From an excellent interview by Grant Walters for Albumism:

GW: You mentioned this sort of default mode that you adhere to when you’re writing songs. I’m curious to know as an artist where and when your observations of the world around you engage? What ignites your motivation to create a piece of music?

JH: Well, I guess it depends on where my head is at while I’m writing. When I was making Pussycat before ...Olivia Newton-John, I was caught up in national current events, and that was kind of all-consuming at the time, and that’s just what was on my mind. It was my reaction to everything going on coming up to the presidential election. And then, when I was younger, I was just totally self-absorbed in writing about my own angst and anguish and my emotional problems. I was just really wrapped up in that.

I think now, rather than just looking inward, I’m trying to place myself in the context of the world around me a little bit more—just talking about how I see things, how I see myself in the world as it is today. With the new album, it’s seeing myself as kind of an outsider in society. It started out as wanting to make an album about the comfort of living in a very small space, and not venturing out much and having a very small radius of an existence—like, a five-block radius outside of a small apartment. And just how comforting that can be rather than isolating.

I mean, that was the concept, and it became a little bit more than that, but it was coming to terms with a solitary life and trying to see it in a positive way rather than any other way.

Grant also puts Juliana on the spot to pick her 5 favourite records of all time.

Juliana is interviewed by Warren Kurtz for Goldmine, who are also giving away a couple of copies of Weird if you're happy to enter a draw by subscribing to their mailing list.

The interview covers various aspects of the new album recording and ends with a question about the UK shows in May. Juliana:

It will be with a band. I haven’t been there with a band in a long time. Todd will be playing drums. Dean Fisher will be on bass, who some remember from The Juliana Hatfield Three. In the meantime, I am working on two more videos and a short film, all from the album.

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Lyndsey Parker, writing for Yahoo Music at the conclusion of an interview with Juliana focused on the Olivia Newton-John covers album:

Hatfield’s next album of originals, Weird, comes out Jan. 18. So, will Weird be influenced by Juliana Hatfield Sings Olivia Newton-John? “I think everything I do is influenced by my love for Olivia Newton-John,” Hatfield answers. “She has an authenticity and a humility that you don’t always see in every megastar. Yeah, she put on the costumes and the hair and makeup and all that jazz, but she was never pushing it too hard. It seemed like she always had this sort of quiet confidence in who she was, and she didn’t have to pretend to be anything that she wasn’t. I will always respond to that in some way.”

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Huge thanks to long term friend of liveontomorrow.co.uk and regular contributor Carlos Lopez for conducting this interview with Frankie O'Malley of The Safes:

Chicago's garage power pop multi instrumentalists and band of brothers, The Safes, have recently released a heartfelt tribute to the one and only Juliana Hatfield. A limited red coloured 7" on American Laundromat Records with covers of fan favorites 'Universal Heart-beat' and 'I See You' with accompanying vídeos for both tracks that have received the seal of approval from Juliana herself.

(CL) Juliana Hatfield has a very extensive musical career. It goes back to her start in Boston's thriving music underground scene in the mid 80's with The Blake Babies. How did you discover Juliana's music and become a fan?

(FO'M) We first heard Juliana Hatfield played on the best radio station in Chicago, WLUW, regularly when "Hey Babe" came out. We all just loved the songs and the singing so much! We’ve been fans ever since!

Were any other songs considered besides 'Universal Heart-beat' and 'I See You' for the tribute?

No, not really... I mean doing "My Sister" and "Spin the Bottle" was talked about a little after we made our decision to record the other two songs. But it was really an afterthought. So we just went with our gut picks!

“Learning these songs was a challenge; Juliana Hatfield has so many gifts as a songwriter!”

How did the rehearsals go learning the songs as a band before recording?

