How Liz Stokes Overcame Health Issues and Writer’s Block to Write the Beths’ Most Beautiful Record

Liz Stokes is trying to break my heart. 

That’s the only explanation for her song “Mother, Pray for Me”, which begins with a plea: “Mother, say a prayer for me / I can never know what you’ve seen / I don’t have what you have / I don’t seek what you seek.” Her words then come agonisingly full circle, Stokes’ voice breaking even on record. “Mother, are you there? It’s me / I know I didn’t call last week / The longer that I hold off, the heavier it seems / And I never know what to say anyway / Mother, pray for me.”

And exhale. 

It is, by quite some margin, the most vulnerable song in the Beths’ catalogue, Stokes revealing more to herself, to her mother, and to us than she probably thought she ever would. 

Because the catharsis of “Mother, Pray for Me”, and the full album for which it acts as the heartbreaking centrepiece, Straight Line Was a Lie, almost never came to be. 

Across three albums in five years (2018’s Future Me Hates Me, 2020’s Jump Rope Grazers, and 2022’s Expert in a Dying Field) Stokes established herself as one of the foremost lyricists in indie rock. Her precise observations, on the nuances of our intimate relationships — romantic or otherwise — and the torrid anxiety of simply being alive, led The Beths to becoming the biggest breakout act — sans one very famous Devonport-raised pop star — in New Zealand music’s modern history. 

Going into their fourth album, however, the words just weren’t coming to Stokes as easily as they once did. 

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In early 2023, instead of revelling in the laudatory reception bestowed upon Expert in a Dying Field, Stokes found herself battling a diagnosis of Graves’ disease, an autoimmune condition that affects the thyroid gland and can also impact one’s emotional regulation. Stokes, already prone to “anxiety and depressive tendencies,” as she admits, spiralled, leading to her going on antidepressants for the very first time. 

It took her “like six months to [a] year” to get her hormone levels back to normal, at the same as she contended with “the mental ups and downs” which accompany such a fraught physical journey. “[Y]our weight kind of fluctuates wildly and I had Thyroid eye disease. So my eyes started bugging out… they’ve gotten better, but they look different to me and they’re never gonna go back to normal,” she says. “[W]hen stuff happens to your body and you’re like, ‘What the hell’s going on?’… You feel like you don’t have a lot of control.”

SSRIs, though? Those are all about control. Regulation. Balance. 

“[I]t was kind of an amazing experience at first, to have the voices that have always been there, [the] cruel voices that are in my head, be quiet,” Stokes reflects. 

The medication exerted some much-needed control over Stokes’ personal life, but it also began to impact her writing. Recorded song fragments existed on her phone — and nothing else. 

“Towards the end, I had what I think a lot of people have, which is where I was too level, [I] was feeling a bit numb,” she says. “I struggled to write while I was on it. I managed to write a lot of stuff, some stuff, but I wasn’t writing a lot of music, just ‘cause maybe my internal compass felt like it was a little uncalibrated.”

It quickly became clear that her typical writing process would have to be reshaped. With the help of her partner in both life and music, the Beths’ guitarist Jonathan Pearce, Stokes turned to books by Stephen King (On Writing), Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner (How Big Things Get Done), and Robert A. Caro (Working). Each morning she sat in front of a Remington typewriter — a gift from their bassist Benjamin Sinclair — and pressed the keys again and again until she had 10 pages of material. Like Kerouac but on safer drugs, she wrote in a free-flowing, stream-of-consciousness style, typing, in her own words, “like a mad woman.” 

“I was writing about stuff that I normally wouldn’t write about,” she says, “[that] was too hard to talk about, too hard to look at in my own brain, so it was good… normally when I do like free-writing or journaling, I do it by hand, but I’m not very fast [at] writing by hand. The faster I get, the more unreadable it becomes… but I can type at a decent clip. And so it feels like being able to use a tool to write at the speed of my thoughts somewhat. 

“And then there’s the thing that because it’s analogue — I just did air quotes,” she adds, blushing, after doing air quotes. 

“Because analogue, you can’t erase. You can’t go back and tweak things. You can’t correct your typos, so there’s a lot of typos. But also you can’t edit your thoughts as they come out, which is good… it’s mostly bad, but I feel like you need to be okay with that.”

