Nov 29, 2020

Avenue Beat: 2020 Is the Year of the Girl Band

by Gabrielle Fezza & Mackenzie Maher

Yeah, fuck 2020, but Avenue Beat does make 2020 a little less fucked.

Avenue Beat are a rising girlband that blew up on TikTok with their single F2020 (Fuck 2020) featuring Jessie Reyez — Photo by Delaney Royer

Avenue Beat's insta bio might read, “the first girl group with them all ugly as fck," but they make us want to get our girl gang together and form a band as dope as theirs.

Being that I’m in the midst of forming my own girl band with my two girl friends from home, I was beyond excited to talk to Avenue Beat, who are a direct representation of what makes girl bands so incredible. Sami, Savana and Sam are writing songs about stuff that nobody else wants to talk about, but that we all need to hear, especially their song “I don’t really like your boyfriend.” The girls want their music to be something that people can say “hey, I have something to tell you. So just hit play and listen to these lyrics."

Not gonna lie, our interview felt like a hangout. These girls opened up about their lives and shared their favorite moments as though we were a bunch of old friends catching up. Sharing frustrations about COVID, their creativity and songwriting process, and their love for music were the major points of our convo. In the end, though, one thing we all agreed on was that there are not nearly enough girl bands in the world.

Their advice to me, as well as to any girl who dreams of starting a girl band, comes straight from their own history.

One of the hardest parts about getting your girl band together is finding the right name. However, Avenue Beat humorously confessed that their name actually came from a random band name generator (for real) online, similarly to how Post Malone got his name.

The girls opened up about their struggles coming into the public music scene, which is difficult to imagine with their melodic voices, remarkable lyrics, and incredibly cool personalities. One of the many lyrics that struck me in F2020 was, “And I put out some music that nobody liked.” This song is a bop, so it's hard to imagine it not being as successful as it is. Yet, the girls' start in music was far from easy. A couple of days before writing F2020, their first single on country radio was pulled.

"Stuff didn’t start popping off for us until we really wrote music that was just what we had to say,” Savana said. It’s no secret that authenticity is what makes Avenue Beat so awesome.

This is their greatest piece of advice for anyone who wants to start a girl band. As they so gracefully encouraged us, “Do whatever the fuck you want.”

“It’s just what we were feeling that day, we were like we’re angry, we need to write about this," Sami said.

The music industry is so crazy right now, and that's mostly thanks to TikTok. Let's be real: our Spotify is currently filled with trending songs from this app. For the first time, a social media app is entirely ruling the music charts. The most relatable song of the year is their recent hit that blew up on TikTok: F2020.

“We literally did not think that was gonna happen, before that we got 7,000 views maybe on a TikTok. We were like trash. We put that up just so it had a place to live and the next morning I think it had like 5 million views and we were just like what? We were texting in our group chat like guys what is happening," Sam recalled.

Fans of the band even created a viral TikTok challenge with this song where they show their biggest fuck 2020 moments, making this song a true slogan for this year.

Avenue Beat has put everything that's been on our minds into a dope 3 minute song because we've all been 110% done with 2020 since March.

The lyrics, “but I think that I am kinda done. Can we just get to 2021? Please Lowkey fuck 2020,” resonate with all of the fucked up shit that has been happening in this past year.

Now, we've all said fuck 2020 at some point this year, but how did the song come to be? After the passing of Sami's beloved cat, Gumbo, the girls were totally fed up and from this frustration, inspiration was born. The dopest thing is that no matter who you are and how your year is going, you'll find yourself singing along wherever and whenever their song plays. With their growing success, get ready to start seeing these girls literally everywhere.

“That was like the catalyst, like the feather on top of all the horrible things in our personal lives, in the world, and then the cat died and we were like literally I don’t know what else to do anymore," Sami said.

With such a distinctively individual image, it was interesting to hear where Avenue Beat draw their inspiration from. Their dream collaboration, without a second of hesitation, is Kacey Musgraves. And not gonna lie, this would be a dreamy collaboration. If a music producer is reading this, we are begging: please make this happen ASAP.

While this year has been awful in many ways, monumental things have happened. Movements have been born. It is clear that even when life goes back to "normal," we'll all be different people. Some of their cultural resets of the year ranged from the mental shift of no longer listening to societal boundaries, to something stylistically influential like beloved Euphoria makeup.

With songs like “thank you anxiety,” it’s no secret that the girls of Avenue Beat are advocates of mental health awareness. In reference to Mud’s "Call Your Friends" campaign–which aims to get people to open up about the stuff that no one mentions–the girls had super useful advice to offer about the best way to check in with your friends and their mental health. The trio amusingly brought up how the three of them differ when it comes to emotions and expressing feelings, some being more immediately open than others.

“The first step is to know your friends. Figure out how they like to communicate and cater to that,” Savana said. “Because everyone is different and everyone does need to be checked on in a certain way that makes them feel seen.”

Sweetly enough, the girls have a pact where they know they can call one another when they’re not feeling their best. Sami says she often receives phone calls from the other two, point-blank, saying, “My anxiety is being a bitch today.” For Avenue Beat, being able to call out your anxiety for what it is is incredibly validating in these “call your friends” type of phone calls.

Our conversation was filled with laughter and good stories, and also included us swapping our insta handles. Sami, Savannah, and Sam may be rising to the top, but they are so grounded and warm that it's impossible not to love them. They're the living proof that we need more girl bands in the world. As a final piece of advice, Avenue Beat speaks pure facts about empowerment.

Don’t let a nasty hate comment from a guy holding a fish on his dating profile stop you from creating your girl band or pursuing your creativity. Life is unexpected and takes many turns, and this year is proof of that. One day you can become an overnight TikTok sensation, too.

Our conversation comes to an end sooner than we wanted it to, and we say goodbye like if we'd been best friends our whole lives. As soon as we hang up, we miss their faces, but their energy lives on and continues to do so since we met them. The Avenue Beat girls make us want to be “ugly as fck"...if “ugly as fck” looks as good as them, then that's something we should all aspire to be.

This story appeared in the October 2020 issue of Mud Magazine, which you can purchase here.