"Payback's a Beach" for St. Louis Native Stephanie Rabus

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Although I never thought about it before, breakup songs by female country artists always seem to be full of venomous scorn, or on the flipside, they can be quite depressing. While the guys often take a split much better, heading to the local fishin’ hole or celebrating on an airplane as they jet off to paradise. Why is that? Just the way the old songwriting ball bounces I suppose, but enter Stephanie Rabus, who just threw the usual script away and released a good time “parting of the ways” tune for the ladies.

“Payback’s a Beach” isn’t just a cool name for a fun summer song, it’s got all the essential elements to make you rethink crying in your beer or dragging a key across your ex’s mobile man cave. You’ll be mapping out coastal getaways and packing your bags even as you listen to it. I had the chance to speak with Stephanie Rabus about her new single and some other miscellaneous tidbits recently. Here’s your boarding pass to eavesdrop on our conversation. The first thing I wanted to know from Rabus is if “Payback’s a Beach” was inspired by a true story.

It was not. She explained, “A lot of times when I write, I do write from personal experiences, this actually wasn’t one. Now, I have been cheated on in the past, although it was years ago thankfully, but just knowing the kinds of emotions you go through, that helped me write it.”  Maybe the best thing about this story is the song wasn’t just written from a female standpoint. The new music was co-written by Rabus, Mark Roma and Corey Lee Barker, so it was actually pretty testosterone-driven. Rabus said, “Mark and Corey are two of my favorite writers. We actually wrote a Christmas song together a few years back called ‘Bells, Bells, Bells.’ It was a fun Christmas song that was a take on weddings, but it was about love during the holiday season. It kind of compared that love to all the things you experience during Christmas. I thought these guys were kind of perfect to write a really cheeky breakup song with.”

She continued, “Going into the writing session, one of the guys suggested we write a fun, ‘beachy’ song. Somehow while talking through ideas we came up with this fantasy of creating a more positive spin on being cheated on, rather than seeking revenge.” The end result is exactly what they set out to write. It’s a light and breezy song loaded with all the references we’ve come to expect from summer country songs, set on whatever beach we want to insert into our daydreaming machines.

Listen to “Payback’s a Beach” by clicking HERE.

What’s interesting about Stephanie Rabus is she’s pulling double-duty. She fronts a cover band in St. Louis, Missouri called Borderline on weekends, while living and working in Nashville during the week. We talked about that for a bit. “I was born in St. Louis and we moved around a lot when I was little,” she shared. “My dad was stationed in Arizona for a while when I was very little, and when I was about 11 was when we kind of figured out I could sing. We really embraced it from there. So we ended up back in St. Louis and I joined the cover band Borderline. We’re mostly country, but we do mix it up with some rock, pop and blues. A lot of the fairs and festivals that we play have people that love music from different genres, so we want to give everybody something.”

I couldn’t help thinking she must do so much driving or flying back and forth if she’s playing in St. Louis every weekend. I wasn’t wrong. She said, “Right now, while I’m doing my solo career as an artist in Nashville, I’m performing at The Stage on Broadway and songwriting, but there’s also this element of going back home on weekends. It’s about a five-hour drive, but it’s worth it because I’m performing covers and getting a lot of experience with big crowds and that type of interaction. It’s kind of a cool ‘best of both worlds’ lifestyle.” I think it’s safe to say nobody can accuse Rabus of being lazy. She’s doing so much to further her career in two completely different environments, even as she sacrifices the mileage on her car to do it. 

I decided to step back to the new single for a minute. I was interested in who produced the song and I’m so glad I asked. I wasn’t just given a name, I was treated to a production story I had never heard before. Rabus told me, “The producer was Carrie Glenn. She’s a professor at one of the colleges in Nashville and had a class where she was teaching how to produce. It was actually done where some students were being taught how to do the production, what knobs to turn and whatnot. Carrie Glenn was giving them instruction on what to do and had the reins on the session, but the students were learning from it. It was kind of cool to experience and get to be a part of people learning about recording.” What a unique story! I was eager to hear more and she delivered. “Carrie was able to get together some really great musicians who play on sessions for big artists, so the track features an all-star cast of the best studio musicians. That was a very special thing. We actually did four tracks during that session, so the other single I’ll be putting out in the future will be from that same session.”

