Exclusive: Stream Bec Stevens' intimate new EP Why Don't You Just

Bec Stevens is a musician we've been talking more and more about over the last few months, initially capturing our attention a few months back with They Don't Build Cars Like This Anymore - an emotive-driven charmer carrying the same weight as an upbeat Camp Cope gem, for example, with the Adelaide-based, Tasmania-raised musician uniting honest and personal lyricism with charging guitar melodies and thick percussion. Her next single 10 Minute Drive, premiered earlier this year, only solidified her status as one of our favourite latest discoveries, reflecting on the aftermath of a relationship's end with hazy vocals and this striking, DIY feeling which is repeatable time and time again, finding her a spot at Laneway Festival Adelaide thanks to the Girls Rock! crew, while also placing her as an act destined to become one of 2019's stand-outs.

Her new EP, Why Don't You Just, carries much of the same feeling. Premiering on Pilerats today ahead of its release tomorrow, it's a collection of six intimate tracks that reflect Stevens' rollercoaster-y ride to where she is now, combining punchy songwriting with powerful and personal songwriting that time and time again, hit you in the heart and force you to pay attention to every lyric, every melody and every crisp percussive hit. We're going to give Bec Stevens herself the reigns in a minute to talk about the EP, its themes and its long-winded creation, but let us just say this: if you're not paying attention to Bec Stevens in 2019, you're incredibly missing out - she's an artist who, within even a matter of months, may just be one of Australia's favourites.

Click on the embed above to listen.

"This record has been a long time in the works, a lot longer than intended. It’s a mixture of old and new songs that I’ve been wanting… needing... to set free from my heart/brain/bedroom for a long time. The sheer weight that has lifted off my entire being since knowing I could finally set this small baby; built mostly from pain, free into the world has been honestly life-changing. There were a lot of hurdles we had to jump through to get this record over the line. A lot of talented people involved who I can’t thank enough; band members changing, personal life struggles to put things on hold. We recorded this record during what is so far the worst year of my life, 2017. Or as I refer to it “he who shall not be named”... What was originally ten days booked into a studio, ended up being spread out over about 6+ months.

The title Why Don’t You Just kinda just came to me one day, it wasn’t something I'd been working on, but once I thought of it, it was really the only thing that made sense. It can be interpreted a lot of different ways which is good because it means a lot of different things to me.

This record, very literally, nearly killed me, so it's hard to just hand it over to the world knowing people just see it as a bunch of songs that I recorded one time. But that's the nature of the beast I guess. We started recording this in March 2017, it didn’t get properly finished until about May 2018. I’ve spent a long time figuring out how I would sum up this record, if I should go into graphic detail of the pain involved, or if I’ll just say “HERE IT IS!'' I’d go through waves of feeling like I needed to explain every horrible thing that went wrong so that people would understand and appreciate it more, but I soon realised that that's not what I wanted. I want people to like the record because they think it's a good record, not because of the pain I went through while making it.

I hope people like this EP for the bare bones of it. We put a lot of work into it and I couldn’t have done it without the help I received from everyone involved.

Every song is about real and difficult things. I’m grateful to have the ability to tell my story with music and I’m proud of myself for not succumbing to my demons and quitting."

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