Ha! For The Safes, rehearsals for this recording session were particularly unique! We had asked Ted Ansani and Mike Zelenko of Material Issue (one of our all-time favorite bands!) to be our rhythm section for this single. And working with them was such a thrill! Very easy! Very laid back and 100% professional and tons of fun! Not everyone just gets to pick a lifetime favorite and have them be into it and for it to work so well! It really was special and super fun! Ted and Mike are aces! And learning these songs was a challenge; Juliana Hatfield has so many gifts as a songwriter! The chords in "I See You", speaking for myself, I know I learned some new fingers for that one! Also she can change the melody on every verse and have the melodies improve saving the best for the last verse. This skill of hers is a super unique thing about her songs! Not everyone does this, most songwriters have a melody for the verse, one for the chorus, maybe a bridge but Juliana Hatfield has these songs where the verse melody changes every verse. It's so cool I love it! My brother Patrick writes songs like that too; I wish I could. And learning the left hand keyboard part for “Universal Heart-Beat” was very difficult!

Every bass run is just little different from the other and they are all so on the money.

Whose idea was it to work with Steve Albini who has worked with so many legendary bands like Pixies and Nirvana?

Mine! Seemed such a natural for this single and turned out to be hands down a very good call if I do say so myself!

How did the recording process go compared to your previous experiences making a record?

Um, I'd say very similar in most ways! The Safes are always prepared to knock it out of the park in the studio. No fussing about. Steve was awesome! Very professional, fast, very smart, very easy to work with. Gotta say it was one hell of an experience to record two Juliana Hatfield songs with Steve Albini and Ted & Mike. It's hard to express exactly but it was pretty magical I'll say!

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American Laundromat Records have been very supportive of Juliana's recent recordings. Were you surprised at the opportunity to work with them?

I wouldn't say I was surprised because our dear friend Nicole Anguish of Daykamp Creative does a load of artwork for American Laundromat Records and got our music to the label owner, Joe Spadaro! But I was thrilled to find out that Joe liked The Safes enough to release a single of us doing a tribute to Juliana Hatfield for sure!!! Very happy about that!

Your videos for both tracks on the tribute are really fun to watch. Did the band had any input on the concepts or did you let the director surprise you with ideas?

We had zero to do with the music videos other than knowing and being lucky enough to be friends with two super-cool and mega-talented artists who both did amazing work making these videos!

Wendy Norton of Norton Videos created our “Universal Heart-Beat” video:

James William Glass created our “I See You” music video:

From what I have read Juliana really liked your takes on her songs. How did that make the band feel?

Well, we were over the moon when we heard that. Juliana Hatfield gave us such great feedback on our versions of her amazing songs! I mean, that really made me feel great I must say! And I know the rest of The Safes feel the same. Super rad! Thank you Juliana!

Besides Juliana what other bands have inspired The Safes?

So many it's impossible to list them all but here are some that come to mind Andalusian Dogs, The Breeders, Fetchin Bones, The Cramps, etc...

I know you have been touring recently. What's next for the band?

Well I'm proud to say The Safes have maintained a very steady schedule; write songs, record songs, release music and tour in support! So continuing to do that next should always remain what’s next for The Safes until the end of time!

Thank you Frankie for your time and sharing your memories. All the best to you and The Safes.

---

links for the single:
Buy the 7 inch single at American Laundromat Records
Listen at Apple Music
Listen at Spotify

other The Safes links:
Bandcamp
thesafes.com
Instagram
Facebook
Twitter

Stacy Buchanan, for WGBH:

Juliana Hatfield Three’s Become What You Are just turned 25. It's hard to believe that one of Boston's most beloved albums is all grown up (and old enough to rent its own car). Reliving our own summers of '93 through the album sent us down the rabbit hole – and right to Ms. Hatfield's door.

Juliana Hatfield grew up in Massachusetts and graduated from Berklee. By the time she formed the Juliana Hatfield Three with bassist Dean Fisher and drummer Todd Phillips, she had already been musically involved with the Blake Babies and the Lemonheads, as well as having a solo career. But the Juliana Hatfield Three birthed Become What You Are – and with a little help from some of the best (you just had to be there) minutes from the 90s, it charted on the Billboard 200, and its single, “Spin the Bottle," charted on the Mainstream Top 40. The album also turned Hatfield into a cultural icon, a hero for a generation of women that didn’t always see a place for themselves in the alt-rock boom of the early 90s.

