How a TikTok Dream Became Reality for Bee Smith

0:00 Welcome to the Living the Dream Podcast with Curveball, if you believe you can achieve. Welcome to the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast, a show where I interview guests that teach, motivate and inspire. Today, I am joined by rising country singer, songwriter, bea Smith. Bea is straight out of the United Kingdom. We're going to be talking to her about her music and her career and what she's got coming up.

0:43 So, bea, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you for having me. Why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself? Yeah, so I'm Bea. I'm from England, I'm from a small town just outside of Preston, which is in Lancashire, and I've been singing for over 10 years well, performing for over 10 years, singing for longer than that and I was recently signed to Bookshop Records there in Louisiana. So I'm on my musical journey, my country music journey, over in the States soon. So, yeah, it's really exciting. Yeah, and I'm actually from Louisiana.

1:24 Oh, amazing, yeah, and I'm actually from Louisiana. oh, amazing, so tell the listeners how you, how you got into singing so I've always, I've always sung since I was really little. I've always enjoyed doing it, um, but then when I was growing up, I I really wanted to do that as a career. I wanted to go to performing arts school and my brother did that and I just I loved the idea of it, um, but my family, it was basically a hard no. Um, they didn't see singing as a proper job, if you will. So they kind of said that I needed to go into journalism. So I thought, well, maybe it's just always going to be a bit of a hobby.

2:07 And that's what I did. I pursued media and I studied media and went to university and things, and I just that longing never left. I always wanted to carry on singing. So I would just do like open mics or karaoke competitions, things like that when I could, and then I sang for a bit and then I was performing in the UK, quite locally to where I'm from, but I was singing like pop music and things and it just wasn't really me, it wasn't really what I wanted to do, and so I took a break from it and I became a mum and then I said to myself like this, literally this time last year I said, right, I'm going to do something with it now and I started a TikTok account, which was really strange to begin with, because I've never been brilliant with social media.

3:01 So I started a TikTok account and I was discovered online by this record label in Louisiana. So it's kind of just snowballed from there really. Well, that's actually pretty cool. Congratulations. Thank you. Yeah, it's an amazing opportunity. Tell us about some of your biggest influences. You know who influences you to do what you do. I mean, at the moment it's my daughter, to be honest. She inspires me to work hard and show her that you know, you don't have to always go down the kind of traditional routes of you know, of family expectations and what, what you, and kind of being pushed into something that you don't really want to do.

3:50 It's she. I kind of want to show her that you can achieve what you want to achieve, um, by hard work and and not giving up. So, yeah, I mean, you know, musically I have loads and loads of influences, from country to soul and even gospel. I love all genres of music. I think if I had to pick a favourite country artist at the moment which is really hard but if I had to pick a favourite, it would be Ashley McBride. I absolutely love her and I do say her a lot, but I do have a lot of favorites. She is my queen of country to me.

4:32 Yeah, I like Ashley McBride too. Yeah, she's awesome. It's the songwriting. I love the way she writes. She's amazing. So tell us about your current projects out, tell us what inspired them and tell us all about them. Yeah, so my current single is called Little Girl's Heart and that I wasn't. Actually. You can actually think that would be my debut single. When I went into writing it I wrote it with a co-writer called Nick Sagar. He actually produced it as well and he kind of just asked me, you know, when we went into the session, what do you want to write about?

5:18 And we were just talking about kind of life experiences and stuff. And then the story for this just kind of came out quite organically really, and it's about my experience of a father figure growing up. So it's a true, it's a true story, um, and it kind of takes the the traditional idea of a father in country music or how they're perceived in country music, um, as you know, of being a great role model and daddy's boots are hard to fill and daddy will walk you down the aisle and things like that and kind of turns it on its head, um, because that certainly wasn't my experience of of growing up, uh, with my father.

5:59 He left when I was six. So that's basically the story. Story of what the song is. It's quite a sad song, but I felt it was important to kind of get that out there and get a really kind of truthful account for my debut single. Absolutely. You think you could sing a little bit of it for the listeners for us. Oh gosh, which bit do you want? Do you want the chorus, or do you want a bit of the verse? It's up to you, whichever one you want to share.

6:39 I'll sing a little bit of that, I think, and it goes so it's. If you listen to it you'll get what it's about. But the last bit of it, which is the most important part of the song, it goes one thing daddies ain't supposed to do, they ain't supposed to bring their little girl's heart. There you go. Yeah, that's pretty good and you're on all the streaming platforms as B Smith. Yes, yes, so I'm on the socials as well, so I'm not brilliant on Instagram. I'm not going to lie, it's not my favorite.

7:20 I use Facebook more. I'm on there. Lie, it's not my favorite, I use them. I use Facebook more. I'm on there as B Smith music official. But yeah, I'm on Spotify and Apple music at YouTube music. I think Deezer as well. All the all the major ones are. It's all on there okay, what will tell us about any upcoming projects that you're working on that listeners need to be aware of? Yeah, so at the minute I'm working on a new single. I'm not sure when it's coming out yet. We've not confirmed a date yet. All I will say at the moment is it's completely different to the first one. It's definitely not a sad song, it's more of a kind of a girly anthem. So I'm really excited about that one coming out as well, and I've got a tour in America coming up in July, so I fly out.

8:12 I think my first show is on the 4th of July and I'm playing in Louisiana and Hattiesburg, mississippi, and there's a few other places I think we're going to head up. I think we're going to go to Texas, go to Tennessee, maybe Arkansas I'm not sure yet, but all the details when that's all been confirmed will be on my website and that's besmithmusiccom all right, that was my next question, bsmithmusiccom. Y'all be on the lookout for that. Sounds like she'll be touring around the south I will. Yes, I can't. I'm so excited. You know, I've never even visited there before either, so I'm so, so excited to come in and and meet everybody that I've already spoken to and, um, I know there's a few tour stops which will be around places where I have interviewed already as well, which is will be amazing to meet people and meet some of my followers from over there as well that have been following me for a while now.

9:13 So I'm so, so excited. Absolutely Close us out with some final thoughts, maybe if that was something I forgot to talk about, that you would like to touch on, or any final thoughts you have for the listeners, maybe if that was something I forgot to talk about that you would like to touch on or any final thoughts you have for the listeners, I think you know I think at this point in my journey it's very, very early on I think one thing that I have learned about all this is just not to give up, because I'm feeling very, very grateful for any kind of new follower or, you know, anyone who downloads and listens to my song. I'm just so grateful for it because I just I'm a big believer in thinking that everything happens for a reason and there's a, there is a higher purpose out there, and had I not have given this a go again last January, I wouldn't be sat here speaking to people like yourself.

10:14 So, just yeah, I just think don't give up on whatever you know. However, that translates to you. All right, ladies and gentlemen, never give up. Go to bsmithmusiccom to check out everything B is up to and her tour dates and her music and everything. Follow, rate, review, share this episode to all of your country music friends and family. Get on your favorite podcast app. Check out the show. Follow us, leave us a review. If you have any guests or suggestion topics, curtis Jackson, 1978 at attnet is the place to send them. Thank you for listening and supporting the show. Couldn't do it without you, bea. Thank you for all that you do and thank you for joining me. Thank you for having me.

10:54 I really appreciate it. For more information on the Living the Dream podcast, visit wwwdjcurveballcom. Wwwdjcurveballcom. Until next time, stay focused on living the dream.