Next I wondered what her thoughts on playing Broadway were. It can be quite a grind and you never know what people will say. For Rabus, there are a lot of positives. “It’s really fun,” she said, “playing anywhere on Broadway you get to connect with people from all over the world. I’ve had people in there from Australia, Mexico and all over. They’re from such different places and I may not have ever met those people back home in St. Louis. Yeah, people go there, but Nashville is a huge tourist town for music lovers, so it’s really neat to get to do that. I’ve gained followers on social media that way, so it’s been a great thing.” I swear, I had my questions written out and well-prepared, but somehow she would say something that provoked a new question on the spot. I asked her if playing with Borderline in St. Louis generated a similar scenario as far as new followers and fans. Was one city better than the other for networking in that way? She replied, “With Borderline, we’re a band, and there are people locally who follow us because we do all of the cover stuff there. There are Borderline followers that transfer over to my solo career, probably because I’m the lead singer in that band. I think there’s just a bigger variety of followers in Nashville because of all the different areas of the world they come from.” 

Over the years, Stephanie Rabus has shared stages with some incredible artists and sadly, two of them are no longer with us. We talked about her opening for the late Loretta Lynn and Toby Keith. I remarked that she must be so grateful to have had those opportunities when she did. She responded, “It’s really special, especially in hindsight knowing they were such treasures on this earth and that I was able to experience them and see them do what they did live. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to meet Loretta. She was starting to have health problems at that time. I was actually singing backup for Georgette Jones, the daughter of George Jones and Tammy Wynette when we opened for Loretta Lynn and we got to watch her performance. That was when she started sitting in a chair for most of the show. The crazy thing that was so inspiring was how she still did such a great job performing and you could just see how she loved it. She wanted that crowd to see her do the best she could do.”

She then moved on to talk about Toby Keith. “I had won a karaoke singing contest. It went on for weeks and weeks, but I won a trip to Las Vegas in the junior category. As part of the prize, winners could open for a few artists and I got to open for Toby Keith and Bryan White on two separate occasions. My dad was, and still is, very instrumental in my career acting as my manager. Even back then, my dad was asking artists for advice. I remember him asking Toby about it and he just kind of said, ‘Don’t give up,’ and it was cool to get that advice from someone like him at such a young age. I was only 14 at the time.” Although opening for Loretta Lynn and Toby Keith were certainly opportunities that she can be thankful she had, there was one more big name artist she wanted to credit. “A standout for me was when we got to meet Lee Brice. He’s a great singer and also just a very, very nice person, and sometimes that goes even further. Anybody can be talented, but I feel like it’s important to have the personality to back that up. The saying goes, ‘Don’t meet your heroes because sometimes it’s a disappointment,’ and if that happens, it’s a bad thing because you want them to be relatable. That’s exactly how Lee Brice was, he was relatable. He actually invited us on his tour bus and that was the first time I ever got to see a tour bus. He was just very welcoming and made us feel equal, not like, ‘You’re just the little opening cover band.’ He really made us feel special and like we were part of it.” I couldn’t agree more. Lee Brice remains one of the nicest artists I’ve ever interacted with. I know it isn’t required, but I do think it says so much about an artist when they remain grounded, especially around artists just making their way up the ladder. Being supportive to those coming up after you means so much, even more so when you’ve had tremendous success.

With all of her wearing out the roads between Nashville and St. Louis and everything else, is there new music coming anytime soon from Rabus? Yes there is. In addition to the other song recorded at the college that was mentioned earlier, her “Payback’s a Beach” co-writers, Mark Roma and Corey Lee Barker also collaborated with her on a new Christmas song. She’s hoping to release that this holiday season. Another new tune was penned with Craig Gleason who does the Songwriters Tales podcast with Mark Waldron. “I’m definitely keeping busy and keeping new music and new ideas coming all the time,” Rabus said. She has no new shows outside of we Nashville or St. Louis on the schedule yet, but they’re working on it, so stay tuned on her social media sites for updates.

