Anna Bea is a 21-year-old singer songwriter who regularly gigs between London and Bristol and has just released her debut EP ‘Wheel of Change’. Having only started releasing music during lockdown, the success of her first four songs have led to multiple interviews with radio stations such as BBC London, BBC Bristol, Glastonbury FM and BCFM Radio. Anna has amassed over 170,000 streams on Spotify and Apple Music and has been listened to 80 countries over the past month. She has also been featured in magazines such as Louder Than War, We Plug GOOD music, The Everyday Magazine, Neon Music and Lock Magazine.
By Kamil Bobin
Discovered via Musosoup
Hey Anna Bea, super nice to have the chance to chat with you. What first got you into
music?
Great to chat to you too! Well, I come from quite a musical family and so ever since I was young, music has been a big part of my life. My mum is a singer and so I’ve grown up watching her sing at gigs and festivals which has been amazing and has really inspired my passion for performing. I’ve grown up listening to Bob Marley and the Gispy Kings and music was always playing in the house when I was younger. I actually started writing songs because I used to be so jealous that my younger sister was writing music when I was only singing covers. I then realised how much I loved it once I started writing, but it all stemmed from jealousy & competition!!
How do you balance your time in the studio with other commitments such as a part-
time job, family, admin, or else?
Music definitely takes up most of my time and I’m most happy when I’m writing, recording & performing, but I also do some part-time work for podcasts and so I try my best to balance them both and prioritize what needs to be done most that day. Every day is totally different for me which is quite fun and it’s usually a combination of meetings, rehearsals, writing & recording sessions and gigs. I usually perform in the evenings, so have time during the day to get my non-music related work done.
Your latest song is “Another World”. Can you tell us more about the making of it and if
there were any unusual/peculiar things happening during the process?
‘Another World’ is all about escaping from our world into a new one. I wrote this song during lockdown about the world we had lost but that we knew we’d get back again someday. Lyrically, I wanted to merge ideas of the past with the present & together with a Bruno Mars-inspired production, I tried to make this track pop, upbeat & funk. I co-wrote it with this amazing singer-songwriter called Steve Overland who is the lead singer in the rock band FM. I don’t know if there was anything that was particularly unusual about the process of creating this song, but we wrote the first verse in about 5 minutes right at the end of a session and then we both had to run off. I took a voice note of the first verse and kept listening back to it and thought we had come up with something kind of special. A week after that session we went into our second lockdown, and we didn’t get to finish the song for nearly a year. We then finally finished it and had it recorded and I’m really glad that now it’s out into the world.
What is one message you would give to your fans?
Please keep listening & share my music with as many people as possible as I need more of you!!!
What would you be doing right now, if it wasn’t for your music career?
I honestly don’t know. Music is my whole life and I can’t really imagine doing anything else. Maybe acting or something to do with entertainment.
How do you know when a work is finished?
I think a lot of artists would struggle with this question because a piece of art can never really ever be finished. There’s always something more you can add or change to try and improve it and if you show an unfinished piece of work to too many people then you’ll probably never finish it because everyone will give you their different opinions! For me, I think a song is finished when I feel like I can’t make it any better and when I listen back to it and love everything about it.
Can you write what was your best performance in your career? How do you remember
it?
I was really lucky to be asked to perform at Chris Evan’s Festival Carfest in August. It was one of the biggest crowds I ever had which was so exciting (and quite nerve-racking!) I felt like my performance went really well and the audience seemed to really like the songs which was an amazing feeling. The only issue was that my microphone stand kept falling down which was super annoying as I had to keep pushing it back up during my set. But overall, I thought it went really well and I loved performed at that festival. I had my amazing support guitarist Zak Hobbs play with me that day which was great. Zak had played with Yungblud a couple of months before at Glastonbury and so it was really awesome to have him on stage with me.
Do you have a mentor or coach?
I have lots & I don’t know how I would do it without them! When I started to release music back in 2020, my singing teacher who is also a songwriter & producer, was really influential in helping me learn about the process of releasing music. She helped me release my first EP ‘Wheel of Change’ and taught me a lot about promoting my music and song writing. My current singing teacher Sonia Jones is also an amazing mentor and is a huge support. She’s improved my voice so much and comes to all my gigs! I’ve also just signed a management deal with Nick Stewart and my new team are fantastic at mentoring me, supporting me and helping me get my music to right people.
Who is your favourite musician?
How on earth am I supposed to choose!!! If I had to only pick only one, I’d have to say Billy Joel. Billy Joel totally changed my life. I think I could listen to his music every day for the rest of my life and I would never get bored of it. I think his song writing is insane and I’m so in awe of his melodies. I just saw the other day on Instagram that he and Stevie Nicks are doing a joint tour in the US and so if anyone reading this wants to buy me tickets, then feel free!!
What are your plans for the future?
My plans are to keep performing live every week in London, to keep releasing new music and to keep growing my following. The third track on my upcoming EP is coming out in January which is very exciting and my goal for 2023 is to be a support act on a tour, to get a publishing deal & to keep growing my following & streams :)
Listen to ‘Another World’ here: 'Another World' (ffm.to)
Follow me on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/annabeamusic