Juliana Hatfield
Heart Pains
Juliana Hatfield’s Peace & Love isn’t just a break-up album

By Jeff Niesel

Formerly of indie rock heroes the Blake Babies, singer-songwriter Juliana Hatfield has been writing and recording music for the better part of two decades. But up until this point, she hasn’t produced an album on her own. Her new album, Peace & Love, marks the first time she took over production duties. A stripped down affair that she recorded in her Cambridge apartment, it’s ostensibly a break-up album. Songs such as “Why Can’t We Love Each Other” and “What is Wrong” are certainly about a relationship gone awry. And yet Hatfield, who spoke via phone from her Cambridge home, says not all the songs on the album fit that description.

Talk about the level of independence you achieved on this new album.
It was the first time I recorded an album outside of a professional recording studio without any engineer. I recorded demos before on a four-track demo machine but this was the first time I had a digital recording machine. Even though I had been in so many studios over the years, I was ignorant about where to place mikes and how to record because I never was interested in that stuff. It’s like math or engineering. Doing it on my own, I was forced to figure out how to engineer myself. That was really new to me. I had one microphone and realized that by putting it in different parts of the room and standing different distances, I learned how to make it sound different. It was an eye-opening experience. I’ve always learned by doing rather than by taking a course. Being all alone was really fun for me. When I’m in the studio, there’s always people who have opinions who comment on what you’re doing. It was great to have no one saying anything. I had total freedom.
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Are you going to record like this from now on?
I would love to do more like this. There were limitations and I’m in an apartment and I don’t have a drum set. If I had one, I wouldn’t want to set it up and play it here because it would bother the neighbors. At some point, I’d like to have a real drum set to get a bit louder.

Did you have to search for a room with the right acoustics?
There’s this convenient back room. My brother and his wife used to live in this place, which is in Cambridge. I always loved their apartment and told them if they ever moved to tell the landlord to let me take this lease over. My brother is a great songwriter and records music on his free time. He had this back room that he called the Back Room and it was his studio. I did all the demos for my last album with him engineering me in that room. When he moved out, he left that eight-track machine and microphone for me. I brought a drum machine and a couple of other things and just took over.

Is it a break-up album?
I hate it when albums are simplified like that. I was going through a break up, but there’s other stuff on there that’s not about that. “Butterflies” is more about general existential angst. Every time, I write a song about a break-up, I can’t believe I’m writing about it again. It’s like shut up already. But I think it’s a universal experience and it never gets old. You never don’t experience the pain. The pain keeps regenerating itself over and over. Pain in my muse. Or at least it has been.

Is “Unsung” really your only instrumental?
Someone who works with me told me I had another one called “Bat Wings,” which was a b-side on a single on one of my Atlantic singles. I remember the title, but I don’t remember the song. I might have lied in my bio. If I don’t remember something happening, doesn’t that mean it didn’t happen?

Your career goes back some 20 years and you’ve been on major labels at least some of the time. Is there anything you could change?
Yes and no. Some days, I wish I could put out my first album now with the self-awareness that I have now and the knowledge I have now and the skills I have now. I didn’t know what I was doing or what I was saying or what I was wearing. I wish I could start now and be in control of myself and my image and present this cool package to the world. Then again, I’m really proud of what I’ve done because it was completely honest and it was so innocent in that way. I thought I would die if I didn’t make music. I thought it was my destiny to make music, and I didn’t know what else to do. Over the years, I’ve done things with integrity even though I might be embarrassed. I never sold out. That’s something to be proud of, I guess

Talk about your introduction to punk rock. Was it really through your babysitter?
Yeah, she wasn’t exactly a babysitter. I was a teenager. My father had moved out and my mom worked. My older brother had this older girlfriend who was like 23. He moved out to go to the army or something and she moved in with us somehow and I was 16 and she was 23. That was the situation. She was this cool older sister I never had. She had this great record collection, and that’s how I discovered punk rock and post-punk because there were no record stores in my town. I knew more than the kids in my high school did because I had my friend, Meg. I was interested in things and tried to find magazines and fanzines like Boston Rock. When I would have a chance to go to the city, I would go to Newbury Comics, which was this small indie store, and Aimee Mann was working there way before Til Tuesday. You had to do your research. A lot of people didn’t know about it. They were listening to Def Leppard and that was all they needed. I felt alienated in a way because I didn’t have anyone in my high school to talk about music with. I went to this small school and no one knew or cared about the Replacements and X. You want to share that when you’re a teenager. Today, everyone’s eyes are opened up. In some ways, it’s good because if you’re a gay teenager you know there are other gay teenagers out there. Same with cultural things. In all white towns they realize the world is not white.

At what point did you realize you really had a distinctive voice?
Not until people started commenting on it. The Blake Babies got our first review and they said I had this chirp of a voice. Until then, I thought I was Chrissie Hynde. It was really a shock. I was deluded and thought I was the best singer in the world. For many years, my voice tortured me, the sound of it. I wanted to have a cool rock ’n’ roll voice, and I just didn’t. The way I approached it was with a rock approach, but the sound was like pop or something. I couldn’t escape my birthright.

The Blake Babies have been off and on again. Why didn’t the band last longer?
I’m not sure. I think we just started to have different ideas. I just wanted to go solo. I felt like the band was holding me back in certain ways creatively. I was getting frustrated and we were growing apart.

Will it ever get back together?
Definitely not. I shouldn’t say that because it someone offered us a million dollars to play a gig, I would do it. I love John [Strohm] and Freda [Love]. They’re good friends of mine. John is a lawyer now and Freda and I had Some Girls and made a couple of records. We may do something some day. It’s highly unlikely. They have kids. She lives in England, and he’s in Alabama. It’s kind of complicated.

Are you going to tour?
I’m not feeling the desire to play the songs in front of people. It was such a solitary process, the writing and recording of it and so intimate that I want to keep it that way. I’m not feeling a desire to play the songs in front of people. I’m burned out on touring and need to take a break. It was taking a toll on my physical health. I always get really sick and skinny on tour. I realized it was bad for my health. I don’t want to say anything is permanent but I don’t know when I will play a show again. That’s all I can say. I don’t feel like doing it right now. I may wake up next week and say, “I want to go on tour.” I do things on whim.