Image: Liz Stokes performs at The Greek Theatre, California, in October 2023 Credit: Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images

“Did this new way of writing make things more personal?” I ask.

“Yeah, I think it was, it was diving into stuff that I had maybe thought was too close to home or too taboo,” Stokes replies. “So there’s stuff about my relationship with my mum, talking about things that I would think that are not ‘song things’ or something.”

She gives another example: “Mosquitoes”, in which she recounts memories of the Oakley Creek Reserve in Auckland; after sweeping floods submerged many parts of the city in 2023, the reserve completely changed in the span of one day. Reflecting on this seismic transformation, she was moved to write. [I]t was because I had it there in my big stack of papers and was like, ‘Okay, there’s something, I clearly have some feelings about this and so let’s go there.’ 

We’re talking across Zoom in New Zealand, from different islands. Up north in Auckland, Stokes sits in a cavernous recording room at Roundhead Studios, alone except from a Grand Piano looming in the background. One hour from now, the Beths will take to the stage for ‘Infinity Sessions’, a co-initiative between Crowded House’s Neil Finn and the studio described as a “midwinter pick me up” for Aotearoa’s music community. Busy people filter in and out of the room, and Stokes gently swats each one away with a quick “sorry.”

Even though her Graves’ disease diagnosis and antidepressants initiation and writer’s block all happened during what must have been a suffocating one-and-a-half-year period (circa late-2022-2024), she is wholly ready to discuss all of it. 

Stokes says she made the difficult decision to come off her medication last year.

“Were you terrified when you came off [the SSRIs]?” I ask.

“Yeah, I was nervous,” she concedes. “But I had been able to — because I was on it for the first time in my life — start building the things that you’re supposed to do that are helpful. It’s frustrating that they’re helpful because you’re like, ‘Everyone was right,’ [about] exercising and trying to build in these routines… to have that circuit-breaker period of time, to live in a brain that was not throwing its toys out all the time, was super instructive and very helpful.” She pauses. “I feel like I’ll probably be back on [the SSRIs] at some point in my life.” 

In the provided bio for Straight Line Was a Lie, one particular quote by Stokes stands out: “Linear progression is an illusion… What life really is is maintenance. And finding meaning in the maintenance.” 

It’s a quietly profound statement, and one anomalous with this era of ‘grindset’ culture and ‘life hack’ TikTok videos and bookshelves overflowing with self-help manuals promising perfection. 

“I don’t know, I think after the kind of low point that I was at, I was kind of getting better and figuring stuff out and I was like, ‘I think this is it,’” she ponders. “I think I’m gonna be better now… I think I’ve figured it out, and then realising that it doesn’t really work that way most of the time for most people. 

“It’s going to be up and it’s going [to] be down. It’s looking at the things that are important to you and seeing what you need to do to keep them going… It feels depressing but I’m trying to make it not feel depressing.”

It’s tempting to see linear progression in The Beths’ trajectory, but that would be to ignore the subtle fluctuations in their career since Future Me Hates Me was hailed as one of the best indie debut albums of the 2010s. 

Their second album, Jump Rope Gazers, didn’t feature a breakout track like “Happy Unhappy” or “Future Me Hates Me”. Reviews were somewhat positive but comparatively tepid, including a 6.3 rating from Pitchfork and a 6 from Clash. It lacked the immediate infectiousness of their stunning debut, and felt like a slightly safe swerving of ‘second album syndrome’.

Two years later, Expert in a Dying Field came along and, for most critics and fans, completely overshadowed both of their preceding records. 

Their third album sped the band forward with exhilarating abandon, chasing the thrilling hooks and adrenaline of Future Me Hates Me. The tempo was revved up, the shackles entirely removed. “The formula is being maintained,” Pearce said. “But with this record, we’ve just completely leaned into what we think the Beths is.”

Power-pop was having quite the moment in 2022, but Expert in a Dying Field was equal to anything by Alvvays or Cheekface or any other genre purveyors.

“Expert in a Dying Field is the album that cements Stokes and her tight-knit cohorts’ reputation as one of the best New Zealand bands of their generation,” I wrote as 2022 came to a close. Most music year-end lists featured the album, including Rolling Stone’s at No. 67. Expert in a Dying Field earned the Beths two nominations at the 2023 Rolling Stone Aotearoa Awards (one win in the prestigious Global Award category), and it deservedly topped our 80 Greatest New Zealand Albums of the 2020s So Far list earlier this year.

