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Landing in a venn diagram of impeccable pop grace and theatrically charismatic presence, meeting Bea felt like being background to some epic biopic in progress. And like all good narratives, the new Bea has a redemptive arc, some wounds left healed, some youthful pursuits still unresolved. On her latest single, "Ballet Pumps," the prodigious voice is still prominent, but lyrically a thread of humorous perspective is felt even more. A quality of living, brushing up against former ambiguities now know qualities, being understanding of feeling ‘delicate as fuck.’ Loving the depth of her latest record, we wanted to dig into how it's been going and how to stay grounded in those ballet pumps:

OnesToWatch: Who are you? 

Bea: I'm Bea. I'm from London. I'm an artist, a songwriter. 

Congratulations. 

Happy to be here, I just touched down in L.A. yesterday. 


How long have you been an artist? 

Officially, since 2023, when I put out my first song. 
But I was doing the whole social media thing properly since I was 15, so seven years. Time flies when you're having fun. 

What's the most fun you've had since you were 15? 

Probably filming the “Safety Net” music video. I was basically galloping through a field on a horse. Like the dreams of a princess. I was actually chasing a boy with a net and I was ready to catch him in my net. I'm sure that's a shared dream. That was probably the best day I've had in music. 

Coming up on social media is a very strange experience to someone older like myself, but how do you feel about social media whilst being an artist? Do you feel like it’s an advantage to be so connected to your audience, or does it compromise your creative vision? 

It's a mix of both. I think there is an advantage to coming up on social media and being able to navigate this digital era. I may get less overwhelmed by negative comments than someone older than me, because I feel like I've gotten over that phase. But then at the same time, when I was starting in music, it was COVID, so I didn't get the live music experience. I didn't get the busking and playing in pubs and building things from the ground up. I lost that human interaction element, so building my live fanbase has been a bit of a different ball game, which can also be attributed to existing in such a social media-heavy universe. I'm almost playing catch up with cultivating my live fan base. I have played a few really, really cool gigs, but always existing in an online space, you kind of forget there's real people out there. It’s a simulation. Putting names to faces is the magic thing about music, that’s what makes it come alive. And when you lose an element of that so heavily, like in the pandemic, you don't see songs come alive in a live space. When you write songs, you don't think of them in a live space when you haven't been performing in a live space. So it's just a whole different ball game. And when I did start performing live, that started to come into my mind – how are my songs going to translate to a live audience? I can’t just sit here and sing 30 second TikTok snippets. 

It’s so true. I’m the biggest fan of live music. Were you always writing?
Did you have a mindset for storytelling from the beginning? 

I did. I wrote my song very early.
I wrote it when I was nine about my dying dog who wasn't even dying. And I think the reason I wrote it, mainly, is because my older sister got a piano and was writing songs. I couldn’t fathom even putting a lyric to a melody, but I wanted to catch up to her so bad. Eventually, my sisters were the reason why I ended up pursuing a career in music – I just wanted to be better, better, better than them at something, just one thing. I guess it was my vehicle to be less average?

Name all the things your sisters are better than you at. 

It was just all types of sports, all academics, singing, piano, hockey, netball and blah, blah, blah. And I just remember being that little kid, the youngest sibling who was looking onto them enviously. 

I think sibling rivalry plays a lot into good creatives. 

Definitely.
I think it makes sense. 

Imagine your life, a sliding doors moment, you went down a different path. What else would you want to be doing? 

I have really gotten into cooking. I wanted to be a chef, but I don't know how well I'd be able to handle someone screaming at me while I cook. I do think of Gordon Ramsey and that terrifies me. I'd want to be a private chef for a really sexy footballer. 

What’s something you love cooking for yourself? 

I love making a bangin’ chicken ramen. I make the broth from scratch. Well… I don’t boil the bones or anything. But I could. Next time I’ll boil the bones. 

Okay, good, we'll have an update. Let's get back to songswriting. When did you first write a song and thought, “Oh, I'm good at this.” Was it really at nine? 

No, no, no. God, no. Genuinely, the first song I wrote that I felt excited by was “Born to Be Alive,” which is the first song that I put out. I wrote it when I was 17, and I remember being in the studio and just being ecstatic. I remember bringing in some Pinterest images and saying it needed to feel like this. It was a series of images that mirrored freedom, essentially. By the end of the day, we had this song that kind of mirrored exactly that. I remember jumping up and down around the room and I'd never really written a song that made me feel like that. I looked around the room and i said, “Guys, do you think this song could hit a million streams?” Everyone was like, “Bea, one foot in front of the other…” And now, it’s at 40 million. 

That's pretty good. You mentioned the process a little bit, so I'd love to dive into that. What is your process? Are you still using Pinterest images? 

