Erin Osmon, interviewing Juliana for The Guardian:

On Blood, she channels these complex emotions into tuneful, three-minute vignettes whose lyrics often teem with anxiety, horror and existential dread. “A lot of bad stuff has been happening over the last four years, and the last year in particular, and writing was a way for me to deal,” Hatfield says. “Writing these songs didn’t cure me of all the anger but it definitely helped.” Throughout the album, she dreams about stabbing the former president, describes life in a world controlled by fascists, bites her tongue until it bleeds and is paralysed by love. Hard truths are conveyed through fantasy and imagined brutality, like a cleverer Game of Thrones. “In my real life I’m obviously not a violent person, and writing these songs doesn’t mean I want to go out and stab someone,” she says. “It’s a metaphorical stabbing.” Hatfield is doing what she’s always done: relaying dark, vulnerable and embarrassing feelings with remarkable insight.

Juliana’s response to this section of the article:

this is great thank you but i do want to make it clear that there is nothing in the lyrics that refers to any specific, actual person or people being stabbed.. and claiming that any song does refer to a particular person is conjecture https://t.co/gV35GS37Sf

— Juliana Hatfield (@julianahatfield) May 12, 2021

Other posts you may have missed in recent days:

Jed Gottlieb's interview with Juliana at Boston Herald.

Kevin Wilson's review of the Blood themed livestream at My Shuffled Life.

Jeff Gemmill's initial thoughts on the new album at The Old Grey Cat.

Vincent Scarpa, interviewing Juliana for Performer Mag:

VS: It’s interesting to see this record and Pussycat as bookends of the Trump era, though of course they’re so much more than that, and about more than that. (I’ve long argued for the political nature of all your music, whether it be front and center or a more covert kind of personal politics.) Were you still feeling some of the rage we talked about when we spoke together in promoting Pussycat? How had your outlook changed, if at all, as we approached the end of the Trump presidency and entered the present one, into which this album is being released? A song like “Nightmary,” in which you describe “hour after hour bombarded by lies / it’s a desecration of your mind,” seems to testify to some lingering — and certainly justified — rage.

JH: The album is definitely inspired by the last four years and all of the ugliness and all of the dirt that floated to the surface. Now it’s all out there, floating around. All the rocks that have been overturned, all the scum that floated to the top. And now we’re living with it, and we have to deal with it — or not. I’m really glad that there’s new leadership, but I don’t feel like that solves anything, really. Well, it solves one big problem, right? But most of the bad guys still need to be punished. And the songs “Chunks” and “Had a Dream” are about that; about wanting those guys to be punished. And that still has to happen. There’s a lot of unfinished business, and ongoing corruption and lies and murder and greed. It’s not ending because we have a new president.

I think this album is my most misanthropic album of all of them. I’m not kind to my own self on this record. I think I came out of the past four years with this feeling that it’s more clear to me than ever that people are not going to leave this world a better place. People can’t be trusted to do the right thing. People are selfish. Humanity, as a whole, is going to ruin this world. It’s happening. And we can try to do the right things, we can try to change, but ultimately you have to contend with the fact that people are selfish and we’re on kind of a downward spiral. We can make little fixes, elect different presidents, but it’s a Band-Aid on a deep wound.

performermag.com/new-music-and-video/interviews-and-features/mouthful-of-blood-an-interview-with-juliana-hatfield/

From an interview with Juliana by Dan Moffat for Allston Pudding:

AP: A lot of our readers are musicians that are trying to figure out how to record albums during a pandemic. I heard a lot of Blood was recorded at home. What instruments were recorded at home?

JH: I usually start off with a drum machine beat, just one beat that repeats over and over. Because I don’t know how to program a whole complicated drum beat. I have an old drum machine that I use. I might find a beat on that and record a few minutes of it. Or I find a beat on GarageBand and then lay down 4 minutes of a drum beat. And then start adding maybe acoustic or electric guitar, and then I just add onto that as I see fit. A little keyboard, bass, vocals.

After I had done a lot of it at home I took the stuff to Q Division Studios and added real drums to the fake drums and I added some more guitars that I wanted to do in the studio because I can’t really play guitars through loud amps in my apartment.

