Bea Miller Outdoes Herself

Bea Miller knows you’ve been waiting for this. It’s been eight long years since the singer and former child star released her sophomore album Aurora, and though she’s been steadily releasing music since 2019, she understands expectations will be frighteningly high when her highly-anticipated third album, Mr. Peaked In High School, finally arrives Sept. 18. “I'm preemptively guilty that it won't be what [the fans are] expecting, the pop protégé, now 27, tells NYLON.

In case you need a refresher, we’ll rewind to 2012: Miller got her start on The X Factor USA at age 13, where she walked away with a recording contract with Syco and Hollywood Records. She quickly found success with songs like “Fire N Gold,” “Yes Girl,” and “Force Of Nature,” but being thrust into the spotlight before high school, she naturally started to question her place in the industry. “Sometimes, child actors or singers [are] really good as kids and it blows you away,” Miller says. “But then as they get older, sometimes [their talent] gets better and better and other times it teeters off or remains the same. I guess I just kind of expected that to be me.”

It would be years before Miller shook off the self-doubt and insecurities that came with the fear that she’d already peaked — and eight years before she’d release another full-length album. But with the help of hitmaker Justin Tranter (and therapy), she’s finally learned to trust herself as a songwriter, and is ready to make her grand return with her best music yet. “I really think I've managed to trap my mid-20s self in a project, and that's really special. Even if in five years from now I don't relate to it as much anymore, which of course is bound to happen, I think that that's still a beautiful thing. I really feel like I have portrayed myself exactly as I am,” she says. “[The album] really is just exactly me as I am right now, captured in 13 songs.”

As we head into album release week, Miller is opening up about bringing Mr. Peaked In High School to life with Tranter, her industry hiatus, and the fear of disappointing her fans. Plus, the singer shares photos from her recent promotional photoshoot exclusively with NYLON.

You’ve got a new album on the way. How are you feeling?

God, I honestly am not quite sure how to even describe it. I haven't released a full length album in years, so I'm of course excited. But I'm also a little bit nervous and almost feeling preemptively guilty. My fans, who have been waiting this entire time for this album, who've been begging for Bea Miller 3 for so many years — I'm preemptively guilty that it won't be what they're expecting. But I also f*cking love it and I'm really proud of it and think it's the step that I would've imagined that I would take if I was a fan of mine for many years, if that makes sense.

I'm getting a little bit more back in touch with my pop roots, but also with inspiration from some of the deviations that I've taken in my own music over the years. I'm really excited. I think it's the best thing that I've made yet.

Where does that preemptive guilt come from?

I think it's just knowing that I've been making music since I was 14, and I'm 27 now, and I do have quite a few fans who have really stuck with me from day one. I'm sure to them, there's a very big expectation for this album to be what they've been waiting for. And I think it is, but I will feel really bad if it's not what they were hoping it would be. But at the same time, I think they know me well enough after all these years to have expected this direction. I really love it and I'm really excited about it, but I'm just hoping that they think it's great too, and that hopefully more people beyond that think it's great.

As you said, it's been a really long time since your last album release. Did you have any reservations about getting back into the studio?

I wouldn't say that I had reservations as much as I would say I had some pretty lengthy periods of not feeling inspired whatsoever. That happens to everyone in any creative industry, I'm sure. But because I've been doing this for so many years and because my parents kind of got me into it before I was old enough to have made that choice for myself, for a while I didn't believe that I could actually be a good songwriter because I thought that the likelihood that I had been pushed into this career path when I was really young, and then would actually turn out to be good at it was a very slim, if that makes sense.

I was struggling with self-doubt and insecurity around whether or not I was actually really capable of doing this and good at it, or if it was just something that I fell into without having actually made the choice originally. And because of that, I just wasn't feeling inspired to get in the studio. Then, one day I was in the studio and I wrote a great song for the first time in a while. I was like, "Oh, wait, maybe I actually can write a song and maybe I enjoy doing it, and maybe I could actually create a full project." I felt reinvigorated. And then of course, bringing Justin Tranter as a co-writer, it's really difficult to not be inspired with Justin in the room.

What song was the song that made you feel like, "Oh, maybe I can do this?"

It's called “Past My Prime.” I just remember after getting that first bounce back, I listened to it in my car over and over and over again. I was my own biggest fan. I hadn't done that with any of my songs in a while and I felt like I was listening to it from the ears of somebody who didn't make it, and that was really exciting and fun. We wrote that song without Justin, but once we wrote that one, I felt like it was something that we could build around. That's when we called in Justin Tranter because who else would you call?

Speaking of Justin Tranter, you obviously worked very closely together on this project. How did you know Justin was the right person to bring your vision to life?

Justin and I have known each other since I was, I believe, 16. We understand each other, and it's really fun to make music together. We had [worked together] before and had written songs that I'm really proud of to this day that I remember really loving at the time and feeling really excited about when I wrote them. I was like, "Well, I feel like we've created what I felt like was magic together before, so maybe we can do it again." And we did. We kind of outdid ourselves.

There have been so many times where somebody that in the music industry will be like, "When you do what you love, you never work a day in your life and it never feels like work. How awesome that we get to come to the studio every day and make a song, and it's always fun and it's always great." For a while I was like "F*ck off," to those people, because I didn't always feel that way. Sometimes writing a song to me feels like pulling teeth. But with Justin, it's never been that way. For the first time, I was understanding where some of those people that I previously had told to f*ck off were coming from. We basically just yap for hours, and we laugh and we have fun, and then there's a song, and it's very intentional, but completely unintentional at the same time. We're like, "Oh, we actually really love this. Oh, perfect." Half the time I didn't even realize I was doing it.

