INTERVIEW: Liz Stokes on The Beths' new album 'Jump Rope Gazers': "We're trying to strike a balance between wanting to try out new things sonically and making sure that we still felt like it was us"
Interview: Jett Tattersall
Image: Mason Fairey
Auckland indie band The Beths today release their second album Jump Rope Gazers. The album follows up their 2018 debut Future Me Hates Me which received critical praise internationally and was lauded by platforms such as Pitchfork and Rolling Stone. The band, headed by lead singer and songwriter Elizabeth Stokes, spent the following year and a half touring the world, with Stokes working on Jump Rope Gazers in between gigs. The 10 tracks on the album retain the energy, dynamism and punch of their debut album, but there is a great focus on the softer side with a number of indie ballads in between the rock anthems. It was a conscious decision, with Stokes saying of the beautiful, dreamy title track “it’s the slowest tempo we have played, which gives us space to do things we wouldn’t normally be able to.”
To support the new album, The Beths will be launching a worldwide tour, including Australia, from August all the way through to April next year and tickets are on sale now.
We recently caught up with lead singer Liz to chat more about Jump Rope Gazers.
Hey Liz, how are you these days?
Okay, you know, all things considered of course.
Congratulations on Jump Rope Gazers. It is a solid, solid follow up album. It is absolutely beautiful. I want to quickly dive straight into ‘Dying To Believe’, which was the album’s first release. It is such a catchy piece of ear candy. It's all those rocking ‘70s sounds and they just go perfectly hand in hand with the video. Then there's your lyrics’ I'll smile through the heat/I’m dying to believe you won’t be the death of me.’ Amazing. Can you talk me through the inspiration and creation behind this track?
Yeah sure. Normally I get the lyrics first and then all the lyrics and melody together. But this one was rare. I had the chorus guitar riff and a melody that was quite specific. It took me a really long time to find lyrics that fit with the particular rhythm. It went through lots of permutations with different lyrics and once I found the chorus I then realised what the song was about and finished it from there within the last year. Whereas the chorus was written maybe 3 years ago.
That's incredible. I guess you never know as a songwriter what order it's going to come in.
Yeah, it’s actually kind of frustrating. It would be nice if it was the same every time.
Can I ask why it was chosen as the first single release?
To be honest, I don't know! We obviously voted with the people around us, our friends and our management and it's one of the two fastest songs on the record - the fastest song is our second single - so it felt good to put it out in that way.
It's a hell of an intro. It's like we're clicking fingers straight away. Likewise with the final track ‘Just Shy Of Sure’ I want to know was there any reason to bookend it that way as well for the final track?
Yeah, we played around with the track listing for a couple of weeks towards the end of mixing and there was something that wasn't final about it. I liked the way that it feels kind of open ended towards the end, especially because the others song are quite pessimistic. That one there's something about it that feels kind of optimistic, kind of realistic.
I'm glad you said that. It does leave you with that kind of exhale. It's a beautiful track actually. Now ‘I'm Not Getting Excited’, the second single, it's such a filthy guitar pitch perfect peach of a track and again you've got that sort of 70s-soaked rock but this time like you said darker and I'm just curious about the lyrics. ‘Not getting excited because my fight and my fight are divided’. Was this in response to the success and tour of your debut album Future Me Hates Me?
In a way it's a response which is a similar response to everything I do. It would be nice to - and people remind me sometimes to - enjoy when things are going well and let yourself feel your accomplishments. It's just something that I don't really do very well. This last year's been incredible in terms of the places that we've gotten to go and the amount of music that we've gotten to play and the different ways in which we’ve been able to be recognised has been really special, particularly at home in New Zealand. It's... yeah... I know all that intellectually and super appreciate it. There's just that feeling of ‘I don't want to jinx it’ or something. If I let myself just enjoy it, something bad will happen, which is completely unjustified and I don't recommend it. But I know it's not uncommon.
It's a very human thing to do and I think we just have to remind ourselves that we've never been actually wizards up until this point, so you can't think bad things to happen.
