Bekah Bossard is a 26-year-old musician born in LA, raised in Exeter and now adopted as a South Londoner.
“I was born in LA then my mum got quite sick after I was born, so they moved to England, but to Devon where my grandparents retired to be closer to them … My mum wanted to go home. I think”, “(Exeter) is the best place to be as a kid, as a kid it all feels magical .. but I think it’s quite boring when you get older”. 7 years ago at 19 years of age Bekah made the move to south east London, to study music at Goldsmiths university, the beginning of her new chapter of life.
The chapter she started was her musical career, “I was painfully shy growing up, I always loved to sing but I was always like I could never. I moved to London to study music and that process kind of pushed me out of my shell because everything was so new and scary … I would say a couple of years ago I had this moment where I felt so done with being too scared to put anything out”
While there are clips scattered across the internet of Bekah performing live and acoustic sessions, it wasn’t until this year that Bekah Bossard started releasing tracks onto streaming sites and is currently in the process of releasing her debut project, which is still yet to be given a name. The project will be 5 tracks long with the current releases being; ‘Stranger to Myself’, ‘Venus’, ‘Four Walls’, and ‘What You Wanted’.
Bekah has a breathy, solemn tone which beautifully illustrates her raw and deeply personal lyrics. Bekah’s music is her explosion of expression, “I think that I have just so many feelings, too many feelings. I think the only way I can process them is through writing music.”. Taking inspiration from artists who similarly to Bekah have a somewhat a cathartic pen, “The first song I remember being obsessed with as a kid was ‘fire and rain’ by James Taylor, it’s about his friend who died and I remember thinking that was the most amazing thing ever, you could experience something so sad and make something really beautiful out of it”. The emotions of Bekah are showcased on the all ready released tracks from her upcoming project, as she covers topic of anxiety, pain, love and sadness. “I think the really intense vulnerability that comes from that end of James Taylor and Joni mitchell its very heart on the sleeve like you can make something, almost painful to make, and you can share it and make it this beautiful thing”
‘Venus’ is a beautiful track off Bekah’s upcoming project and is an ode to her mother who has been battling with Multiple sclerosis most of Bekah’s life, her mothers illness has obviously affected her life quite significantly and with the release of ‘Venus’, Rebekah held a show in support of the MS Society at The Old Library in New cross. The night saw Bekah headline with a few friends sharing the stage on the night, an evening that saw Bekah raise just over a thousand pounds (£1088.61) for the MS society, a charity set on finding treatment and cure for all those with MS.
“It was so so overwhelming. I think I cried 10 minutes into the night, honestly, it was so emotional when you’ve experienced someone close to you not well, you just want to do anything and everything, but you feel so powerless and like you physically can’t do anything”.
Bekah was a young carer growing up, I spoke to her just after her show and I felt the high she had from doing something and raising money and awareness for a cause that truly matters to her, “Just being able to see that there are some steps that can be made to contribute to research and contribute to just supporting people going through that, it was really nice to see that’s possible in some sense”
“It was hard not to have mum there but it made her so happy and just that in itself was so nice“.
Bekah has truly kicked off her career this year, with her still unnamed debut EP set to drop before the end of the year. We ended our chat talking about the future and what Bekah has planned, she has always worked alongside Ellie Mason when recording her tracks but in recent times has begun working with a number of different writers, “ I have been writing with more people, that’s been really fun and something new for me”. Bekah ended our chat by saying this “Honestly I’m just gonna keep releasing and having fun with it”, if that creates more of the music we’re hearing from her so far then I think we should all hope she continues to have fun with it.