There are a few songs that I collaborated on with Jed Davis [Sevendys, Collider]. You can tell the songs he worked on because he programmed more elaborate drums like on “Shame of Love” and “Had A Dream.” The real simple drums are me, like on “Nightmary” and “Gorgon.” I have more of a simple groove, like on Nightmary there’s one cymbal crash at the end and that was me. That’s my style. I’m not a flashy drummer.

Juliana in conversation with Chuck Clough and Ike Walker for Above The Basement.

Another podcast interview! From the Dirt from the Road description::

Juliana Hatfield (ex-The Lemonheads) and Brett Newski discuss splendid isolation, reincarnation, why death won't be bad at all, and being an introvert in an extroverted world.

I’m curious as to how this podcast came about given that Brett admits to only having a limited familiarity with Juliana’s career. Thankfully though it’s a good chat because he doesn’t blag it and the only hint of interviewer’s cursory Wikipedia research that shows this up is the “ex- The Lemonheads” bit in the description.

It’s available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, and elsewhere.

Separately, the written word survives the podcast era with Juliana interviewed by Tatum Jenkins for WERS:

(WERS): WE HAVE A BIG EMPHASIS ON COMMUNITY AND STAYING LOCAL HERE AT WERS. DO YOU FEEL THAT BOSTON HAS HAD ANY SORT OF IMPACT ON YOUR ART AND HOW YOU DRAW INSPIRATION FROM YOUR ENVIRONMENT?

JH: Well, I really like the changing of the seasons. I find it invigorates me, the cold and autumn, and the seasons can really influence my writing. I mean, I wrote a whole song about the heat wave a couple years ago, but it was all about suffering through one of our horrible, humid heat waves. Also, I like that artists in Boston are all about the work and not about networking. It’s not about desperately striving for fame. Everyone is low key and they just want to put their heads down and do the work. It’s not about hype, and I really like that.

Another week, another JH podcast interview! From She Rocks Podcast’s episode description:

When COVID hit musician and singer/songwriter Juliana Hatfield took it upon herself to learn the recording process. She wrote and recorded most of her upcoming album, 'Blood,' as she learned. Her sing-songy melodic style hides stinger lyrics that delve deep into touchpoint issues. 'Blood' is Hatfield's 19th solo album and is due out May 14, 2021. Based in the Boston area, Hatfield is formerly of the indie rock bands Blake Babies, Some Girls, and The Lemonheads. She also fronted her own band, The Juliana Hatfield Three, along with bassist Dean Fisher and drummer Todd Philips, which was active in the mid-1990s and again in the mid-2010s. Here we sit down to hear much more about the creative process and her outlook today.

Listen in the embedded player above or at all the usual clients including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Overcast.

Queen of Shit Mountain aka Queen of S-Mountain (“a music podcast hosted by LG, the front-woman for the greatest, all-female, queer, southern rock band of all time, Thelma and the Sleaze”):

Juliana Hatfield is a legendary musician of the bands Blake Babies, The Lemonheads, and The Juliana Hatfield Three, and more. Her career was born out of a music scene she helped to shape in the 80s and 90s with fellow trailblazers like The Pixies and Dinosaur Jr. In part one of this episode, LG chats with Juliana about her trajectory, the rock music scene of that era, and her songwriting/recording process.

This is another great podcast where a fellow musician interviews Juliana. Looking forward to part 2 already.

Listen in the embedded player above, or clients including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Overcast.

For more on supporting LG’s podcast, see her Patreon.

This clip has recently appeared on YouTube and is probably new for many of us.

Your new video is set in a gym, so that’s where we’ll interview you is a 90s MTV vibe.

Important content to watch for: “Someone recently described my singing as bird-like…”

This is one of a few vintage clips that have appeared online of late, including this quirky Blender interview from the same era and a lip-synced JH3 performance of Spin The Bottle from UK show The Beat.

Thanks to Carlos for keeping an eye on YouTube for these links.

