LA-based indie pop artist BEL reflects on the long, winding road to her cinematic debut album Holy Grail, a tender, triumphant chronicle of dream-chasing, doubt, resilience, and learning to “land on a when instead of an if.” A longtime Atwood Artist-to-Watch and rising voice in the indie scene, BEL brings a rare blend of vulnerability and vision to her work, illuminating the messy, hopeful, deeply human process of believing in something before anyone else does, while learning to trust the path beneath her feet.
Stream: ‘Holy Grail’ – BEL
The Holy Grail has always belonged to the dreamers – the seekers who chase something luminous and impossibly far, knowing the journey might cost them everything and choosing to go anyway.
Its mythology is built on obsession and hope in equal measure: Knights wandering through darkness for a glimpse of meaning; pilgrims risking their lives for a promise they can’t fully name; explorers holding onto a vision long before there’s any proof it exists. The Holy Grail represents the hunger that keeps you moving, the belief that the thing you’re reaching for is worth the bruises, the doubt, the heartache, the years of trying. It’s desire sharpened into purpose – the relentless pull toward a destiny you’re not sure you can touch, but refuse to abandon.
BEL’s debut album taps directly into that same longing, channeling the Grail’s restless pursuit into songs shaped by desire, doubt, and the will to keep going. Aptly titled Holy Grail, it’s one of those rare records that doesn’t just trace a dream – it embodies the dream itself.
God I never felt so small
My feet don’t touch the ground
I’m a kid in a trench coat
But I’m gonna fool you all
Learning to dance in the rain
Even if it starts to hail
Just do whatever it takes
To get to the holy grail
To get to the holy grail
– “Holy Grail,” BEL
Released October 17th via Nettwerk Music Group, Holy Grail unfolds like a hero’s journey for the modern age, tracing the fragile line between ambition and burnout, hope and heartbreak, yearning and becoming. It’s a record born from doubt and rebuilt through determination, shaped over years of quiet resilience, false starts, tiny miracles, and the kind of stubborn belief you cling to even when nothing seems to be moving at all.
For longtime listeners, watching this world come to life feels nearly mythic. Atwood Magazine first named BEL an Artist-to-Watch in 2020, and in the five years since, she’s grown from a tender folk-pop newcomer – writing songs in her childhood bedroom while her parents begged her to consider grad school – into a fully realized storyteller with a voice that cuts clean through the noise. Arriving in the wake of three critically acclaimed EPs and years’ worth of creative experimentation and self-discovery, Holy Grail is the culmination of that transformation: A cinematic, deeply personal self-portrait built on trust, surrender, and the radical act of carrying on when it would be easier to stop.
That arc plays out in vivid color across the tracklist. “I Want” turns the quiet ache of wanting into a slow-burning confession, holding tension between “maybe it’s enough” and “I want it all again, again, again” as BEL stacks desire on desire over a warm, gently shimmering groove. “Amor” brings her bilingual world to the forefront, a Spanglish daydream that feels like manifesting love in real time, while “Fresh Start” glistens with gratitude and bittersweet release – a groovy, glowing ode to friendships, change, and choosing the bright side even when goodbye hurts.
The album’s center of gravity is the penultimate “Holy Grail” itself – a gentle giant, a tender tempest that swells from intimate reflection into something quietly anthemic, pedal steel and tape-warmed textures wrapping around her voice as she sings about doing “whatever it takes to get to the holy grail.” Meanwhile, Holy Grail’s deeper cuts reveal new shades of Whelan’s songwriting: “Only Want You” channels the raw, dizzying intensity of an all-consuming crush, while “Look It Up” leans into a cathartic, angsty release that lets a little anger out in the best possible way.
Closer “Parachute” sends the record off on a high, turning free-fall into faith as she repeats, “I know what I’m looking for, I just gotta look some more to find it” – a hopeful landing that feels less like an ending than a promise to keep searching.
Taken as a whole, these songs form a portrait of an artist learning to live inside her own longing – not by taming it, but by understanding it.