It's 2018, and Hatfield is still at it. She just released her 15th studio album, Juliana Hatfield Sings Olivia Newton-John, and will be performing at the WERS Wicked Good Festival on Saturday, August 18. We caught up with her to recall the memorable Gen X moments that came from that first studio album – and the difficulties of being thrust into the limelight as a female artist, where commercial success did not connote respect.

You can read the interview at https://www.wgbh.org/indie/2018/08/08/become-what-you-are-how-an-album-born-out-of-bostons-early-90s-music-scene-became-a-gen-x-anthem

Juliana, interviewed primarily about the Olivia album, by Warren Kurtz for Goldmine:

GM: You also taught me a few songs I didn’t know. Because of you, I finally bought the Xanadu soundtrack so that I could hear the original version of “Suspended in Time.” I also must have missed “Make a Move on Me” in 1982 on the radio, when I was listening to Quarterflash, Joan Jett and The Go-Go’s instead.

JH: “Suspended in Time” is most like a song I would have written. I love the chord progression and it felt most natural. “Make a Move on Me” was a big hit from the Physical album. You know, the album cover photo with short hair and a bandana. I changed it up to be a 4/4 rock song.

Juliana, interviewed by Cryptic Rock, with some new album news:

CrypticRock.com – You have this new album, and you have continued to keep yourself busy through the years. Just in 2017 you released Pussycat, which was another really wonderful selection of original songs balancing youth and maturity. You mentioned you always have new ideas popping up, that in mind, are you working on any new music?

Juliana Hatfield – I am. I have already recorded some tracks with drums. I started work on my next album, I am writing it, recording it, and going to go back to the studio in early May to keep working on it. It’s all originals. 

CrypticRock.com – Excellent! That is a very quick turn over between album. Is it safe to say creative inspiration is flowing freely for you?

Juliana Hatfield – Yea, I feel good about the creative part of me, it’s in really healthy shape. If I want to be a working musician, I have to work, like anyone else. That’s how I survive, that is how I make a living. I have to keep working; just because I had a record come out recently, doesn’t mean I should just sit around and toss myself with champagne. I have to keep working, that’s what people do. 

Juilana, interviewed by Allyson McCabe for an excellent article in The Rumpus:

Rumpus: I think you can even see it at the end of Grease, in her transformation from Sandra Dee to Sandy, although it takes the form of a makeover and a cigarette and some spandex pants.

Hatfield: I choose to look at the end of Grease in a different way. It’s too depressing to think, Oh, you just have to whore it up and you’ll get everything. You’ll get the man. You’ll get the happiness. I think at the end of Grease it’s more like she’s acknowledging that this is just a role that girls play, it was a wink, and just playful. And I think that’s what saves the ending of Grease. It’s a role she’s playing, but we’re all in the know.

Having said that, I think another part of why I have such an affinity for Olivia Newton-John is because I have had my own struggles with being perceived as a “good girl.” She’s really seen as someone who’s cute and sweet, and people have put her in that box, and I feel like some people have wanted to put me in that same kind of box. Sometimes I also feel like I’m limited by my own sense of right and wrong.

Rumpus: Tell me more.

Hatfield: Sandy’s character was kind of cursed to be a good girl, not just being perceived that way, but actually that is her nature, and she can’t escape it. And I felt that way too, like I was an outcast in high school because my peers were drinking, and having sex, and doing drugs, and I wasn’t and I couldn’t. I still wanted to hang out with these people, and they were my friends, but I felt like an outcast because I was not breaking the rules.

If you read just one of the interviews Juliana has given on the Olivia Newton-John covers album, make it this one.

A nice interview with Juliana by Jay Gabler for The Current:

JG: Do you think that your fans listening might reassess your catalog as well, listening to it alongside these Olivia Newton-John songs?

JH: Maybe they will discover, as I am, that I have been more influenced by her musically than I ever realized. I thought I just loved her music, but, now when I go back and listen to my stuff, I can see similarities in some of the ways that I layer vocal harmonies against melody, and the way I orchestrate some of the backing keyboards and guitars and things. I think theres a Olivia Newton-John influence in some of my music. Just melodically, I love really pretty, melodious tunes and that’s something I love about her. I love the kind of melodies that move a lot. Yeah, I think there are similarities between us.

