The Beths: 'We're going hard this year'

Their music has made Obama's summer playlist, they've played Coachella and next week will rock the main stage at WOMAD Aotearoa.

The Beths' lead vocalist Liz Stokes and guitarist John Pierce chat to Saturday Morning about delivering "a half-hour of power" at international music festivals, their "nerve-wracking" Coachella experience and an exciting year ahead.

The Beths really enjoy touring around, Stokes said, which lately had been mostly to play short sets at international music festivals.

"You get slick pretty quickly because you're thrown into a pretty high-pressure situation.

"We try to do 'a half-hour of power' and just play the most hard-hitting, compelling version of our setlist."

After playing the same songs so many times, it's nice to be able to "stretch out a little bit" during the performance, Stokes said.

"There's this deep satisfaction that comes from doing something over and over again and getting better at it marginally… in a sports way or like a skill, craft way.

"It's like an Olympic sport or something at times where you're just trying to eke out that last centimetre of your toe on the line or something like that," Pierce added.

This past summer The Beths had been in a "windowless studio" mixing their next album, which was due out later in the year and would be accompanied by "lots of exciting announcements", Pierce promised.

"We're going hard this year."

To Stokes, the songs she wrote for the upcoming album - which together represent "a collage of her last couple of years" - sounded "a lot less optimistic" than previous Beths' records.

"I don't know if it's a reflection of the general feeling of coming out of COVID. There was kind of an optimism and hm… I don't know if it's there anymore. But anxiety is on fleek."

Although their music has an edge, Stokes says the front row at a Beths show is usually full of "really engaged and happy faces".

She does have a message for the inevitable "yawning guy", though - "Just don't yawn if you're in the front row. Turn around."

Now an old hand at festival-going, Stokes' hack for legs sore from standing is taking ibuprofen around 10pm.

Her biggest tip for having a good time is don't be afraid to peel off from your mates to make sure you see the artists you like.

When you're interested in watching a certain artist but your friends are more into chatting you've simply got to break away from them, Stokes says.

"You'll regret it if you're just standing at the back and like 'I could be having a much better time'.

"Go right to the front and get amongst the people who are really on the same level as you for that particular artist, and then meet up again afterwards."

The Beths - whose name comes from Beth, a shortening of Stokes' full name 'Elizabeth' - got together when the bandmates were all studying jazz at Auckland University in 2014.

Eleven years later, as they release their sixth album, Pierce's advice to aspiring musicians is to keep churning out the songs.

"The only way to get better at something is to do it a lot so just commit to writing. If you write 20 songs this year I guarantee you one of those songs at least will be good."

Last year The Beths recorded a prestigious Tiny Desk concert at NPR in New York.