In October 2015, Gus was working on several projects: his mixtape "LIL PEEP; PART ONE," an 18-track mixtape with Boy Froot called "Mall Musicc," and "Live Forever." On October 4, he made “its me” for "LIL PEEP; PART ONE." Three days later, he messaged Bexey on SoundCloud.

Bexey was working with Dylan Ross and other artists Gus admired. They were called HANDZUM and worked as a collective—some making beats, others rapping or singing over them. Dylan Ross (Rozzdyliams) was a big deal. Bexey was a big deal. Gus was not—but he was aspiring. He wanted to collaborate with all kinds of artists and had been listening to Bexey for a couple of years.

Earlier that year, he’d messaged Bexey on SoundCloud, Instagram, and Twitter—what he called “fan mail.” Back then Bexey told him he was “smooth” and to keep going. Months later, Gus circled back on SoundCloud to thank Bexey for the encouragement: “Thank you for being so humble and kind when I was only beginning,” he wrote.

Gus had been sending "fan mail" messages for months, but Bexey hadn’t seen most of them (and didn’t remember responding) until October 7. He only realized Gus had messaged him repeatedly after someone showed him "Star Shopping" and he found Gus’s SoundCloud. Almost immediately, Bexey asked Gus if he wanted to make a track together.

In 2018, Bexey described how they met:

Like how we met is - so I found one of his songs online and it had literally like under 10,000 plays, it was super low-key and I found it. I played it and I was like 20 seconds into it. This was "Star Shopping." So I was just like blown away by the lyrics and the whole thing.

And then I messaged him on SoundCloud, and it was amazing. I had a small following, like 5,000 followers, and he had like 200. But I just loved his shit. I was like “Bro, let’s make some music, I love what you’re doing.” And he was like, “What the f***? Scroll up and look at the messages I used to send you. Look at the fan mail.”

So I scrolled up and he’d been sending me like three-paragraph messages saying things like “you’re one of the reasons I started to make music.”

(Peep) had approached me before, but because I had so many messages, I didn’t see it, you know, so we both linked together naturally. It was crazy. It’s beautiful.

Bexey didn’t have any beats to start working on, so he asked Gus to send one. That first beat was produced by Paulie Parik, a young producer Gus had recently met on SoundCloud. Paulie produced “Vibe,” which ended up on "Live Forever." Bexey loved Paulie’s beat: “This is beautiful,” he told Gus. He suggested that if Gus could send more beats, “we could make an EP if you like, 4 songs or something.”

Gus agreed, saying he’d look through tracks that might suit Bexey— “that I could see u cutting up.” He emailed them over, and Bexey replied, “These are all amazing. Let’s use these for sure.” He promised to get busy that weekend and send something within a week. Gus thanked him: “This is life-changing for me.”

Bexey asked if they could talk on another platform besides SoundCloud—it would be easier. He suggested Twitter or Facebook. Gus preferred Instagram or his phone number. Neither used the same platform, so after a while Bexey said, “fuck it we’ll just talk on here, no problem.” That night Bexey finished his track and sent it to Gus’s email. Gus responded, “this is magnificent. REPAIR.” They were collaborating right away and loving it.

Bexey suggested that Gus start another track “so I’m not first again.” That flattered Gus. He wasn’t expecting it. “Wow thank you. Love. Yes of course, but the beats I sent you are all for you to start on; I’ll send you a couple songs where I start it off as well on beats you haven’t heard yet.” So Gus sent new beats for Bexey to listen to—one made by Dubz and another by Mysticphonk. Bexey was glad to do more. Gus suggested, “maybe we can make six and we don’t have to release them all. Just pick the best ones for the project. But hey, if all six of them are this perfect we’ll release all six. Cool? Or you have any better ideas?” They agreed to make six tracks. Bexey told Gus, “Send the ones you have started, and I’ll work on them.”

Gus suggested Bexey listen to Willie G on SoundCloud, just to hear his style, and promised to send another track. “I’ll send you some music with vocals on it in approximately 10 hours, the next time I’m free to create. You should pick out a Willie G beat you want to work on with me from his SoundCloud… And yeah man, this is life-changing for me—you have no idea what you’re doing for me here.”

