isn’t done sharing her story just yet. The 24-year-old singer-songwriter has been in the public eye for over a decade, after praise from Justin Bieber for her cover of Etta James’s “At Last” rocketed her to online fame. But over the past few years, with the release of her well-reviewed debut album,which was released last week, the musician has become increasingly unafraid to reveal her more vulnerable side.
It was all part of Beer’s deliberate effort to make a record that reflected the deep dives she’d taken into the back catalogs of some of her favorite artists over the past few years, from the Beach Boys to the Beatles. “I think music that really stands the test of time is what I’ve been drawn to most, and so I wanted to capture the essence of that,” she says.
At what point in the songwriting process did you start identifying a throughline, or a running theme that could make all the songs work together as an album? I knew we were making the album from the jump, but I didn’t have a clear vision of what, exactly, it was for a while. Which is funny, because “Silence Between Songs” is actually one of the very first songs I wrote, and it ended up being the title of the album. But I was also in a place where I was continuing to find music that I loved and drawing inspiration from that too. So I don’t think there was ever a moment where I was like,. It really just organically grew on its own, and I let it happen.