Juliana, interviewed by David Chiu for PopMatters:

PM: Did you have a particular criteria in selecting the songs?

JH: It was stuff that I knew. I was choosing [songs] from those five albums that I know well and spent the most time listening to. And then it was either the songs that I liked or the songs that I liked the most, or the songs that I think I can shake up a little bit and give a new spin, like "I Honestly Love You", "Dancin' 'Round and 'Round", or "Totally Hot". The songwriting is still great, and there's something in them that I thought I could make the songs my own.

Ray Padgett, writing for Cover Me:

In honor of her new album, we asked Hatfield about her five favorite covers by other artists, and she kindly obliged. She even told us her favorite cover performed by Olivia Newton-John herself. Read on for her full list…

covermesongs.com/2018/04/juliana-hatfields-favorite-covers.html

Juliana, speaking to Geoffrey Himes for an article in Paste Magazine:

“For my whole career, without consciously realizing it,” Hatfield says, “I’ve been trying to integrate Olivia and X, the sweet pop and the messy punk. I’ve always had those two sides to me, not only in what I play but also in what I listen to. I veer back and forth like a pendulum. On this new record, I felt the need to rough up Olivia’s songs, to muss up their hair, to add a little grime. Because that’s who I am; I’m not as pristine or as strong a singer as her. So I had to play to my own strengths—to my scrappiness.”

Juliana, interviewed by Victoria Wasylak for Vanyaland:

VW: As someone who’s been an influence on you, what qualities of hers [Olivia Newton-John] have you tried to put into your own music?

JH: I don’t know if I’d call her an influence, it’s more like I liked what her music made me feel. It made me feel happy in a visceral way, like the sound of her voice was just very pleasing to my sensibilities. I just felt an affinity with her sense of melody and harmony, because I also love to sing really wide-ranging melodies, with lots of layers of harmonies and vocals. I think it’s like a shared sensibility, maybe. Her voice is not rock and roll, and my voice is not rock and roll either. I always wanted to have a rock and roll voice but I didn’t, so I guess I was truly drawn to her because she also had a kind of non-rock voice, and that was part of the affinity I had for her.

VW: When you went about recording this album, did you change anything in any of the songs?

JH: It was a challenge to decide with each song how much I wanted to veer away from the original and how close I wanted to stay. There were choices I was making for each song. Some of them are pretty faithful to the original versions, whereas other ones I kind of reinterpreted a little. There’s a song called “Make A Move On Me,” which Olivia’s version is kind of swing, but we straightened it up so it’s more of a caveman rock feel. “Hopelessly Devoted To You” is really pretty close [to the original], I didn’t change a whole lot, except I added one distorted guitar in the chorus. Just little choices. It depends on the song how close it is to the original. Like an instinct, each song seemed to tell me what it needed.

Ahead of Juliana's show at ONCE Ballroom on April 6, she has been interviewed by Blake Maddux for The Somerville Times. Topics include the new album, further reflective thoughts on Pussycat, and this little curiosity about writing:

TST: It has been 10 years since When I Grow Up: A Memoir was published. Do you plan to write another book?

JH: Well, I’m always writing, and I think at some point I’ll try to get another book together, but nothing is really taking shape yet as a book. But I’m definitely writing all the time. I’ll make another book at some point, but it’s not really happening yet. I’ve actually written a couple books since my last book came out, but I didn’t want to publish them.

In an article by Ed Symkus for Wicked Local, Juliana talks about her band line up for next week's Somerville show showcasing the Olivia Newton-John album:

“Usually at my shows it’s me, bass, and drums,” said Hatfield. “But this time I’ve got more people than usual. I’ll be singing and playing guitar, and there’s Ed Valauskas on bass, Magen Tracy on keyboards, Mike Oram on guitar, Eric Edmonston on drums, and a couple of other guests. We’ll do a lot of the new album, but not every song. And we’ll probably go as far back as my first (solo) album ‘Hey Babe,’ which was just reissued for its 25th anniversary.”

