“Growing up in a canyon outside of LA, my life was full of music. My grandma would play guitar for me and my brothers, and we’d all sing together. We had lots of records—Aretha Franklin, Jackson 5, Arlo Guthrie, Joni Mitchell, Pete Seeger, Rod Stewart, Talking Heads, Bob Dylan, the Beatles, the Supremes, the Carpenters, Ike and Tina Turner, bluegrass and lots of classical music—and whenever they were on my 3 brothers and I would go crazy and have dance parties. We grew up without TV, which left a lot of time for singing and dancing. Creativity and nature filled the airwaves around us.”
“We also had an old school 8 mm film projector. To get to watch films on a projector, to listen to music on vinyl, it really is a different thing. It sounds better and makes me feel closer to the music, it puts me in a different space. It’s more intimate than I feel now when I’m listening/watching stuff on my computer—which I’m totally guilty of.
I still use my record player as often as possible though (and I still have my grandma’s guitar), I love my Sundays full of records and singing, and there’s still nothing better than a good dance party.
Then we lived in the woods in Massachusetts and I went to school 45 minutes from home and we’d listen to oldies the whole ride. In high school, of course I was obsessed with making/receiving mix tapes. Then in college, I’d go on major road trips to see live music. We’d sell food on the side of the road and were so driven by the music, it took us all over the country.
It seems music was always a strong driving force for me. I would secretly write songs in my bedroom. The one time I remember actively thinking I was going to be a singer, I was 7 and practicing a song over and over until one of my brothers told me to shut up. He said I had an annoying voice (standard brother behavior). I really took that to heart though and from that point forward kept my music to myself, for years.
In college I studied painting, so I’ve always known I had this creative impulse that had to come out. But when I finally decided to start singing in front of other people again, everyone in my life was shocked, they had never heard me sing even once.
Now that I’m putting out my first LP it feels like things have come full circle. I definitely keep a little taste of that old school feel in some of my songs because that’s where I came from in so many ways. I’m finally doing the thing that I’m obsessed with and have been since such a young age. I can’t wait to get my first vinyl copy of Days Hours Nights and, of course, to give a copy to each of my brothers.”
—BETS
BETS’ debut full-length release, Days Hours Nights arrives in stores on July 31. On vinyl.
