Bladen Co. native Beck Black releases new full-length rock record “Hollywood Blvd”
The Bladen County native and UNCW grad wrote and produced all nine new tracks
BLADEN COUNTY, N.C. (WECT) - Bladen County native Beck Black has released her first full-length album of original songs. The multi-talented singer, songwriter and musician has new nine songs on the album Hollywood Blvd, which is available today on most major digital platforms including iTunes, Spotify and Deezer.
“I was living above the Hollywood Hills, and I could see all of the frenetic energy on Hollywood Boulevard, and decided to write a song that became the title track for the album,” Black said from her home outside of Elizabethtown. “The album starts with helicopters, and it’s an adventure all the way through to the song Life’s a Circus. The last lyric for the entire album is ‘Stand up for the applause, it is at the end’. It’s a complete rock and roll journey.”
Recently returning from playing shows in the Los Angeles area, the UNCW grad is busy doing a lot of self-promotion for the new record. One soon-to-be-released video supporting the album, for the song Puppet Show, was shot in North Carolina using a local film crew. The video for the song Don’t Talk to Me is already available on Black’s YouTube channel, while a video of the band in the studio making Life’s a Circus is on Vimeo.
When it comes to gauging the success of Hollywood Blvd, Black says it won’t necessarily be shown by the number of digital downloads and streams, or on airplay.
“It is the numbers, the superfluous influence of social media is what is, sort of, the metric system to success for a lot of artists,” she said. “It’s how many followers you have on social media. In terms of industry standards, I’m nowhere near the breaking point because I only have, for example, on Instagram on my BeckBlackMusic account, I have 2,300 followers. In the industry, the standards are 100,000 followers, for example, for labels, major distribution to distribute these albums, for booking agents to book you to do tours around Europe, which is a dream of mine.”
In addition to writing and producing the tracks on the new album, Black plays several instruments on the songs, including piano, synthesizer and bass guitar. Guitarist Mo Matatquin and drummer Adam Alt round out the Beck Black Band. They are hoping to build on the exposure the band received last year, when former Beatle Ringo Starr played drums on Black’s song Who’s Gonna Save Rock and Roll.
“Ringo, really, the best way I could put it is, it gave me street cred,” Black says about Ringo’s appearance on the song and in the music video. “It was like ‘Hey, this artist Beck Black, she’s been working all these years, trying to come up in the industry. She’s an independent artist that used to work at WECT as a sound engineer and is just really trying to make it.”
Black says she does not have any upcoming shows on the schedule, but hopes that will change as Hollywood Blvd gains traction. She is planning to release an EP of country music songs in 2022.
You can check out Beck Black’s music videos and social media sites by clicking here to go to her website, BeckBlack.com.
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