Avenue Beat — made up of members Sam Backoff, Sami Bearden and Savana Santos — was presented with an difficult task going into 2021: create a song that everyone could “relate” to just as much as “F2020.” It was the ultimate F-You to 2020, inspired by Sami’s cat dying amid the pandemic, which currently has more than 20 million views across TikTok and YouTube and cemented its status as an official viral hit with a spot on Top 40 radio. Simply put, everyone could agree that 2020 sucked. So, the three creative forces behind Avenue Beat turned to another universal truth for their follow-up single: women are, well, amazing.
“We’re like, trying to think of something else everyone can relate to. And then literally Savanna’s girlfriend walked in, and we’re like, that’ll work,” Sam EXCLUSIVELY told HollywoodLife in a video interview on Jan. 15, the day their new single “Woman” dropped. While looking back at this moment of revelation, Sami chimed in to recall what they had all been thinking at the time: “Women: hot!” As their new song’s title suggests, the romantic track is a celebration of all women. “What’s more beautiful than a woman? Nothin’,” the chorus states, which is hard to argue with.
Sami added that such a message is “a universal opinion,” even “if you are not attracted to women.” This pivot from “F2020” to “Woman” — from a funeral to a celebration — was also a conscious effort on Avenue Beat’s part to focus on the more “positive” aspects of life.
“We’ve always written our frustrations out. So a lot of our music does turn into us just complaining about…life’s many issues…disappointments and crap,” Sami explained (case in point: another one of their popular songs, “i don’t really like your boyfriend,” which is as blunt as its title). She continued, “But we wanted to make sure that we didn’t, you know, pigeonhole ourselves into that lane and show that we can be positive, because these things should be celebrated. Women should be celebrated.”
What “Woman” and “F2020” do have in common, however, is the natural flow of dialogue that flows out of each song. The lyrics could be interchangeable with actual words exchanged between friends in any given conversation, because that’s exactly what’s happening when Avenue Beats gets together to write their songs. “It’s going into a room and having a conversation and the conversation becomes the lyric. So it’s pretty easy and nice,” Savana said.
It’s a creative approach that Sami, Savana and Sam have used since they were teenagers, after all meeting one another at a musical theater camp. Sam reminisced on being “each other’s only friends” in high school, convening in her dining room where they “would literally just write songs or do covers or whatever.” Each step the creative trio took from there on out led to the explosive success that “F2020” eventually brought.
“And then we would play shows in our hometown,” Sam continued. “And eventually we played a show in Nashville and got connected there. And when we graduated, we moved here full time, and just like buckled down writing songs…once Savana started producing for us, I feel like we really fell into our sound. And then ‘F2020’ happened, and now here we are.”
The girls of Avenue Beat talk more about the beginnings of their music career in Nashville — which eventually led to their transition from country to pop– and more in the rest of their video interview with HollywoodLife above!