Posts in interview

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.

Juliana was interviewed by Joe Belock for WFMU's Three Chord Monte show yesterday:

Juliana's stellar 30-plus year career as a singer/songwriter/guitarist has included work with the Blake Babies, the Lemonheads, The Juliana Hatfield Three, a dozen solo records and many other collaborations. Her latest project is "Juliana Hatfield Sings Olivia Newton-John," and she checks in with Three Chord Monte to discuss how hopelessly devoted to the Aussie pop legend she is.

Want to know which album by another artist Juliana has thought about covering in its entirety? Listen away. As well as the interview, you can hear 5 songs from the upcoming album: Have You Never Been Mellow, Totally Hot, A Little More Love, Hopelessly Devoted To You, and Physical.

It's a 3 hour show but handily there's a playlist so you can jump straight to the timestamps for the interview and song segments.

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.

John P Strohm has a new job:

The music industry is changing almost daily with technological advancements, social media and the shifting population of music fans, and no one knows that better than John Strohm. Strohm, a former Birmingham resident and graduate of the Cumberland School of Law at Samford, recently was named president of Rounder Records in Nashville, after years as a musician himself and an entertainment lawyer. But Strohm made a name for himself musically as a member of bands such as the Lemonheads, Blake Babies and Antenna, and help launch the careers of some of today's most successful musicians - including Alabama Shakes, Sturgill Simpson and the Civil Wars.Patch caught up with Strohm to discuss his new gig as a record executive, what brought him here, and where music is headed as an industry.

Read more at patch.com/alabama/birmingham-al/rounder-records-new-leader-5-questions-john-strohm

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.

Laurie Burnette, reviewing Pussycat for Jazz London Radio:

Juliana was instrumental in that scene; being part of The Lemonheads and Blake Babies; releasing her debut “Hey Babe” in 1992 then forming the Juliana Hatfield Three in 1993 releasing “Become What You Are” on Atlantic Records. Since then Juliana has released an incredible array of music both electric and acoustic but always with melody and great riffs at the heart of it. “Pussycat” definitely follows the trend of not only well produced tuneful rock, but with hard hitting subjects which Juliana is so good at writing; Juliana is not afraid to tackle issues or put the boot in if she feels it’s necessary! I have read that Pussycat is an angry album, even her “angriest ever”. I see it as a mix of social commentary on the state of the American political scene and some angst, something that has been disappearing from music in recent times in the mad scramble to sound conformist and make as much money as possible.

There's a 45 minute audio interview with Juliana at the end of the review which concludes with Burnette asking about the prospect of future European shows. Unsurprisingly there are "no plans", Juliana citing the 2014 Minor Alps tour as particularly exhausting, but as always she says nothing should be ruled out.

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/

An interview with Estelle Tang for Elle, as part of Juliana's promotion for Pussycat but focusing on a song from many years ago. Juliana:

I was feeling sexism coming at me, I was feeling people making assumptions about me. But it was a continuation of lifelong sexism that girls start to encounter as soon as they're conscious, you know? It's a continuum of people seeing you in a certain way if you're a woman, or if you look a certain way or if you sound a certain way. And I was very self-conscious about the sound of my voice. I knew it was kind of young-sounding and girlish and thin, and I was always fighting against what my voice might make people assume about me.I wanted to counter the cuteness with whatever else I could. Like intelligence, even surliness sometimes. I wasn't smiling all the time. I had a bit of an attitude, I was kind of irritable. There are people out there who will see a cute girl singing a melodic song and they have a bunch of assumptions. I wanted to just be clear that I was in charge of my thing. I was in charge of my music and my image and no one else was controlling me.

[Recently, while making Hatfield's new album] it all really became so clear that nothing has changed, with the whole Donald Trump pussy grab thing. All this stuff came rushing back to me, the whole lifetime of sexism and misogyny. It only became fully clear to me at that moment, where I realized the man who is about to become the most powerful man in the country—it's all the way up at the top. It's so rooted in the culture and in maybe in men. That's the truth. It hasn't changed. And it was always there [during] my whole career.

Vincent Scarpa, interviewing Juliana for Performer Mag:

VS: Was there something about these songs, this project, that led you to make that decision? Did it feel necessary in some way to be in control in any and all ways possible?

JH: Partly it was just the urgency of the songs, the urgency of how I was feeling at the time. I wanted the songs to feel urgent and timely by the time the record was done. I thought, “Kellyanne might be fired soon!” [Laughs.] And if I do everything, I don’t have to negotiate with anyone about what I like or what I don’t like. I had a very strong, clear vision. And I’d just done some gigs with The Blake Babies playing bass, so I was feeling like my bass chops were kind of lubed up. It was quick, it was economical. Twelve days, recorded and mixed. And I’m so happy with the sound of it. With some of my older records, when I go back and listen to them, I’m disappointed in the sound. But I feel like I finally nailed it on this one. I was very particular. I was very clear with the engineer about exactly what I wanted. And I think cutting out a lot of people in the studio made me more able to have confidence in my vision. When there are other people around, I tend to listen to their opinions. Which isn’t to say their opinions aren’t great—they often are—but I think your vision can be muddied or diffused by other people. Being in there by myself, I was able to really tune in very closely to the process of hearing what I was hearing in my head and then getting that on tape. It feels good. I have doubts about a lot of things, and I’m worried about people misinterpreting it—all of that stuff—but I am proud of this record.

Juliana, interviewed by Jerry Nunn for Chicago Pride:

JN: Is your new album Pussycat a political album?

JH: The album is inspired by current events. It is a personal record. It is about my feelings and how I am reacting to the world. It is about confusion, rage, disgust, and all those other things. I didn’t want this to be an anti-Trump album. It is anti-hatred, and anti-lies. It is pro America and all the good things this country is supposed to be about. The is a lot of anti-sexism coming from my point of view as a woman who deals with it every day. I think sexism is a form of discrimination. It is similar to other forms of discrimination. I think people should feel empowered to not take shit from anyone. A lot of the songs are standing for the good things, like honesty and respect.

Juliana, interviewed by Michael Tedder in a longform article for Stereogum:

“It’s very easy to overlook me, because I never really went away. It’s hard to sell me. I don’t care. Why would I care? What can I do at this point? I’ve been doing this so long. Some flukey thing could happen. I could have a ‘Walk On The Wild Side,'” she says, referring to Lou Reed’s unexpected, relatively belated hit. She then shuffles her legs. “It could happen. Probably won’t. Something could hit if the timing were right. But I’m not planning on it.”

The in depth article covers the Boston Scene from the early 90s, interviewing some of the artists still creating music today, including Belly, Buffalo Tom and Letters to Cleo.