It is, as Isabel Whelan puts it, a record about “learning to land on a when instead of an if,” a sentiment that both anchors the album and defines her ascent. Across these twelve songs, BEL chases the impossible, confronts the algorithmic pressure of modern artistry, rekindles childhood dreams, and lets herself believe – maybe for the first time – that she’s exactly where she needs to be.
With Holy Grail now out in the world, BEL sat down with Atwood Magazine to reflect on the making of her debut album, the years that led here, and the dreams that continue to pull her forward. Read our conversation below, and stream Holy Grail out now – a reminder that everyone has their own grail to chase, their own dream that keeps them moving.
Wherever BEL’s songs meet you on your journey, let them be a reminder to never stop dreaming, to never stop trying, and to never stop pushing toward the life you want, even when the road feels uncertain and the finish line keeps moving.
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:: read more about BEL here ::
:: connect with BEL here ::
:: stream/purchase Holy Grail here ::
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Stream: ‘Holy Grail’ – BEL
A CONVERSATION WITH BEL
Atwood Magazine: BEL, it's been almost two full weeks since the release of Holy Grail. How are you feeling?
BEL: I’m feeling proud of it. I feel really excited that it’s finally out in the world. It felt like a long time coming. It’s like I started writing it three years ago, and then it was like kind of a six-month rollout process too. So it’s nice to have it finally be out and people be able to digest it and everything. And I think also… Sorry, one second, I think it’s like a postpartum sort of feeling too, like weirdly. I think I feel a little bit like the adrenaline high and then the crash afterwards was… It’s a little crazy. There’s a lot of emotions for sure.
We’ve known each other a long time now, and I wanted to tap into that full arc right away. You released your debut single over five years ago, and we’ve been covering your journey ever since – it’s been such a joy watching you grow and explore so many different sounds and spaces as an artist. Looking back, how do you think the BEL of “Silver Line” would see you today, and how do you feel you’ve grown over these past five years?
BEL: Wow, “Silver Line,” it’s so funny. I haven’t thought about that song in so long. It just brings back all this nostalgia. I just was so fresh on the scene. I don’t know, I was not sure of anything at that point. And also, it was during COVID, and I was living at home with my parents. And I remember my parents sat me down, and they were like, you should go to grad school. What are you doing with your life? Why did you choose this career path? And I think, flash forward now, it feels like not having those conversations with them anymore. And it feels like I’ve gotten to a place where I’m sure that this is my path, even though it has been difficult. But I think there was a lot of uncertainty back in the ‘Silver Line’ days. I mean, there’s always a little bit of uncertainty. But I just didn’t know anything. I was just trying to find a community that I didn’t really have yet. And also trying to find my sound still. But I think I also, I still will always have these elements of the folkiness that ‘Silver Line’ had that is just sort of always going to be my through line. I think “Holy Grail” is the folkiest song on the album. And that feels like a really stripped back, just raw version of who I am. And so I think I have grown a lot in my songwriting and in my production, but I think I also have still remained very connected to that sort of genre, with really raw lyrics and personal experiences.
I know firsthand how many different sounds and songs have come between that point and now – from Muscle Memory to Jet Lag to Read the Room, and beyond. It’s been such a journey watching you get here. Do you feel like Holy Grail is the sum of those first three EPs, or does it feel like something entirely its own?
BEL: I think, yeah, I don’t think that it’s exactly a sum of all the parts, but it’s definitely taking pieces from that, but kind of starting a new era. I think I really wanted to be super intentional with my first full-length album, and I wanted to feel like everything was really cohesive, like with transitions and the “Intro,” and I wanted it to flow together a lot more seamlessly and have this production world of textures and everything that kind of flowed through. So with the other EPs, I had worked with different writer-producers on some of the different songs, and I think they all really worked together still, and they felt cohesive. But with this, I wanted to have an executive producer to kind of glue it all together more. So it felt like a new thing for me, for sure. I’d never done anything like that before, and I just got to experiment a lot more with different textures and playing around with things while we were doing the sort of final production process of the album. So yeah, it was very different from the past projects, and also still just like me, because I obviously had made these songs through these experiences I’d had.
