Juliana Hatfield comes out calmly
‘Peace & Love” is the title of the ninth studio album by Juliana Hatfield, and it feels especially appropriate because it finds Hatfield in a period of uncharacteristic calm.
Having survived what the Maine-born, Duxbury-bred singer-songwriter calls a “turbulent time,” Hatfield has withdrawn a bit, having recorded all of her new songs herself in her Cambridge apartment, stripped-down and spare. The album arrived this past Tuesday, but there’s no tour to speak of and no thunderous public relations campaign. Finally, says Hatfield, she’s doing things the way she wants them.
“The last album (2008’s ‘How To Walk Away’), I put tons of work into it and it was met with good reviews, but it didn’t set the world on fire,” she said. “I can’t go through that again, just spend that much time and money on something that’s not going to reach a lot of people. It’s time for me to face the fact that I have a certain audience. It’s small, but very loyal. I made this record for those people.”
“Peace & Love” is stark. It’s undeniably Hatfield, but in 12 tracks reveals an introspection that hasn’t often been the focus of her more recent albums. She’s heavy, as always – punk-reactive in some cases, Neil Young-style moody in others, quietly despairing elsewhere – but there’s no slickness, no overthinking, no polish. As it sinks in, it’ll be one of her best albums.
“I had some difficult times and I think I kind of got worn out. I was feeling very introspective,” she offers. “I needed some calm because the year was very turbulent. The easiest way for me to feel calm was to be alone. I couldn’t handle the idea of going into a big studio with a bunch of people. I just wanted to stay home and make this very personal and quiet record.”
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The turbulence picked up about the time Hatfield released both “How to Walk Away” and her 2008 memoir, “When I Grow Up.” In the weeks following the album and book’s September releases, rumors began to circulate among fan groups that Hatfield was having a tough time making it through tour dates. In November 2008, Hatfield revealed in a series of blog posts that she was in treatment for anorexia. That was about the same time, Hatfield said, she also split with musician Ryan Adams.
“I learned I have limits,” she said, reflecting on late 2008. “Going on tour always makes me literally sick. I went on tour and I always lose weight and I always get sick, and I was breaking up while on tour. Then there was the fact that the record wasn’t selling, and all of that just kind of swirled together and I had to come to terms with the fact that my career is over, or at least that it’s never really going to go any further. I’m fine now – I’m completely fine – but I have to step away. I can’t tour anymore because it takes too much out of me. That doesn’t mean I won’t want to sometime in the future, but I’ve been realizing in the past few years that I enjoy myself less and less onstage on the road. I don’t want to be a faker.”
The late 2008 period also saw Hatfield blogging quite often, and becoming an active presence on social networking tools like Twitter.
“I was hearing too much. It’s not helpful for an artist to have so much feedback,” she said. “I had started reaching out to strangers because at the time, I needed help. I just wanted to be more accessible to people and interacting with people more. But all of the interaction with strangers was becoming a distraction from work, and I’d get into fights. It was like, oh my God, this isn’t what I wanted to happen. I’m not a friendly enough or social enough a person to be accessible over the Internet. I was just inviting ugliness at some point, and there were too many rotten apples.”