Hannah Cole talks debut album Switchbacks, touring, and music school
Written by: Madeline Duffy
Growing up in Covington, Louisiana (a mid-sized town an hour outside of New Orleans), Hannah Cole built a following after moving to Nashville and studying at Belmont University, where she met Josef Kuhn, who collaborated with her heavily on her debut album Switchbacks, released on September 4th under Tight Knit Records. A few days later, I chatted with Hannah to discuss the content of the album, as well as how it came to be.
Madeline Duffy: Hi Hannah! My name is Madeline. I’m a musician based in Metro Detroit and I’m a member of Street GRRRL. I decided to take the opportunity to interview you today because I like your album a lot.
Hannah Cole: Thank you! I appreciate it. It’s so nice to meet you!
MD: It’s nice to meet you too. So, do you want to introduce yourself?
HC: My name is Hannah Cole. I am an artist and songwriter based in Nashville, but I’m originally from right outside of New Orleans, Louisiana. I just put out an album called Switchbacks. It’s kind of like a weird mixture of shoegaze, dream pop, grunge. It’s very 90s inspired.
MD: Tell me about the album. Did you write the lyrics or the melodies for the songs first?
HC: I think it kind of depended on the song. For most of the songs, in this case, it was melody first, and that’s usually how I write a lot of songs. A melody will kind of just pop into my head, and I will either immediately pick up the guitar and start playing or voice record it on my phone into my voice memos. And then, I usually just bring it to partner, who I live with, and we’ll go right into the home studio and start getting things down.
MD: I suspected that, based on the lyrics of that album because they’re so good. There’s a lot of imagery in them, and I think it’s kind of difficult to write a song with good lyrics if you start with the lyrics first.
HC: I think that is a great observation and a great thought, because I agree. I think that also having a better idea of where I wanted to go production wise with this record helped inform the lyrics. And vice versa, too. I think that knowing kind of how you want the song to move and sound also shapes the lyrics. And it can work the other way around too, where sometimes the lyrics and the content will shape what the song will sound like. I think in order to keep a record cohesive, production wise, it kind of helps to start with the melody first.
MD: I agree. So, with that, I am going to ask this next question to every artist I interview. Who and what influenced this album?
HC: I went back and listened to a lot of full-length records that I thought were perfect. I was like, “okay, I’m going to try to make the best debut record that I can” and looked to them for inspiration. I listened to a lot of Alex G, the Breeders’ Last Splash, and Juliana Hatfield. Only Everything I guess in terms of what inspired the album, mostly just my lived experiences by as an artist. In the beginning, I wasn’t quite sure where I was going. There’s a lot of uncertainty when it comes to pursuing a career based around something you’ve been passionate about since you were a little kid. As you get older, you take the rose colored glasses off and see a career choice for what it is and see both the ugly and beautiful parts of it. I just wanted to document my experience as an artist but also show that success and pursuing success isn’t a linear thing. In my opinion, success is a moment that comes and goes. I also hope that people who don’t do music can find something they can relate to with this album.
MD: I can definitely relate. I’ve been doing music for three years now, and I feel like because I don’t want to do gigs right now, I’m not making a whole lot of money off of it. It’s especially hard when you’re someone who doesn’t socialize a lot.
HC: Even in Nashville, where everybody’s always playing shows and there’s always something to do, I’m still pretty introverted. Something I’ve realized living in Nashville is that the music industry is a community based thing. So the more you put into it, the more you’re gonna get out. Go to people’s shows and support them and show that you care. I love when people return the favor and support each other, but it can be hard, especially as an introverted person.
MD: Is it true that the east side of Nashville is less country focused than the other parts of it?
HC: That’s been my experience. I live in East Nashville, so I have a pretty good understanding of it, but there’s country everywhere. And I think that country has been influencing the indie and alternative space a lot recently, so I think it’s all kind of starting to blend together. There’s definitely more of an alternative scene in East Nashville as opposed to the classic country that you’d hear in Downtown Nashville or on Music Row. We live close to a lot of really cool venues, so it’s been really cool to be surrounded by people that are kind of doing the same thing as us. The same kind of music.
MD: Piggybacking off of that, what’s it like being a musician in Nashville that doesn’t really do country music?
HC: I think it's great, because being in a music city has helped a lot in terms of making connections, meeting other musicians and finding a band that's awesome! I think it’s probably a lot easier to make it as a country artist here. At least that's my opinion, but I have friends that do that classic country music who say the opposite. They're like, “There are so many people doing country music here.” I don't know. I feel like my experience has been good. I think there's like a lot of people in Nashville that want to hear stuff that isn't country music, so that works for people like me who don't make that classic country style. In terms of people like coming to the shows and wanting to hear something a little bit different, I feel like that's been a good thing. But yeah, there are pros and cons for sure.
