Rising Stars: Meet Greta Pasqua of Santa Monica

Today we’d like to introduce you to Greta Pasqua

Hi Greta, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I joke that my involvement in music was fated. Both my parents are musicians and worked within the music industry, so they forced me to take piano lessons as a kid, and I HATED it. I always said that I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up but the only thing I knew I didn’t want to be was a musician… yet here we are!

Songwriting found me when I was an angsty teenager, and I wound up pursuing it as my major in college within the Popular Music Department in USC’s Thornton School of Music. This is where I met my amazing mentor Patrice Rushen. After four years of spending all my time learning the intricacies about what makes good music really great, I graduated from the program in 2020 – right into the black hole that was the beginning of the pandemic. Patrice was my lighthouse and hired me back to be her assistant at USC that fall. I worked and wrote my way through those couple of dark years, and in 2022 found myself going on tour with Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys as his production assistant working under his tour manager, and Patrice’s husband, Marc St. Louis. Since then, I’ve continued working as Patrice’s assistant and as a production assistant for some very iconic acts.

It has been a joy to split my time between these amazing once-in-a-lifetime opportunities and continuing to work on my own career as an artist. I feel like I get to collect all these incredible life experiences and then incorporate them into the music I make.

I put out my first couple of singles last year, starting with my song “Freeway,” and I’m getting ready to release a few more this year. I won’t give too much away, but I’m really excited for the next couple of songs because they are a stark departure from what I already have out there, and they’re honestly just a lot of fun!

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The road is never smooth! I think Covid was a giant crater in the road for most of us. It was extremely difficult graduating from college into the beginning of the pandemic because there was nothing I could do at the time to get my career going. I was so lucky to start working for Patrice Rushen, but for a while there it was pretty dark.

Being an artist is a difficult path in general because your success is not necessarily linked to how hard you work. It takes hard work, talent, and an insane amount of luck. The road is long as well, so sometimes things get a little hairy, but I’ve learned that there is always something around the next corner. When I have felt at my lowest and like nothing would ever happen, something amazing has presented itself. So I work hard to trust in that process every day.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
As a songwriter and artist, I always say that my sound mainly lives in the holy trinity of Rock, Pop, and Americana. In my music, melody and hook are everything, but I love to cut through with honest (sometimes brutal) lyrics. I grew up listening to writers like Sheryl Crowe and spent a lot of time with iconic groups from the 60s and 70s like Fleetwood Mac and The Beatles, if that tells you anything…

It is impossible to pick what I am most proud of, but I feel like my debut single, “Freeway” was such a sonic undertaking, and a big personal feat. It is so scary to take that first big leap in releasing music, so I am very proud of that whole venture. But I am honestly so proud and excited for the songs I have waiting to be put out this year. They are so fun and infectious in the best way, and I can’t wait for people to hear them!

I think the thing that sets me apart from others as an artist is what you see is exactly what you get. I am a very straightforward person that writes from the heart, so my songs and my persona are pretty transparent. I write about feelings we all experience but sometimes are too embarrassed or uncomfortable to acknowledge, but in a way that feels very accessible and exciting.

We all have a different way of looking at and defining success. How do you define success?
I think success looks different depending on the scope. Success long term is happiness, fulfillment, and longevity with your art. But also, success is getting the laundry folded! I am all about celebrating the little victories. It’s easy for us to be hard on ourselves, so I try to combat this by reminding myself of all my baby successes day to day.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://beacons.ai/gretabelle
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gretabelle/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gretapasquamusic?mibextid=LQQJ4d
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@gretabelle/videos
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/4Ks1aGiH9oifq7n0Kua6YJ

Image Credits
Kelli Hayden, Maxx Walske, Josh Kim, Natasha Sawhney