From earlier in the month, Juliana was interviewed by Grant Walters for Columbus Underground. She revealed a collaboration on an album that we may never hear:

GW: The last time we spoke was when your last studio album of original songs, Blood, was released. I guess that’s about two years ago already. Are you in a perpetual state of writing your own music – or where you’re maybe at least sketching ideas for the next project?

JH: Yeah, I’m always at least thinking about it. Usually when I finish an album or a tour, I’ll take a little bit of a break and I’ll just kind of laze around. Or I’ll be drawing and writing other things. But I’m always on to the next thing. After I finished the ELO record, I took a little time to not work on anything. But then I started working with this new friend of mine who is a contractor and a carpenter – and he’s also a musician and a songwriter. He had all these songs recorded with no vocals on them, and I ended up writing and recording a whole album worth of songs with him. So, I don’t know if it’s ever going to be released, but there are, like, 12 songs that I wrote lyrics for and sang. And now, I’m working on writing a new album of originals. I have about 10 songs in the works – just the guitar and form right now, but no words yet.

Juliana, interviewed by Dave Rayburn for AMPED on the upcoming ELO covers album:

DAVE: ELO is well known for its incorporation of orchestral elements in addition to elaborate production aesthetics. Can you talk about the challenges and creative choices you faced when reimagining their iconic songs in your own style?

JULIANA: I did have a few worrisome moments, wondering, “How the heck am I going to deal with the string parts?” I didn’t want to piss off any ELO fans in any way, by neglecting important elements in the songs. But I also didn’t want to just copy anything just for the sake of being pointlessly faithful. Instead, I thought about what each particular song needed or didn’t need, and then I worked with what I had and didn’t have, and made adjustments. On some songs I played certain string parts on guitar, or on keyboards. In others (“Bluebird is Dead” and “Showdown”), I sang the string parts, or parts of them. On some songs I chose to reinterpret in ways in which the strings were not necessary (for me) and would not be missed (I hoped). When I record any cover song, I like to play around with it at first, going over it and over it on an acoustic guitar until it starts to feel like mine, and in that process it becomes less intimidating to think of the original looming over me, and the song starts to organically become something that feels natural in my own hands, with my own style and personality. If anything feels awkward or forced during this early getting-to-know-the-song-vibe-in-my-hands period, I will let it go; I won’t force any song to be recorded by me unless it feels real.

DAVE: Who joins you on this record, and how was it recorded?

JULIANA: Ed Valauskas played bass and Chris Anzalone played drums (both are from the Boston area). I recorded everything else, on my laptop, in my bedroom at home. Ed recorded his parts in his basement home studio and Chris recorded his drums in his rehearsal room/makeshift recording studio. The three of us got together a few times in that rehearsal room to run through songs together and to get a feel for arrangements and for bass and drum parts. Ed and I were there when Chris recorded his drums but Ed and I both recorded our stuff at our respective homes, individually, after the drums were done. There was a lot of file-sending going on. After recording was done, we sent all the songs to Pat DiCenso to mix at his place and he did a brilliant job. He’d sent me first mixes and I had him tweak a few things but mostly he totally nailed it right away.

Juliana, interviewed by Jon Calderas for Cincy Music on many topics including the upcoming solo electric tour, recording at home, and here regarding the ELO covers LP:

JC: I wanted to ask you about that, especially in regards to the ELO material. I was listening to some of your [released] tracks and then I was listening to the original ELO tracks [that she’s covered but are not released yet]. I wanted to ask you about adapting them for a solo show. If I look at a song like “Bluebird is Dead”, that seems like, okay, that's a pretty straightforward one, but something like “From the End of the World” is lush and layered and very, very different on record. And I guess obviously on your laptop or studio you can overdub and layer as much as you want, but how do you go about reconfiguring those for a solo stage show?

JH: Well, I go back to just, I'm playing through them all, and you're right, “Bluebird is Dead”, does work really well in that context of “no band”. Yeah, “Bluebird is Dead”, that works well with just guitar and vocal, and… others, I'm figuring it out right now, which ones are going to work. It's just a process of playing through them all and seeing which one holds up without all the instrumentation. And the songs are generally, I mean, they're all so well- constructed that they would all conceivably work on their own with just one guitar, but I'm just going to choose the ones that I think sound the most complete on their own in that stripped -down version.

There’s this thing I found on YouTube, it's Jeff Lynne and his piano player playing through a bunch of his songs in his, I think it's a room in his house, like a gigantic room in his house with hit platinum records all over the wall. But he's just playing through a whole bunch of his songs, his hits, he's playing a guitar and his piano player's playing and the songs sound really good in that stripped- down atmosphere. It's just a testament to how well-written the songs are and how solid they are, how solid the constructions are. That's when you know a song is a good song -if it can just be played by someone on a guitar and played on its own and it sounds good.

