A decade ago, three singer/songwriters crossed paths at Texas’ Kerriville Folk Festival and discovered a bond that has led to not only an amazing friendship but also one of the fastest up-and-coming female Folk groups. This sisterhood of BettySoo, Grace Pettis and Rebecca Loebe, each successful in their own right, merged their songwriting artistry and insane harmonies and formed Nobody’s Girl. After a whirlwind year, the trio released their debut EP Waterline this past September.
We caught up with the ladies to talk about their friendship, music and the Final Frontier.
CN: For our readers who may not be familiar with you, can you tell us a little bit about yourselves?
BettySoo: We are three songwriters who each ended up calling Austin, Texas, home. We have all had a nice taste of success in the folk world, playing as solo artists at festivals and storied venues for the past dozen or so years, but together we are exploring our deep love of music closer to our country and pop-rock roots…and yes, we can hear the irony in that.
CN: At what age did you discover music? When did you realize your passion and that this was something you wanted to pursue?
BS: I don’t ever remember not being surrounded by music. My family has always been musical. All of my sisters and I (there are four of us) grew up playing instruments, playing in the school band, singing at church and with our family…my oldest sister was performing at big piano concerto competitions before she was out of middle school. I do remember being around four or five years old, and one of my older sisters and my mother were singing Christmas carols in the car in harmony with one another. I asked how they did that, and their answer was simple: “Listen.” I did, and then, as the story goes, I sang along, right in harmony.
As for knowing I wanted to do this for a career, that came way later. I think growing up around that much talent was an inhibitor in some ways. If sisters I knew were much more skilled and talented than I were not pursuing music…it wasn’t even a conscious thought process — I KNEW I wasn’t going to be a musician. I don’t think I ever let myself even dream of becoming a professional performing songwriter. Years ago, a friend of mine invited me to have coffee and talk. I was in graduate school and felt like my life was pretty together, until she told me everyone but me knew I wanted to pursue music. I thought she was crazy and a little rude, so I told my husband about it, and he agreed…with her.
CN: Which musicians have influenced you both personally and as an artist?
Grace Pettis: I’d have to start with my dad, Pierce Pettis, and with his songwriter circle of friends. People like David Wilcox, Sara Hickman, Tom Kimmel, Cliff Eberhardt, Lisa Aschmann, Dana Cooper, Andrew Peterson, Jill Phillips, Andy Gullahorn. Lots of troubadours with guitars. Singers who cared a whole lot about crafting great songs. I was welcomed into the folk tribe from a young age, hawking cds at festivals when I was still in pigtails. More often, though, my dad would leave me at home when he went on tour, but then he’d come back with a box of cds for me to listen to. He’d leave with a box of his own cds and they’d all be swapped by the time he got home with other musicians’ albums. Not a great business strategy, maybe, but it gave me a lot to listen to for a pre-Wi-Fi kid in rural Alabama. Some of the musicians were well known. Others were just starting out. I didn’t care- as long as the songs were good. If I approved an album, I’d give it back to my dad to listen to.
Besides the steady musical diet of a college folk station DJ, I also grew up with the music my parents loved- Joni Mitchell, The Beatles, Emmylou Harris, Bob Dylan, The Indigo Girls. And later, when my stepmom came into the picture- Dire Straits, U2, Crowded House, Tom Petty, Peter Gabriel, The Police. I got really into Billie Holiday when I was 12 or so and living at mom’s house in Atlanta, at the suggestion of a piano teacher. That provoked a love affair with jazz, soul, and r&b, and women who could really sing. Aretha Franklin, Etta James, Ella Fitzgerald, then Lauryn Hill, Mary J Blige, Destiny’s Child, Alicia Keys and India Arie. Country didn’t come till later, even though it was all around me growing up in the South. My brother Rayvon got into it first, when he worked at a factory that made playground equipment. I figured, if my cool big brother thought country was cool now, it must be ok. So I got into Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, the Dixie Chicks, Martina McBride, Shania Twain, Lee Ann Womack, Merle Haggard, Townes Van Zandt and Hank Williams too.
CN: Being songwriters, can you take us through your song writing process? Do you draw mostly from personal experiences, or from those around you?
BS: I don’t write a lot on the road. Solo, I mostly write at home, at my computer, with either a piano or a guitar. Occasionally, I’ll have beats going. When I co-write, I usually want to meet in a very quiet place where we will be disturbed by nothing. I want it to be a totally safe place to take risks, where you can try things that sound stupid until you find the things that sound like something good. I used to think I wrote almost 100% from other people’s stories and feelings, internalizing them like a fiction writer. It still feels that way to me when I sit down to write. That said, if one waits a few years, one will start to see with hindsight that some older songs seem almost prophetic. We process so much subconsciously, and I find that once in a while, my songs have a lot to reveal to me.
CN: The three of you met at Kerrville Folk Festival about 10 years ago. What was it that drew you towards each other?
Rebecca Loebe: When we first met, we were drawn to each other as friends, but there was music all around us. We were all pretty much at the beginning of our journeys as touring songwriters – BettySoo and I were both contestants in the New Folk Songwriting Competition, and Grace was still in college! I think we all connected separately throughout that festival, drawn to each other’s songs and getting to know one another as friendly acquaintances. Over the years we kept running into each other, sharing stages and gradually getting to know one another, so by the time it occurred to us to go on tour together it felt incredibly natural.
CN: When did you realize your vocals can harmonize so smoothly?
