Banks is an American singer and songwriter. She is best known for her songs “Before i ever met you” and “Beggin for Thread”. Let’s see some amazing facts and trivia about her!
1.Her full name is Jillian Rose Banks.
2. She was born on June 16, 1988.
3. She was born in Orange County, California.
4. She moved to Los Angeles when she was about one or two years old and lived in Tarzana, an affluent neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley.
5. Banks started writing songs at the age of 15.
6. She taught herself piano when she received a keyboard from a friend to help her through her parents’ divorce
7. She says she “felt very alone and helpless. I didn’t know how to express what I was feeling or who to talk to.”
8. She later enrolled to study psychology at University of Southern California (USC), where she wrote a thesis on the children of divorced parents, eventually earning a bachelor’s degree in psychology.
9. During Banks’ time at USC, her friend, actress Lily Collins, used her contacts to pass along her music to people in the industry; specifically DJ Yung Skeeter, who offered to manage her and brought her to British label Good Years Recordings.
10. After posting a track called “Before I Ever Met You” on a private SoundCloud page in February 2013, the song ended up being played by DJ Zane Lowe on BBC Radio 1.
11. Banks released her debut extended play (EP), Fall Over, internationally in March 2013 by Good Years Recordings.
12. Billboard called her a “magnetic writer with songs to obsess over.”
13. Her second EP, London, was released in September 2013 by Harvest Records and Good Years Recordings to positive reviews from music critics.
14. Her song “Waiting Game” from the EP was featured in the 2013 Victoria’s Secret holiday commercial.
15. In late 2013, she received nominations for awards from both the BBC and MTV.
16. She was nominated for a Sound of… award by the BBC and a Brand New Nominee by MTV.
17. Shazam included her on its list of “2014 Acts to Watch” and she was named to the iTunes list of “New Artists for 2014”.
18. Banks was artist of the week for Vogue in August 2013 where they wrote that her songs “perfectly capture a feeling of being lost and powerless in the world.”
19. Banks has been tipped by several media outlets as the artist to watch in 2014, including Spin calling London the “Album You Gotta Hear in 2014” and being named as one of Spotify’s Artists Under the Spotify Spotlight for 2014.
20. Banks was the opening act for Canadian singer The Weeknd during his fall 2013 tour.
21. The tour was international with dates in the United States and the United Kingdom.
33. After finishing the tour with The Weeknd, she announced her own tour which begun in the United Kingdom during March 2013.
34. Banks was also a featured performer at the Coachella festival, taking place in April 2014, Bonnaroo and Open’er Festival in July 2014. In January 2015, Banks was part of the lineup for the 2015 St. Jerome’s Laneway Festival, which toured Adelaide, Auckland, Brisbane, Detroit, Fremantle, Melbourne, Singapore and Sydney.
35. On August 7, 2014, Banks made her television debut on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, performing “Beggin for Thread” and “Waiting Game”.
36. Her debut album, Goddess, was released on September 5, 2014 and charted within the top 20 of several countries, including the UK, Australia, Germany, New Zealand and Sweden. In the US, the album debuted at number 12 on the Billboard 200, selling 25,000 copies in its first week of release.
37. It received positive reviews from critics, who praised her sonic ambition and the album’s raw sound. It holds a score of 74 out of 100 on Metacritic.
38. The album was supported by the release of four singles: “Brain”, “Goddess”, “Drowning”, and “Beggin for Thread”. “Drowning” peaked at number 48 on Billboard’s Rock Digital Songs chart, while “Beggin for Thread” reached number 11 on Billboard’s Alternative Songs chart, and numbers 80 and 64 in Australia and Germany, respectively.
39. The track “Waiting Game” was featured in the film Divergent, which was released in March 2014. Along with “Waiting Game”, “You Should Know Where I’m Coming From” was featured in the October 9, 2014 episode of Grey’s Anatomy, while the track “Goddess” was featured in the March 12, 2015 episode.
40. “You Should Know Where I’m Coming From” was also featured on the ninth episode of Red Band Society, as well as in the fifteenth episode of the second season of The Originals.
41. On November 4, 2015, Banks released the single “Better”, along with its accompanying music video.
42. Banks toured with The Weeknd for a second time, opening for him on his The Madness tour across North America from November to December 2015.
43. On July 12, 2016, Banks released a second single, “Fuck with Myself”. She premiered the track on Zane Lowe’s Beats 1 radio show, where she noted it was the last song she wrote for the album.
44. Banks’ reluctance to use social media is often noted by journalists. Although she has stated she lets her “management run that stuff”, the singer did give out her telephone number on her Facebook fanpage.
45. In October 2013, one month after London was released, Ellie Goulding said in an interview with Radio.com that she often listens to Banks.
46. Banks’ sound has been described as dark R&B and compared to Ellie Goulding, The Weeknd, and Aaliyah, although she cites Lauryn Hill and Fiona Apple as her biggest influences.
47. She says that music helps her release her emotions and for that reason kept her music private while she earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology.
48. Her vocals have frequently been described as “Aaliyah-like”, in addition to Billboard noting that “her rhapsodic voice possesses a frail vulnerability and recalls singers like Feist and Erykah Badu.
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