These two budding artists were discovering they had similar work styles that meshed well together. Bexey said, “another thing that’s great is that we work fast, without forcing it. I’ve met so many unreliable people, man. Music shouldn’t be about having to chase somebody up to finish a verse.”

As they collaborated, they began to get to know each other. Bexey asked Gus where he was from, told him about his travel plans, music videos, and possible performances. They told each other a little about their parents. Gus said he’d speak with his manager about doing shows. Throughout the messages, they talked about performing together. (To my knowledge Gus had no manager at the time.)

On October 8, Bexey messaged Gus on Twitter, suggesting they talk there. They communicated through Twitter DMs for the rest of the month while they brainstormed and collaborated on "Romeo’s Regrets," sending files by email.

The next song they worked on was initially called “simply poison.” They eventually shortened it to "Poison."

Gus kept working on other projects too. On October 10, he completed a song called October. He began working with Yung Goth, and on October 13 they made "fishscale." On October 14, Gus made a "plan to kill myself" and then asked Bexey to send him the lyrics to "simply poison" so he could lay down vocals. Bexey sent them, and Gus worked on the song, promising to send two tracks with open verses for Bexey to hop on.

For a few days, they didn’t communicate. In that time, Gus made "Shame on U," "Wanna Be," and "Apparition Love" with YungJZAisdead.

Then, on October 19, Gus began work on a third song he called "watch." He made songs late at night, when it was quiet and he had privacy in his bedroom. At 2:11 AM on October 20, he wrote to Bexey saying he had the open ready for him and to check his email. At 3:17 AM he added, “resting now. Hope you like it,” and went to sleep.

Later that day, around noon, Bexey told Gus he loved "watch" and would send it back soon. Gus said he still owed him two more opens and would be working on them.

The two mused about collaborating together. Bexey was excited about the project and mentioned he’d brought up Gus’s name in an interview. Gus reiterated how blessed he felt to be working with Bexey and how many phonies there were “in the game.” He told Bexey, “something very organic about our musical process… almost as if we were created to make music… there has never been any other option for me. It’s what I know and love.”

Gus sent a picture of a tattoo he’d just gotten—“got this shitty old tattoo finished today… inspired by your artwork.”

Bexey replied, “much love man… it’s amazing how we have all of a sudden met. I sent you that message without knowing you sent one like a week before. And then it instantly feels like we have known each other for 10+ years.”

The next day, on October 21, Gus told Bexey about a plan for a song: “I want to make a song with you all about the importance of shelter and the struggles of the homeless and people in poverty. Enlighten some of these ungrateful people. Plenty of that in England I know, it was all around me in LA and here in New York. Every day, I am aware of how blessed I am to have a roof over my head, most people are not. They insist they have “the worst life ever.” I want to let these privileged fucks know what’s really good. U with me?” 

Bexey agreed saying “let’s make a track about it” but then got a toothache and needed to rest. He finished "watch" the next day and sent it back to Gus, who loved it.

Now the plan was for Gus to send two more opens. He said, “three solid songs so far.”

On October 22, Bexey told Gus he’d be traveling for about a week, so not to rush. Then began a long conversation about RuneScape. They reminisced about their usernames and having “high mage.” They tried to play together, but couldn’t coordinate because Gus was on the new version and Bexey played the ’07 version, which he didn’t want to give up.

It was in that conversation that Gus revealed something about himself as an artist: releasing music was his favorite part of making it. He said, “my favorite part is naming and uploading the project. It’s when it all comes together for me.” That sentiment stayed with him for the rest of his life—he was known for making and dropping songs rapidly. He loved that part—just releasing them as soon as they were done.

Bexey returned a week later, on October 29, saying, “What’s up man, I’m back home now.” Gus had been busy. “OK perfect, I’ll get back to work. I’ve been working on my other projects all week—now it’s back to Bexey. I’ll send you an open today or tomorrow, got some good stuff cooking… I’m writing the song about the homeless/poverty issue.”

