The Beths will perform in Kerikeri on March 28 after thrilling audiences during a global tour to promote the band’s fourth album. Straight Line Was A Lie.
Last year was a big year for Kiwi band The Beths.
The Auckland outfit’s fourth album Straight Line Was a Lie received critical acclaim around the globe and the four-piece - Liz Stokes, rhythm guitar and vocals; Jonathan Pearce, lead guitar; Benjamin Sinclair, bass and Tristan Deck, on drums - have just returned from a hectic tour around the globe, playing sold-out shows to thousands.
The spiky, indie pop/rock the band produces is infectious and with the deep, thoughtful and smart lyrics it’s easy to see why it has been so well received.
Stokes’ lyrics are as infectious as the hooks in her music, with the unique phrasing augmented by lyrics with emotional gravitas that can be as confronting as they are revealing. The words are deeply personal, but the topics are universal and Stokes’ ability to combine humour and honesty draw you in. She confronts issues in her life, including her mental health struggles, using the music to help herself, and, no doubt, others suffering those issues.
There have been fulsome reviews of the album and gigs in esteemed music magazines such as Rolling Stone, Uncut, Mojo and others as The Beths have gained a legion of new fans.
One of those new fans is former US President Barack Obama who included Metal from Straight Line Was A Lie in his Favourite Songs of 2025 list, placing the band among an eclectic mix of global heavyweights, viral hits, and left-of-centre discoveries.
It’s been a frenetic year.
They are now on a nationwide home tour - including playing at The Turner Centre, in Kerikeri, on March 28 as the last gig of the tour - and have gigs booked in until the end of August, including in Australia, the US, UK and Europe.
Despite the busy schedule, and demands on her time, Stokes took some time to answer some questions from the Northland Age ahead of the Kerikeri show.
Q: You put a lot of yourself, your experiences and emotions, and struggles, in your lyrics. How do you write? Are you a stream of consciousness writer, or do you refine and rewrite painstakingly?
A: “It’s a bit of both. I pull a lot out of myself with stream-of-consciousness style writing, and it provides good fodder for finding useful fragments or ideas. I gravitate to metaphors. Often, I write to try and understand what I’m feeling, or why I’m feeling a particular way, I search for analogies as a way to explain myself to myself.”
Q: Where do you find your inspiration?
A: “The more new things I learn, the more art and culture I engage with, and the more people I talk to, the more connections I’m able to make between my own experiences and unrelated things that become mirrors for them. But the worse my mental health is, the harder it is to engage with new things and the more I seek comfort in familiar things, which is okay, but I think it’s harder to have output when you don’t have inputs.”
Q: You leave yourself very open with your lyrics, do you find them cathartic, or is it a case of they just have to come out regardless?
A: “They’re certainly cathartic, I get a lot out of writing them as they help me see myself. Though often the vision is a bit blurry until some distance is applied. Most of what I write doesn’t end up on any album. And I tweak lyrics a lot. I love language, how flexible it is and how much you can tinker with it.”
Q: The Beths have just come back from touring the world, which I know sounds exciting to the average music fan, but the realities can be very different. How do you find the touring process, what do you enjoy and what could you do without?
A: “We tour a lot! The worst part of any tour is just the travel stuff. Airports, sitting in vans for hours. On tour, every day you have one clear goal: get to the venue and play a show. And solve any and all problems that inevitably present themselves. And the best parts are the time you are onstage with your bandmates playing music, and the closeness you experience with everybody on the tour.“
A: The album, and global tour, have been getting rave reviews; have you been surprised at the response, and how “vindicating” was it for you to get such positive feedback?
A: “I’m always surprised! We spend so many hours making an album, and we don’t hand it in until we’re happy and proud of what we have made. But nothing is a given, especially for a fourth album. It means a lot that people are still connecting with us, and new people are finding our music and finding meaning in it.”
Q: Your music is an eclectic mix, from sweet, indie pop to full-on rock and roll - how can a song like No Joy, with its subject matter, sound so joyously rocking - how important is it to get the right sound for your lyrics?
A: “The solid core at the centre of The Beths is a love for bands. Particularly guitar bands, but any and all music where you can hear hands on instruments, hear people playing together. ”Guitar music“ seems niche and yet the kinds of music that can encompass is so vast. So even though we intentionally limit ourselves to this instrumentation, there’s so much to pull from. We’ve gradually expanded our palate of sounds and feels, but we’re more and more confident that so long as it’s our hands on the instruments, and us playing together, we’ll sound like The Beths.”
Q: 2025 has been a big year for The Beths, how will you tackle 2026 and any chance of new music this year?
A: “A lot more touring, but in between I’ll be trying to write. I miss it!”
Q: After such a big year on the road, playing at some amazing, and famous, venues, what’s it like being back in NZ for a tour after that crazy experience?
A: “It’s good! I get a little nervous for shows at home. We’re away so much, so when we’re among friends and family we want to make everyone proud.”
■ The Beths are at The Turner Centre, Kerikeri, on March 28; tickets through iTicket or at the Turner Centre.