Beck's Sister Makes Her Own Musical Mark

Posted on Nov 14th 2008 12:00PM by David Chiu
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Beck's sister, singer-songwriter Alyssa Suede Campbell, didn't always want to follow in her family's musical footsteps. The 23-year-old was once a young championship figure skater who became involved in the sport since the age of five. Campbell was preparing for the Olympics but her goal ended at an early age.

"When I was 12, I broke my tailbone," she tells Spinner. "I did continue to compete for another year but it just became more stressful and painful than it was pleasure at that point. So I decided to quit the skating and I went to boarding school in Oregon to get an education."

It's not that Campbell, who hails from Los Angeles, happened to stumble upon music. After all she grew up in a musical family: her father, David, is a composer and an arranger; mother Raven Kane is also a composer; and, well, we mentioned Beck. Now Campbell is, in her words, "joining the family business" with the recent release of her debut EP, 'Black and White in Color' (under the name Alyssa Suede).

"Growing up, when I was two months old," Campbell recalls, "my mom performed at the Hollywood Bowl with Paul McCartney and I was onstage. She had me strapped to her stomach. So from a really early age I grew up in the recording studio with my mom and dad."

If one can detect pop and theatrical influences in her songs, it's because Campbell's musical tastes are very eclectic, which includes Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Broadway and classical music. "When I was younger I did a lot of musical theater, so that's kind of where that comes from," she says. "And then classical [music came] from both my dad and figure skating because I used to skate to Rachmaninoff, Beethoven and Chopin."

Campbell co-wrote a majority of 'Black and White in Color''s songs with her father, who also produced the EP. "My dad and I always have a blast together" she says. "I love working with him because he knows me so well. He's able to arrange the songs and produce them in a way that brings out the best in me."

As she is still somewhat new to the music business -- she is planning to seek management after her tour -- Campbell did learn something from her famous musical brother. "One advice he gave me was to go out and just play anywhere you can and as much as you can, because that's what he did at a young age," she says. "He was in New York, and he literally played everywhere. When he was starting out in these tiny little coffee places, and sometimes there would only be two people and sometimes there would be twenty people. But he just played everywhere. It's definitely good advice."

She would like to do one thing in her musical career that had already been done by Beck recently, which is "to perform at the Hollywood Bowl with my dad conducting the L.A. [Philharmonic] behind me. I saw Beck did that two weekends ago, and it was incredible [and] so beautiful. So I definitely want to do that at some point."