Penny Beverly: from the sync world to the CA Shore
10/26/2024
If you close your eyes so tightly you start to see pink, death grip your Coors Light bottle until your knuckles fade white, and tune out the ceaseless clings of pool balls at your local dive bar, you, too, can feel like you’re in a hip bar in the ’80s with the help of a Penny Beverly song.
“Jump In” was my first introduction to the Portland (now Los Angeles) based duo. The upbeat indie pop jam has sleek production, a catchy chorus, and the charming appeal of a new group finding their footing.
All thanks to Mrs. Smith.
Duncan MacEachern and Michael Mazzocco met in kindergarten and have been best friends ever since. Even through the typical coming-of-age changes like school shifts and location changes, the two always managed to connect with each other.
“We shared a common theme of not liking Barbie dolls at five years old,” MacEachern said. “We hit it off after that.”
MacEachern grew up playing piano and eventually drums, and Mazzocco grew up in what he described as a “pretty musical family.” Mazzocco’s father was a bass player for prolific artists like BB King, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and many others. Unsurprisingly, the apple didn't fall far from the Mazzocco family tree— Michael played bass.
Though most musicians would rather get their teeth pulled out than create music for the sole purpose of “background music,” this fate is what propelled Penny Beverly to pursue music seriously.
Mazoocco’s brother offered the two an opportunity to create some DMCA-free tracks for streamers and other online entertainers. Since traditionally copyrighted music can’t be broadcast, Users have to find their way to skirt around the copyright law and find tunes that protect their content from getting taken down. MacEachern and Mazzocco used this time to experiment and gauge interest in the work they could create.
“That whole project started about three years ago, and a good amount of people really liked our work,” MacEachern said. “Penny Beverly evolved from that. It was a natural progression, but we could’ve started this work in 2016. We just weren’t on the same page until recently.”
You haven’t heard Penny Beverly on the radio, but they’ve already been commercially successful. At a Christmas party last year the duo met a producer in need of a song. The two set out on an unlikely assignment: a Frank Sinatra cover.
“We had a bunch of Frank Sinatra renditions, but none were really working,” Mazzocco said. “It’s an impossible task to cover Frank Sinatra, right? It’s not going to sound like him… but you kind of want to sound like him… but we couldn’t find the right balance. So we ended up sending him the file for “What’s Your Name,’”
“What’s Your Name,” the fourth song on their EP Something Else, ended up in the “Prompted by Dreams” Honda commercial earlier this year. The promo video has over 4 million views, but the only way you could find out this was a Penny Beverly track would be if you Shazam-ed it.
“When we were making some tracks under 'Penny Beverly,' we had this one where we literally were like ‘damn, this sounds like it’s going to be in a commercial or something,’” Mazzocco said. “The horns and all that stuff — it was too perfect. I felt like I was Nostradamus.”
Penny Beverly relocated to LA a few years back, and like all artists who have followed the same path, it’s been a rewarding and challenging pursuit.
“At this point, we know what we want,” MacEachern said. “We’re particular about what direction we want to go, but we’re open to try new things. We’ve been so lucky with the support from the LA community so far. We had our debut show recently, and all the people whose shows we went to support before came out to see us.”
It was an audience of artists, making it the perfect debut spot for the duo: a communal experience with other LA acts in the duo’s network, an awkward experience at times, and a chance to get their name out there.
“The sad part about moving to Los Angeles is knowing that you’re going to be taking a risk no matter what,” Mazzocco said. “We’re just like a bunch of idiots from Portland — we could stay there and do nothing or we can go to LA and try. So far, we’re pretty happy with the decision.”
Penny Beverly is set to release the first track of their new EP this October, and they’re ushering in this new era with the mindset of “what will we be proud of in ten years?”
The duo’s sound is eternally summer, like a bug trapped in amber. Despite this solid sense of warmth captured in each track, they’re flexible, experimental musicians with a moldable future ahead of them.
“Most bands like to play their music first and then record it,” Mazzocco said. “We like to record our music first and then play it. It’s a little backwards, I guess, but it’s just how we work. When we pitch our music to people, we just let the music speak for itself. We don’t try to explain it.”
Until next time,
Rocka out
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