You mentioned that some of these songs go back a while. What was your experience like working with Jason Harris? Did you bring him a big batch of demos to sort through together, or were things more fully formed by the time you went into the studio? How did that collaboration take shape?
BEL: Yeah, I had done quite a few just writing sessions over the two years that it was sort of coming together with different collaborators, and I had compiled this list of like 30 or 40 demos, and I just went through that on my own and listened to, okay, what are like the 10 songs I can’t live without putting out? And then like went from there, and also was like, what makes sense to fit all together in this world of ‘Holy Grail’? Because I also knew I wanted “Holy Grail” to be the sort of focus of the album, because that was the first song I had written before this whole process. So I had all these songs, I sort of put them all together. Two of them I had written with Jason on separate occasions and sessions with him, and then as I was looking for an executive producer, he just made the most sense to me because we have this really silly rapport together, and we’re just both very similar in the way that we think about things. And any session we had together, it would be like we were thinking the same thing when we wanted to add certain things or certain lines, and so it felt like the obvious choice, and I brought it to him, and he was super excited, and that was just what I needed. I just needed somebody that was as excited about the music as I was. And then we started doing, I went on a long tour in the fall, and when I got back, we just locked in, and every day for about a month and a half, we’re just going in on some songs that felt pretty much fully there, and then some we kind of reproduced a little bit. So it was a mixture of him coming in and restarting some stuff, but then also just adding some layers to make it all come together.
So you knew “Holy Grail” was the holy grail – you knew you wanted it to be the focal point of your debut album going into it. Why? What, for you, is special about that song and its underlying concept?
BEL: I didn’t know at the time when I wrote it that that was going to be an album or that I was even writing an album. I just felt like that song felt really different. And when I wrote it, I was in the process of making Read the Room. It just didn’t fit in that world. But then it also was so special. And it felt sort of like the thesis of just what it is to be an artist and a human. And I think a lot of the themes I explore throughout my past projects is a lot of resilience and learning to roll with the punches. But this one felt extra raw and extra vulnerable. And I kind of sat on it for a while because I knew I wanted to build a world around it. I knew that it felt really special. And when I first went on my first tour, I started to just play it acoustic and everybody like really responded to it. And people would come up to me afterwards and say, when are you going to release this? That song really spoke to me. And I was just like, ah, hopefully soon. I didn’t have any real plan yet. And somebody else pointed this out to me, though. I didn’t even realize this. But the song that I wrote about feeling like no one was listening to me was the song that got people listening to me. And that felt really crazy. And I didn’t even realize that until just recently. But I thought, okay, this is a really special thing. And I felt it. And that’s why I was sure that it was going to be the album.
I also just knew that the visuals kind of flooded into my head, too, just with “Holy Grail.” I knew it could be really cool. And the mixture of humor and whimsical and everything that is sort of like childhood dreams that I had in my head felt really good with that sort of theme. And like Monty Python, obviously, there’s just a lot of references, I think, that help bring it to a fun world visually, too.
BEL: Yeah, I think that I wanted to end the album on a sort of hopeful note. I don’t know. I feel when I listen to an album and if it leaves off on a more somber note, I kind of like, aw, like what? I don’t know. Just me personally, as a listener, it’s really nice to leave a world that can be a little emotional on a note that has more hope to it.
I think there’s something really cathartic about the closure you create with those last two songs – it feels earned. On the other end of the record, though, you open with “I Want,” which is still my favorite on the album. It’s so honest and bare, but also wonderfully whimsical melodically. What was the intention behind starting the album with that song, and with such literal “I want” statements?
BEL: I think the idea behind the track order was to kind of create a story of like a journey, like a hero’s journey sort of thing where like I initially had this idea of the story of like a medieval peasant wanting to be a princess, but having absolutely no way of reaching that goal.
Are you the medieval peasant in this scenario?
