Tag: singer songwriter

Giulia Be: ‘The Eternal Student’

Posted on by joshwurz

Singer/songwriter/actress, 26-year-old Brazilian Giulia Be is your classic high achiever. The type who, in school, destroys the curve. 

Still, even by her absurdly high standards of impressiveness, her latest album, the self-titled GIULIA BE, is the type of accomplishment that leaves fans shaking their head in disbelief. The impressive album finds Be delivering 21 total tracks, some in English, some in Spanish, and some in Portuguese.

An insanely talented and driven multi-hyphenate, Be is the perfect pop star for the increasingly small global music business in 2026. I spoke with Be, who you can absolutely forgive for wrecking the grade curve because she is every bit as sweet and personable as she is a global superstar. 

Cred. Jonathan Wolpert

Hit Parader: I’ve talked to so many songwriters about the idea that songwriting is a form of channeling. Stuff comes to you in a vision or whatever. I’ve heard from people about how songs come in dreams, or Jimmy Cliff told me how he wrote “The Harder They Come” in 10 minutes. Where I’m going with this, since you are doing an album in three languages, how do your songs come to you? Do they come to you in English, in Portuguese, and in Spanish? 

Giulia Be: Depends on the song. I agree 100 percent with what you said. I genuinely believe that we’re all vessels channeling different things and if an idea comes to me, I better write it down, otherwise it’s going to come to someone else soon enough. I start with lyrics usually, which are different. A lot of artists usually start with the melody, and with me I’m very much of a storyteller, so I like to know what I’m going to write about, honestly, in order to inform what melody I should add to the lyrics. So, a lot of times I’ll have a phrase that comes about, and if it comes in Portuguese, then the song is in Portuguese. And if it comes in English, I write the song in English and vice versa. But a lot of times what has happened is I write a song in a language and try translating it into a different language, and it ends up being sometimes a lot worse, sometimes a lot better. There’s a song called “Grillos” that’s in the project that I originally wrote as Crickets, which was a song in English that I translated to Spanish. So, everything can happen in this little brain. 

HP: What inspired you musically?

Be: I was a huge Hannah Montana fan. That was my inspiration as an eight-year-old to be out here writing songs. 

HP: And have you ever met Miley Cyrus? 

Be: I actually have met her. She was doing a Gucci show at Chateau Marmont. And one of the PRs at Gucci, who’s a friend of mine, knew how much I loved her. And at the end, he was like, “I have a surprise for you. I’m going to take you to meet Miley.” My legs started shaking. I literally felt like the eight-year-old that fell in love with her at first glance. He took me to this very small after party in her hotel room and she was just in a white tank top and boxers. Before I could even get a word in, she goes, “Oh my god, you’re so beautiful.” I literally melted. I was like, “Oh my god, this is the most awesome person ever.” They say don’t meet your heroes but in this case I’m just beyond glad that I did because she was just so sweet and so nice and curious and asked me great questions. 

Cred. Jonathan Wolpert

HP: Who are the other heroes you’ve met that you most enjoyed meeting? 

Be: Aside from Miley? Miley was my number one. There’s a Brazilian artist called Seu Jorge, who is also one of my heroes. He was in Life Aquatic, the Wes Anderson movie, just beyond amazing Brazilian artist. I met him last year and he was just the coolest person ever. He gave me a ride back home and he was just talking about social media and the music industry. He has social media, but he rose way before social media did and he’s a legend regardless of social media. I was like, “I cannot believe I’m in a car right now with this guy telling me about social media.” It was just crazy

HP: Being successful in multiple mediums, talk about what you’ve learned being around all these different people.

Be: Like you said you just absorb a little bit of their greatness. In that sense I love just learning. a lot of people are like, “What’s the best thing about having been nominated for a Grammy?” It’s not the actual nomination; it’s just being a part of the academy and being able to meet all of these people that are musicians at the highest levels. They can teach you so much and if they take an interest in your music you can work with them and potentially create something that’s just the next level of your own artistry. I’m an eternal student. I hope to be learning until the day I die and getting the opportunity to hang out around all these people that I admire, be it actors, producers, and other musicians.

HP: What did you learn today? 

Be: What I learned today is it was early in the morning in L.A. But yesterday, honestly, I was watching the Lakers game, and I didn’t learn much, but maybe a few plays about basketball that I had no idea. And I will give the credit to that for my fiancé because basketball is not really a huge thing in Brazil. So, I’m getting introduced to it for the first time now that my fiancé is getting into it himself. 

HP: Going back to writing, are there things that you find that trigger your ideas?

Be: I do this type of therapy called theta healing. It’s this therapy where the theory is that when your brain is in a state of theta, where it’s half up, half asleep, it’s more malleable to access your subconscious. And I’ve found that a lot of times, whenever I’m having a stressful day and I need a reset, when I come out of the meditation, it’s when the ideas are flowing the most. Also, there’s nothing like a good old nap. You always wake up from a nap with a good idea. That’s interesting now. You’ve got to catch the idea when it comes.

