was the foundation of her project Dexterity, which, in 2019, released their debut (and, for the longest time, only) single, “Reflections.” Sarah describes, “It started out then, and I thought I’d give it a go, and I realised, during that year, that I didn’t want to do music. I thought, ‘This is too stressful.’

“All I wanted to do was perform live with my niche genre, and, obviously, there’s no career in that, so I decided to do a degree in Physics, instead, because I love maths [Laughs] and science. So, I did that. Music was always on the side; I didn’t really want to commit to it.

“I was still playing with my friends, for their projects, and we recorded that one song, ‘Reflections.’ We just kind of threw it out. Like, we did a home recording, and we did a quick mix, and a DistroKid master, and then popped it up, just for the craic.

Dexterity continued for a little while before the COVID-19 pandemic, but the project soon became an additional burden to Sarah’s life, resulting in its hiatus. “What would happen is, I’d be working in college, or working now, in my job, and I’d get a lot of, ‘I need to do this music’,” she says.

“So, I’d start preparing to do more. I’d be like, ‘I’m going to post more. I’m going to write more. I’m going to rehearse and record,’ and then it gets to a point, where I’m so stressed, that I’m like, ‘You know what? This is not my career. I’m going to ditch it. Like, I just don’t want to do it anymore,’ so I did.

“That went on for a long time. I just had other things going on, I didn’t want to do it. It wasn’t until last March, that I really realised, ‘OK, I have far too much pride for my music. I have a lot of pride and confidence in my music and songwriting ability.’ The antithesis of that is the amount of shame that I carried, not having anything to show for it, all these years and hours I spent, playing music. I was like, I have to do it.”

The music of Dexterity is described as a cross between alt-pop and prog-rock, but Sarah eschews any notion of genre. “Honestly, I don’t even know what my genre is, anymore!” she says. “I always said, like, ‘Alt-prog-rock,’ or ‘Alt-prog-rock/metal,’ but it’s not that, really.”

Regardless of genre, Sarah knows why her music works. “A big thing that I like to do in music, and why I think Dexterity’s music is so appealing to people, […] it’s because it appeals to two kinds of listeners: People who want to hear a rock song, they can jam along, you know? Then, for people who may be a bit more musically experienced, there’s so much technical detail in there.

“But, the technical detail doesn’t take away from the pleasant listening experience, because it’s not that jumpy, it’s not that disorienting; you don’t have to count, ever, when listening to Dexterity. The musicians do, [Laughs] but the listener doesn’t have to count! ‘It’s prog you can dance to,’ is how I would describe it. There’s a groove to it, and people who might not know a lot about music would not recognise that something’s off. I think it sounds quite natural, and I think that’s a really big appeal.”

From the years that Dexterity was on break, many of the musicians that Sarah was initially collaborating with have moved on to other things in life. As such, she was somewhat required to start afresh.

We asked if, given the technical standards for the project, it was difficult to find the right musicians. Sarah responded, “You know what? I have found that I have come across so many people who are very passionate about my music. When I ask people to play, they’re usually more passionate about my music than I am! [Laughs] You know? To have that is so valuable and I’m so grateful.”

Recently, Dexterity released their first single since their reformation, “Vessel.” Lacking the infrastructure afforded to them when they were at BIMM, the single came as the result of the TiLT Development Deal, which Sarah admits had its challenges, as the producers they were working with had different expectations for the collaboration than they had.

“When I wrote that, that was done in a day,”  Sarah says of “Vessel.” “I just popped it out, you know? It was one of those, and it was great. It was funny, because, at the time, I was arranging another song, which took a much longer time. I had a riff from when I was fourteen, and I was patching that up with another riff that I had made much, much later, with lyrics and parts I was making for the band, and it took a long time to teach it, and then, the next rehearsal, I was like, ‘Oh, by the way! I have another song!’ [Laughs]”

Despite the brevity of the song’s output, it was by no means an easy track to lay down. “There would be some sort of specific turmoil, and then I would be writing about it in a more abstract way,” Sarah says of crafting the tune. “But a reoccurring theme in my songs, and what I explore a lot with ‘Vessel,’ is that there is a consistent, underlying sadness and an underlying pain that I definitely brought with me for a long time, and a lot of that had kind of been relieved or disappeared when I realised that I was trans.