We recorded the last episode so we could record this episode. The second punch in our opening podcasting salvo features our first real guest — the great Juliana Hatfield. Super-fan Gabe tries to hold it together while Scott does his best not to go full-on Chris Farley Show. Topics include: The art of looper pedals, the time Juliana and her band taught Scott how to ski, the great rock and roll restroom dilemma — and Ben drops some of his serious Robbie Benson knowledge. We’re getting there, folks. Helpful links: Local H Merch: https://bit.ly/3du68Ow Winter Western video: https://youtu.be/LGDS-0b7DIQ Juliana Hatfield Livestream link: https://youtu.be/S2-YXgFwfLY 70 Movies We Saw in the 70s with Scott & Ben: https://bit.ly/3qBEOl6

Local H, in the description of their latest podcast:

We recorded the last episode so we could record this episode. The second punch in our opening podcasting salvo features our first real guest — the great Juliana Hatfield. Super-fan Gabe tries to hold it together while Scott does his best not to go full-on Chris Farley Show. Topics include: The art of looper pedals, the time Juliana and her band taught Scott how to ski, the great rock and roll restroom dilemma — and Ben drops some of his serious Robbie Benson knowledge. We’re getting there, folks.

This is an excellent listen following on from Juliana’s appearance in Local H’s latest video this week. The band are super knowledgeable about Juliana’s career and she’s clearly having a fun chat with fellow musicians.

Among other topics discussed are a couple of albums in contention for the next livestream, the possibility of Only Everything featuring in future gigs (full band and even solo in the UK), and some tantalising legal updates on the God’s Foot saga.

A hugely recommended listen, available above and all the usual places you get your podcasts including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Overcast.

Juliana, discussing "Bed" in an interview with Brett Milano for Boston Herald ahead of today's acoustic livestream:

...I realized that the only time I feel power is when I’m making music. So it was an explosion of frustration, but also an abandonment of my past life and the start of doing whatever the hell I wanted to. I can have loud annoying feedback at the beginning of a song, I can stack together five vocal takes that don’t really fit together, and nobody is going to stop me.

The interview includes a bit more about what to expect with the new "shockingly dark" Blood album, and that the next covers project remains likely to focus on R.E.M.

James Sullivan, writing for The Boston Globe where he interviews Juliana about this week's holiday themed 7 inch single for Record Store Day Black Friday in the US:

For Hatfield, most Christmas music is like wallpaper.

“I’ve never really actively sought it out,” she says, “but it’s not unpleasant.” She’s fond of the “Charlie Brown Christmas” soundtrack — the Vince Guaraldi Trio’s “Christmas Time Is Here” is being reissued on vinyl as another Record Store Day exclusive — and the “warm, fuzzy feeling” triggered by certain carols, such as “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.”

“‘Tidings of comfort and joy’ — that’s just a really nice line.”

But the B-side of her single, “Red Poinsettia,” might hint at her next project, which is a little darker than your typical Christmas jingle. The title suggests another seasonal trimming, but the lyrics reveal it’s a red herring.

“In my mind, it’s the Christmas murder ballad,” she says.

Head to the article to discover the new album title!

Ray Padgett, in an excerpt from his book Various Artists' I'm Your Fan: The Songs of Leonard Cohen posted at Literary Hub featuring an interview with Juliana focusing on her history of covering other artists:

As an artist who’s never shied away from making political music herself, Hatfield feels this helps her connect these songs to her own. Though some may view these tribute albums as a side project or a novelty, she sees them as of a piece with her own work, and plans to continue issuing them even as she keeps recording her own compositions.

This, Hatfield feels, is her tribute album future. After joining so many different tribute albums for so many different reasons, doing them on her own feels more pure—and more fun. Though she never plans things too far in advance, she envisions R.E.M. as the series’ next chapter. At the rate she’s going, she may have added one or two more installments by the time you read this.

Freda Love Smith, writing at Talkhouse:

Juliana Hatfield and I were bandmates in the Boston indie-rock band Blake Babies. This year marks the 30-year anniversary of our music video for the song “Out There,” which featured us shaving our heads on camera.

In early 2020, my band Sunshine Boys supported Juliana for a few shows on her US tour, and during a backstage chat we discovered we were both sick of dyeing our hair to hide the grey, and had both been thinking about chopping it all off to let nature take its course. Months later, during COVID-19 lockdown, we decided to take the leap together again, making a tidy bookend with the “Out There” video shoot 30 years earlier.

The article goes on to include an edited transcript of an email exchange between Freda and Juliana as they "reflect on now and then, going grey, and growing older."

There are photots of their glorious new haircuts there too, so I won't spoil the reveal by posting them here, particularly if you haven't seen Juliana's Twitter in recent days!

talkhouse.com/freda-love-smith-and-juliana-hatfield-got-matching-quarantine-haircuts/

Michael Lello, interviewing Juliana for Highway 81 Revisited on the Police covers album:

[Juliana]...quickly dismisses the notion that performing songs written and originally sung by a man had any impact on her approach to them.

