Welcome to a feature where we sit down and talk to bands and artists about their latest albums to find out all about it. Today we speak to musician Cliff Beach about the album Beach Please.

 Hello, nice to meet you, tell us about yourself! 

Hi, My Name is Cliff Beach, and I am a funk musician originally from DC in the US but have lived in LA for over 20 years. I took music lessons all through school, sang in choirs and church and then was fortunate to be able to attend Berklee College of Music in Boston where I learned all styles of music but settled on funk as an underpinning.

I sing and play piano and have expanded into song writing, producing, radio hosting, podcasting, being a house band on TV and so many other cool projects. I have been featured on Spotify playlists, amassed over 1M streams for my song Confident with Mestizo Beat. Won multiple awards and contests, did the main stage at NAMM, made a funk fest in LA, created over ten albums in ten years as a goal and just released two more in 2024. I am so happy to be able to do work that I love, I even authored the book (Side Hustle & Flow) on it!

 Tell us about the new album.

Beach Please reminds me of Dave Matthews “Busted Stuff”, basically I had all this material that had been demos long forgotten stuck on hard drive records, with other songs that had been long in my live repertoire but never made it on to a studio album.

It was made with my LA band, 2 of the members had never played fully on an entire album with me and recorded by the leader of Mestizo Beat, Lito Magana in their studio, The Road House in Topanga, and eventually tweaked by my long term engineer Tim Hall, and then mixed and mastered by Color Red Music’s Dylan Brown and Doug Krebs who have worked on labelmates the New Mastersounds,

The Lucky Strokes and Eddie Roberts. The album has three parts, Love, Heartbreak and then back to the only constants in my life Music and Work. It is a message of redemption and hope, showing music connects us and helps us get through the tough parts of life by allowing ourselves to be human, vulnerable, and cathartic.

Favourite track in new album and why? 

Music Maker. Taken from the classic poem “Ode” by O’Shaughnessy by way of Willy Wonka, I have a tattoo on my right shoulder that says ‘we are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams.’ Music Makers in the poem are movers and shakers but moreover we are the ones as Brene Brown said that dare to dream, being bludgeoned in the ring by circumstance for that sacrifice of our art that we would gladly do it for free because we will go crazy if we don’t get it out, but it is a hard road.

When you learn about true grit and perseverance you have to be almost insane to go into music. It is hard, and you may never make a living, but we need more artists, we need music, we need this outlet, thus we keep on going, through the bleakest of situations, long when the feeling of wanting to do so has left us. The beauty of coming up the rough side of the mountain is at least you have something to hold on to. That is Music. Michael Jackson, when young on Motown sang ‘we’ve been together for such a long-time music and me.’ That is how I feel. And covering “The Way You Make Me Feel” on Beach Please is my way of honouring one of my greatest mentors encouraging me to become a Music Maker.

 Tell us a bit about the recording process, was it fun to do? 

You can’t have Funk without Fun, and I don’t make music if ain’t fun because it is not worth it. I had so much fun collaborating with the people who I love, who bring me joy, and help me to self-actualize and become a higher version of myself. People see my name on everything, but I always say there is no one who is truly self-made. Someone has to play with you, support you, buy your stuff, help you get ahead. Teamwork makes the dream work. I would never have been able to do this with my band, label and teammates along this arduous task. So, anyone who says I did all myself alone, no one helped me, unless their name is Prince, I say Beach Please!

There came a time before we started working with the label that we had already finished the album but it needed to be revised yet again to release, and even though it was added time and expense you have to do it, just like Nike did when creating their concept store based on apparel had to delay it two years to fix the entire line of clothing to make it better, the end result is you must make the best product you can to be successful. When you can do better, you do better. Case closed.

What inspired the album name?

 I have had so many plays on my name Cliff Beach over the years, starting with Who The Funk Is Cliff Beach? The Gospel According To Cliff Beach, Son Of A Beach, and now Beach Please. And there is a Lil Beach on the way. I love to laugh and have fun; jokes are my way of getting over and the audience at the shows go home laughing. I am often asked if I am a comedian, and all I can say is I am an entertainer and I love to make people feel good and add light, sunshine and happiness infectiously into their day through all the mediums I am able to express myself and excel in.

Tell us about the idea behind the album cover? 

Originally, I wanted to do an Ohio Players Honey style sexy cover with nudity thing but the venue I was doing the pictures at The Glass Slipper Palace would not allow it since they are a destination wedding venue. I needed a place to shoot photos for Beach Please and my jazz album You Showed Me The Way, and I had met the female in the shots, Tula ‘the body’ Casati through the burlesque scene and then her husband Jon and I was so excited she was willing to partner with me.

Once I saw her in the red jumpsuit and afro wig, I knew she would be a great yin to my yang and the venue had so much versatility. Then the shots were so well done by Sheldon Botler who has shot so many great photos for me paired with the talents of Image Stricken let me make something iconic in the vintage seventies soul vein which I knew would be right up Color Red’s alley. It is OK to pivot. It turned out great!

What one of your songs on the new album do you think will be the most difficult to rehearse for a live audience? 

The Work, which is the first single and the one of the only songs we didn’t do live for years was tough because it has a lot of sparse parts where things like the bass drop in and out. It is fun and picks up on funk vibes like the O’Jays “Give The People What They Want”, a lot of the kind of music I play on my Deeper Grooves Radio Show on The SoCal Sound but not everyone in my band is an entrenched in Funk and Groove music as me so they need to read the music or relisten to it. Of course, I know what I wrote but the good thing about it is mistakes happen, and we just run with it.

Unlike James Brown who was a perfectionist and docked pay for mistakes I welcome them because I can adjust to make it right and it’s LIVE, that is supposed to happen. Never play it the same way twice. The song is also the unofficial theme song to my book Side Hustle & Flow as I feel as Kevin Hart prays before his comedy shows ‘people want to complain but they don’t want to work.’ You have to pay your dues for music and put in work and 20 years in I am still working hard while hardly working.

Why should people listen to the album? 

For the funk of it. But seriously it is a great album, and I put my heart, soul, sweat, mind, everything into it. No one works harder than me to entertain you. If you like funk, soul, R&B, blues, and beyond you will like this. Listen and then write and me and tell me your honest and authentic review.