Cred. Jonathan Wolpert

HP: What was the song you wrote in your sleep?

Be: It was a song called “Si Essa Vida Fosse Um Filme,” which means “If This Life Was a Movie.” That song I released at the beginning of my career, and I loved it. And I remember the label was like, “Oh, I think it’s more of a concept song. It’s more one just for the fans.” No one expected the song to do what it did, but it ended up charting, and to this day it’s one of my most famous songs, and I love it.

HP: For you, as both an actress and a musician, having a song called “If This Life Was a Movie,” would you play yourself in the movie or would someone else?

Be: I think, as of right now, I would love to play myself. But who knows, there’s such a cool young generation of actors that are rising that maybe in a few years they can play me in a movie. I generally do think like my life is a movie sometimes. I always look up and I’m like, “God, I don’t know who’s writing the script, but you guys got to chill because so many crazy things happen that feel like they’re straight out of a movie.”

HP: Give me an example of one great movie scene.

Be: This happened just the other day. It’s just something that you wouldn’t feel like could happen. This movie, a drama, was coming out and I really wanted to watch it. And I told my friends, “Oh, I’m so bummed that I’m going to travel on the day that the movie comes out because I really wanted to go with you guys and watch it.” They’re like, “Oh yeah, I know but we’ll watch it on streaming when you’re back. I was like, “Okay, fine.” Then I was at rehearsal with my band and my dog just passed. So, on the way back from rehearsal, we were talking about dogs. I was talking about my dog and now I feel like every time I see a dog, it’s an opportunity for me to just cuddle for a little second. It doesn’t matter if it’s not my dog. We were hungry, so I was like, “Why don’t we go to McDonald’s? I’m really hungry. I just want some chicken nuggets and fries.” We stopped at McDonald’s and as soon as we get there, there’s this woman and the security guard is screaming at her because she was with her dogs. And she’s trying to explain to the guy, “I’m buying a sundae for my pregnant wife, please.” She was clearly struggling with the dogs. And I was like, “Hey, do you want me to take your dogs? I’ll hold them outside while you get your wife’s thing. She was like, “Oh, my God, thank you so much. You’re an angel.” I got the dogs and held them on the side for a second. After she got it, she came out and she was like, “I owe you one. I own a movie theater company. So, whenever you want to watch a movie, I’ll close out a movie room for you and your friends for you to watch the movie.” I was like, “Well, actually, I really want to watch the drama with my friends.” She’s like, “I’ll make it happen.” Literally the day after we had a private screening before the movie even released in Brazil. It just felt like one of those moments where it’s like, “Okay, I rest my case. I manifested this.”

Listen to GIULIA BE, out now.

Bebe Stockwell Is Not Who You Expect 

Posted on by joshwurz

Most musicians, by nature, are introverts. This is not a generalization. This is what I have learned after thousands of interviews with artists from Aretha and Adele to ZZ Top and Warren Zevon. 

So, armed with this first-hand experience over decades, when I sat down with self-proclaimed folkie Bebe Stockwell, she of the quiet, introspective, lovely folk songs, I thought I knew exactly what to expect – a thoughtful, soft-spoken, shy singer/songwriter. Well, you know what they say about assuming, for good reason. 

The Los Angeles-based Stockwell is indeed thoughtful, but soft-spoken and shy? Definitely not, as I found out talking to her. Bebe Stockwell — EDM fan, extrovert who laughs constantly — is quite unexpected in a very fun way.

Hit Parader: Congratulations on the project! Listening to “When You Know,” I love the idea of you saying, “It’s not like in the movies.” And yet, every person has that picture of what falling in love with the movies is like. So, when you think of falling in love, what movie do you think of?

Bebe Stockwell: I think of How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, or Notting Hill. Which, to me, is like movies I grew up on where I was like, “Oh, it’s going to be that easy.” I also do love rom coms. I think rom coms are blowing up right now, too. There are just so many movies about love and stuff. So, I was talking to my friends. We have this couch we all sit on, my friends in L.A., we usually watch rom coms, and [since] it’s really hard to date in L.A., we were all like, “Oh God, I wish it was this easy.” It’s a classic tale for single girls being, “Oh, I wish it was like how it was in the movies, but it’s the movies.”

HP: If you could live in any rom com and make music there, what would it be?

Stockwell: It would have to be Notting Hill because I have such a love for London that I would want to be in that movie. I would want to either be busking on the street or something. Yeah, I think Notting Hill would be a fun one. It’s a great movie; it makes me cry. I watch it every single time I’m on the airplane. Every single time. 

HP: How’s the European tour going? Have you been surprised by songs and the responses to them?

