Posts in interview

Matthew Caws, on the cover art for 'Get There':

It’s a photograph from the Olympic Peninsula, near Seattle. It’s not an Alp. We actually were messing around with a lot of photos of the Alps themselves; there were some really cool ones, night time ones, but it was hard to make them work. They were awesome, but really weird and dark. I’ve actually had a bad experience with that in the past, with a Nada Surf record we did called Lucky. You don’t always know how it’s going to print; you’re looking at your computer screen and thinking it looks great, but obviously the screen is generating light. You get the real thing and think “oh, man. This is not how I thought it was gonna look, it’s really fucking flat.” We love that picture too, though. It’s a nice fit, I think.

Dating back to their Manchester show in April, there's an interview with Juliana and Matthew published today at Drowned In Sound.

Another German radio interview at Radioeins (archived), including a live performance of 'I Don't Know What Do With My Hands'.

Towards the end of the interview, Juliana and Matthew say that although there are no firm plans for Minor Alps in the future (Matthew is returning to work with Nada Surf after the tour), they are "working on a new song".

Whoop.

There's a Minor Alps radio interview with performances of 'I Wanna Take You Home' and 'Waiting For You' at FluxFM (archived).

Freda Love Smith, with high praise for 'Get There':

I have known Juliana Hatfield for 28 years. We have worked together in two bands, toured together countless times, and well—I love her. But even if I’d never met the woman who put the babe in Blake Babies, I would admire her agile guitar playing, ambitious songwriting, and gorgeous, unmistakable singing voice. Juliana’s productivity is staggering – she has released 19 full-length albums, and her current project, Minor Alps (a collaboration with Matthew Caws), is just about the best thing she’s ever done.

I caught Juliana before she leaves for a string of European tour dates with Minor Alps. My longtime vegetarian friend recalls the time that Denny’s slipped her a meat burger, and shares a recipe for her virtuous, tasty go-to dinner at home.

Read the article, which includes a Juliana recipe (!) at Paste.

New York's Q104.3 has a Minor Alps interview and performance available to view or download.

“We’re not reinventing either of our wheels, but it does go in a slightly different direction than places I’ve been in the past,” Hatfield said. “There’s not a drummer on every song but we did more with drumbeats than I usually do. I also played a lot of keyboards, which is something I haven’t normally done – that was really fun for me. I studied piano for many years, so I was like, hey, I remember the keyboards. But it was more because some songs cried out for instruments that weren’t stringed instruments – like this feeling or vibe where a mellotron was needed, or we could mess around with something else.”

Taken from a feature on Minor Alps at The Patriot Ledger.

There's a further piece behind a paywall at The Boston Globe.

“We’re doing a lot of singing in unison, it’s really cool, it’s fun,” says Hatfield, her voice picking up pitch and speed. There’s a genuine expression of excitement to her tone that seems to catch her off-guard. It isn’t surprising, though–even in the more dour moments, it sounds like Hatfield and Caws are having a blast.

“For me, that’s the best part,” she says. “It’s natural, it’s not having to try to very hard or to force it. We just blend really well and it’s really easy to harmonize, which is great because I rarely ever sing with other people.”

Full article at Dig Boston.

There's an audio interview with Juliana at WYEP, where she discusses Minor Alps.

(Diffuser): We’re going to put each of you on the spot for a second: Matthew: What is your favorite Juliana Hatfield song or album? Juliana: What is your favorite Nada Surf song or album?

MC: Whoa. Well, there’s a recent song called ‘Candy Wrappers’ that I adore. I love a lot of songs by the Who, but the first one I fell for was ‘Can’t Explain,’ and it’s still my favorite. So in this case, the [Blake Babies] song called ‘Out There’ on ‘Sunburn,’ is still one of my favorite songs by anybody. But I’m just a big fan in general. I really feel like a lot of what Juliana does is stuff that I wished I did myself. I said once that I thought maybe our ancestors are from the same town in Scotland. There’s something deeply connected for me, melodically.

JH: It’s weird how when we sing together, it just falls into place easily. It just makes so much sense without having to think about it. It’s just like a real nice thing that happens to happen. You can’t really explain it. I, like many people, think that the ‘Let Go’ album is probably like Top 10 desert-island-disc-type [material], and then from the recent album [‘The Stars Are Indifferent to Astronomy’], I was really obsessed with the song ‘The Moon Is Calling.’ I was in art school that year — for that one year the record was out — but I would drive back and forth to school every day and that song was on repeat; it was the only thing I’d listen to over and over and over again to art school for months. And I was really obsessed with it. I’m not sure why. It’s nothing I can explain. Something just hit that spot deep inside of me.

There's a terrific interview with Juliana and Matthew at Diffuser, where they talk in depth about the songs and recording of Get There.

There's a short phone interview with Juliana at WYEP, taken from their Morning Mix show.

She discusses the dog rescue charity and the Wild Animals album.

Thanks to Rob for the link.

Juliana:

I was living in a studio apartment in Allston, Massachusetts, which is sort of like a student ghetto of cheap apartments. Evan Dando was sort of crashing there. He had nothing to do with it, but I just remember he was around. And I was trying to write something catchy and accessible, but not in a crass, commercial way. I just came up with those four chords that are the verse, and then it sort of ended up not having a chorus.

I've always been in this sort of perpetual state of existential longing. I feel like something's missing. I almost feel like I have a twin who died at birth but no one ever told me that the twin existed. And with this song, I was trying to explore the idea of a sister who I never had. In the beginning, that seemed like a really nice idea. I had two brothers, but I never had a sister. But then the song ended up being kind of sad. It was more of a longing for a sister who was never nice to me, or a relationship lacking the things that I wanted from it.

SPIN has a lengthy article revisiting 1993's My Sister featuring quotes from many including members of The Juliana Hatfield Three and, yes, the Violent Femmes and the Del Fuegos.

You don't want to miss this one.

Low Times Podcast:

Maggie Serota sits down with entertainment lawyer John P. Strohm to chat about his roots in the Boston music scene of the late 80s, founding The Blake Babies with ex-girlfriend Freda Love and Juliana Hatfield and playing in The Lemonheads with Evan Dando. He also discusses the shift from trying to eke out a living as an indie musician to becoming an attorney specializing in working with artists.

It's a very good interview and well worth a listen for any Blake Babies / Juliana fan.

You can hear it via the episode page at Low Times.

John's interview is the last section of the episode and begins after the 1 hour 4 minute mark.

Ahead of the Australian tour which begins on Sunday (Dec 16), Melbourne's Beat Magazine has a short interview with Evan & Juliana:

Dando remembers encountering the members of the Black Babies (sic), albeit with the odd skewed image. “The drummer had a really nice rack,” adds Dando, to Hatfield’s amusement. “She did, she had a really nice rack,” Hatfield laughs. “Yeah, it was a great rack of toms,” Dando clarifies. “Actually, she didn’t have a rack of toms at all,” Hatfield counters.

Juliana:

Painting requires more concentration and more time. It’s quieter, obviously, and more solitary. Painting hurts my brain in a way that music theory does—I’m forced to think about what I’m trying to do, and why, and how. Physically, they feel different, too— playing music can be a cathartic release whereas when I’m painting, I’m usually in a state of heightened anxiety the whole time.

Juliana has shared three of her paintings in an article at Paste which also features the work of 22 other musicians.