Bea Burridge is set to release her second EP later this month after teasing us with a run of singles including the brilliant Cigarette Smoke. We caught up with Burridge who gave us a little background information on the forthcoming EP
Background
“Here Are Your Words” is my second EP set for release on 30th September. My first EP I released on a whim one day and just uploaded it to streaming platforms with no real set date, no hype and no single releases up to it and looking back I feel as if that suited that record.
The first EP, I wrote between the ages of 19 and 24. I was super young, I thought I knew a lot about the world and how different emotions felt when in reality I didn’t. I think that comes across in the lyrics. I try to be clever and use metaphors to get over how I felt. This EP is different. It is honest, raw, and very face value. There is not hidden meaning or agenda. I am saying what I mean, and I mean what I say.
Since the release of the last EP my life has changed in so many ways and these changes forced me to change as a person, for the better and as I have discovered who I am, so has my music. This EP lays it all on the line; my faults, my flaws, and my acceptance of the past but like me, its loud, it’s making its point and its not going to disappear into the background.
I never force myself to write, not my own lyrics anyway. I always want my songs to be an extension of me, so this EP has taken a while but its ready. There were a few songs I have written recently I thought about adding to make it into an album, but they just didn’t fit with how I felt writing this chapter of my life.
Whilst I was writing this EP, I was listening to music I loved again. Music I hadn’t listened to for a long time whilst I was a bit lost. I was hearing Joan Jett like it was the first time, Fleetwood Mac, Nirvana, Motley Crue; everything that makes me feel alive and like I want to make music.
I released three of the five singles from the EP over lockdown, which was crazy to me at the time, but, without that time away from work and real life, I probably would have never released them at all. That time at home allowed me to work a lot on what I wanted to do that I never had the time to do. Of course, it did mean that I had to wait over a year to get back in the recording studio to finish my EP and sell a tonne of my stuff to fund the studio time after being on furlough, but I had to tell myself; material stuff means nothing, and I had to do what made me happy. Which I know sounds super wafty but lockdown really made me reflect on what I actually wanted and enjoyed in life.
BURRIDGE. is now not just me either, I have a whole band of incredible musicians behind me who are so talented and make my songs their own as they play them and that to me is so special, and it is a real honour to work and create with them.
Track By Track
Modern Day Love Affair
This is the first song I have ever written where I just wrote it in one sitting, and I didn’t go back and change anything. It is about a double date I went on a few years ago, that was to put it politely, awful. It is a song of two halves, with the chorus being how the outside world saw the date and the verses being what was going through my head.
I started recording this song before lockdown hit and had to wait over a year to finish it, but I am so glad I did. I wanted it to be a fast-paced gig opener to get the crowd going with repetitive lyrics and an easy to pick up melody.
Breathe
This track is about overcoming my flight and fight reaction to social situations that make me uncomfortable, and in particular when with a partner who with one look change the whole
feel of an evening. The chorus is the inner thoughts I have had so many times in order to keep myself level and spiral into a panic attack. This is the only track off the EP I haven’t released as a single and it comes with my first ever music video to this track, directed by James Capria and shot at The Hawley Arms in Camden Town, the place where I wrote my entire first EP. Full circle things.
Cigarette Smoke
This track I wanted to sound like a 80’s rock hit, with big drums but still have my sound. I wrote this song about a guy who I knew was wrong for me, had no interest in me and was going to break my heart but I carried on seeing anyway. I released this track as a single back in June and I was totally blown away by the reception of it. It has definitely been my biggest release to date which came from nowhere but I am absolutely chuffed people like it. Can’t ask for much more than that can I?
Done Wrong
This song, at the time I wrote it, was almost a bit of a protest piece for myself. I recorded it whilst I was with an ex-boyfriend and when I played it to him, he was so arrogant he didn’t even realise it was about him. It’s a track about accepting yes, sometimes I am not perfect but just because I accept the blame for an easy life, if we take a step back we can see that in fact, you are the master of all the problems.
I have written so many songs about being sorry, apologising and accepting I have been the problem, I wanted to write one that actually addressed how I felt 90% of the time when I reflected on a situation. I wanted it to be strong and powerful and that is why the gang vocals are in there which are 98 different voices from all over the world, which is pretty cool!
Panic
Panic closes the EP, just because I think the end of the song fits the end of a record. It’s a bit calmer and rounds it off nicely.
This song is about not just a panic attack but the constant feeling of anxiety that I was dealing with a few years ago. It is about that state of fear that many people live with, whether that’s down to work, a relationship or even just the pressures social media puts on us. It’s about just not knowing what to do with yourself and trying to make sense of what is going on in your brain and around you.
Check out the track Panic, below:
Find out more via her Facebook
Read our interview with Burridge here
[…] Read our track-by-track feature here […]