BEL: Yeah, in this scenario, yes I am. And it stems from when I was a kid, when I was really little, for career day I went as a princess because I thought you could do that. I wanted that to be that. I even have a photo of it, it’s so funny, I’ll send it to you. But it’s just like that was my dream as a little girl. And then my mom was like you have to like marry a prince, it’s really hard to be a princess. And I was like, oh, okay, got it.
So is Meghan Markle living out your dream…?
BEL: Yeah, what the heck, Meghan Markle? So then I obviously chose a really easy path of becoming a musician instead. I just wanted it to show this like this path of all the dreams and hopes that you want that feel so out of reach. And then trying for these things and trying for love and things not working out and then having like introspection about it and realizing that, okay, this isn’t what I actually wanted. This was a redirection and I will find what I want. And I’m going to keep going forward and just do whatever it takes because there is something pulling me towards this for whatever reason. And the little things along the way that don’t go my way are just telling me that wasn’t the thing I actually wanted. I need to just keep going down the path, down into the magical forest. But yeah, that’s basically why I started the album on that note. And yeah, I don’t know. I think ending on “Parachute,” especially after “Holy Grail,” because “Holy Grail” is like talking about reaching for something, looking for something. It felt like ending on “Parachute” was a way of saying like, it’s going to happen. It’s going to happen. Just keep looking and don’t give up.
It is an incredibly hopeful place to leave the album. You’ve said that the theme of this record is letting go of expectations and trusting the process of chasing your dreams. I think it is especially powerful that your debut album is centered on the act of chasing a dream, when the release of a debut album on any scale is itself the realization of one. Not to get too in our heads about it, but it is both an achievement and, at the same time, just the beginning. It satisfies something, yet we are never fully satisfied.
BEL: I agree. I think it, I have felt really emotional about that, that the “Holy Grail” I was writing about three years ago, there were so many things that I have been able to achieve since then, like going on tour, signing to a label, making my first album, having a song in a commercial, going… Playing festivals, like there are just so many things I just didn’t know were possible or were going to happen for me when I wrote the song. And that feels really, really magical and special to now be able to put it out at this point and to still feel like I’m just starting to… To still feel like I… There are still so many things I want to achieve and I want to keep growing. And it’s just funny, like the… It seems like the goalpost is always moving and that I guess that’s just being a human, but it is very special. And I do recognize that too, that there is some sort of weird magical manifesting that has occurred because of some of these songs on the album. I’m also very much in love now. And so it just feels really special.
Yeah, I think what ends up happening is that for this album, it just feels like we're really getting to know the real you in so many ways, and that we're getting a peek behind the curtain.
BEL: No pun intended.
I think the thing about being an artist in this day and age is that we live in this content-hungry world where you have to be defined by your next best thing, not by the things that you've already done. And in some respects, the ‘holy grail’ is forever looking forward. It's forever, until “Parachute,” until the very end, where I think there is this kind of acceptance or understanding that you're here, you're where you need to be. And there's something special about that.
BEL: Yeah, I think it’s important to land on a “when” instead of an “if.” So that’s what it feels like.
I think it still gets to me, though, for sure, this time that we’re living in. I think even the day after I released the album, I was like, oh, God, I haven’t written anything this whole year. I need to hurry up and write the next album. And it’s like, what a crazy feeling. I should just be so proud of what I just made. And yet, I myself, I’m feeling a little bit like I’ve dropped the ball because I haven’t gotten a remix ready or something like that. And I don’t really know what the answer is for that. But it’s hard, too, with everything, with the algorithm. And I don’t know if people that even already follow me know that I put an album out. It’s a little scary, too. And also just feeling like sometimes your success depends on if you finally go viral or something. So I don’t know. It’s. It’s special to have people like you that have been there from the start and have followed the growth because you genuinely support the music. So I’m grateful for that.
The “holy grail” is the discography you built along the way.
BEL: Exactly.
What are some of your favorite songs and what are some of the most memorable moments for you when it comes to this album as a whole?