“No, not at all. I don’t think gender matters at all in these songs,” she says. “I did not change the gender because I think sometimes when a woman sings a man’s song, sometimes they change the gender and I always find that very jarring. It disturbs the song. It takes you out of the trance of song. I don’t think it matters what pronouns I sing. Plus it changes my perspective too. With ‘Roxanne,’ when Sting sings about it it’s a different story, it’s about a streetwalker, being in this agonized love affair with a streetwalker. When I sing ‘Roxanne’ I’m singing about a friend who’s a streetwalker.”

From an interview by Brent Thompson for Birmingham Stages ahead of the upcoming US tour:

Birmingham Stages: You have a large catalog of music at this point in your career. With that said, how do you comprise your set lists these days?

Hatfield: It can be really random. I made an album of covers called Juliana Hatfield – it was self-titled and kind of an obnoxious name for an album of covers [laughs] and I made it seven or eight years ago. Someone reminded me of the song I recorded by Teenage Fanclub called “Cells” which I hadn’t thought of for a long time. And I thought, “Oh, maybe I’ll play that one in the set” because I remember how much I liked it. There’s no real system. I’m trying to pull things from lots of of different years – doing a bunch from the last few albums and then going back to the first and second albums.

Juliana is interviewed by Craig Rosen, talking about her Olivia Newton-John and Police projects as part of a feature at Tidal on the subject of covers:

Hatfield admits that she has done at least one ironic cover, in her earlier days. Earwig, a 1989 album by Hatfield’s band the Blake Babies, featured a cover of the Stooges’ highly sexualized anthem “Loose.” “That was a little ironic,” she says. “It was also kind of a joke, because I was a virgin at that time and I was singing this cock-rock song.”

These days, Hatfield says she’s no longer interested in being ironic. “What’s the point in belittling anything that was made with love?” she says. “Music is really precious, but it’s complicated because it’s all caught up in commerce. You have to be careful. If you’re going to knock something publicly, there has to be a real reason for it.”

Here's a couple of 1993 TV interviews that have appeared on YouTube in recent weeks, both of which I don't think I've seen before.

There's Gary Crowley giving it a big British "JuliARNER" pronounciation in his London interview (which also has an acoustic version of My Sister), and a Japanese TV interview from earlier in the year previewing Become What You Are.

Thanks to Carlos for the info.

Juliana is interviewed by Dan Alleva for The Aquarian to talk about the Police covers album:

[DA] I think a perfect example of that on the record is your rendition of “Roxanne.” You completely deconstructed and reinterpreted it in much darker context. It sounds as though you were really trying to underscore those lyrics and the narrative as well as you could.

[JH] Well, actually I think I didn’t really have a clear concept when I went to record that. I was thinking that I can’t do reggae. I’m not a person who can play reggae authentically or anything like it. I’m not going to even attempt to go there, because it would seem false and poser-ish. I was just thinking like, ‘Oh, take away the band and just make it really stark and it’ll be like me talking to my friend, the prostitute, and trying to help her out of the life of the street.’ And really, that’s the whole concept. Just break it down so it’s like me pleading in a way with her, like, ‘Come on, you can have a better life.’ It’s sort of supposed to be like a conversation between me and my friend, Roxanne, the prostitute. It’s very raw. The situation is very raw, and to me—I don’t want to make a big thing about it, because I think that sex workers have a right to do that kind of work—but when I do think about prostitution, I just think like, ‘Ugh… what a harsh life that must be.’

[DA] It’s an interesting construct because with the original version, it’s a man speaking to a woman, and with your interpretation, it’s two women having a conversation with each other. I don’t know what the right word for it is, but it seems—I don’t want to say that Sting was disingenuous—but the patriarchal nature in which Roxanne’s plight is narrated by a man is different than how you presented the theme.

[JH] I think it’s more sympathetic coming from me. Because in the Police version, it is certainly a john who’s in love with a prostitute, and he’s just really selfish and jealous. Like, he doesn’t want this person that he’s in love with to do it with any other men. And it’s really selfish, I think. My version is not selfish; I’m trying to help my sister out of that life rather than just be like, ‘I don’t ever want you to [see] any other men.’ It’s about being better to yourself.