There's also reference to planning her next album.

Juliana, interviewed by Robert Ham for Billboard about the new album:

RH How was the process of recordings these songs? To hear the album, it sounds like it was a lot of fun to put together.

JH It was actually very challenging, especially after coming off of my last album. With Pussycat, the recording of that was really fast and seamless. This stuff was really challenging. The songwriting, for one thing. Some of it is pretty complex. A lot of chords and melodies. I wanted to do as many songs as I could in the original key she sang them in. Some of the melodies are just so sick, a lot of stuff is really high in my range which is kind of a weak spot for me. It was hard. There were moments where I thought, “I don’t know if I can do this.” I almost wanted to quit because it was so challenging. For me, it was just a puzzle. What do I want to reinterpret? What do I want to copy?

Then there was the problem that some of the songs were so iconic, like “Hopelessly Devoted To You.” My first instinct was to just copy all of her vocal inflections exactly. But then I thought, “I can’t because it’s too iconic. There’s no way I’ll ever measure up.” It’s a little bit my own but I’m not disrespecting the original.

RH Were there songs you wanted to do but had to abandon because they were too hard to pull off?

JH There was the duet with Cliff Richard, “Suddenly.” That one has like a billion chords. It’s kind of nuts. We recorded the basic tracks and then there’s the question of who can sing it with me. I asked a few people. One person said, “No,” and a couple of others were interested. Then other songs needed my attention so I ended up abandoning it because it was just going to be too complicated. I hope to get back to it eventually and finish it.

The interview also touches on the Hey Babe vinyl reissue, Become What You Are, and Pussycat.

Juliana, interviewed by Emile Menasché for Premier Guitar:

> “Touch You Again” and “When You’re a Star” have very distinctive riffs. Were they part of the song from the beginning?

Riffs usually come later. On “When You’re a Star,” we had the guitar and bass recorded. Then with that riff, it was like a light bulb going on over my head—I ran into the tracking room and recorded it. That happens a lot. The song will be recorded and I’ll hear a riff, melodically, in my head. I just have to transfer it from my brain onto the guitar.

> Do the vocal melodies come first?

Not always. Sometimes songs start with just chord progressions. But usually, once I have any kind of chord progression, the melody comes also. I often have melodies written ahead of the lyrics, which makes lyric writing more difficult because I have to fit them into these melodies.

I’ll get attached to sounds and then it takes a while for me to wrench my brain away from that and realize it’s okay to get unstuck. There were a couple of songs on the album where I was really stuck. “Everything Is Forgiven” moves around a lot. It was hard to fit words into that melody.

Sometimes I have a title and a melody, and I’m like “I’ve gotta get this goddam title in there!” “When You’re a Star” had to use those words: “When you’re a star, they let you.” It was like a puzzle. I figured out the only way to make it work was to change the order of the words around.

It's an excellent article split over 3 pages that covers many aspects of the Pussycat recording process from studio setup, guitar tuning, and song construction.

Also, given a little time has passed there's some retrospective thoughts on the lyrics and themes of the songs.

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Juliana, interviewed by Christopher Mathieu for Nouvelle Vague:

NV - Il y a des artistes musicaux qui t’intéressent en-dehors du monde du rock ?

JH - Honnêtement, je ne suis pas très inspirée par beaucoup de musique récente parce que je n’en écoute pas beaucoup. Il y a bien du jazz et des vieux compositeurs pour piano que j’aime…

NV - Pas de musique électronique ou hip hop ?

JH - Il y a des artistes comme Kendrick Lamar que je trouve inspirant… en fait, j’écoute plein de choses diverses mais rien vraiment de bien précis.

It's a lengthy interview, where Juliana mentions that if she ever were to gain the rights to God's Foot she would intend to release it (yes!), future (hypothetical) collaborators on new music, and many other matters with questions covering her career.

It's in French but the linguistically challenged among us should be fine with a translator tool - the built in translator in Google Chrome does a grand job.

nouvelle-vague.com/juliana-hatfield/