“Because, when I wrote the song, it was two years before I actually realised that I was trans, and that’s the same with ‘Reflections,’ and when I listen to them now, I’m like, ‘How did I not know?!’ It’s far too revealing! It’s ridiculous! But, honestly, those were my literal thoughts and feelings at the time; I could not deal with my body, and I did not know why.”

“The intent when writing it was just to express my feelings. There’s these feelings that I could not express through words, you know? That felt very challenging to express through words, and the fact that I’ve been doing it recently is kind of weird to me, to be honest, because it wasn’t something that I was able to do, for the longest time.

“I always felt that it’s very unfortunate how political…or how much politics there is around transgender people. It’s never something that I’ve really wanted to be a part of, but I kind of have to be because I’m now in it. Like, I can’t not be a part of that, anymore, and it’s something that I’ve had to navigate, and I’ve had some difficult situations regarding that, for sure.

“But I think that, although the intent was to be personal, it, in turn, has become relatable and can be relatable, and I can see that and I want to show that to people, as well. So, although, I’m not making any statements, I think it’s something that people can probably relate to – trans people, in particular – and it’s also a way for people to understand how I feel, as well, you know?

“And in a way that’s not so political. Like, I wanted to be like, ‘I’m just a person,’ you know? [Laughs] This is just my life and my turmoil, in a way that can happen to anyone. It’s just happened to me.”

And Sarah has seen how queer art, like hers, can impact understanding and empathy from non-queer people. “I remember I was talking to a friend, a cisgender friend, and I knew him when I was cis and when I wasn’t sure about my sexuality, as well,” she says. “It was in and around the time that I was doing Dexterity, early on, when I first wrote a lot of my songs. I was like, ‘What the fuck is going on? Like, what is going on?’

“I’d be going to places and situations with him and I’d be like, ‘I just don’t feel like this’ or ‘I feel like this.’ I remember, quite a while later, he was like, ‘D’you know what? Like, before I would’ve been very hesitant to understand or believe people who have these sort of different identities; but, now, listening to you, struggling all the time, I understand it quite well, now.’

“It’s not, like, a weird thing or a way life kind of thing; it’s just me and me trying to figure out how I fit, and trying to love, and trying to function. It’s really hard, or it can be, when you don’t understand where the puzzle pieces are because you’re trying to fit into a different mould. It just doesn’t work. I think if more people can see that side of it, where it’s just the lead-up to it, I think people would be able to relate a lot more to the transgender experience. It’s just who you are.”

Tonight, Dexterity will play at Fibber Magee’s as part of a show put on by the excellent Skyrocket Promotions. Also on the line-up are Miranda Faul, Pending, and OH5ELEVEN. “We’re playing first; a little small, half-hour set,” Sarah says of tonight’s gig. “It’s going to be the first time I’ve played a full Dexterity set, where I’m just on vocals, and I cannot wait.

“[…] I want to put on a bit of a show. It’s not going to be ‘super cool’ – when I see shows with, like, lights and costumes and stuff, I think it’s so, so cool – but I’m not doing that. What I will say is that I will perform for people. I want to express what each of the songs are like, and I want to show that in my performance. So, I might be on my knees, I might be on the floor, I might be off the stage, I might be jumping up and down, I might not be moving at all. [Laughs] I don’t know what I’m going to do!”

Now with the wheels back in motion on the Dexterity project, Sarah wants people to know that this is something she’s committed to in full earnest from now on. “I feel really proud of the work that me and the team have put in for this release,” she says.

“And I’m really looking forward to doing more, and I have more in-store – or at least I have a lot of ideas and a lot of plans in place for upcoming stuff – and I really, also, want to show that I’m serious and I believe that I can be serious and I can do it. Whereas, before, I always felt like I’ve let everyone down; everyone who believed in me before and said, ‘Your music was so great and you should really get it out there.’”

Dexterity’s latest single, “Vessel,” is on all streaming platforms now. You can grab tickets to their show tonight through Eventbrite. You can find Dexterity’s music and social media accounts via their Linktree.

Tune into POSTBURNOUT.COM Interviews… tonight at 22:00 (IST) to hear this interview in full. Available on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Amazon Music Podcasts.

Aaron Kavanagh

Aaron Kavanagh is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Post-Burnout. His writing can also be found in the Irish Daily Star, Buzz.ie, Totally Dublin, The GOO, Headstuff, New Noise Magazine, XS Noize, DSCVRD and more.