SC Unplugged: Singer-songwriter Liz Becker on translating her life to her art

Singer-songwriter Liz Becker is a junior from the Bay Area studying popular music performance. Becker balances music as both a study and profession as part of the USC Thornton School of Music. Her indie rock music picks up influences from Taylor Swift to Phoebe Bridgers. Her role in music comes with vulnerability, as she uses her real-life to inspire lyrics and song ideas. Her hit song, “Keep it Cool” harnesses the raw feeling of her live-performances.

Annenberg Media spoke with Becker to learn more about her inspirations and creative processes while working on “Keep it Cool.”

SC Unplugged graphic by Steven Vargas.

Full transcript has been edited for clarity.

Becker: Hi, my name is Liz Becker. I am a junior in USC Thornton School of Music. My major is popular music performance with an emphasis in vocals, and I am from the Bay Area, California.

[Musical Interlude: “Keep it Cool” by Liz Becker]

Becker: I love being in Thornton. It’s really cool because it’s like a super small cohort of people. It’s like 30 of us. So we’ve all gotten really close and there’s definitely a good bond between all of us and we all collaborate and are doing music together all the time. A lot of us live together, so it’s a very close group.

[Musical Interlude: “Keep it Cool” by Liz Becker]

Becker: Yeah, so I am kind of indie rock I would say. Definitely have taken influence from Taylor Swift. She’s probably my biggest inspiration. But then other artists like Lizzy McAlpine and Phoebe Bridgers, that kind of whole realm of artists.

[Musical Interlude: “Keep it Cool” by Liz Becker]

Becker: Honestly, I’ve been singing for, like, as long as I can remember. I think I started when I was like three. I just was always kind of interested in it. I would memorize soundtracks to movies and sing them. And then my parents kind of noticed that that was something I was interested in. So they signed me up for musical theater and I did musical theater for a long time. And that’s kind of where I got my first dose of training and stage experience. And then I started songwriting and playing guitar around middle school time and then kind of decided that I was done with the musical theater track and just wanted to write songs and sing. So yeah, that’s kind of it.

[Musical Interlude: “Keep it Cool” by Liz Becker]

Becker: It was just kind of all I really knew growing up because it was just what I wanted to do. And I don’t think I ever really questioned it honestly, until I got to college and I was like, ‘Oh, this is actually really hard. Like, do I actually want to do this?’ But then I realized that I do. But yeah, I don’t, I don’t think it was ever really a question. Yeah.

[Musical Interlude: “Keep it Cool” by Liz Becker]

Becker: I think a lot of the artists that I listen to are pretty lyric heavy. That’s kind of what they’re focused on. So honestly, like Taylor Swift, I get a lot of inspiration from her, but I also read a lot, so I think that probably helps. Most of it is personal experience. Sometimes I’ll write about, you know, I get inspired from watching movies and reading books. So sometimes I write about it from a third person kind of point of view, but mostly it’s from my own personal experience.

[Musical Interlude: “Keep it Cool” by Liz Becker]

Becker: It was a song that I wrote in high school and I worked with a local producer just in my little hometown. And I just released it. It was called “For You.” You can’t find it anywhere now. So, but yeah, that was the first one. And then, I had another one towards the end of high school that’s also deleted now. And then “Keep it Cool” was the third one that I’m going to keep on. I think the first one in high school was very innocent I think. It was more singer-songwriter. There’s not as much indie or a rock influence in that one. It was very pure and it was I think it was a good song, but I think it just matured as a person since then. So I think my lyrics have more depth now and just more – the music is more interesting.

[Musical Interlude: “Keep it Cool” by Liz Becker]

Becker: Best memory. Honestly, something that comes to mind. I played a show at The Echo, which is a venue in L.A., and it was just really cool because that was the first time that I played a show with majority of my original songs, because a lot of the time I’ll have a lot of covers in there, but this time it was pretty much a show just showcasing my own music. And that was really cool because it played with a full band. So I got to arrange all the songs and tell all the instrument players what I wanted them to be playing. And it just all came together really well and it was just a really cool show and it felt like I felt just really accomplished after that. So that was a cool moment.

[Musical Interlude: “Keep it Cool” by Liz Becker]

Becker: A challenge. Just coming into USC has been– it’s just like, the best of the best people are here. So it’s like you just like automatically have imposter syndrome. Like the second that you walk in and you see what everyone can do and you’re like, ‘Oh, shoot. Like I am not supposed to be here.’ And so, I’ve dealt with that a lot. Definitely like freshman year and sophomore year. And sophomore year, I kind of had, like, a mid-life crisis and I was like, ‘I don’t want to do this anymore. Like I’m going to switch majors.’ But then, I talked to a lot of people and a lot of people made me feel a lot better about it. And they’re like, ‘You’re here to learn.’ And just talked a lot about, like not comparing yourself to other people and everyone’s on their own journey and all that kind of stuff. So yeah, that, that’s, that’s probably been one of the biggest struggles.

