Avenue Beat Debut With Empowering ‘Ruin That For Me’
The country girl group is starting things off with a bang in their debut single.
New country trio Avenue Beat are introducing themselves to the music world with their first single to country radio, “Ruin That For Me.” The upbeat tune, written by band members Savana Santos, Sami Bearden and Sam Backoff, along with Justin Ebach, is about shedding the pain of a break up and not allowing it to ruin the enjoyable things in life.
“It’s just about not letting your garbage ex ruin your life,” says lead singer Santos in an exclusive interview with Sounds Like Nashville. “It kind of came about because Sam had a break up and she didn’t really do any of the stuff that we’ve done before if it made her think of him, and we were like, ‘That’s kind of messed up.’ The person you date shouldn’t be able to dictate what you do after you’re done dating them.”
The trio makes that message clear in the fiery chorus, singing, “I’m still doing what I like / Just cause you say goodbye / Ain’t gonna change my life / You ain’t gonna ruin that for me.”
The song features the 21-year-olds’ smooth harmonies, combined with pop-inspired beats as well as banjo and guitar instrumentation. The song was first released as one of the four tracks on their Avenue Beat EP, which came out in July. The three other tracks on the EP were also co-written by each member of the band and were inspired by their honest thoughts about life.
“It’s literally just us 20-somethings trying to figure out how to navigate life and the only way we can cope is writing songs about it,” says Santos about their music. “It’s quirky, but also real. We just have always wanted to keep our music real.”
Santos, Bearden and Backoff have been working up to this project ever since they started singing together at the age of 14 in their hometown of Quincy, Illinois. After finding each other, the three started making trips down to Nashville while they were still in high school. They played a memorable show at Nashville’s DawgHouse Saloon where they met their now-manager, Charly Salvatore, who encouraged them to chase their dream. The trio then moved to Music City straight out of high school, working side jobs at juice bars and food delivery service Postmates to make ends meet.
“We were so broke,” says Santos. “We were just living in this three bedroom apartment in Brentwood together and just trying to figure out how to exist as real, adult human beings because we had no idea what we were doing.”
Now the trio not only has their first single out to radio, but they are joining some pretty high-caliber tours this year, including Maddie & Tae’s Tourist In This Town Tour in April and Rascal Flatts’ Farewell: Life Is a Highway Tour this summer.
“For the Maddie & Tae tour, we’re just excited to be out on the road with another girl group, like, someone we can hang with and can give us advice on what it’s like to be in that lane in the music industry,” says Santos. “[Rascal Flatts] is just insane. We grew up blasting their music, so that’s just a crazy experience. We’re just excited about that one.”