Straight Was a Lie doesn’t necessarily improve on Expert in a Dying Field, nor does it represent a relative dip, à la Jump Rope Gazers. 

“Straight Line Was a Lie is a baby step away from their previous LPs, slowing things down a bit for a strummier, reflective sound that balances ennui with that tongue-in-cheek angst,” Rolling Stone wrote in a 3.5/5 review. 

“Four records in, the Beths know their formula works — their strengths lie in ear-worm choruses, insightful lyrics, and Stokes’ sweet, knowing vocals, all anchored by stacked harmonies and sharp guitars. Straight Line Was a Lie finds the band embracing an openhearted surrender to every aspect of growth while acknowledging that the cycle will inevitably begin again.”

“[I]t feels more like a body of work, like a discography, right?” Stokes says. “Like, four albums is a discography. I definitely feel like the second was pretty scary. And then on the third one, whatever we were trying to do, it felt like we managed to do it. And then with this one, it felt a little more freeing.”

There’s plenty of power-pop surges for those who prefer the Beths that way (the punchy title track and “No Joy”), but this new album finds the band trying out different things. “Metal” is the jangliest they’ve ever sounded, a twinkly gem that the Lucksmiths or the Sundays would have been proud to call their own; “Best Laid Plans” is a playful and funky album closer; the addition of more acoustic guitar, Stokes explains, allowed “Jonathan and all of [to] expand sonically a little bit more and have a bit more fun.”

Another person tries to enter the recording room. It’s not long before the Beths have to make final preparations for their ‘Infinity Sessions’ set. 

“You’ve been doing a lot of big shows like Coachella. Is it nice to have a little intimate Kiwi performance?” 

“I guess,” she replies. “Sometimes it feels like there’s no such thing as a little show… this is almost like a test run for us.”

Stokes and her bandmates — drummer Tristan Deck joins her, Pearce, and Sinclair in the lineup — are just a few weeks out from another North American tour, where they’ll play their biggest shows to date on the continent. 

“I just caught you before everything gets chaotic! You’ve been to the States a few times now — do you feel less nervous going over? Does it get easier? 

“I think I’m less nervous,” Stokes confides. “We’ve done it a lot. [I] feel like we’re prepared enough now that, if something went wrong, it would be something that we would just have not foreseen and have no control over. So there’s kind of nothing we can do about that. (This part of the conversation evidently jinxed the band: on the day of a show on the European leg of their tour in September, their van was broken into, with instruments and equipment stolen.) 

“It’s our biggest market — that sounds like a business word, but, you know, it’s a large country with a lot of people,” Stokes continues. “Yeah. It means it’s where we play the most because it’s where there are the most people who come to shows [based] on pure numbers.”

“It must be nice having this American audience.”

“Yeah, it feels really good. We’re not like a massive band by any means, but it feels nice to feel like you’ve found your niche following in a bunch of different places, including in New Zealand. You can get into your head because we tour kind of relentlessly, and they [the shows] keep getting bigger, but we’ve never exploded. You can’t take for granted that we’ll just keep levelling up very slowly.”

“Levelling up” is the only way to describe how the Beths kicked off their current North American tour. 

Two months after ‘Infinity Sessions’, they made their late-night television debut in the US, enthusiastically singing the title track from their new album on Jimmy Kimmel Live!. They looked every inch like four musicians who belonged on such a stage; Stokes was so comfortable that she ad-libbed a “what’s up, Kimmel!” shout mid-song. (An illuminating figure: in Q3 2025, Jimmy Kimmel Live! averaged 1.85 million viewers, or almost exactly a third of New Zealand’s entire population.)

“Anxiety is the constant hum of my life. Then I step out onstage, and it goes away,” Florence Welch said in her recent Rolling Stone interview, and maybe there’s something of that in Stokes, too. “I was nervous about this interview,” she admitted to the Guardian a few months ago, “so I made myself a cocktail, but with milk instead of cream.” I wouldn’t blame her for wishing she was sitting instead at the Grand Piano behind her, coming up with a new song; this album cycle features such heavy subject matter. 