I write a lot of poetry, so whether I’m writing a poem off the bat or using a word as a continuation of rhyme, ultimately I always have a strong visual that’s linked to a story that I've experienced. I like to wrap my head around it before I go into the studio so that I feel ready to invite someone else into the process. Whenever I try to write a song on the spot, I never consider what I'm actually trying to say, so it becomes very two-dimensional. Allowing myself more time gives it more depth. 

Do you write prose or are you following a structure? 

They do rhyme and kind of have a meter. I always write them in a rhythmical sense. The rhyming also helps with the story, because as you try out different rhymes, you can see the different paths the story might take. 

Lovely. Let's talk about your upcoming single. Give us the lore. 

I wrote it because my brother – I hope he doesn’t mind me saying this and I love him – he went through a phase. It was kind of, one girl in, one girl out. He was going through it. Anyway, it was quite hilarious for me and my sisters to witness. He's the eldest of us four, and it was great gossip for us. My sister one day said that it was “Peter Pan’s syndrome,” and I didn’t know what that was. She said it was basically older guys who refuse to grow up. So I essentially based this song off my brother, but veering it through the lens of some people I'd semi-dated who couldn't grow up. It's quite funny. My brother now has a lovely girlfriend and she's great. 

So he's had his happy ending. That's all we want. When you write something and you release it, do you have a personal ambition for it?
Do you have an ambition that you hope the audience takes from it? Besides 40 million streams, which is a high bar. 

I know, it is a high bar. I actually really don't think about it metrically or the number of people listening to it. I think about how I want people to latch onto lyrics. If people care about the lyrics enough to absolutely scream them out, that’s what I want. When an audience just goes crazy…. That’s the moment. You know what I mean? 

Yes. I'm going to pivot to some more spontaneous questions. At your most zen, your most peaceful state, where are you? What are you doing? 

Ooh.
I'd just be lying in an English country field surrounded by horses and birds.

If you could manipulate time, would you manipulate time? Would you go forward or backwards? Is there anything you would want to know about the future or the past? 

I actually just don't think I would. Everything happens as it happens, and I just accept that. That's what makes things so great. If I knew what was going to happen in the future, it would kill all anticipation and hunger. It's like, well, great, I've got my answers. So, what's the point?
Or maybe whatever it is is so great and then you're like, well, I'm going to get there anyway, so I don't need to do anything about it now. 

What is the best gift you've received and given? 

A great gift that I've received for my recent birthday was from a friend of mine who is a chef. He basically put together a hamper of homemade pesto, a homemade tagatelli, some chicken soup because he knows that I'm always ill, homemade focaccia, some blood oranges and Dubai chocolate. Just really thoughtful. I'm obsessed with food. 

What's the best gift you've given? 

I feel like my gifts are always so mid. One thing I love doing is writing letters. For Christmas or for someone's birthday, I will just write a fucking essay. For Christmas, I wrote my whole family messages about how much I appreciated them. I think I was in a very sensitive state and I was there in my room kind of sobbing over these messages I gave them.

That's a great gift. If you were to perform with anyone dead or alive, what would your dream concert be?

Hayley Williams.
Sharon Van Etten. Regina Spektor. 


I'm sensing a vibe here. 

Lily Allen. 

You're creating Lilith Fair all over again. 

I'd probably put Rufus Wainwright in there. Aretha Franklin, obviously. Probably Adele. 

Amazing lineup. I’d love a non-music recommendation, something you'd want to share with a friend. 


I made these Greek gyro wraps. The wraps were just three ingredients and they were so flipping good. Don't buy your bread ever again because you can just so easily make these things. It’s chia seeds, oats, water, some salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Blend it all up. Fry it off. Then you just load in the chicken, load in the onions, load in the peppers, and make a bit of tzatziki. It's heaven.The other thing I'd actually say as well, is date ice cream.
It's literally dates, cottage cheese, vanilla extract.

Lastly we’d love a music recommendation. 

I love this Irish band called Florence Road. They’re so good. Also just incredibly sweet people. 

They're amazing and one of the funnest interviews I've ever had. 

Really? Oh, they're just wild. Obsessed with “Hanging Out to Dry.” 


Anything else you want to share?

“Peter Pan Syndrome,” coming out soon. Keep listening to Rich, which was in Off Campus, which is pretty damn cool. What else do I want to share? Greatest advice I've ever received is if you can do something that you hate really well, then you can do anything. I’ll give you some context for it. When I was doing my exams, I was studying and all I wanted to do was be a pop star when I was that age. I was studying so much, but I couldn’t get anything in my head because all I was thinking about was music and how I could be doing that instead of wasting my time. My dad turned to me and he was like, “If you can do something that you hate really well, then you can do anything.” 
And that made me really bloody work for those exams knowing that if I could work hard for that, then I could work triply as hard in music, which was something that I loved. 

Good dad.