Beth Phoenix is a former WWE Women's World Champion, Divas Champion, WWE Hall of Famer, Current NXT 2.0 Announcer and now you can add published musician after she released her first-ever debut EP titled: Stone, Rose & Bone.
In an interview with on-air personality Denise Salcedo for Instinct Culture, Beth Phoenix breaks down her entire EP. She explains the creative process behind the album, how WWE Music Group got involved, her inspirations and much more. Here's everything you need to know about Stone, Rose & Bone.
Stone Rose & Bone Mixes Different Music Styles
Phoenix's debut EP features four tracks titled; "Women Behaving Badly", "I Still Got You", "Find You Why" and "Let Me Go." Each song provides a different message and tone, the opening track "Women Behaving Badly" is more of an edgy track where we get a sassier version of Phoenix, it's followed by a more romantic track "I Still Got You" where we get a sweet melody, meanwhile, the last two tracks are deeper and touch on more on finding yourself and grieving with loss.
"I lost my dad three years ago, this was kinda a great way for me to process some of those feelings and emotions, you kinda start to heal from the trauma of losing someone really close to you, but that loss is that gap, that big piece of you that is missing and is still always there and that's kinda what I worked through were some of those emotions. After that it brought up other emotions and other stories, I've written little songs here and there over the years but this was my first formal go at it. There's a lot of myself in all four of these songs."
The album falls under the country umbrella and was written by Beth Phoenix and produced by the WWE Music Group.
The Motivation & Inspiration Behind Beth Phoenix's EP
During the pandemic, we saw the lives of many people change and or evolve in different ways, while music has always been part of Phoenix's life it was during the lockdown that she began processing her emotions and putting it into her music.
"The album kinda spawned from the pandemic, where I feel like a lot of us were processing it in our own ways, and for me there were a lot of emotions attached to it, some sadness, some stillness, the first time I had a lot of time to really reflect, and I processed some emotions I've been carrying with me for a long time and poured it into music."
Many fans may not know but Phoenix was actually a musician long before she was a wrestler.
"I've been a musician since I was a little girl, as a musician I played weddings, funerals.... so I made money working as a musician before I got into wrestling, I would funnel the money I made in music into putting gas in the gas tank, buying tights and stuff, so it kinda helped fund my wrestling habit but for many years I've played piano, I've sang, I do a lot of music at home."
Additionally Phoenix mentions that watching Renee Paquette create her own cookbook was a motivating factor for her to create and bring her own art into the world.
"So last year I had the privilege of watching my friend Renee Paquette create and put out this lovely cookbook which was just such a beautiful process and I know she poured her heart and soul into it and it was really inspiring to me. So I kinda just started writing songs and sharing them with friends and family and getting their feedback on stuff."
Writing music at home for pleasure is one thing, but things really starting moving along once the WWE Music Group got wind of Phoenix's aspirations and they took her work to another level by contributing and guiding her throughout the entire process.
"I had made friends with a lot of people in the WWE Music Group, and my friend Elias had put out an album, and it just kinda started becoming a possibility, I sent some rough sketches of these songs on piano and sent the lyrics over and they said 'let's record these, let's do it.' And so since the opportunity arose, I was like 'Okay, Let's go for it! I've never done anything like this and I was just really excited to put it out in the world and not just be playing my music at home."
Edge Helped His Wife Beth Phoenix Pursue Her Dream
Beth Phoenix is known for her in-ring work as a wrestler, most recently she's become an established announcer on NXT-- many people were not familiar with the musical side of her. Thus, this did cause Phoenix to get cold feet as the release date for her EP came closer and closer. However, it was her husband WWE Superstar Edge who talked her out of not giving up and helped alter her perspective.
"Then I kinda got cold feet, about half way through especially after we got the photos done and we started picking a date for this to come out. I was like oh my gosh, 'I am afraid of the feedback', I just started feeling panics like everybody knows me as a wrestler and I was kinda like this tough wrestler,'what are they gonna think of this new side of me, am I gonna get laughed at, does this album really suck and everybody is just gonna try and be nice to me?' {laughs} It was a lot of stuff, I had a lot of fear kinda ruling my decisions. I almost bailed on the whole thing and my husband, was like 'don't let fear rule your decision, when you put something out into the world it's nobody's business what they think of it, you just put your heart into it, your soul into it, let it out there and let it be received how it's received but that shouldn't lessen how proud you are of it and that's definitely how I felt with the product I put out. I got wonderful feedback... there's always gonna be the haters, you can't control them or focus on them. I am proud that I went for it because I like to live my life with the philosophy of "no what ifs."
Stone Rose & Bone is currently out on every major music platform, a music video for "Find You Why" a collaboration between Phoenix and Jeremy Borash is currently available to watch on YouTube. You can check out the full conversation and album breakdown with the full video interview below.