The ladies of Avenue Beat — Sami Bearden, Savana Santos and Sam Backoff — first started singing together while studying musical theater in Illinois. “Savana and I have been friends since we were babies, and we met Sami when we were around 14 at a musical theater camp in our hometown,” Sam told HollywoodLife EXCLUSIVELY. “We honestly just started singing together because it was fun! We would just make covers in my living room and hangout. It was just fun, and we never thought it would be a career.”
After being discovered by their now-manager during a trip to Nashville when they were just 15 years old, the girls put a lot more focus into their music. Once they graduated high school, they moved to Nashville full-time and began writing a LOT of songs. “What worked for us was just being ourselves and kind of writing about our friendship and the stuff we relate to with each other,” Sami explained. “The first batch of songs is honestly just us. It’s the things we talk about, the things we worry about, and exactly how we would say it. That’s the stuff people have responded to.”
While Avenue Beat’s songs are mostly just about “keeping it real,” according to Sami, their music has also been influenced by their background in musical theater. “We all grew up listening to different things and we listen to a variety of things now, but theater is how we met and how we bonded,” Sami said. “We’ve definitely adopted the comedic timing of theater and the storytelling aspect of it, and how to sync up the melody to make the lyric more impactful. In that way, musical theater has definitely inspired what we do!”
The ladies recently released their self-titled EP, but have constantly been working on new music that they hope to put out for fans ASAP. “Getting rejected [has inspired] the new music,” Savana admitted. Sami added, “We call this year Avenue Beat vs Dating. For our first two years in town, we didn’t date at all. We weren’t 21 years old yet, so we couldn’t go out. This year has been super weird because we’ve all been starting to date and we’re all SO BAD at it!”
This fall, the ladies will be hitting the road with Mason Ramsey for a string of tour dates. They opened for Mason earlier this year, as well, and are stoked to get back onstage for his fans. “The energy of a Mason Ramsey show is INSANE,” Sam admitted. “He’s the sweetest 12 year old boy I know. It’s been so crazy, just connecting with the fans after the show. We try to keep in touch with them on social and it’s almost more like a friendship — we’re making friends on tour!” We can’t wait to see what’s next for these gals!