[Musical Interlude: “Keep it Cool” by Liz Becker]

Becker: I wrote this song myself, all the lyrics and the music. And then I collaborated with two producers in Thornton, Evan Pruett and Truman Sinclair, shout out. They were amazing. And they really just made this song come together. Just so many good ideas for instrumentation. And so Truman, basically, Truman and Evan worked together with me to come up with the arrangement for all the instruments and how we were just going to make the song flow. And then Evan mixed and mastered it. Yeah. And I think it was pretty easy because I had played the song live before we started producing it. So I already had kind of a foundation for what I wanted the instrumentation to sound like. So we kind of took that and I had a recording of me performing it live. We literally took that and made a couple edits here and there and then just like produced it how I had played it live. And, then for the players on the song, drums and bass, the two people are the same people that I always play live with - Kai Hagen on bass and then Alec Romo Nichols on drums and Truman did a lot of the guitar stuff. So yeah, it was really cool. And I think what’s different about this song is that we basically wanted it to kind of have a live feeling. So pretty much every song we recorded these days is recorded to a click track, so the band stays in tempo the whole time. But this time we didn’t use a click track because we wanted that live feeling and we wanted it to feel kind of free and flowing. Like maybe in some sections have the tempo be a little bit different. So listen to that next time you’re listening to the song and you might notice that, but I think that’s a kind of cool element for this song.

[Musical Interlude: “Keep it Cool” by Liz Becker]

Becker: Well something that’s funny is actually when I recorded this song, I was really sick. And when I recorded the vocals, I was not feeling super good. My voice wasn’t feeling super good, but I think that it gave it kind of, I don’t know, like a just more edgy sound because it wasn’t perfect and I kind of had some rasp in there. So that’s cool.

[Musical Interlude: “Keep it Cool” by Liz Becker]

Becker: When you’re talking about the instruments surging and then they all cut out. I don’t know. I think that, yeah, because the song is kind of about really liking this person but not being able to say it to them and being kind of nervous around them, but having to, you know, keep it cool because you don’t want to show that. And I think that when you’re in that situation, you have to sometimes just take a deep breath and center yourself, you know?

[Musical Interlude: “Keep it Cool” by Liz Becker]

Becker: So, funny this song is about a person that goes to USC and we kind of were like in a relationship at the beginning of – or yeah, freshman year and it’s all about him. And I think he knows that it’s about him. But yeah, it’s funny, it was kind of like one of your situationships, you know? And I think that I was in the position of liking him a lot more, I think, than he liked me. So I was just always like, and I thought he was really cool, so I was always nervous. And yeah, I don’t know. I just– I kind of was intimidated by the whole situation, but also really liked him and wanted to spend a lot of time around him. So I always had to feel like I was kind of putting on this facade of being like, you know, I’m going to keep it cool because that’s what he would always do.

[Musical Interlude: “Keep it Cool” by Liz Becker]

Becker: I started writing it. So the line that I wrote, actually, it started out as just that line. ‘I say I love you to all my friends. So that night I almost slipped up.’

[Musical Interlude: “Keep it Cool” by Liz Becker]

Becker: Because I don’t know, I just, I’d always say ‘I love you’ just so casually all the time to my friends and I would always just catch myself almost saying it to him and being like, ‘No, no, no, like, I can’t do that.’ And so, I thought that was a cool line. It just started out as that. And then I kind of kept coming back to it. And after we ended things, I just finished the song. And so it was kind of it was kind of throughout the relationship - while we were still together and then after we broke and ended things. Yeah.

[Musical Interlude: “Keep it Cool” by Liz Becker]

Becker: For that kind of short music video that I made for the song, it was just inspired by a lot of images that I saw on Pinterest because I kind of wanted this young, kind of edgy feeling to it. I wanted it to be at night. And I think I typed in some of those keywords on Pinterest and found exactly what I wanted. And then I had someone helping me with the visuals. And so I sent the board to her and that’s how it all came together. But I mean, in general, I honestly, I’m not really that much of a visual person. I think that when in a situation like this one, I’m like, ‘I want to make a music video.’ It comes easily to me. I feel like I can have a vision pretty easily, but I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about that.