BEL: My favorite songs on the album right now, I think, well, “Fresh Start” is always going to be a favorite. “Amor” is a big favorite. And because those are both really fun to play live, for sure. “Read Between,” I would say, that one I have very near to my heart. It just feels so cool. The production is so fun and interesting. And I love songs that feel like three songs in one. So now it’s definitely a big favorite of mine.
And in the process of making the album, the day that we recorded “Holy Grail” was so special because we recorded most of it to tape and we had a pedal steel player come in and play on a couple of the songs. But specifically when he played on “Holy Grail,” I was just in tears. I was like, this is exactly how it’s supposed to sound. And that was such a special moment making it. And yeah, it was just… It was so much fun making the record. Jason and I both are just so sarcastic and funny to each other that we just… It was never a dull moment in the studio. Yeah, it was just great.
Was working with an executive producer on a full-length different from how you approached your EPs, where you were essentially the final decision maker on everything, including track order? For this album you had a partner helping shape the whole project. What did that partnership look like for you?
BEL: Yeah, I think like we… It was very much a partnership. I think at the end of the day, he would defer to me on my opinions more than his, but we all… But we also have very similar… We’re just on the same wavelength. So it never felt like I was… I don’t know, it just felt like it was our decisions together. But yeah, it was nice to have another ear that I trusted to come up with the order of the songs and the transitions and everything. It was just… It was nice because in the past it has all just been me by myself trusting that, all right, I hope this is a good order.
Yeah, I will say it was really, really hard to pick the singles and that I don’t know. I don’t know if I did the right thing or not. Who knows? You never know. But that was a difficult process. I had like his opinion, my opinion, my manager’s opinions and the label’s opinions and everyone had different selections for singles. It was like there were only like some common denominators. So it was just like, okay, well, that’s I guess that’s a good problem to have.
I think that is a good problem to have. It means everyone finds a different favorite, and you can never fully read the tea leaves, but it also means each of these songs has its own moment to shine. Speaking of that, one thing I love about the song “Amor” is how you bring a little of your family’s culture into the full record the way you did with that single. Can we talk about that song, where it came from, and what it means to you?
BEL: Yeah, I knew that I wanted to have something with Spanish lyrics on my first album because, yeah, I want this album to be me. And that is my part of my identity. I grew up in a bilingual household. My mom is Argentine and I feel like Spanglish is just like the perfect encapsulation of how I can express myself, too. And that’s why I have Spanglish songs. But I think also in the future, I would like to have some songs that are fully in Spanish and I’d like to explore that more. But I think, yeah, this song specifically, I really was manifesting finding somebody who speaks Spanish, like falling in love with somebody who speaks Spanish. And I did. I did find that person!! That’s why that song has Spanish lyrics, too. It’s just kind of like a double sort of thing. I want love. I want some Spanish love.
It really sounds like you hit the Holy Grail on multiple levels.
BEL: Yeah, I’m going to knock on wood. Don’t jinx it.
Outside of the singles, what song or songs do you really hope people listen to?
BEL: I mean, I hope they listen to the whole thing from top to bottom, but I guess if people are just discovering me, you’re saying aside from the singles, like the album cuts? I think “Only Want You” is really resonating with people… I think that “Only Want You” is a more… It’s a very raw song, and I think people have been resonating with it, I think, because it’s very relatable, and just the emotion behind having a really intense crush or infatuation for someone, and that just being so debilitating. And then “Look It Up” – “Look It Up” is just a fun song that feels like you get a little angsty, and it’s nice to kind of let a little anger out. So I think that one may be also. I don’t know, you put me on the spot, it’s tough. I like all the songs.
With your album out now, what's next? You finally got your first taste of touring over the past couple of years. Is there more to come in that vein?
BEL: I hope so. I am manifesting a really cool tour, but nothing yet, nothing announced or anything yet. But hopefully, I just played a really fun sort of like mini East Coast tour/and then LA release show. So that was really fun. But yes, hopefully, a bigger, more expansive tour soon.
What is it like playing these songs live versus some of your older tracks? Is there more nuance? Is there more that goes into them from a band performance perspective?
