Sharon Van Etten - one of America’s most acclaimed singer-songwriters over the last couple of decades, a cult artist revered in indie circles while frequently puncturing in and out of the mainstream - is currently on tour in Europe (she stops by London to play at the Royal Albert Hall on Monday 10th March) and is currently experiencing what we might call Trump Shame.
“It’s so embarrassing,” she says, of being a travelling abroad in Europe while the disruptor in the White House does his thing, “I’m like, just because I'm American, it doesn't mean that this is what I wanted!”
She reflects that she was pregnant when Trump first was voted in, and is now putting out, “another kind of child into the world,” but fundamentally she says she doesn’t want herself, or her community, friends, and fans, to be lost in rage. “You don't want to feed the monster, right? You don't wanna waste your energy because that's what they want, they want us to be paralyzed, they want us to feel dark and helpless. They're acting very quickly so people are overwhelmed with the amount of things that are happening in such a short amount of time. That's a tactic.
What we have to do is not be apathetic, and to be present with the things that we think matter and then perpetuate that and remind each other that no matter who's in power, we still have to exist and do the things that we would normally do. Have our communities inside the battle, be a good person and have positivity for the people around you.”
Now Sharon Van Etten is no longer Sharon Van Etten. On her latest record at least, she is Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory, making a move away from solo artist into band member.
Alright, she’s still very much front and centre of this band, but both in conversation and on the album, it seems she is relishing this collaboration with The Attachment Theory – multi-instrumentalists Jorge Balbi, Devra Hoff, and Teeny Lieberson – on what is her seventh album.
“Everyone has their own projects outside of this band, but making the record brought us close together,” she says, from somewhere in Oslo airport, adding that all the members are like her in the respect that, “Most of them haven’t been on equal footing in a band in a really long time.”
Not that this is going to result in the tour descending into Led Zeppelin debauchery. “None of us want drama in our lives, we've lived through all that already,” she says, as someone who has documented her life’s struggles on record after record of raw, confessional indie-folk.
She is known for her vulnerability, like laying bare a controlling relationship with a man who restricted her early career; performing music live became a safe space for her, on stage away from him. Her interest in the trials and tribulations of the human psyche which weaves through her songs, has led her to study for a psychology degree; the attachment theory name comes from this, referring to parent-child bonds, a tongue-in-cheek nod to a band being a proxy family.
On the album, mortality is central, and was brought about from discussions around death within the band and caring for ageing parents. This led the music down a path towards a goth sound, by British bands she grew up on, to the extent that she chose to head to London to record it.
“We wrote the songs in California, but to me it really felt like in a British record, not just because of the bands from there that we love, but also the energy of the city,” she says, “I wanted to challenge myself in this different way of kind of going to the source of where my influences were.”
It was recorded at Church Studios in Crouch End, and while all the band worked on the sound, they brought in producer Marta Salogni (who’s worked with everyone from Bjork to Depeche Mode) to capture a live sound. “Marta asked me what my goals were for the record, and I said, the main point I want to get across with this record is that we wrote these songs together, and I'd like to record them in the same room, so we don't lose that spirit.”
The resulting record is easily one of the best releases of the year, and comes on like some dream combination of the artier end of the 80s goth sound, including Closer-era Joy Division, The Cocteau Twins, and Siouxsie and the Banshees.
The band all lived together in a house in Tufnell Park and walked to the studio each day. Van Etten visited the Yoko Ono exhibition, went for walks, and hung out with her husband and son when they visited. It sounds pretty idyllic but the music itself carries dark themes. Songs like Afterlife and Live Forever wrestle with the spectre of death, building great soundscapes and dreamy hooks from troubled places.
To call it a Goth record may seem a bit trite but Van Etten allows it, saying, “The ideology of it is Goth, yes, where you acknowledge the darkness and live on anyway. You can shine a light on the darkness and still be able to live lightly, you know? It's more like embracing it instead of burying under the carpet.”
The show at the Albert Hall will be a big moment - “it’s so classy.” - something of a homecoming for the record, and enough of an occasion for Van Etten’s parents to come over for it. Van Etten grew up in Jersey with them, and then moved to Tennessee, and wrestling with issues of relocating and belonging is at the heart of album highlight Southern Life (What It Must Be Like). While much of her formative career was spent in New York, she’s been a California resident since 2019, and is pained by the trauma of the recent wildfires there.
“Californians are so resilient and positive, and we’re used to times of crises,” she says, “We were very lucky in our neighbourhood but my friend Josh who engineered our writing sessions in the desert, he and his family lost their home, and his wife is pregnant with twins. My guitar tech Max was four blocks from the fires and had to cut down the trees in his front yard and water the roof of his house.”
One California resident who died around the time of the fires was David Lynch, who Van Etten had an experience with when she was one of the musicians featuring in the Roadhouse scenes in Twin Peaks: The Return.
“It was another one of those experiences that is very surreal,” she recalls, “It wasn't until about 20 minutes before we were shooting that we knew where we were going to be. We got a text, we showed up to this address, they opened the side door and we were in the room. They filmed all the artists back to back and we were all waiting in the booths in the back.
Lynch was there with his director's megaphone and cigarettes and his son, Riley, who I think turned his dad on to a lot of music, including mine. What was beautiful about it was he didn't give direction as far as how to stand, how to perform. It was mostly just how did you feel and do you need anything.
He was very, very accommodating. He shook my hand and he was such a gentleman. We walked out, I flew back to New York and I just remember feeling like it was one of the most psychedelic experiences I've ever had. But the musical moments of that show are just so key. It's such a loss.”
As for how to continue spreading the positive messages of creativity as he did, well Van Etten is fully aware of the power in this, and the ability of musicians to do some good by simply uniting people together in the same room.
“I mean that is an act of resistance, right?” she says, “And I like the mantra about, be defiant with your joy. I feel like that that's something that we will hopefully be able to to share and witness together during these shows. Yes we talk about some darker issues on the record, but there’s an acknowledgement of allowing each other to enjoy the music. Hopefully it's a bit of both worlds.”
Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory’s self-titled album is out now, and they play the Royal Albert Hall on March 10.
