BeThisBell Biography

BeThisBell is an American alternative rock band with punk, garage, and psychedelic roots. Founded by vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter BeTh isBell (the band’s namesake), bassist Cody Fowler (Horse Thief), and guitarist Justin Hays in 2013 in Oklahoma City, OK, while all three were attending the Academy of Contemporary Music at the University of Central Oklahoma (ACM@UCO) – under the tutelage of OKC-based alternative rock band and headliner The Flaming Lips, whose manager Scott Booker is the Dean of the music college, which focuses on contemporary rock and country music performance/production. The band, with the assistance of ACM lead guitarist Blaise Thompson and guest drummer Nic Ley (from the band colour music, and who is now a touring member of The Flaming Lips), recorded and released their first full-length album We Are The Gods! in 2014 to critical acclaim and industry praise. The title cut of the album landed the band a publishing deal with EMI and a derivative co-write with artist David Bowie, as the bridge of the song borrows some lyrics from his song Space Oddity, and a publishing contract for the entire album with EMI subsidiary TRO Workshop Productions. The album became popular in the college radio market which resulted in the band being selected to play at the 2015 College Music Journal (CMJ) Music Festival in NYC and an East Coast tour to NYC and back.

The same lineup of the band also recorded the band’s follow-up EP Work It Out, released in 2015. Both the album and EP were recorded at Bell Labs in Norman, OK, with recording engineer and producer Trent Bell (Chainsaw Kittens), as is the band’s new full-length album Red scheduled for release in Summer/Fall of 2024. The new album Red features one song, “Mother Says,” with the original lineup (isBell, Fowler, Hays, Thompson, and guest drummer Ley) from the original WATG! sessions and seven tunes featuring the band’s only permanent members Isbell and Fowler, with the assistance of drummer Ty Clark from Tulsa, OK, and lead guitarists Ray Triana (graduate of Humboldt State Univ. College of Music) and the amazingly talented multi-instrumentalist (guitar, bass, drums, keyboards) Spencer Kennedy, who both add some intricate, even jazzy, psychedelic lead guitar lines to isBell’s driving alt-rock tunes. In addition, isBell contributes her own soulful lead guitar lines on many of the songs, as she did on the band’s earlier album and EP. The final mixing and mastering for the Red album was done by Dominic Romano at Bongo Boy Studios in McKinleyville, CA. The band is looking for a label and management.

The band is best known for the sometimes outrageous lyrics, costumes, and antics of its transgender (MTF) front-person BeTh isBell. Her very first album (before her gender transition) titled The Good Woman Waltz was a country/Americana album recorded with some of Nashville’s finest studio musicians (literally). Released in 2005, that album’s title cut reached the #1 country position in a statewide chart for Texas songwriters in Summer 2006, testifying to isBell’s strong songwriting skills. isBell honed her songwriting prowess while sitting around campfires trading songs and at songwriting camps sponsored and organized by the Kerrville Folk Festival, and from her training at ACM@UCO from which she has an Associate’s degree in contemporary music performance and a bachelor’s degree in sound technology.

In addition to The Lips, the band’s sound is heavily influenced by early psych-punk alternative rock bands The Velvet Underground, The Pixies, New York Dolls, David Bowie, and Iggy Pop. Although isBell is now female, having gone through gender reassignment surgery in 2008, her voice still sounds male and has a sound evoking vocal comparisons to front-persons for Nine Inch Nails, Ghost, and Pierce The Veil. The band’s punk-heavy and psychedelic-infused alternative rock sound is at lighter times similar to Seattle’s Band of Horses, but at others has a much heavier edge reminiscent of Big Head Todd & The Monsters or Neil Young & Crazy Horse, or the modern neo-psychedelic bands Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Ty Segall, or Boogarins.

The band’s new Red album features the album’s first single “Kief” which has been in regular rotation on Northern California coastal radio stations, including KSLG and KHUM. A driving psych-punk tune about a legendary Humboldt County party hosted by surf-punk band The Mother Vines (LA), the song’s refrain “who’s been smoking all my kief?” is catchy and memorable, and particularly poignant here in Humboldt County, which is known as part of Northern California’s emerald triangle for growing the world’s best and most potent marijuana. Young HSU guitar phenom Ray Triana lays down an intricate, jazzy, psychedelic lead guitar over isBell and Fowler’s driving punk-infused riff which makes the song quite catchy/compelling to listeners. The band’s next album The Sun King also features OKC-based pianist/keyboardist Holly Murphy on the song “Sun King” and the album’s jazz-influenced song “Monsters.”

The band’s albums can be found online at https://BeThisBell.bandcamp.com along with BeTh’s recordings as a solo artist and with some of her other bands: Big Mama Acid & The Cosmic Argonauts (featuring Ray Triana on lead guitar), modern rock band? Question Everything? a duo project with guitarist Chandler Nelson (Eureka, CA), even a jazz poetry improv album with pianist Holly Murphy (aka Holly Wood). The band’s albums can also be found on iTunes, Spotify, and other music retailers.

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