[Musical Interlude: “Keep it Cool” by Liz Becker]

Becker: I had been talking to this girl, Breanna Lynn. She doesn’t go to USC. But she’s great. She’s amazing. And I had seen some of her work on Instagram, so I just reached out to her. And so we kind of came up with a deal to do the cover art and then some promo photoshoot stuff and the music video together. So we just talked and kind of spitball ideas to each other and collaborated. And then she worked her magic and got lighting people and just made it all come together and it went really smoothly. It was like a six hour session and we just did everything and it was very collaborative and we all came up with ideas for different shots that we wanted to get, but it was really fun. It was kind of the first time I had done something like that and I really, really enjoyed it.

[Musical Interlude: “Keep it Cool” by Liz Becker]

Becker: Yeah. I mean, it’s just funny because I think it’s very obvious with the song who it’s about, because also the producers that I worked with are like friends with him. So, we’re all kind of in this small little Thornton bubble. So it’s just everyone knows, and especially in the first verse when I’m talking about like, ‘You walk around with your hair in your face and your music taste that no one can relate to.’

[Musical Interlude: “Keep it Cool” by Liz Becker]

Becker: It’s like, ‘Oh.’ If you’re in Thornton and you know who this person is, you’re like, ‘Oh, it’s about him.’ So yeah, that’s just kind of a funny part about this song. I’m sure that they’ve all talked and laughed about it, but whatever, something that you kind of have to deal with as a songwriter. People are going to find out.

[Musical Interlude: “Keep it Cool” by Liz Becker]

Becker: I mean, yeah, it’s scary sometimes, especially when it’s very obvious what it’s about. I think that especially because a lot of my writing is about relationships. So it’s like whenever I’m gonna put it out there, people are going to wonder if it’s about them or who it’s about. So that’s kind of a scary part of it. But I think I’ve started to get used to it.

[Musical Interlude: “Keep it Cool” by Liz Becker]

Becker: Because a lot of our projects and stuff for school are music, it’s like, you know, you only have a certain amount of music creative battery in your day. So sometimes I’ll be working on a school project or something or rehearsing for a performance and I’ll get home and be like, ‘Shoot, I totally want to work on my own music, but I’m also so drained.’ So that’s kind of something that’s been hard. And at Thornton, our program is pretty rigorous, like any other program at USC and it’s all music all the time. So that’s the part that’s probably the hardest. I’ve tried to just create good habits. If you really want to do something, you’re going to make time for it. So you just have to make time for it and just know that every time you sit down to write a song or to work on a song, it’s not going to be amazing. It’s not going to be the next biggest hit. So you just have to kind of set your expectations a little lower and be like, ‘Okay, I’m doing this all the time. So, it’s not going to be amazing every time I do it.’ So, you kind of just have to just make it happen. Just fit it within your day, like schedule an hour or something every day where it’s something in your calendar and nothing gets in the way of it so that you sit down and writing is all you’re doing for that hour.

[Musical Interlude: “Keep it Cool” by Liz Becker]

Becker: Yeah, so I have another song. It’s called “Adrenaline,” and we’re almost done with it. We just have to put a couple more finishing touches and then it’ll be done. And I think I’ll be releasing that sometime in the new year in January probably.

Editor’s Note: This episode was recorded in December 2022.

[Musical Interlude: “Keep it Cool” by Liz Becker]

Becker: Next semester and leading into senior year it’s going to be a lot of just trying to figure out what I’m doing after college. And I think what I want to do after college is be a songwriter and not just for myself, but try to write for other people. So I think honestly, I’m not exactly sure, but I think I’m just going to try to collaborate and write as much as possible over these next couple of years so that I, you know, get my name out there and people know what kind of writer I am and whether or not they want to collaborate with me because I think that’s kind of how it works in L.A. You just have to work with as many people. So yeah, that’s kind of my plan, as of now.

[Musical Interlude: “Keep it Cool” by Liz Becker]

Becker: I think probably just realizing that I have a following. No matter how big the following is, but just finally being like, ‘Okay, there’s a group of people who are willing to support me and will come to my shows and not just like my friends that I already have, but just random people.’ And I think once I start to see that grow, I’d be like, ‘Okay, there’s some momentum.’ I think that’ll make me feel a little bit more secure.

[Musical Interlude: “Keep it Cool” by Liz Becker]

Becker: Being a singer-songwriter is a very unique form of art because you’re the one writing it and then also performing it. So I think, I don’t know. I think for me that’s very fulfilling because you get to have the process of creating something, but then also like being like you know, this is me and, and I feel like both sides of it are very vulnerable. The writing side is very vulnerable. And then like going in front of an audience and presenting that to the world is vulnerable. But yeah, so I think that’s, that’s really cool.

[Musical Interlude: “Keep it Cool” by Liz Becker]

Host: You’ve been listening to US Unplugged. A behind the scenes glimpse into the inspirations, creative process and musical goals of your favorite Trojan artists.