Clearing The Clutter With Sharon Van Etten (Interview)

Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter Sharon Van Etten has become one of the most critically acclaimed indie artists around thanks to albums such as Epic, Tramp and her latest, Are We There? Since moving to Brooklyn she has assimilated into the local music scene making friends and collaborating with the likes of TV On The Radio, The National and War On Drugs. Sharon is about to embark on her fist tour of New Zealand, playing three dates in March. The 13th Floor’s Marty Duda recently spoke to Sharon just as she was finishing up some a rigorous session of housework. Listen in as Sharon discusses her life in New York, her upcoming EP and her upcoming visit to New Zealand.

Click here to listen to the interview with Sharon Van Etten:

Or, read a transcription of the interview here:

SE: Hello, this is Sharon.

MD: Hey.

SE: How are you?

MD: I’m very good thank you. How’s things where you are?

SE: So good. I just  finished my laundry, I made my bed…all crisp and clean, I’m feeling so productive!

MD: I wish I could say the same. My apartment is quite cluttered at the moment and I need to get to it. I was just doing some painting so there’s stuff everywhere, but you know, got to start somewhere.

SE: If only I was there, I’m on a tear right now.

MD: Oh man, I could use you! Hopefully I’ll get it straightened out before you come down here and I won’t have to put you to work. So I assume you’re in Brooklyn or New York or some place in that vicinity?

SE: Yes, I am in New York, just getting ready for a house guest right now.

MD: Oh cool and so you survived the big blizzard that didn’t quite hit?

SE: I know and it’s funny because you know di Blasio got such a hard time for overblowing it but better to be over prepared than under prepared right?

MD: Yeah. Well I used to live up in Rochester New York and that would happen all the time. We’d get these big storm warnings and everybody would shut down and everybody would stay home from work and then everybody spent most of the day looking out the window waiting to see for something to happen. So yeah, you get that. We need to talk a little bit cause’ you’re coming down here to play, have you been to New Zealand before?

SE: No this is my first time. I was going to say your accent is a little different.

MD: Yeah, it’s very American. I’ve lived in New Zealand for 20 years but I’m as about American as they come. I apologize for not having a kiwi accent.

SE: You don’t have to apologize. I’ve never been to New Zealand. I went to Australia at the end of 2012 and that’s the closest I ever got and I was so devastated I couldn’t make it work to go to New Zealand last time. So really psyched to be coming this time around.

Jack Ladder & Sharon Van Etten
Jack Ladder & Sharon Van Etten

MD: Right. Well one of your musical friends was over here, in fact he was at my place just a little while ago from Australia, Jack Ladder.

SE: Oh cool! Awesome!

MD: Yeah. He just played a gig up here in, I do have a little studio and we did an interview and stuff. You sang on his record with the Playmates, is that right?

SE: Yeah, yes I did and it’s a great record.

MD: It is.

SE: I was so excited for him. I got to meet him for the first time was like when I first went to Australia and I’ve been a fan ever since. So I felt very honoured he asked me to sing on it.

MD: How did you find out about him because he’s a relatively obscure kind of guy, I mean, he’s not a name that jumps out at you.

SE: Well I played the same show with him but I didn’t know very much about, you know, much current New Zealand music, I know a lot about the Punk scene.I forget exactly where it was but it was in the country kind of, it was a drive outside the city and it was in an old schoolhouse.

MD: Right.

SE: In a very small town in Australia and it was a really cool show. It was more like a festival than a show because it was like 5 bands in the middle of nowhere and this one really cool space. I was solo at the time and all of a sudden, I played the solo set and then they walk on and it’s like 8 men walking onto the stage and I got instant like Bad Seeds energy.

MD: Right, yeah. Definitely.

SE: and it was, the show was mind blowing.

MD: Excellent.

SE: But that was the first time I heard him perform the song Cold Feet and that song just blew me away.

MD: Right. I see for your show in New Zealand you have a gentleman by the name of Robert Scott who’s going to be opening the show for you.

SE: Yes.

MD: Are you familiar with him from The Clean?

SE: Yes, yes I am.

MD: Good.

The Clean
The Clean

SE: One of my first jobs In New York was at Bada-Bing Records working for Ben Goldberg and one of my first jobs as a publicist for him was helping with the Dead C records and the solo records by Michael Morley called The Gate which is a challenge to do press on but it was so much fun and I loved that record and because of me getting obsessed with all that music, I mean this is about 8 years ago now, I think. Ben asked me to help him with this…Ben had said he was doing for Chris Knox here in New York. That’s when I first met the The Clean because they played it and they were incredible.

MD: Excellent. Seems to be a good matching up between you and Robert then, it’ll be a great night. I know you have a new single that’s just come out called I Don’t Want to Let You Down and it’s just been released. You performed it on The Ellen Show. What can you tell me about that song? Is it something that didn’t quite make it on the previous album and you thought needed an airing?

SE: Yeah. At the time I just thought it was too happy of a song and it didn’t really fit the vibe, but I loved it. It was a feel good song. I remember my parents were upset that it didn’t make the record because they like when they hear a glimmer of hope their songs.

MD: Right.

SE: But I wrote that song as a kind of a half joke at myself. I was in a bad mood so I put on the movie Overboard with Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell and tried to get myself out of this rut.

MD: Right.

Watch Sharon Van Etten perform I Don’t Want To Let You Down on Ellen here:[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9-_zXnFGOs]

SE: And it just turned into this song and honestly I just felt like it didn’t fit the world of the songs that I already recorded and I was really proud of those, but I knew it would find a place at some point and that is a good of time as any as things are slowing down to put up something new that I was proud of.

MD: I read somewhere, rumours that an EP maybe following later this year. Is that in the works?

