Posts in interview

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.”

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.