The Beths: how New Zealand’s favourite pop-rock group made self-doubt their brand – The Guardian

When my video call connects with Auckland songwriter Elizabeth Stokes, I realise shes opted for an audio-only chat and switch my camera off too. Its the kind of self-consciousness that makes her music with the Beths feel like a mirror, revealing all of my own neuroses.
I dont think I do a very good job speaking and I quite often prefer not to, she tells me. Its quite, um its hard to think on your feet.
Stokess reticence shouldnt come as a huge surprise: her four-piece band have kind of made self-doubt their brand.
The Beths first record, 2018s Future Me Hates Me, introduced the world to a band that was all guitars and catchy melodies, with a self-effacing sentiment beneath the jangle. They went from playing national tours (which in New Zealand, Stokes says, amounts to three shows) to runs in Europe and North America, where 10 dates with no breaks became the norm. They opened for Pixies, the Breeders, Weezer and Death Cab for Cutie. Stokes was nominated for New Zealand songwriting award the Silver Scroll, twice.
But as their audience swelled, the small Auckland scene that had sheltered and supported them seemed farther and farther away.
Naturally, the disconnect made its way into Stokess lyrics. The Beths second record, Jump Rope Gazers, grapples with the pressure both internal and external of living up to the dream you sketched out for yourself; the shame that comes with falling for your own insecure bullshit again; and the frustration of feeling untethered to life back home.
When I first started this band I was looking back towards

Click here to view the original article.