I want to go back to those uninspired periods that you were talking about. What were you consuming or doing to find inspiration during that time?

I was depressed during a lot of that time, so I don't even really remember necessarily seeking out inspiration. Sometimes when I’m experiencing depression, I almost feel comforted by it. I don't even necessarily realize it's happening at first because it just feels like an old comforting embrace, which is of course bad. A few years ago, I was experiencing such an intense lack of inspiration and was just kind of laying around and being all, “Woe is me” and “Life is so pointless, blah, blah, blah,” and not necessarily caring.

It took my best friend being like, "Hey girl, I think you're depressed and you need to make steps to better your own life" for me to actually recognize that I had fallen back into that same old pattern. I was really forcing myself to actually find inspiration in things that I used to love. I was watching movies that I hadn't seen in many years and listening to old Paramore albums, and even [listening to] some of my old music that I didn't necessarily connect with anymore, but have been fan favorites for many years. Just taking myself back to the last time I wrote an album when I was a teenager sitting on trains going into the city from my mom's house in New Jersey and bringing my little notepad with me and jotting down ideas while I listened to James Bay. Just reminding myself that I used to be able to be so inspired helped me to re-inspire myself.

You've been working on the album for about two years. What are some things you learned about yourself during that time?

I learned to trust myself more, to trust my own instincts. Before I started writing with Justin Tranter again, I didn't believe in myself or in my ability to create good music. I lost a belief in myself that I actually could make something good that I would truly like. I question myself a lot when I'm writing songs on my own, and having Justin in the room to be there and be like, "No, that actually is good, that melody that you just did, I love it." In the beginning stages of writing this album, I definitely would second guess and triple guess, quadruple guess myself a lot more in my creative process. Towards the end, I just stopped doing that and it started becoming a lot easier to create because I just stopped standing in my own way.

Through that, I've learned I've done that for most of my life. I can be a glass half empty person, and I need to believe that life can be half full. I've always been just such a, "What the f*ck is the point?” kind of person, and that's obviously not great for my mental health or my creative ability. I learned to trust myself and believe that things can be good and fun, and maybe there is no point, but maybe that's actually really amazing instead of being something to dwell on and suck me back into a depressive episode.

And what is the story behind the album title?

Honestly, I didn't put much thought into it. Justin Tranter had asked me, "What are you thinking for album title? Do you have any ideas?" I was like, "I don't know, maybe a lyric. Maybe Mr. Peaked In High School or something like that." I just threw that out there without necessarily thinking about it too hard, but it just stuck. It comes from one of the most important songs on the album in the sense that I think it explains a lot of where I've been for the past 10 years and why I haven't really been releasing as much music, and why I haven't been doing musical sh*t as much as I used to do.

That lyric comes from the song “Born To Lose,” the first song on the album. It was a really great start for the album because it reflects on the fact that I had more success when I was a teenager than I've had throughout my 20s so far. It's good to point that out and recognize it, and get ahead of it and be like, "Listen, I know,” and saying I'm “Mr. Peaked In High School” — but I never even went because I was working so hard at that time that I didn't have time for school. It's a little bit tongue-in-cheek.

Are there any songs that you are really looking forward to people hearing on the album?

My favorites have shifted as time's gone on, and sometimes one is speaking to me more than another. I'm really excited about “Party” right now. It's kind of recession-core and that's the type of music that people need right now because it's happening. It's basically like, even though everything is falling to sh*t, party, which is an important message.

I also really love “Pretty And Alone.” That one's really fun. Sometimes I'm just like, "What the f*ck? I'm so pretty. Why am I alone?" But then I'm like, "Oh, but I actually feel really insecure and I suck at the same time." So I really love that one and I think the bridge is unexpected and random and fun. “Summer Of '16” is extremely nostalgic and I love it so much. I wrote it about being a teenager with my best friend and how fun that was, and how different it feels to have adult friendships. I feel like I did justice to capturing that feeling. It's a complicated feeling. It's nostalgic and it's sweet, but it's also sad and gut-wrenching.

Are there any songs that you're hesitant to put out?

I'm a little bit nervous about “LA Ugly,” especially because I love “Ain't in LA” [by Adéla] so much. We wrote this song a while ago, and it's just supposed to be like, "I’m just like a f*cking LA six and I'm just living my life and I'm really having fun." If you live in LA, it feels like everyone's a f*cking model half the time, but I agree that the baddest bitches aren’t in LA at the same time. I love [“LA Ugly”] and I'm so excited about it, but I hope that these two messages can exist at the same time. I think that they can — it's not to say that there aren't baddies everywhere. It's just to say that when you live in LA, it's really hard to feel like a baddie.

What do you hope people take away from the album?

I hope that people can laugh at the album. There are certain lyrics that Justin Tranter and I were laughing at when we wrote them, and sometimes it's about a dark subject or a very true story from my own life that if I really think about it for too long, I'll spiral. But when I talk about it to my friends, Justin, or anybody else, it actually makes me laugh because it's sad and true. The only thing that you can do with certain sad but true things is to laugh at them. That's the way that I cope and express myself.

I'm being extremely brutally honest in this record and I'm talking about things from my own life that haven't necessarily been easy to deal with and thoughts that kind of consume me, sometimes in a very negative way. I'm a glass half empty girl, but this album isn't meant to be glass half empty. It's just a self-reflection and it can definitely be viewed through a comedic lens. In the moments where you want to laugh at a lyric, I encourage you to. I just hope that people listen to it and they hear themselves, and they feel like everyone else who is listening. They're all connected, and they're all connected to me and to each other. That really is all you can ask for when you make a body of work.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.