SE: Yes. We are finalizing artwork and we’re just about to send it to be mastered and pressing and having a lacquer sent to me within the next month and I’ll know a release date once I approve that.

MD: Oh cool, excellent. So when you come down here, will we be hearing some new songs as well as stuff from the past?

SE: Yes you will.

MD: Excellent and are you bringing a band or just you solo?

SE: It’s me and my bandmate Heather Woods Broderick. We’re going to be doing stripped down versions of the songs. It’s going to be much more intimate.

MD: Intimate is good. Well I mean that’s kind of, I guess sums up your music anyway and I know that a lot of your song writing is somewhat therapeutic and comes from a very personal place. I was wondering as, you know, you’ve built up kind of a library of music over the years and you’re performing songs that have this kind of personal background to them, do they change for you as you sing them over the years and kind of what happens in your head as you’re singing a song from say 5 years ago that represents events from that point that you have to kind of dredge up again?

SE: Well, you know… things are different every day.

MD: Right.

SE: There are days and there are days. (giggles) These songs come from a very real place. So it’s not easy to completely compartmentalize the song and sing it and not feel anything.

MD: Right.

SE: And if I didn’t feel anything I probably wouldn’t perform the song either.

MD: I see.

SE: It’s not real to me either, but it’s like going back into a photo album and seeing what  you or your friends used to look like or people that have passed away.  You’re gonna get misty eyed, you’re gonna get sentimental, but you should acknowledge it, the past and move on but you’re still going to feel something. So that’s when a lot of these songs are like I know that I’ll move past them but I’m still sentimental and It’s not like those moments are nothing.

MD: Right. Now speaking of your friends and stuff, you seem to be affiliated on good terms with a lot of other bands that are located in the same general vicinity, War On Drugs, The National, Antlers, TV on the Radio, these friends of yours. How would you say these friendships influence your music and how we end up hearing it?

SE: I think it’s just I found an amazing group of people that encourage their friends and other musicians, to keep doing what they’re doing and a lot of my friends are caretakers so they take people under their wing and help them in any way they can. And they’re generally very positive people that just want to help people. I feel like moving to New York City…I was so scared to move here… I walked into a very beautiful group of people that have been supportive the whole entire way and I don’t think that happens for a lot of people.

MD: Yeah. It seems your timing was perfect because that whole kind of scene has come into fruition just in the last 4, 5 years or so I guess which is when you arrived, so a bit of synchronicity there I guess. Have you given any thought, have you had the opportunity to take anybody under your wing, look at somebody and say this person could use a little boost and you can do whatever you can do to help out?

SE: Well I try in my way for a lot of people. I mean, well anyone that I meet that I like. There’s a woman that just moved here from Tennessee, Makenzie Scott, who goes under the name Torres and she had her first record out a couple of years ago and just moved to New York City and just finishing the record and we did a Weathervane Session together. That’s where I first recorded Love More as part of the Weathervane series, I don’t know if you’re familiar with it.

MD: No I’m not. I don’t know what that is, but sounds intriguing.

Click here to listen to the Torres Weathervane Session. 

SE: Yeah it’s a cool project run by Brian McTear He produced Epic with me when I first recorded that in 2010 but before I recorded the album he asked me to do a session which is basically like a visual tape op and it’s the writing, the recording and the singing of a song and you can bring in any one you want but it’s part gear, part process, and also part story of the people behind the song and it’s really beautiful and it’s run in Philadelphia by this guy Brian who loves music and I was the first session that he did and it’s the Weathervane series.

MD: Pretty cool, I’ll have to check it out.

arewethere.lpoutSE: And then that’s how I first recorded Love More and had such a great time and I decided to record the album then. I did a session with Makenzie there from touring.

MD: How would you describe what she does?

SE: It’s like angsty grunge and she’s young, but I feel like she has so much, she’s so talented and she’s so ambitious and she works her ass off and I think she’s a great writer. So I think, you know, just look out for her.

MD: Okay, will do. It’s amazing the amount of music that’s out there and amount of great music, you know, for somebody to try and keep up on it all is almost impossible these days because it’s just kind of whatever happens to hit you at the right time. How do you find new music? Do you have a way, particular group of friends or places on the internet, how does it come to you?

SE: I know it’s very overwhelming. Well, I mean, I look at Instagram and Twitter and if people like me recommend music, I listen and then people give me CDRs I listen, but my favourite radio station that I’ve been listening to for years is WFMU.

MD: Right.

SE: Two of my favourite DJs are DJ Trouble and the Shrunken Planet show. And DJ Trouble plays like everything, he’s just, you know, it’s very freestyle. But yeah it’s just a crazy free form station but she does really cool transitions but like from a Punk song to a Funk song to a Jazz number to, like she’s all over the place. Sometimes her little son comes in and is like her DJ sidekick then Shrunken Planet is a show by Jeffery Davison who has like, he played Tiny Ruins.

MD: Oh great.

SE: Yeah. He’s one of the first people I heard play her as well as DJ Trouble, but he’s more niche, like very Folk, Country, Blues, old and new and that’s like Saturday morning.

MD: Right. I just saw Tiny Ruins on Monday, she played at the Laneway Festival here in Auckland.

SE: Oh cool. Yeah I love her. We got to do a tour with her in October and they’re really beautiful people and we’ll be doing a couple of shows with them in Australia when we come over there.

MD: Excellent. It’s all very exciting. Alright, well I’ll let you go get back to your buzz of activity in your apartment, I’m hoping that mine will all be done by the time you get here so I won’t have to put you to work and I can just enjoy your music instead.

SE: Well I mean that if you need anything. (laughing)

MD: I certainly will, alrighty.

Click here for more info about Sharon Van Etten’s New Zealand tour.