The next day he also suggested that Bexey check out Willie G’s production. “We don’t have a song over any of Willie G’s beats. He lets me use any of his for free. Check some out and send the ones you like to me.”

Gus sent a couple of beats—one a Mysticphonk beat called “hidden,” and another by Willie G. He was excited and ready to work all night. “I want to record all night tonight. I was born on Halloween night. The energy is coursing through my veins.”

Gus had just started selling merch on BigCartel—T-shirts and beanies with his skeleton logo. He asked Bexey if he’d retweet his ad for the shirts, and Bexey was happy to.

Bexey wished Gus a happy birthday and told him he appreciated him: “You’re one of the most genuine people I’ve come across. People are constantly acting brand new, so I tend to just distance myself and do what I do. But I love crossing paths with people like me.”

Gus finished the track they’d later name “dirtbag” at 3:43 AM. He told Bexey he had “made some magic” and would send it the next day after mixing it. Bexey was learning to make beats himself and sent a couple to Gus’s email. Gus was impressed: “For your first beat this is beyond impressive... You’ll only get better with time. And now is the time to start... This time next year you’ll be a pro... Now look what you’ve started.”

Once Gus sent over the track, Bexey quickly sent his verse back. Gus loved it, especially “that Shinigami line,” which led to a short conversation about Death Note. Gus sent a picture of himself standing in front of his Death Note poster.

By November 3, they had four songs and started thinking about album art and a title. Gus said, “OK, so I still don’t have an idea for the title or art, but I can get us some really amazing art made,” and he forwarded the album art for "Live Forever" to show the quality he meant.

Gus promised he’d send two more tracks for Bexey to add vocals to: “I got you, fam. And I owe you two more opens. I’ll leave you plenty of room on them. I think we’ve been good and equal with the amount of time we each have our song.” Meanwhile, Bexey kept experimenting with beats.

Several days later, on November 8, Gus announced that he’d been signed to Schema Posse and said he had one more song to send to Bexey. He sent the song about poverty and homelessness, then sent the lyrics.

While all this was going on, Gus was also completing assignments for four online college courses. He had readings, quizzes, tests, short papers, longer papers, and Blackboard discussions where he had to comment on classmates’ work.

Bexey, too, was busy with other projects. “I’ll get on this tomorrow,” he told Gus. “I’ve been making so much. I’m drained for today.” He also noted that they needed to think of a title and get cover art for the EP. Gus agreed and said he could handle the art but suggested they come up with the name together: “Throw some project name suggestions at me.”

He also asked which logo Bexey wanted on the art—his personal logo or the one for the HANDZUM collective. Bexey wanted neither; he had someone working on a new logo and wanted to use that. Then he sent his part over for “shelter.” They both loved it. Gus said, “I like how we have one aggressive track on there, prod. Willie G, to show our versatility, and then simply poison is just pure organic hip-hop.” They also discussed which song they’d make a video for.

Once they agreed on that, Gus kept them on track: “Let’s determine a tracklist and a title right now.” Bexey suggested starting with “repair” or “poison” and ending with the homeless song. Gus began organizing: “OK, so 1) repair 2) simply poison…” and Bexey added, “3) watch?” Gus agreed. Then there was another song they called “the Shinigami song,” which became dirtbag, so that would be track four, ending with “shelter.”

They mused over the project. Gus asked when they’d drop it, but Bexey wanted to wait until they had the cover and title: “Let’s get a cover and the title before we pick a date.” So they brainstormed names. Gus began with The Candlelight Sessions. Bexey offered two others. Gus said, “Let’s just keep spitting them out until we get it. Here I go.” Bexey fired off four more, and then Gus wrote, “Romeo’s Regrets. What do you think about that one?” Bexey said it was “the best yet.” He added that now he imagined “Romeo at Varrock by the fountain with all of our songs in his head.”

So now they had a name for their project. Gus sent an image of the Romeo character from RuneScape, saying, “What a beautiful game. What a beautiful time in my life that was. My mind was like a sponge.” Bexey loved it—it was perfect for the cover. The next step was figuring out the logos and finalizing the art. Gus wanted the Schema Posse logo included because he wanted people to associate him with the collective. Bexey still didn’t have his new logo. They discussed who would upload the project. Gus wanted Bexey to do it, and then they could focus on the video.

