Even before signing with the growing indie, STRZ The Label, Noelle Bean (known by her surname Bean), was building a great deal of career momentum on her own.
In 2013, the Dallas born, Nashville-raised and Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter—whose music has been featured in spots for Mitsubishi, Lay’s, Bud Light Lime and Coca Cola—wrote the theme song for the newly launched OK! TV entertainment news show and became a popular live performer, opening for Colbie Caillat, Megan & Liz, Hot Chelle Rae and Austin Mahone. She also performed at Bonnaroo 2013, and with Kalin and Myles for their 2014 National Summer tour.
But it was the homegrown YouTube video (budget: $500) Bean made for her infectious tune “Cops and Robbers” that led to a recording deal and the release this past summer of her debut EP, Rollercoaster, whose title track was Bean’s first pop radio single. Her L.A.-based lawyer Sid Fohrman is good friends with STRZ The Label’s label manager Eric Baker.
“They both had seven-year-old sons on the same baseball team,” Bean says. “At one of their games, Sid mentioned ‘Cops and Robbers’ and told Eric about me and the fact that I’m constantly writing songs. Eric agreed to check out the video and showed Nick Gross, who owns the label. They called to say they loved what they heard. The next thing you knew, they flew me out to L.A. from Dallas, where I was living at the time, set me up with some writing sessions and asked me if I wanted to sign with them.”
Bean believes the fact that being a prolific songwriter as well as a strong singer was the key to her getting signed in a competitive market. “Songwriting and publishing are super-important for artists these days,” she says, “and once they found out I had a handful of self-written songs already recorded, it was as if I was a prepackaged deal ready to go.”
Bean has been on several tours in 2014, including the IHeart On The Rise Tour with Jake Miller, T Mills and Becky G. She also performed all three nights on the KIIS Stage for One Direction’s Rose Bowl run in Pasadena. Her next EP, due in early 2015, will have more of an indie-pop vibe than her debut. – Jonathan Widran
