Beabadoobee Has Been Living In Her Utopia All Along
With lyrics like " Had some time away, didn't wanna go insane from this. I wanted you to know I need time grow and to exist. I think I need a space, let you know I'm safe. I swear it's just a littlе thing." The oh-so easy listening expierence that is fluttery and familar in sound to the likes of Fiona Apple, captures the confusing yet affirming situation of "right person, wrong time." As Beatopia serves as her third official project, it's evident that work just gets better with time as she expirementing in genre's, sound, and digs deeper into the pages of her notebook with her pen.
In the dry heat of Indio, Caifornia, Bea caught up with office to talk about her newest project.
Can you talk about your early music influences and how we can hear that in your music now?
I have a lot of musical influences. It ranges from like Elliot Smith, to like Chemical Brothers. And The Cardigans have played a major influence in my music, they inspire me a lot, especially the lead singer. But yeah, I've got a good few.
Do you remember the first song you made and the obstacles you were going through, but made you realize that you could do music full-time?
"Coffee" was the first song I made, and then that had gained a lot of traction. And that was kind of when I was like, 'oh, this could be a thing.' And I never really thought this could be a thing. I thought it would be a fun little side project. So this was never really a plan, but it's turned out great, I guess.
Paint the picture of Beatopia.
So every song is completely different, I didn't want to stick to any particular genre. I just wanted to make music that I wanted to make. So, every song is different, and Beatopia as an album isn't very conceptual, but the idea behind it is very close to my heart. And every song and the way it was made, I think was just very intimate. It was me and my guitarist, Jacob in a little tiny room in London. So, yeah, it was very special.
And did you do any studio recordings as well?
Yeah, I did loads of studio recordings. So we made loads of demos, and then we recorded everything properly. Some songs live, some songs — I think it's a quite heavy guitar album despite like it not being like my last, which was like pop, like rock-y. I wanted to branch out with a lot more instrumentation and drum machines.
Is there a big difference that you notice between having the intimate recordings versus the in the studio recordings?
I think it definitely adds a vibe, like the stuff that you create intimately. And we try to keep that vibe throughout Beatopia, despite it being recorded in the studio. We still kept some songs very intimate, just me and guitar. And from the get go, it was very clear to us that we wanted the mix to sound very like quite rough and quite interesting sounding.
Can you think of a movie, a video game, or a television show that you would match Beatopia to? If you were to score any movie or any video game, what would it be?
I can't think of any particular movies because I feel like I would like to think Beatopia, on its own, is a movie in itself or like a soundtrack to its own movie called "Beatopia."
What would the plot be then?
I don't know. I think it'd be like a whole entire world, and I think it would be very — like a lot of people, a lot of my friends, a lot of like togetherness, and love. But like also like, the idea that everyone's kind of is in it for the same thing and everyone's going through the same shit. But you know, I think it's all quite relatable to a lot of people.
What was the most difficult part about making your new single, "talk"?
With "talk" that came quite naturally, it was straight after "fake it flowers." And then, I started writing and I was sitting on it for quite a while. What was challenging about it the most was probably trying to get to a place that I wanted it to be because we went through a lot of demos. And the main reference was a demo by the Yeah Yeah Yeah's. And it was called, "maps," but it was like the four track demos. So we wanted to encapsulate that vibe into the actual song. And I think the funnest part was recording it with my band because that was one of the songs off Beatopia that we recorded all live and in the studio all together.
The video for "talk" is quite wondrous, it was directed by Alexandra Leese and Luke Casey. Can you talk about how it came to be and did you have any directoral say as well?
I would like to think I had like a bit of a directoral say. It was Alexandra Leese and Luke Casey, and they're incredible, and I was a massive fan from the get go. They had shot my heaven piece with Marc Jacobs, and I was like, I really want that world, and I felt like they can encapsulate the world of Beatopia perfectly. And I wanted it to be like a performance video. I wanted it to be a video that could catch everyone's attention. And I wanted lots of people in it.
You're working with a lot of cool collaborations coming up with PinkPantheress and more. Do you reach out to people or do they reach out to you, and what's been the most surprising person that has recieved your music?
It's definitely like a mix and match of like whether they want to like make a song with me or I wanna' make a song with them. And I think a surprising collaboration— well not collaboration but fan of my music, I guess there's like a few people that I would never really expect to listen to my music. And there's always the odd like famous person that I had no idea of. But I feel like the strangest ones that listen to my music are the people that look so unlikely. Like the one time I was in Five Guys in London and this like road-man — I was waitiing for my order and "care" started playing in the speakers, I was like "what the fuck!" And he came up to me, gave me free fries, and he was like, "I love your music, by the way." But I feel like road-men like a lot of rock music, surprisingly.
Speaking of your music translating to other groups of people, what do you think about your music that resonates in London that can also resonate in America, and around the world?
I feel like the way I grew up, I grew up in London and I've had a very like British lifestyle, especially in school. I went to an all girls school, and we did like crazy shit. Like it was the most like stereotypical "Skins" lifestyle. And I'd never noticed that till it started becoming a thing. And I was like, 'whoa, this is complete normality to me and my friends.' So I feel like it's a universal understanding when I create the music, I create and write the lyrics. It's like, everyone's kind of done that, everyone's been there. And I think that's why it relates in London. But I feel get also relates with kids around the world, I would like to think, because at the end of the day, I am like a 21-year old girl. And I feel like a lot of girls go through the same shit. And I like to talk about problems like that.
If you could create your own utopia, what are the rules? What does it look like? Who's there? Who's not there? What's going on?
I feel like there would be not many rules. I feel like there'd be no rules but the kind of understanding that everyone has like got everyone's back, and every one's here for the same reason, and everyone loves each other. I feel like my utopia would be Beatopia. In my head, it's almost like — in my last album, I really talked about the past and I was almost like tangled with like that happened in my past life. But I feel like moving forward, I want to just focus on like the now and like the future. And like, I feel like in my ideal world it would be just kind of living in the moment.