He asked again: “So, when do we upload?” Bexey said his friend was still working on the logo. “My friend is working on that logo a lot tonight BTW.” Gus was polite but getting antsy: “OK, you should ask him to finish it up so you can upload. I’m excited for the world to hear this.”

Bexey said the guy was a perfectionist, like he was, then changed the subject: “What are we naming the songs?” Gus listed them one through five—repair, poison, watch, dirtbag, shelter. Bexey suggested elaborating, but Gus argued for keeping them short and simple so they’d be easy to search and remember. He pointed out that when Bexey’s name was ZEHTROID, he always had to spell it for people, but now everyone instantly recognized “Bexey.” So they kept the song titles short.

Gus had the album art ready the next day. It featured the Schema Posse logo and the title carved into a coffin. Bexey complimented the font. Gus asked who was creating Bexey’s logo and prodded again about progress. The songs were done, the art was done, and they’d agreed on a title. The only thing left was the logo. “So, you definitely want to wait for your new art to come before we drop the project?” Gus asked, making it clear he was eager.

Bexey distracted him with a photo of a jean jacket painted with Death Note art. Gus redirected: he loved how the cover turned out and asked if Bexey did too. Bexey thought Gus’s logo looked pretty big—maybe too big—since he needed space for his as well. Gus assured him the logos would be the same size. Then they shifted to talking about promotion and possibly getting their video featured on the Astari channel. They also talked about maybe getting matching RuneScape tattoos.

The next day, Gus checked in: “Any progress?” Bexey suggested uploading the project that coming weekend. Gus asked if Friday sounded OK. Bexey still didn’t have the logo yet, so he couldn’t promise. He did suggest that if the artist took too long, they could just post without the logos. Gus tried to remove the Schema Posse logo himself, but it was embedded in the art. The artist had added it while carving the title. So Gus contacted the artist, Chase Matheson, who removed it. The art was now ready.

Gus proposed leaking the cover art. They both agreed that Friday the 13th was bad luck—so they’d release it Saturday.

Bexey finalized the tracklist, adding the producer names. Then, on the day they were set to release the project, Gus proposed a change: “Here’s the question: it’s entirely up to you, but do you think dirtbag matches the rest of the EP?” Bexey agreed that it really didn’t. “It’s a bit darker than the others, the topic too.” So they decided to save it for later, maybe a sequel. Dirtbag could go on Part Two, they thought.

They planned to drop the EP Saturday night around 5 PM Eastern, but Gus pushed it back an hour because he wanted it to be dark when it went live. They also started talking logistics for the video—green screens, shooting ideas, camera angles. Gus was excited. Bexey’s instructions were simple: “Just send me a few takes of you performing the song, and other takes just standing there, vibing, so I can mix them together. I recorded Fuck What They Think with a torn-up piece of green material. I had to zoom into me a lot so the tear wouldn’t show. It ain’t gotta be perfect, but if you have green screen, then great. Do a few takes, maybe further and closer too.” It was 2:58 PM, and Gus asked, “Can you drop it in three hours from now? That way it’s dark out here.”

Now that everything was ready and the release was only hours away, they ended up talking about RuneScape again, reminiscing. They both loved the game. Gus wrote, “So much depth and emotion… it was so diverse also—different races and creatures… Al Kahir??? What was the name? And what was the island based off the Bahamas that you could take a ship to for gold… beautiful.”

They laughed about being hacked and scamming others. Gus admitted, “I was such a scammer, man. I’m a real piece of trash.. I would do the thing where you trick their eyes with the white number above the gold.” Then they talked about “drop parties,” and Gus wondered if they could apply that idea to music: “How can we use that? Tweet out like, drop party tonight at ___ in world 8, everyone be there.”

They started fantasizing about an entire RuneScape themed project. Gus said, “Let’s just work on a new EP Draynor Manor.” Bexey loved it: “I’m in love with it. Everyone else will be also. Then we randomly drop another EP outta nowhere. We could get two songs done a day. We could have the same RS theme as intro and us talking about luring people into "wildy" a conversation of me and you luring someone. All right, cool, in a short while we will do that. Let’s get this shit out there first.”

