San Francisco-based alternative folk duo Betsy & Beau call themselves "crooked and sweet" and that's a perfect description of their sound. Taking their influences from classic country and blues, their sound is simultaneously nostalgic and innovative, placing them amongst other bay area musicians in the alternative folk (or freak folk, new weird american, etc) movement such as Devendra Banhart. Betsy & Beau's sound is both timeless and experimental with the combination of their voices: her soft, smokey coo with his sharp, raspy words.
Their self-titled album is available for free listening on their site, or you can buy a copy at one of their shows, they are mostly playing locally for now.
How do you go about writing your music? Do you write your songs together?
Beau: Well, for me I can either start with the music, vocal melody, lyrics or all together. I notice with Betsy it works a little differently. The songs she has written that we play are brought to me acapella and I set chords to them. I think it forces us to learn a different approach on both sides. We play a lot of covers but adapt them and sometimes even do a little re-writing. For example, our version of the June Carter & Johnny Cash song 'Jackson' has almost exclusively our own lyrics.
What is one song lyric that you wished you had written?
Beau: [A] classic: "Your halo is the neon, your harp a jukebox song, your heaven is a honky tonk, you love to live so wrong"- 'Tarnished Angel' sung by George Jones, written by Roger Miller, Recent[ly]: "My heart is a poor bird, weary and worn with no place to perch in this orchard of thorns"- 'Codeine Arms' Eilen Jewell
What instruments do you play?
Beau: I play guitar, bass, organ and a little drums. All just enough to get by but primarily guitar and organ.
Betsy: I play my voice. Because it's so immediate and I know how to do it without really knowing what I'm doing. Its something I can always do and its an internal instrument so it feels like the most vulnerable way to make music and share an idea. When you're singing, you can't pretend, its the most immediate delivery system from me to an ear. I think because of my background in the theater, singing is a natural thing because I feel a lot of ease in performing with my voice. Besides that, Beau decided I was going to play percussion which consists of a tambourine and some shakers. I really like it but secretly I feel like a complete phony and sometimes I think someone will find out and tell me to stop it.
Any awkward memories from playing in San Francisco?
Beau: We played a show awhile back where the lead singer of the headlining band was talking very loud with his back to us throughout our set. We're not very loud so we could hear everything he was saying the whole time. Betsy called him out mid-set with some lighthearted banter and after that he suddenly shut up and stepped into the shadows. It was probably more awkward for him.
Top 5 desert island albums?
Betsy: I can't do this. If I had to live on a desert island with 5 records I would end up hating and resenting music. So I would choose no albums and just sing and bang on trees with sticks. Unless there was some rescue mission that was built into this fantasy and I just had to live there for a long time with 5 albums, I would probably do something like: Superfly- Curtis Mayfield, Innervissions- Stevie Wonder, Rain Dogs-Tom Waits, Revival-Gillian Welch [and] Etta James-At Last.
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