Mature, genuine, funny, down-to-earth, cool as hell – these are just a couple ways to describe the incredibly talented Jane Beeson. Gilbert, Arizona had the pleasure of raising Beeson before she was whisked away to Utah for college. She studied political science, a bit of a detour from her singer-songwriter passion. But that hasn’t stopped her from continuing to follow her dream, and doing it well.
“I’ve been writing songs since I was sentient, pretty much,” she told me, to which I couldn’t help but chuckle. “I was into riding horses, I was in student government, I had tons of different things I was into but then in high school I started getting more serious about music.” Once she got to Utah for college, she started doing gigs and shows around the area. In four years she has done somewhere around 150 shows there. “The last year of college is when things started really picking up.”
‘Picking up’ is a modest way to put it. Currently, Beeson has 49.9K monthly listeners on Spotify, 21.2K followers on Tiktok, and 8,142 followers on Instagram. Her voice has such a beautiful tonality; a subtle rasp in combination with a darker tone, even on high notes that she nails. Every song is a melodic conversation between her story-telling and the instruments. If her music had a playlist title, it would be ‘West Coast Springtime Indie Coming-of-Age’.
Songwriting
“I remember writing songs as a toddler, honestly. But they were not good,” she jokes. “When I was 16 I got an amazing music
teacher and he showed me how to not suck, honestly. So that helped a lot.” It was hard not to laugh. Her humor carries effortlessly and even though I knew she was joking, she delivery was dead serious. But, her song writing definitely doesn’t suck so she was absolutely right. “I feel really lucky. There was always a guitar floating around our house because in college my mom would play guitar and write songs. There was always music around in the house and I always had access to instruments.”
In the time that she started songwriting as a toddler, to honing her skills at 16, to now, Beeson’s learned that not everything you write or think of can become a song. “I’ve gotten better at sifting through ideas and finding the good stuff. My taste has gotten better in the sense that I’ve gotten a better ear for getting to the core of ideas, and flushing out the very simple truths of a concept or a feeling.” It was a profound answer I’d never heard from a songwriter before. There was a maturity I wasn’t expecting. But when you listen to her music, it’s easy to understand what she means.
Inspiration and Her Music
In a song like ‘Best Case Girl‘ where she sings about how it feels to move and start a new life, or ‘Everybody’s Baby‘ which is a love-letter to the mixed emotions of friendship break-ups. Beeson has an incredible ability to make every song – even the ones about heartbreaking tales – feel soft and full of a kind of love for simply having that experience. Which absolutely makes sense when you learn her songwriting inspirations are Lorde, Stevie Nicks, Maggie Rogers, and Arlo Parks. “[Parks] writing is so emotional and so simple and profound to me,” she gushed.
As I asked about what inspired her in life, she stopped for a moment. “I don’t know how to say this in a cool way,” she sighed. However, after thinking for about three seconds, she proceeded to answer in the coolest, most perceptive way I’d ever heard: “I’m inspired by conversation and little corners of communication that maybe would be otherwise overlooked.” Despite the fact that we were on the phone, there was something in her tone that caught me. This wasn’t an answer she was saying to sound deep for the interview. She meant every word. A cute example she gave me was something she wrote down after receiving a picture from her brother. “My brother posted this picture of toads in our driveway and I wrote down ‘When you’re gone, who’s going to find the toads in our driveway?’ I like to write as if I’m starting a conversation with someone.” Multiple times she told me she wasn’t sure if she was making sense, but she absolutely was.
We gushed over how music itself is a conversation of lyrics and melodies and instruments, and how writing conversational songs was a perfect way to tie all of that together. “I’m always reaching for everything to feel palatable – and, to an extent, you can’t make everything sound conversational. But, ya know,” she finished softly.
I then spent probably four of five minutes stuttering over how every answer she had given me was so mind-
blowing but I couldn’t help it. Maybe it’s the college education, or her life experiences, but she carries herself in such a mature and genuine way. Even in moments we were simply speaking to one another, she had an energy that was so connected and present I felt I could talk with her for hours. And that’s exactly what she tries to carry into her music.
“I want people to feel understood and connected to something when they listen to my music. Whether it be me, or the ideas I’m talking about, or the people I’m talking about. I want it to make people think about things but also just for them to feel comfortable.” It was a simple objective, but an insightful one – made even better by the fact that her hometown show here in Phoenix was 24 hours later.
Upcoming
Her first EP Last Shot released in September of last year and already has a massive number of streams. Her newest single ‘Gap Teeth’ releases on April 19th – the first single from her sophomore EP coming later this year! “The project is going to be sort-of like a coming-of-age story and it’s documenting my life end of college to present. All the stuff I’m writing is very young adult, spirituality… I don’t know, all of the things you go through in your early twenties. That’s what I’ve been inspired by and what’s felt good to write about for the past six months,” she told me.
Even though she currently lives in LA, Beeson still has a wonderful and welcoming community here in her home state. If you haven’t listened to her yet, I highly recommend you do as soon as possible. If you happened to have missed her show at Rebel Lounge on March 28th, we’ll have your recap right here soon!
