A few weeks ago, Avenue Beat were a group of Nashville girls with a few thousand followers on TikTok, releasing music that, by their own admission, “nobody liked”. Pissed off with the state of the world — you know, global viral pandemic, police brutality against Black people rearing its ugly head, the death of Kobe Bryant, wildfires, giant wasps threatening to swarm the US — they wrote a song about the plight of civilisation and threw it on TikTok.
That track, titled “F2020”, was meant to be a deep cut demo that never saw the light of day. The group’s management were hesitant to let a new girl group drop a track that had ten dozen expletives laced throughout it, and so it was relegated to their social media accounts rather than Spotify. There, the track, which includes the line “My cat died, and a global pandemic took over my life” found its audience — mostly teenagers exhausted by how much of a shit show this year wound up being. Since it was posted at the end June, the video racked up over 10 million views (4.5 million of those within the first 12 hours of being posted), before being pulled from the platform. (TikTok is famous for censoring even the lightest “explicit” language). A newly uploaded version has clocked up hundreds of thousands of views on top of that, and a full length version of our anti-2020 bop will drop on Friday.
For their first UK interview, Sav, Sami and Sam of Avenue Beat answered some Qs about the emotional rollercoaster of going viral, the dearly departed cat from the song (GBNF!) and why we should write off 2020 and hope that 2021 isn’t as much of a hellfire as this year was.
So, Avenue Beat, what does it feel like to watch a song you’ve written go viral on TikTok?
Sav: It is literally the most INSANE shit that has ever happened to us. Reading everyone’s comments and seeing people make dances and videos to the audio already is insane, because two weeks ago we had like 5000 followers. Now I think we have over 250,000?! WTFFFFFFFFFF, still trippin. Lol.
Your management was hesitant for you to release it — what scared them so much?
Sam: We knew NOBODY in their right mind would let us put out a song that said the f-word like 387 times, so we were like “Yo, what if we just throw this up on TikTok so it has a place to live?”, not thinking it would blow up so harddddddd. It’s honestly so sick to see TikTok break the boundaries of what we all thought a song had to be to get attention.
You guys are from Nashville, what’s the vibe down there right now?
Sami: Honestly it’s really nice to be in a close and loving community. The world is shit right now so there are a lot of opportunities to show up for each other, and Nashville is taking them.
Where do you find the best music you write comes from emotionally? Are you pissed off? Excited about something?
Sav: I remember when I was writing the first verse and chorus of “F2020”, I was just having the SHITTIEST day ever. For me personally, writing a great song has always come out of any strong emotion that is unfiltered and authentic.
Sami, you sing about your cat dying 🙁 Can we dedicate some space to your dearly departed old friend? What was their name? How old were they? What did they mean to you?
Sami: His name was Gumbo and he was an 8 year old trash cat Sam and I got from the shelter. He was simply the best, he never so much as scratched me and he was the best snuggler ever (even if his version of snuggling was sleeping on my head every night).
Do you think 2021 has better things in store for people? How should we be spending it?
Sami: Lets FREAKING HOPE hahaha! I think it will, and we should all spend it being grateful for the things we missed out on this year!
One last Q: Fuck 2020, right?
Sam: This year has been a shit show and it ain’t even close to over yet, lololol F2020!!!!
“F2020” drops on all good streaming services this Friday and it’s a big fucking mood so go and pre-order/listen to it then, cool?