Juliana appears on Episode 134 of Al Melchior’s You, Me and An Album podcast:

Indie rock icon Juliana Hatfield pays YMAAA a visit to talk about the soundtrack album for the 1980 musical motion picture, Xanadu, which features Olivia Newton-John and Electric Light Orchestra. Juliana talks about being a fan of both artists growing up, her Olivia Newton-John covers album and her upcoming ELO covers album and the difficulties involved in covering other artists’ songs in general.

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Overcast

Juliana is a guest on Episode 45 of Mike Hipple’s Lived Through That podcast, which focuses on influential artists of the 80s and 90s.

Juliana talks about her career and how the politics of the music business led her to almost quit entirely and how that journey led her to go back to school to try and get an MFA in fine art.

Available in the normal podcast clients including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Overcast.

Telephone Line is the third single from the upcoming Juliana Hatfield Sings ELO album, available in all the usual places including Spotify and Apple Music.

Juliana:

Some people might not know what a busy signal is and might not comprehend what it means not to be able to leave a message; what it means to feel essentially unable to communicate. But I do and it has nothing to do with technology. ‘Telephone Line’ is really just an expression of an isolation and a loneliness which music helps to make more bearable.

Juliana returned to Garry Foster’s Unchained show earlier this month.

Listen above or at mixcloud.com/garry-foster/unchained-05092023-hour-two/

Juliana, interviewed by Brassneck for the September 2023 edition of Illinois Entertainer on the upcoming ELO album and here on the question of whether she’s been writing new material:

A little bit, yeah. Just little bits and pieces of stuff, but not really putting anything together. So that’s what I’m trying to do now — I’m working on originals more, in a more focused way. So folks can look at (the ELO album) as a palate cleanser or maybe a brain cleanser. And next for me is, I’m going to put together a new album of originals, which I’m writing, and it’s not gonna be uplifting really because I am not in that kind of headspace. So I’m in a place where I’m trying to figure some things out from my childhood and make amends and apologize, just trying to resolve things in my life and work through some long-standing issues. So it’s not really an uplifting moment in my life or a happy, content period — it’s more like a transitional period.

Juliana is interviewed by Steev Riccardo for the latest episode of his Blowing Smoke with Twisted Rico podcast.

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Some newly announced 2023 live appearances:

Sep 15 House Of Blues, Boston, MA (opening for Lemonheads)

The following are solo headline shows:

Oct 4 City Winery, Pittsburgh, PA

Oct 5 Music Box Supper Club, Cleveland, OH

Oct 6 Rumba Cafe, Columbus, OH

Oct 7 Space - Evanston, IL

Oct 9 Turf Club, St Paul, MN

Oct 10 Shank Hall, Milwaukee, WI

Oct 11 Woodward Theater, Cincinnati, WI

Oct 13 The Parlor Room, Northampton, MA*

Oct 14 POP, Providence, WI*

*The Northampton and Providence shows are billed with a “Pre set conversation with author (and Blake Babies drummer) Freda Love Smith”

There’s also a scheduled appearance at NYC City Winery on Oct 15 for Wesley Stace’s ‘Cabinet of Wonders’ variety show (Juliana typically plays one or two songs in these events.)

Last weekend Juliana appeared with a multitude of artists to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Lenny Kaye’s psychedelic Nuggests compilations at City Winery in New York City.

Juliana covered I Won’t Hurt You by The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band and I Cannot Stop You by Cherry Slush.

She appeared on stage with Kaye’s house band and REM’s Peter Buck.

Brooklyn Vegan has photos and the set list.

Juliana, interviewed by Aaron Kavanagh for postburnout.com on her choice of artist for her upcoming Juliana Sings ELO LP:

“And I was going to do R.E.M. and I was listening – the process for me starts with going deep into the albums, and all the deep cuts, and relistening, and finding things I want to record – and I just became too overwhelmed with the amount of R.E.M. material that I had never heard, because I stopped listening to them at some point, and there were a bunch of albums after then, and I just felt there was too much study that I was going to have to do, and there were too many songs, and I lost my nerve with that one. And then, I don’t know, I just thought, ‘I love ELO, so let’s do that!’”

Juliana’s new single Can’t Get it Out Of My Head is out now.

The video is directed by David Doobinin who is quoted in a press release:

“I created cutout versions of Juliana to create layered, architectural visuals. I wanted the video to capture that restless, ‘caught between two worlds’ experience we all feel sometimes, while also highlighting Juliana’s raw and poetic nature, and how she embodies both awkwardness and grace.”

Juliana:

“David is really good at capturing my discomfort in front of cameras, and in the world. Making it all into interesting, moving imagery works great in the context of this song about longing to escape reality into some otherworldly realm.”

