In a matter of hours, Bebe Rexha’s new album, Better Mistakes, will be out. The album has a handful of guests and likely a number of memorable moments, but one thing it won’t have is a metal song, even though Rexha really wanted to include one.
In a new interview with Billboard, Rexha said she hoped to include a metal-influenced song on the album, but her team apparently shut that idea down:
“It’s more exciting to me, it keeps me on my toes, trying different things musically. If I could, I would have a metal song on the album, but everybody was very against that. It’s hard, because a lot of time you’ll work with other people in the industry, and people are very safe. It’s not only about the artist, but about the people that are surrounding the artist and working with the artist. I’ll say, ‘I want to do a metal-esque song and put a pop song over it,’ because I love guitars. When I listen to Nirvana, when I listen to Red Hot Chili Peppers, those songs do something to me, where the darker songs make me feel good. I wanted it to be guitar-based, but a lot of times when I try new things, people get really scared and they go do the safest thing. It’s really annoying.”
She went on to expand on the point that a metal song of hers wouldn’t be strictly metal, but would still have a pop influence:
“I think I just automatically make more pop-leaning stuff. If I say something like, ‘Oh, I want to do a metal-type vibe,’ I’m going to write a pop song to it, you feel me? But to me, the way that I think of it is doing something to shake it up a bit, so it doesn’t feel so obvious. A pop song to me is just a really catchy song, no matter what the genre is — dance, hip-hop, country. If it’s a song that most people like, it’s a popular song. So I’m going to write something that’s more pop-based anyway, but when I collaborate with people I just try different things, and it does get annoying sometimes when I feel like I can’t make them budge.”
Check out the full interview here.
Better Mistakes is out 5/7 via Warner Records. Pre-order it here.
Bebe Rexha is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.