Yeah, it’s not magic!
On that note, Future Me Hates Me was so widely celebrated and played into earbuds, stereos, bars and concert halls across the world. I just wanted to know having such a kick arse start, were you at all apprehensive or was the pressure on with how the next record would be received?
Weirdly, towards the start of writing it, which was pretty much straight after this record was released, I wasn't feeling the pressure or I was trying not to because I was justifying it to myself as feeling stressed about it won't help the next record be better. What will help is just writing a lot and writing as many songs as you can and trying to make things as good as you can. That's literally all you can do. That actually seemed to help for a lot of the process of writing, which I'm grateful for. Once we got into recording I got a little bit more stressed and started to feel the pressure. It comes from a lot of different places. It comes from building up a little family in terms of wanting to keep people in the band supported and also our management who are our good friends and who we really like. You want to keep everybody working and to do that a lot of people need to like and connect with your music. The pressure can come from a lot of different places.
Do you think that's one of the main benefits being in a band is the fact that you can't let your fears eat you up too much because you're in it collectively and you have to support each other?
Oh, I feel so lucky to be in a band, in a project with other people who just are so kind and caring and generous with their time and I don't want to take it for granted. We're all trying as hard as we can all the time. I'm glad that I don't have to do it all by myself.
Now your sound on Jump Rope Gazers is still I feel so distinctly you with that kind of pouring heart and platform boot strut while all the while it's got that gritty sound. What were your initial desires behind this album as a whole?
With this album, we were trying to strike a balance between wanting to try out new things sonically and in writing. The first record is kind of fussed and tight all the way through and I really like that. Now that we've done that we felt like we could stretch out a little bit more and try some different sounds and some different tempos. But something that we wanted to crucially keep the same was I guess the core, the way that we made it. We wanted to make it again just in Jonathan’s [guitarist Jonathan Pearce] studio ourselves and we didn't want to change the way that it felt produced or anything like that. It was just trying to find a balance between making sure that we still felt like it was us doing things different sonically.
It's clear you guys are always keen to push those boundaries sonically and tour with all kinds of sounds. Are there any musical elements that you want to explore in future releases?
The approach we always take is you listen to the song and figure out what it needs. We always arrange the song as a band together. There's nothing like ‘we really want to use more of this particular kind of guitar sound’ or something. I feel like it would usually be within the context of the song and driven by just wanting to make it sound interesting and cool rather than wanting to use a particular sound and then making the song because of that.
Now The Beths have quite an interesting origins story. Can you talk me through how a gang of jazz musicians went onto release such arse kicking rock records?
Oh yeah. With us it was just we all studied music because we all wanted to commit to making music. I didn't know when I was studying what I was going to do. I knew I wanted to do music. It was through being part of that music community that was surrounding the jazz school but then also the actual gigging scene around Auckland. It just meant that you played in a lot of different projects. You played in all of each other's projects. You played a lot of different kinds of music and then it was a couple of years after I graduated that I figured out the kind of music that I wanted to make personally. And that it was lyric based and it was a rock band - which I'd never been in before. It just felt like fun to explore the music that I'd listened to growing up.
And with that in mind, looking back onto your adolescence and growing up with music, do you feel that you are making the music that you wanted to hear when you were young?
To some extent. That was a real driver and when I first started this project, before like sending out demos, I was listening and listening and listening and trying to find the band that I wanted our band to sound like. I think because I never found it, it felt like I knew where I wanted to slot in. The fact that there wasn't a huge representation of women was something as well. Wanting to hear that perspective and not hearing it that often.
That's a true form of creation. You went looking for it and it didn't exist so you thought ‘alright well let's do it’. I'm glad you touched on that because of course even in local music scenes there's still that disproportionate representation when it comes to women, particularly in that indie rock scene. It is very much a man's world and it can be off-putting to women musicians looking to enter the industry. I’m sure there’s a lot of trepidation. That really does need to change. You on the other hand powered through that festival curtain like an old pop sphinx and I want to know what is your advice or hopes for other female artists out there struggling with being heard or even just taking the dive?