BS: Honestly, I don’t think we knew we would actually sound great together until the day we were filming our iPhone video of “Fast Car” (by Tracy Chapman).
CN: What is the story behind your name, “Nobody’s Girl”?
RL: As you may know, this project started as a one-time tour and quickly turned into a band when we were offered a record deal. The album was recorded and about to be printed when we realized that we were missing something – a band name! We hadn’t even played a show together yet. We were all traveling at the time and furiously texting back-and-forth trying to come up with a banner to fly over this thing. We looked through a lot of literature, song lyrics and quotes, searching for a combination of words that felt right and when we landed on Nobody’s Girl it felt like it all clicked together.
CN: A lot has happened for you guys in 2018. You returned to Kerrville not as three individual artists but as a trio. Then you signed a record deal and recorded Waterline, which was released on September 28th. Now you are on tour. What was going through your minds as things were picking up at lightning speed?
RL: It’s wild to me that in exactly one year, almost to the day, we went from singing together for the first time (on our “Fast Car” cover video, filmed on a friend’s iPhone) to releasing an album on a record label with a ton of tour dates booked in the US and Europe. This project has had an interesting amount of momentum on it’s own, something that feels bigger than just the sum of all of our audience and enthusiasm… So for most of the past year, it’s kind of felt like we’ve been trying to catch up to it, in a weird way… I guess the big lesson I’ve taken from it all is that you really never can guess what’s going to happen next!
CN: Let’s talk about Waterline. How did the seven songs, which are a mix of original material and covers, come together?
GP: We went into the studio with four new original songs that we loved, and that more importantly, the label and producer loved, so those were definitely in. From there, we figured we’d need a few covers to round out the record. We decided to do one recognizable cover that might bring in a few new fans- “Call Me”- and one cover of a friend of ours. Rebecca suggested “Bluebonnets” by Raina Rose and we fell in love with it. It all came together very quickly. We recorded the record weeks after we’d written the songs so that we’d have cds to sell in time for our debit tour. We seized the moment.
CN: That cover is an awesome slowed down version of Blondie’s “Call Me.” Can you talk about how you rearranged this classic 80s song to make it your own, while still keeping true to Debbie Harry’s original?
GP: I’ve ALWAYS wanted to cover “Call Me.” It’s such a strong, sexy song. The melody is outrageous and the lyrics are flirty with this kind of steely backbone. “Color me your car.” And, it goes without saying, but Debbie Harry is everything.
BettySoo and Rebecca jumped at the idea of doing “Call Me.” We are all Blondie fans. Arranging harmonies with BettySoo to back Rebecca up was some of the most fun I’ve ever had in a band.
Rebecca’s lead vocal on our version is a brand new take on it for sure, and our production is very different too. We knew we couldn’t compete with the original but we wanted to at least retain the personality of it- that fun exterior with the tougher undertones. I think we got there.
CN: You will also be headed out to Europe for your tour in support of the EP. How excited are you to bring your music to fans in other countries?
RL: I’m thrilled – BettySoo and I have both toured in Europe as solo artists many times before, so it’s going to be fun to return to familiar towns and crowds with a brand new project and a bigger sound. We’re also really excited because this will be Grace’s first tour in Europe – she has fans over there who have been asking her to come over but it hasn’t worked out until now. I’m really looking forward to exploring these European towns and venues through fresh eyes with a new project. Short answer: SO EXCITED!
CN: Fun fact – the three of you are Star-Trek fans. How did that come up in conversation? Ever attend a convention together?
GP: So I’m probably the biggest Star Trek nerd of the three of us. The other two have a deep love for Next Generation and the original series but they would probably call themselves fans- not necessarily Trekkies. Me, on the other hand? I have a stuffed tribble and a tricorder on my desk, a model of the Enterprise hanging from my ceiling, and a uniform in my closet, complete with go-go boots. I’ve seen every episode of every series and all the movies (yep, even those really bad ones) and I am SO INTO the new series- Star Trek: Discovery. Next Gen is my favorite series and “The Trouble with Tribbles” (TOS) is my favorite episode.
We were all talking about why Star Trek is awesome (I maybe brought it up) and somehow the conversation turned to which characters of Next Gen were most like us. Because we had had the conversation recently, it ended up in our interview with our publicist and then in our press release. Which thrilled me to the core. The warp core.
I’ve actually never been to a convention and I would really like to. I already have the uniform, so…
CN: Do you have a dream collaboration in mind?
GP: I’m in it. Seriously. I feel so lucky to be a part of this trio. Otherwise…Paul McCartney comes to mind. As long as we’re dreaming big.
CN: If you could describe yourselves in one word, what would it be and why?
BS: True
GP: Qapla’! (Which means “success” in Klingon.)
RL: Cohesive
CN: What was the first concert you ever attended?
RL: I’m pretty sure the first concert I ever attended was The Everly Brothers with my parents. My dad and I sang in harmony all the way home! Maybe I was destined to start a harmony group?
CN: With the release of Waterline in September and being on tour, with only a few months left of 2018 – what else do you have planned to close out the year? Any plans in the works for 2019?
BS: We are touring through the midwest and the northeast this November, and then we scatter briefly to our other projects and families for a month. We come back together to tour with American Music Abroad (a program with the U.S. State Department) in January and to tour in Europe for the month of April. Keep your eyes and ears open for us to come to your town or play on your radio station. We’d love to see and perform for all of you!
For more information on Nobody’s Girl, visit their website at www.nobodysgirlmusic.com and follow them on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.