One of my prepared questions was whether Rabus had a favorite co-writer or co-writers. Since she already spoke about Mark Roma and Corey Lee Barker, I knew they were on the list, so I twisted the question a little and asked where she met them in the first place. “I probably met them somewhere in 2021. I wanted to write an album and I was reaching out to some musicians and artist friends to find a producer. I ended up getting connected to Justine Blazer. We talked about what my vision was for the album and we put the whole project together. We wanted all new songs, mostly from personal experiences. She went and set up all these co-writes and I think we wrote 18 songs altogether. We chose 11 of the 18 for the album. Throughout that process I got to meet so many different writers, including Corey and Mark, both at separate sessions. Two other favorites are Bill DiLuigi and Becca Rae. They’re both really great writers and we wrote a couple of my favorite songs on that album called My Time Now. It’s still available on all streaming services. So that’s how I met all those people and we just kept those relationships.”

I commented to her that one name that has come up repeatedly over the years for me is Bill DiLuigi. He’s truly appreciated in the songwriting community, often by people just getting started with writing. He seems to never be afraid to take a chance on a young songwriter, which is such an admirable quality. I’ve witnessed quite a few of those newer writers turn some big corners after co-writing with DiLuigi. I was impressed to hear his name come up again with Stephanie Rabus.  She didn’t let that comment drop into the abyss either. She added, “He’s great. I started working on a song and I knew I had that project at the college coming up. I was wondering who I could get to help me write it. It’s kind of an emotional song. It’s a little heavy, but it also has a positive message. I really wanted to ask Bill and something insane happened. I had literally just been talking with my dad about maybe asking Bill if he’d want to help me co-write that song, So then I went to an event and about 30 minutes later, I saw Bill there. I was like, ‘Okay, this is a God thing.’ I asked Bill if he was interested in working on it with me and we immediately set up a Zoom meeting. It’s probably one of my favorite songs. It will probably be my next song out. ‘Payback’s a Beach’ is a favorite because it’s so different and fun, but this one coming up, oh my goodness, it’s just really special.  I think it was a God-sent thing that I ran into him when I wanted that to happen.”

If you’ve followed my writing over the years, you might know that I carry around a box of random question cards for people to answer during interviews. This time was no different. Mostly. In all of the interviews I’ve ever done, I have never repeated the same question. I pull the cards randomly, so whatever I pick out, that’s what I ask. Well, this time I finally had a repeat! It kind of stunned me. I even remembered exactly who I asked it to before. I had asked Trey Calloway at Nashville’s 3rd & Lindsley about a year ago and I still remember his answer. That was kind of crazy by itself, but the question was “If you could have any book instantly memorized, cover to cover, which book would you choose?”  Rabus laughed and said, “Oh my gosh, I read in terms of Audible (the audiobook app), so I listen to Audible all the time because I drive so much. I love to read books about personal development and manifestation, that kind of thing. So I definitely feel like I’ve connected a bit with some of Mel Robbins’ stuff. I know that might be a boring answer.” No it wasn’t. She couldn’t recall the names of the titles off the top of her head, but she added, “I feel like anytime I listen to her books through Audible, I learn so much and it’s great information. If I could remember it from front to back, it would be so good.”

Last, but not least, because we are Center Stage Magazine, what in Stephanie Rabus’ life has been a memorable “Center Stage” moment? She described one that really stands out in her mind. “I had the opportunity to sing with Bryan White. I was at his fan club party at the Country Music Hall of Fame and I was talking to this girl who’s also a huge fan of Bryan’s. I told her I’d love to sing with Bryan, so she had me sing a little for her right there in the seats to make sure she wouldn’t be making a fool of herself. She then raised her hand and said, ‘Bryan, this girl needs to sing with you, she said it’s her dream.’ So I went up and sang ‘From This Moment On’ with him. Even though it was his stage, it felt very ‘Center Stage’ for me. Just getting that kind of recognition and compliments from him, and I ended up getting some followers and met some friends from that too. That was about 2013 I think. I’ve had other chances to sing with him again, maybe four or five times at this point, but that was a really cool moment. It stands out for me.” Is it time for a Stephanie Rabus / Bryan White collaboration? I guess we’ll wait and see.

Follow Stephanie Rabus on her social media pages and her website. Drop her a comment and tell her Center Stage Magazine sent you! We’d appreciate that!