They started thinking about the video visuals. Gus asked if Bexey could record himself in RuneScape and include that footage. “I’m going to go to Draynor Manor and get attacked by a tree. And I’m going to go to the Magician’s Tower. And the graveyard in Lumbridge.” They kept talking RuneScape for another half hour until finally Gus said, “LMAO… gotta work now, but I’ll expect the tape to drop in about two hours. Let me know when you’re gonna drop this.”

At 6:14 PM Eastern, Bexey messaged Gus: “Dropped it, fam.” The playlist length was 13:33.

Afterward, Bexey asked which song Gus wanted to do the video for. Gus said he was thinking "repair," so they planned to each film their footage the next day. When Gus didn’t hear anything, he followed up on November 20, asking if Bexey had made his yet. Gus said he wanted to wait and use Bexey’s as a reference. “All I’m gonna be doing is miming the track, brother,” Bexey reassured him.

On November 23, Bexey sent Gus his green screen footage. Gus promised to send his soon. He found a sheet to use as a green screen and invited his friend Will—the one who shot Feelz—to come film. Will made several tapes for Gus. He chose the ones he liked and sent them to Bexey, who edited them together into the "Repair" video.

Below is Bexey’s description of making the "Repair" video:

I made his first video. I edited his first video. That was after we made the EP "Romeo’s Regrets," because we both loved RuneScape.

And yeah, that was a whole RuneScape themed EP. We made it in like two days… I love it. We made that video in here (Bexey’s room). I had a green screen. He had a green screen. I had a weird haircut, and I was like miming shit. And then yeah, he sent his clip through. He had like the dustiest green screen—it was like a green bed sheet—and I had green cardboard here. We were both like, it was wrong, we didn’t know what we were doing. You can see the green line around us and shit when I edited it. It was perfect. But I remember at the end, like, he sent his picture, and I did the green screen thing, like the chroma key, and sent him it, and it was just a video of him doing wings. I sent him that and he was like, “Wow, that’s so cool.”

Knowing they were close to finishing the video, they started imagining future projects. Then they laughed over an autocorrect typo—when Gus texted, “RuneScape is a huge canvas,” his phone changed it to “Run escape is a huge canvas.” Bexey loved it. “That’s our name for the RuneScape project,” he said.
Bexey: “RUN ESCAPE. Perfect.”
And Gus added: “RUN, ESCAPE.”

Postscript:

Gus came to me wearing his brother’s Turkish soccer jersey and my Boston Red Sox beanie, telling me he needed a green screen to shoot footage for a video he was making with Bexey. I knew Bexey was a friend he’d met through SoundCloud, that he lived in England, and that Gus really liked his music. All we needed, I was told, was a big piece of green fabric. I racked my brain and remembered we had a green sheet. I dug around in the linens and pulled out an old one that had been Gus’s top sheet. It was kind of an olive green, and quite worn, but serviceable. I helped Gus tape it up in front of Oskar’s closet. Oskar was away at school, so we could use his room freely.

That area gave Will, the friend with the camera, enough space to shoot while Gus stood in front of the sheet. Gus had no such space in his own small bedroom. Will came over, filmed the footage, and Gus sent it to Bexey, who edited it—and voilà, "Repair" now had a music video.

Below are some screenshots Gus saved on his phone.

When we moved from Long Beach up to Huntington in the fall of 2017, I took the chance to clear out a lot of old stuff we didn’t use—sheets and towels from when the boys were little. Gus and Oskar each had a set of those olive-green sheets, and like Bexey said, they were quite worn. I kept that one top sheet because it had sentimental value. Gus had used it to make a video, and that mattered to me. I thought it might matter to him one day. I packed it away.

Now, eight years after packing it and ten years after Gus used it to make that video, we’re finally releasing Romeo’s Regrets. Gus isn’t here to enjoy it, but I thought readers might get a kick out of seeing that same green sheet he used to film his part. It took some digging, but I found it.