The song is the 2nd track released from the upcoming Juliana Hatfield Sings ELO album and it’s lovely.

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Juliana is scheduled to play a show with Kay Hanley at The Burren Backroom in Somerville, MA on June 16, 2023. UPDATE There are now two shows. After the 7pm event sold out , there’s an extra 4pm performance available.

Ticket info: 24hourconcerts.showare.com/eventperformances.asp?evt=1126

The incredible poster design is by Nicole Anguish of Daykamp Creative.

Juliana and Kay are also due to play the following day at a previously announced benefit show in Northampton, MA.

Juliana's 3rd album in the “Sings” series following tributes to Olivia Newton-John and The Police is scheduled for November 17, 2023 via American Laundromat Records, titled "Juliana Hatfield Sings ELO"

Here's the first single, "Don't Bring Me Down" :

The song is available now on streaming services including Apple Music and Spotify.

Juliana:

ELO songs were always coming on the radio when I was growing up. They were a reliable source of pleasure and fascination (except for “Fire On High” which scared the heck out of me). With this album of covers I wanted to get my hands deep into some of the massive ‘70’s hits but I am also shining a light on some of the later work (“Ordinary Dream” from 2001’s “Zoom” album, “Secret Messages” and “’From The End Of The World”, both from the ‘80’s).

Thematically, I identify with the loneliness and alienation and the outerspace-iness in the songs I chose. (I have always felt like I am part alien, not fully belonging to or in this Earth world.) Sonically, ELO recordings are like an amusement park packed with fun musical games with layers and layers of varied, meticulous parts for your ears to explore; production curiosities; huge, gorgeous stacks of awe-inspiring vocal harmony puzzles. My task was to try and break all the things down and reconstruct them subtly until they felt like mine.

Overall, I stuck pretty close to the originals’ structures while figuring out new ways to express or reference the unique and beloved ELO string arrangements. An orchestra would have been difficult or impossible for me to manage to record, nor did I think there was any point in trying to copy those parts as they originally were. Why not try to reimagine them within my zone of limitations? In some cases, I transposed string parts onto guitars, or keyboards, and I even sung some of them (as in “Showdown” and “Bluebird Is Dead”).

Recording the album was a kind of complicated and drawn-out process since I was doing all of my tracks at home in my bedroom (drums and bass were done by Chris Anzalone and Ed Valauskas, respectively [in their own recording spaces]), and I kept running into technology problems that would frustrate me and slow me up. But eventually I got it all done. A labor of love

Track List

1. Sweet Is The Night
2. Can't Get It Out Of My Head
3. Showdown
4. Strange Magic
5. Don't Bring Me Down
6. Telephone Line
7. Secret Messages
8. Bluebird Is Dead
9. From The End Of The World
10. Ordinary Dream

Bonus 7-inch Track List

1. I'm Alive
2. When I Was A Boy

Availability

Vinyl, CD, and cassette options are available to order at American Laundromat Records

Juliana’s ELO History

Juliana previously covered 'Sweet Is The Night' on her 2012 eponymous lp and the credits for this new album suggest that elements of that recording may be in the 2023 version.

Juliana also covered a Jeff Lynne song with 'Xanadu' on 2018’s 'Juliana Hatfield Sings Olivia Newton-John.'

ELO Originals

As is traditional I've made unofficial Apple Music and Spotify playlists of the songs Juliana is covering:

Apple Music

Spotify

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Juliana is scheduled to appear with many other artists over 2 nights at City Winery in NYC, on July 28-29, 2023.

City Winery:

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To celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the release of the classic Nuggets: Original Artyfacts From the First Psychedelic Era, 1964-1968, Lenny Kaye, City Winery, and The Bowery Presents present a live performance of songs from legendary LP and bonus material from the era. Hosted by Lenny Kaye and the Jubilee house band featuring Tony Shanahan, Jack Petruzzelli, Glen Burtnik, Dennis Diken, and with the help of Patti Smith, Bob Mould, Juliana Hatfield, Jesse Malin, Marshall Crenshaw, Ivan Julian, Peter Buck, James Mastro and more to come!

Tickets:

citywinery.com/newyork/Online/article/NYC-Golden-Jubilee-Part1-7-28-23-8pm

citywinery.com/newyork/Online/article/NYC-Golden-Jubilee-Part2-7-29-23-8pm

Juliana’s cover of Neil Young’s Lotta Love is out today on streaming / download services having previously been a vinyl exclusive.

The second single from The Salt Collective’s upcoming project is released today with Juliana on vocals. The track also features Television’s Richard Lloyd.

Juliana’s other contribution to the album is the song Asylum (with Matthew Caws vocals) released as a single last month.