BEL: Yeah. For the LA release show, when I played “Holy Grail,” I couldn’t even get through the first line without crying. It just felt so emotional and so special to see a room full of people there for my album release. And to sing that song, it was just like, whoa, crazy full circle moment. And so it definitely has taken on a new, very deep meaning for sure, just the way that everything’s happened. And it was really, really special to have a full band for the LA show. It’s been it’s really expensive to tour with a band. So most of the tours I’ve done, I’ve just done like a duo or sometimes a trio. But I got like… I went all out for the LA show. And I just forgot how fun it is to be able to have a full band. And I hope that I can afford to do that in the future for a larger tour. That would be really special.
Well, I hope that for you as well. Can you describe this record in three words?
BEL: Just keep going.
I suppose that goes back to kind of the determination and drive at the heart of the album. Let me ask you, were there any points over the past five years when you were making your EPs and singles and working toward this, ostensibly, that you weren't sure if you wanted to or could keep going? Or has that kind of fire never gone out?
BEL: No, definitely. When I wrote “Holy Grail,” I had just fired my previous management and I was not making any money from music. And I was just like, okay, I don’t know why I’m doing this. Nothing’s really moving for me. And then, I don’t know, I guess I just put out “Are You Okay?” and then that started to do really well. And I was self-managing everything. And then, yeah, but I definitely was like, this is just not working. Maybe it’s not working for a reason. So I’ve had moments like that, for sure. And it still feels that way sometimes where I’m just like, I do still have a day job. And I feel like I would love to not have to have a day job. So I don’t know. Sometimes it’s scary.
I get it. I think it takes so much time for all of us. I was speaking to a band that's barely successful, gone on headline tours, etcetera. They all still have day jobs. I was like, damn.
BEL: I know, I know. It is really, really crazy when you think about it. A lot of people that have some success still need a day job. And then if they don’t, I don’t know how they’re surviving. It’s especially hard now with just the economy is terrible and all that. And I think playing live touring is in a really weird place right now, too. I just know so many people that have had to cancel tours for not selling well. And I almost had to do that, too. And it’s just such a terrible feeling. And so that’s always really scary, too. It’s like, what does the future look like for me as a touring artist? Is there financial security in that? I don’t know.
What does success look like for you? What does the “holy grail” look like today?
BEL: I would really love to be able to tour and sell out shows and tour the band. I would love to have my music on a movie or a show and even write an original song for a show or something. That would be really cool. And yeah, I want to make another album and write more in Spanish and collaborate with artists I really love. So yeah, I guess that’s one of my Holy Grails for sure. And playing Coachella would be crazy. Or Outside Lands, like playing a really big festival would be really cool.
What do you hope listeners take away from Holy Grail, and what have you taken away from creating it and putting it out?
BEL: I hope listeners take away that sometimes setbacks are the best thing to happen to you. And if you keep moving forward, you’ll be able to see that.
What have I taken away from it? I think my takeaway is that I do really believe everything happens for a reason, and I do believe that there is a timeline that we’re just not aware of for things, and you have to trust. You have to trust in the universe and trust in yourself that there is some reason why you have these certain desires for whatever it is in your life, even if you’re not an artist or whatever career path you have.
In the spirit of paying it forward, who are you personally listening to these days that you would recommend to our readers?
BEL: Ooh, I always have trouble with this. I have to look at my things I’ve been listening to because my brain is so scattered all the time. I was listening to this artist I found on TikTok. Her name’s Annabelle Dinda. She has a really crazy voice and writes really beautiful, folky songs. But yeah, she’s really good. You should look her up and listen to her. Start off with “Good Things” or “Logging field.”
Awesome. I'll check it out. This has been so much fun. Thank you so much for your time today.
BEL: Thank you so much. Thank you for all the years of your incredible writing. Truly, you are my favorite, favorite writer. You’re so talented.
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:: read more about BEL here ::
:: connect with BEL here ::
:: stream/purchase Holy Grail here ::
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