BE GOOD are Closeup Artist Spotlight

This week, Oxford four-piece BE GOOD had a chat with our friends CLOSEUP for our Artist Spotlight feature for a casual chat as they gear up to play Colours Hoxton in London next month.

BE GOOD, it’s great to have a chat! We love your music as you well know. This April you take on one a huge London headline show, what should we expect!?!

Hey! You can expect a bunch of smooth tunes, some concerning wardrobe choices and a very cavalier attitude toward the venue’s pyrotechnic policy.

What part of the musical process do you enjoy most, and why? is it performing live, creating your tracks or..?

I think the best part of the process is the point when we’re about to finish a song and are just sort of tinkering with it. There’s a really special feeling when you can see the shape of a new tune and it’s sounding close to the finished product, especially when you’ve lived with something for so long and have spent ages building it.

The process is always super involved and satisfying – there’s something about the intensity of writing music. It’s also cool the first time you come to arrange something with the band and play it live – I really like that as well.

Your tunes have been listened to millions of times across the world as Spotify informs us, Spotify is now such a big player in the industry, how important do you think it is for acts?

I think a lot of people complain about Spotify and the fact it doesn’t pay particularly well – I’ve got sympathy for that. I do also think it does a lot of good for artists and provides a platform for getting music out there that we’ve previously never seen.

The idea that a band without a label, press or a publisher could have a song heard hundreds of thousands of times was virtually impossible 10-20 years ago, so it definitely offers a completely new set of opportunities for artists. I don’t think it’s perfect – the editorial teams are somewhat playing a gatekeeper role at the moment, despite what they say in their interviews – but ultimately, it’s a great thing for artists.

If you created a BE GOOD Festival, and could pick three headliners, who would you go for?!

Ah this is tough. I think we’d all say something different, but the consensus would be Mahalia, Big Thief, and Bon Iver.

We’re a few months into 2020 now, tell us what your plans are for this year?

Loads of plans for 2020 – we’ve got a bunch of new music to release and are working on making stuff that’s a lot more ambitious, much grander and a little different. We’ll be getting out on the road later in the year and hopefully getting out to the US!