We were lucky to catch up with Rebekah Freeland recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Rebekah, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.
Never in a million years did I think I would want to pursue songwriting and making music for a living. I was a theatre and choir kid with dreams of being on Broadway. All I wanted was to sing and dance onstage playing someone else. I never knew myself and didn’t want to, so I buried it under the acting. So scared of showing people the parts of me that I was terrified of, I kept my songs to myself and just let them stay there. Posted on social media a couple of times but I was always known as the “most likely to be on Broadway” in my community. I went into college as a Musical Theatre major so ready to dive into all the intricacies of my craft, then discovered I hated it. My peers around me were bright-eyed and filled to the brim with excitement over scenes and plays. But my head wasn’t filled with that, I felt so depressed that I started to resent the exact goal I had spent my whole adolescent life trying to achieve.
During my freshman year of college, my fingers were bruised and scratchy from my guitar strings. The flashing line on my laptop questioned me what I was going to type next. I had been songwriting since I was twelve, but this felt different. Something in me knew exactly what I was doing and the rest of me felt lost within the blank space of the paper. My pick grazed across the metal strings and struck a melodic melody. Lyrics started pouring out of my mouth and “Hitchhiker” was born. The first song I wrote that made me feel like I belonged. Like I was discovering what I had been supposed to be doing my whole life. I knew I had created something truly magical when the notes started to dance around in the air like imaginary sugar plums circling my head. Lines dripped from my mouth sweet as candy as they cascaded onto the page below. The mine being songs and the axe being my guitar, I had struck gold. My fingers moved in a way they never had before. Going from one string to the next, it was as if I had knowledge frozen in my brain and it thawed. Little by little, it thawed to create a dedicated, passionate musician. A writer, a poet, and a human. A whole new life was placed before me, and every day the ice melts just that much more.
Rebekah, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I am a Filipina, non-binary & lesbian artist hailing from the vibrant music scene of Austin, TX. I try to bring a fresh and authentic voice to the world of music. Growing up in a household immersed in melodies—thanks to a professional cellist mother and a jazz-loving father—my passion for music was nurtured from a young age.
Inspired by the trailblazing queer artists who paved the way for us to be ourselves, I draw influence from icons like Paramore, Nickelback, Avril Lavigne, Kelly Clarkson, Renee Rapp, Towa Bird, Chappell Roan, Chandler Leighton, Lauren Sanderson, and Green Day. My mission? To make “lesbian dad rock” a mainstream sensation.
My music is deeply personal, crafted from my own experiences with the goal of helping others heal and feel supported. With a debut single that garnered over three thousand streams on Spotify, I am just beginning my journey, but my dedication to making meaningful music and helping the world will never falter.
My biggest dream is headlining Austin City Limits and sharing the stage with my mother in the audience, I am driven by a heartfelt desire to say, “I did it, Mom.” With a clear purpose and boundless passion, I am driven to make a lasting impact on the music world. I will make queer voices heard. No matter what the world throws at us, we are here and will not be silenced.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
The most rewarding aspect of being a musician, in my opinion, is knowing the love and healing I’ve spread with my art. I write music to help others process their trauma through listening. Through feeling. Though I am a twenty-year-old nobody to most of the world, there are a handful of people who have messaged me telling me how much my songs mean to them. How much they wish they would have had this art during their traumatic events. Specifically, with my newest single out on all platforms, “Down the Drain”, I traverse into my experience with bulimia. I wrote the song quoting real comments from my social media criticizing my weight. The number of comments I received about how people relate to this song and how it’s the only song they have heard that truly describes what it’s like to live with such a horrible disorder not only inspired me but broke me. The two things everyone has in common in life are love and pain. If we share the pain with everyone who has gone through these dark times, the unimaginable weight is lifted off of one person’s shoulders and spread across those we share it with. These amazing humans, I have never met before healed from my art. That is the best part of my job. Not only do I get to do what I love for a living, but I also get to share this art with others and give them the tools that I didn’t have during my darkest times: hope and love baked into melodies. Now, do I also write songs for people to jam out to and scream? Absolutely. But even those songs are made to celebrate rage and happiness and let those emotions fly free.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
The biggest lesson I had to unlearn as an artist and as a human is that rest is just as important as hard work. This past summer, I moved to Tennessee for a job and spent every waking moment on music. I ate one meal a day, practiced 8 hours every single day, worked a full-time job performing, and spent my days off driving to and from Nashville with 5 hours of sleep a night. I spent all my downtime on social media, posting content and going live and writing. By the end of the summer, I was not only emotionally and physically drained, but I was also creatively drained. Pushing yourself has its limits, no matter who you are. As someone who struggles with Histrionic Personality Disorder (HPD), I am extremely prone to disassociation. When I pushed myself that far into the deep end, I completely came out of the present. If you haven’t had episodes of disassociation before, it’s as if you are going through life with a haze in front of your eyes. Memory loss and blacking out at times. I have to say, it’s not fun. I wish I could go back and tell myself that in order to create, you have to take care of yourself.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://5e64e8-9b.myshopify.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rebekahfreelandmusic/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@bekahboo04
- Other: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2o3WVQ6C41c2rgJKl0Lfqu?si=oo4J39m3Q-CxOWNdGKu49A
Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/rebekah-freeland/1734123120
Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@rebekahfreelandmusicContact [email protected] for booking and recording!
Image Credits
Liz Concannon, Falyn Faller, Pitch Meeting