Stockwell: Yeah, I think because a lot of them I haven’t really shown the world yet because the record’s coming out tonight. I think I’ve played we played “Out of Line,” which is a song I haven’t put out yet and people have loved that live. It’s been really cool to see the response to that, maybe it’s the rhythm but I think people like the story of it and they like the rhythm of it. It’s different usage of my voice. I feel like I can sing really low but, in that song, I say it’s like a vocal warm-up almost because I start so low, then I go really high and then I go back down. So, to me, that song has surprised me how the crowd reacts. “New England Regret” I always say that I’m from New England or Boston, it depends which city I’m in. But people who are from New England really resonate with that song, which is really special to me because that’s why I wrote it, for the people back home. So that song, it was nice to see a reaction from the crowd. When I was writing it, I was listening to a bunch of songs about New England because I wrote the song and I was like, “What else is out there that is about where I’m from? They’re all such cute songs. When you listen to a song about New England all the songs are very “guitar-ian,” except there are a bunch of punk songs about Boston. But I feel like a summer New England song is very familiar.

Cred. Katherine Goguen

HP: Do you feel like having moved away and getting a little older you are feeling closer to New England and those roots?

Stockwell: I’ve always felt close to it. It’s an awesome place. I grew up with my grandparents living on the same street as me and for Christmas we just walked down the street. Then my other grandparents were across the park. So, everyone knows each other there.  I’m always one person, if that, away from knowing someone. It’s so small and I think people are so with it and so fun. And everyone knows how have a good time. It’s my favorite city. And I think as I get older, I am pulled back to it a lot. And I do see myself going back as I get older, but I’m too young. It’s a very chill city. So, I’m excited to go back.

HP: What made you move to L.A.?

Stockwell: I actually was going to move to London. The year before, I went abroad in London. And I was like, “Oh, I really want to move to London. I really like it here.” And I had a group of friends from NYU that had moved to L.A. and they were just having so much fun. At the point I just signed, and my best friend had moved to L.A. I followed her. I was like, “I need to go where she is.” And now we live right behind each other. I think it was more a decision of like, “Where are my friends at right now? Where’s the music at?” I felt good about that decision and I’m lucky that I get to come to London a good amount too now, so I get the best of both worlds.

HP: I find environment very much affects writing and recording so if you had moved to London do you this would have been a whole different project?

Stockwell: I made the record in Woodstock, so I wasn’t even in L.A. for all of it. I was just in the woods and Boston. I left for a really long chunk of time. I wrote all the songs before and then I took them to a producer named David Barron. He’s so lovely and we it was awesome, we just jammed out to all these ideas, and he brought new musicians in every day. I met a lot of new people, which I haven’t done before. I haven’t met as many musicians in my life as I met this year, so that was a super special moment.

HP: What made it so special?

Stockwell: I was friendly with David, so I trusted whoever he brought in and everyone who came in was just a really lovely person and so nice and so talented. So, just to be able to jam out and talk about ideas freely and also in the meantime randomly jam out and make new songs, it was just about having fun. If I’m not having fun, I can tell and it affects me. I talk about this with my friends a lot and it’s important to have fun. I had a very good time making this record.

HP: What was the most fun show you’ve been to? 

Stockwell: I’ve been to two Olivia Dean shows and those have always been my favorite. A Lumineers show and Olivia Dean show have been all-time favorite shows because they’re just having so much fun on stage. Also, I love her outfits and the vibe. And I think feeling comfortable on stage is so hard. I just saw her play her last show at the O2. It was incredible. They were just having so much fun on stage, and I think that the audience could feel that. I was like, “Oh, I hope my show feels like this to the audience.”

HP: When I’m looking at songs like “Going to the Country” or “Wild Love” they feel very quiet and natural, so I pictured you as more of a shyer folk artist?

Stockwell: No, I’m not shy at all. I’m being tame right now. I guess every person who listens to the music is going to probably have their own perception of who I am as an artist. Yeah, those songs, I guess they are introspective. They’re a story and it is a soft record in a way. It’s a nice, soft feeling and vibe. A lot of my artist friends are so not introverted that I always just think everyone’s just out there like that.

HP: Which of your songs would you most love to have remixed and by who?

Stockwell: I would want Calvin Harris to remix “Ant Farm” and make it into like a summer beat. Then, it’s like, “Let’s go swimming in the river creek.” He’s someone I grew up listening to. I feel like I listened to a lot of Diplo and Becky Hill. I loved Becky Hill, for a second, I was like, “Do I want to be Becky Hill? She’s so cool.” Jess Glynne, her voice and Becky Hill’s voice were my favorite voices of the era of listening to pop EDM music. As much as I grew up on jazz, folk and Americana, there was that intermission of EDM music. The lyrics of EDM songs are so simple, yet they make me feel so much when I need it.

Listen to her new album here and catch her on tour here.