Cruz Beckham launches music career, having fun amid family drama

Cruz Beckham, the youngest son of David and Victoria, is trying to forge a path as the frontman in a rock band, and they started their first headline tour this week. What's more, they're not terrible.

When Cruz Beckham and his band played their early gigs supporting Welsh indie group The Royston Club last year, they did so under a series of different names.

He presumably didn't want their first steps to be in the full glare of the attention and judgement that comes with being a member of one of the world's most famous families. A nepo baby supreme.

But as he hard launches his music career, the 21-year-old knows he can't escape his identity, so he might as well embrace it.

At the first night of his first headline tour in Birmingham on Wednesday, it was literally up in lights above the stage throughout the show.

Cruz isn't shying away from his family connections. "Nice T-shirt," he remarked to an audience member who was wearing a top with "POSH" in big letters with a photo of his mum in her Spice Girls pomp.

But that only goes so far. When someone in the crowd shouted "Play the Spice Girls!", he responded with a swift riposte: "Sorry, I don't take requests."

Nor did he make any mention of the elephant in the room - or any room the Beckhams set foot in - the recent family drama involving his estranged older brother Brooklyn.

As with his mum, dad and other siblings, the strategy has been to keep calm and carry on, and Cruz is going about the business of music with an air of exuberance and fun.

The tour kicked off at Mama Roux's club in front of a few hundred fans who were attracted as much by his ebullient indie music as their curiosity in the Beckham clan.

Lucy Barrett, 17, saw Cruz supporting The Royston Club last year, but had no idea who he was until she got home.

"He was so good," she says. "We really enjoyed it, but we when he first came on we didn't know who he was. Then I found out on TikTok afterwards when I was searching who the supports were."

He makes "feel-good music" and can "definitely" make a career from it, she believes.

Mum Toni Green, 54, adds: "You don't know whether the surname will help or hinder.

"A few things we read on TikTok and Instagram said, 'I was actually surprised, I thought he wouldn't be very good, but it's music's actually all right'."

"Obviously we know the parents and what they're about," another fan, Dylan Hexley, 23, says. "So we were interested to see what talent he's got and see if he can create his own path.

"I didn't realise it would be so guitar heavy. Obviously his mum's a singer, and I thought he would just be a frontman. It seems he's got this little 60s twang, so I suppose he's trying to break away from that pop culture that his mum created in the 90s."

Victoria Tamlyn, in her "mid-50s", was introduced to Cruz's music on YouTube. "It's really good. But I'm a big Beckham fan anyway," she laughs.

"He's finding his own way, isn't he? It's not like it's just because of his mum and dad. He's doing his own thing, which is lovely. And he's he seems quite good at it, so it's good to support him."

It's not surprising that David and Victoria's children should follow them into the limelight, and Cruz got a taste for performing at a young age.

Cruz himself has a different role model. "I want to be John Lennon," he sings in one of his songs.

"That was one about my idol," he told the Birmingham crowd. "And this is one he wrote," he said, launching into a cover of The Beatles' 1968 classic Revolution.

His own sound is heavily indebted to both 1960s rock 'n' roll and 1990s Britpop, and he has described his band's new single For Your Love as "a modern take on a vintage sound".

While not a cover of The Yardbirds' 1965 single of the same name, it aims for similar territory.

As a live performer, Cruz has enough charisma and energy to make it, as do his slick and dynamic band. It was a good gig, exceeding my (admittedly low) expectations.

And Cruz will likely be happy with ticket sales. Eight of his remaining 10 UK dates are sold out.

But his music ultimately falls short of the legends he's trying to replicate.

Rather than being the new John Lennon, or even Justin Timberlake, Cruz's reedy voice and upbeat retro psych pop could make him the new Crispian Mills - another nepo-rocker (the son of actress Hayley Mills and grandson of actor Sir John), whose band Kula Shaker made it moderately big in the afterglow of Britpop.

The three songs Cruz has released so far have elements of familiar musical heroes and show some promise, says Ruchira Sharma, co-host of pop culture podcast Everything is Content.

"It harks back - it feels a bit Liam Gallagher-esque.

"It's not bad, but I also think there's a reason why it's not necessarily blowing up in a massive way, because I don't necessarily think it's original," she says.

"There's some nostalgia there, so I think it probably is coming out at the right time, because we are really calling back to nostalgia from 90s and 00s rock music."

Cruz seems to have a clearer idea of his future path than his siblings, at least. Romeo, 23, tried to follow his father into football and modelling, while Brooklyn, 26, has had stabs at careers in photography and cooking.

"Obviously there's been so much about Brooklyn having tried all these different careers, and none of them really sticking," Sharma says.

The Beckham bandwagon gives Cruz many advantages, of course. The number of guitars he played on stage on Wednesday would be beyond the reach of the average new artist, for a start.

He's been signed by Republic Records, the home of Taylor Swift, The Weeknd and Ariana Grande. In the studio, one band of successful US musicians co-wrote, recorded and produced his songs, while a new live band are with him on tour. (The US collaborators, incidentally, also worked on the new single by Dave Grohl's daughter Violet.)

Despite the benefits of being a Beckham baby, the public's suspicion of celebrity offspring means Cruz's surname will be of limited help, Sharma believes.

"Cruz Beckham is very identifiable as the child of two huge stars, and people are really cynical. So I think it's more of a hindrance in 2026, to be honest," she says.

"He's going to have to prove himself a huge amount."