PHOTO BY CAMI LIBERTY
BY EMILY REEVES
When UK artists Ben Jones and Andrea Magee sought out new musical adventures in the states, a passionate music connection lead to the formation of their bluesy folk duo, Beat Root Revival. “We came to America as two solo acts,” Andrea reveals, “but six weeks in we realized how well we play together so it seemed like the right thing to put it together, and the response has been positive ever since.” Together, Beat Root Revival provide an eclectic mix of sounds and styles stemming from a fusion of folk, roots, howling blues and classic pop.
PHOTO BY CAMI LIBERTY
The reaction from the audience helped reveal the on stage chemistry the duo had, leading to the inevitable formation of the group, “I think it was the fact that on the road the response that we were getting when we sang together, our harmony, the dynamic that we have and this energy that we have together and was connecting the audience more so than when we were just playing on our own at that point. So we just thought, ‘This is going to be a fun project so let’s put it together and see what happens.’" After the pair decided to join forces, Ben revealed that a growing fan base lead to the decision of their unique name from a lucky dip, “It was literally during our first trip here to the states. We got about halfway through because we had started doing a bunch of these shows together. People kept asking us at the end of the show, ‘What are you called?’ So we literally got together, we went to a diner in New Mexico and we put a bunch of names in a hat basically and just picked one from there.” As it happened, Ben’s blues, rock and roll roots and Andrea’s classical, folk Irish background, were blended to create their own genre defying style that was summed up perfectly in Beat Root Revival, “We find that the name kind of describes it so this actually came from a waitress we had and when we told her our name she said, ‘Oh, yeah, I get it! Your music – it’s got the beat and you’re rooted in your music and you’re kind of reviving it.’ We stole that little quote from her to kind of help people understand the sound that we’ve got. A lot of the time we also say folk-pop as well.” Coming from different backgrounds, the pairs writing process is fairly individualistic with Andrea speaking about her personal inspirations, “I think for both of us it’s different so we write separately and then we bring our ideas together. For me it usually comes from a core emotion and I try to develop that and always keep it honest – just the creativity and freedom to write about whatever you want really.” After listening to their distinctly passionate and earthy music, it’s no surprise that the duo reached number thirteen on the iTunes singer/songwriter chart with the release of their self titled album earlier this year. Despite their 2014 formation, they have already achieved so much in a short space of time and are continuing their successive journey with new goals, tours and collaborating projects, "We made two albums in just over two years so really it’s just to be able to spread out and as far as we possibly can. One of the main aspects of coming over to the United States in the first place is it has so many cultural benefits. In every state that you go to is like visiting 20 countries at the same time so to be able to soak in a lot of the input has inspired us from afar to actually experience them first hand. To be honest, it’s just to live out our music as much as possible and reach as many people as possible. We just finished a show with Jonathan Jackson + Enation, Jonathan is one of the stars from the ABC show Nashville, which went incredibly well. Hopefully a little more touring before the end of the year and before we go back into the studio in the early part of next year to record more songs."