But onstage? Stokes comes alive. Whether its debut performances at Coachella or on Kimmel, or a few rounds in the hallowed KEXP studios, or any number of homeland shows, she is, 10-years-and-a-bit into this whole music thing, a performer of poise and skill. The Beths are a well-oiled machine at this point, and Stokes’ commanding presence at the front has a lot to do with it. 

“There’s this deep satisfaction that comes from doing something over and over again and getting better at it marginally… in a sports way or like a skill, craft way,” they told RNZ in March. “”It’s like an Olympic sport or something at times where you’re just trying to eke out that last centimetre of your toe on the line or something like that.”

Straight Line Was a Lie pushes Stokes to the forefront of the band more than ever before. I’m reminded of the way Adrianne Lenker leads Big Thief: there are songs that feel like they belong purely to her (“The Only Place”) and songs where the band unit has fun (“Spud Infinity”); ditto Stokes (“Mother, Pray for Me”) and the Beths (“Metal”). 

“Yeah, it feels like the songwriting was kind of a bit more…” she trails off. “It’s kind of a scary thing to decide to do [to be front and centre], but once you decide to do it, it feels like it was the right call in those moments. It’s like becoming secure as a band as well, to be like, ‘We are still us.’”

“[T]hey’re an excellent band,” she says of Big Thief when they’re brought up. “It feels like they’re the band, right? It’s quite rare now to have a band where it’s greater than the sum of its parts or something, and it’s something that we try for.

“Which is hard because it means you have to compromise and you have to work with each other and you have to listen to each other… it’s hard as well because I’m bringing in my songs and I’ve got big feelings about those songs because there’s big feelings in the songs and it’s not all hugs and butterflies, it’s communication which is tricky.”

Would Stokes ever venture out solo like Lenker does on occasion? She travelled with Pearce to Los Angeles in April, where she played a very rare solo set at famous music venue Largo. “We’ve done hundreds of Beths shows, but I’ve done like three solo shows,” she told the Guardian about the surprise performance. “For me, music feels like it’s something you do with other people. That’s what I would tell myself, but I was also really scared of just doing something for myself. I reached a point where I was like, ‘OK, because you’re scared, you should probably do it.’”

The reason the Beths work so well — how they can tour North American and Europe on an almost yearly basis, how they can overcome unexpected robberies and debilitating health issues — is because of how comfortable Stokes and her bandmates are with each other.  

“We’re a tight-knit group,” as Stokes told us in 2022. “We like being together, playing together, and touring together. You have to because with the amount of time you spend together it’s like a marriage!”

“[W]e’ve been playing for a long time and everybody individually has become better musicians, and we play as a unit really well,” she tells me now. 

Image: The Beths perform at The Tuning Fork, Auckland, in June 2021 Credit: Dave Simpson/WireImage

Another deeply personal track immediately follows “Mother, Pray for Me”.  

“I pull away like I’m used to / Like I used to / Pointless game that we play / Do we choose to? / Yeah, we choose to,” Stokes sings sombrely on “Til My Heart Stops”. She’s more hopeful in the sincere chorus: “I wanna ride my bike in the rain / I wanna fly my kite in a hurricane / I wanna float out the top / I wanna dance til I drop / I wanna love til my heart stops / I wanna ride my bike in the rain / Then I want you to take me back home again.”

“I feel like I can get in a kind of way where I feel like I’m boxing myself away from relationships, from people that I love, from experiences that I intellectually am like… I want to have these things,” Stokes says. “Why am I kind of shrinking away and putting myself behind a wall? I want to live in the world. [I] want to experience the world. It’s just about wanting that…”

The Beths are six shows into their North American tour. At each one so far, Stokes has performed “Mother, Pray for Me”, usually around the halfway mark of their set. The person whom the song is about hasn’t been present at any of these shows, but she has heard it. 

“[S]he likes it,” Stokes reveals. But remember: progression isn’t linear; life is about maintenance. 

“The thing in the song is that we have this gulf of understanding between us, and so that’s still present. So when I show her the song, [it’s] not like that gap is bridged, it’s more of an example of the gap, where she’s like, ‘It’s nice,’ and I’m like, ‘Okay.’ But that’s the thing — we have different brains.”

The Beths’ Straight Line Was a Lie is out now via ANTI- Records.