I think my piece of advice would just be that you don’t have to do it alone. Even if you’re in a solo project, I think the way that you can interpret not doing it alone is up to you. It’s really hard to do on your own. Maybe it’s an online community, maybe it’s the support of friends who are going to help you, whether it’s fellow musicians. If you have some kind of community around you who you can talk to and who can encourage you and be cheerleaders for you, that is important. It goes both ways where if you’re going to be part of the community you want to be contributing to it as well and supporting it from the other side. I think that is validating and feels good whether or not you have wild success. To be making something as part of a community of people. Making something just feels good. It feels great.
Jump Rope Gazers by The Beths is out now via Carpark Records/Dew Process. You can download and stream now.
To keep up with all things The Beths you can follow them on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
The Beths will be touring internationally from August. Tickets are on sale now
Thu. Aug. 27 - Raglan, NZ @ Yot Club
Fri. Aug. 28 - Tauranga, NZ @ Totara Street
Sat. Aug. 29 - Napier, NZ @ Cabana
Thu. Sept. 3 - Palmerston North, NZ @ The Stomach
Fri. Sept. 4 - Wellington, NZ @ San Fran (SOLD OUT)
Sat. Sept. 5 - Wellington, NZ @ San Fran (NEW SHOW ADDED)
Tue. Sept. 8 - Nelson, NZ @ Playhouse
Wed. Sept. 9 - Takaka, NZ @ Mussel Inn
Thu. Sept. 10 - Blenheim, NZ @ Framingham Winery
Fri. Sept. 11 - Christchurch, NZ @ Blue Smoke
Sat. Sept. 12 - Dunedin, NZ @ Starters Bar
Sun. Sept. 13 - Invercargill, NZ @ Tuatara
Fri. Nov. 6 - Auckland, NZ @ Town Hall
Sat. Nov. 7 - Gisborne, NZ @ Gisborne Beer Festival
Sun. Nov 8 - Perth, WA @ HBF Park*
Wed. Nov. 11 - Melbourne, VIC @ Marvel Stadium*
Sat. Nov. 14 - Sydney, NSW @ Bankwest Stadium*
Tue. Nov. 17 - Brisbane, QLD @ QSAC Stadium*
Fri. Nov. 20 - Dunedin, NZ @ Forsyth Barr Stadium*
Sun. Nov. 22 - Auckland, NZ @ Mt Smart Stadium*
Tue. March 30 - Southampton, UK @ The Loft
Wed. March 31 - Leeds, UK @ Brudenell Social Club
Thu. April 1 - Manchester, UK @ Club Academy
Fri. April 2 - Glasgow, UK @ Saint Luke’s
Sat. April 3 - Dublin, IE @ The Workman’s Club
Mon. April 5 - Bristol, UK @ SWX
Tue. April 6 - Birmingham, UK @ Castle and Falcon
Wed. April 7 - London, UK @ O2 Kentish Town
Thu. April 8 - Brighton, UK @ Concorde 2
Fri. April 9 - Paris, FR @ Point Éphémère
Sat. April 10 - Lyon, FR @ Marché Gare - Hors les murs
Sun. April 11 - Milan, IT @ BIKO
Tue. April. 13 - Düdingen, CH @ Bad Bonn
Wed. April 14 - Lausanne, CH @ Le Romandie
Thu. April 15 - Munich, DE @ Kranhalle
Fri. April 16 - Vienna, AT @ B72
Sat. April 17 - Prague, CZ @ Underdogs' Ballroom
Sun. April 18 - Belin, DE @ Lido
Tue. April 20 - Copenhagen, DK @ Vega Ideal Bar
Wed. April 21 - Hamburg, DE @ Molotow
Thu. April 22 - Cologne, DE @ Artheater
Fri. April 23 - Amsterdam, NL @ Paradiso Noord
Sun. April 25 - Brussels, BE @ Ancienne Belgique
Fri. Aug 6-8 - San Francisco, CA @ Outside Lands
*w/ Green Day, Weezer and Fall Out Boy