MD: I really like the lyrics of “MMA”. What does that song represent? What does it mean to you, and how did it come about?
HC: Yeah, I mean how this one came about is interesting for me because I actually had the voice memo on my phone for about a year. Just kind of sitting on my phone. Before we had started working on new stuff for the album, I remember going to Josef like, “I have this idea. I still need to write lyrics to it, but I want to build out kind of more of the track first and kind of go from there,” and I wanted it to be super dynamic. I wanted it to be about how sometimes I feel really unlucky, and I asked myself, “Why do I have such bad luck? Why do some people not? Why are people not seeing the music or hearing it or relating to it or why haven't I made it yet?” For me, the song kind of transitions from feeling unlucky, feeling like a failure and feeling not successful. And then I kind of go out into this desert. I go outside of this kind of glamorous money filled city and see the industry or see the city from an outside perspective. The desert imagery in that song is supposed to signify the emptiness that surrounds the industry. For me, there’s a lot of empty promises. It can be very lonely in the desert. I also say the line, “I lift a rock and see a rattlesnake.” There are so many images in that song. Images of competition, fighting, and just like nothingness and desert and empty promises, and then gambling and risking a lot for maybe very, very little reward. I think all of that kind of ties into the meaning of "MMA" for me, because at the time, I was thinking, “Okay, am I supposed to be doing this? Why? Why am I putting myself in positions to be hurt over and over again? Why am I signing up for a fight that I'm designed to lose? Why am I signing up to fight and compete?” When all the powerful people are watching me from the outside, laughing at all of us.
As a musician. It's easy, especially when you're kind of in this limbo of success, where you're like, “Okay, I've done things. I’ve achieved things, but I also haven't fully made a career out of this yet.” I think it's easy to look at other people who are achieving things or getting opportunities that you think you deserve and be like, “I should have gotten that,” and, “I deserve that.. Why didn't I get that? I worked so hard for this.” And then you realize, “Oh my God, like all these people are around me in the industry and are making money? Benefits and insurance, and all of this from the industry jobs from these record companies? These publishing companies?” And they're just able to sit there and watch us kind of fight it out. Because the industry is designed to weed out those people that don't want to put up the fight for it, and I think that it can be really discouraging as an artist. I think it's one of the biggest reasons that people stop pursuing music as a career. It's an addiction almost to the little victories that come up as an artist.
MD: The rattlesnake lyric is my favorite from the album. I just think it’s so original. I’ve never heard anything like it, to be honest. I mean, I know it’s super cliche, but I’ve never heard anything like it.
HC: Thanks! It is a great lyric.
MD: What is the significance of the album title Switchbacks? Why did you choose it?
HC: Switchbacks are these kind of winding back and forth roads that lead up a mountain or a trail and, you can drive on them, hike on them. Whenever I was on the way back from a small run of shows on the East Coast, we were driving back. It was three of us in a car, and my friend Billy was driving, and he said, “You know, you're supposed to honk your horn on switchbacks to let people know that you're coming, so whoever's coming up the opposite way can hear you and vice versa.” And I was like, “oh, that's such a interesting image.” I feel like that kind of relates to my experience as an artist right now. And honestly, just as a person, it's like, life will kind of take you through these huge twists and turns, and progress doesn't always feel like this upward thing. Sometimes progress is going backwards, is going sideways, where you feel like you're deviating from a path, but you're actually still on it, and I thought that it was just kind of a perfect image for my experience not only as an artist, but as a person, I think. I think there's also a theme on this record of memories and going back into memories of the time when things were simple and pure.
For me, that looked like instead of being so cynical about the industry and my place in it, maybe going back to a memory where I was just making music for fun, and not because I needed to make money from it, um, or wanted to make money from it, and realizing that there is a joy that lives at the core of music and making music. Why put yourself through something that seems like a source of a lot of stress and anxiety and disappointment? Like, why put yourself through that over and over again? And I think that's something I ask myself on this record, and also just in general all the time. It's like, okay, why am I doing this thing that makes me sad? Why put yourself through something like this? For me, it was going back into memories of when I was a little girl watching videos of myself singing as a little kid and seeing how confident and joyful I was, and not worried about being the best and not worried about making money. You know with music? I think that was really important for me with the image of Switchbacks. It's like, you need to go backwards to go forwards. You need to go back into memories to achieve your goals in future, and how all of that is kind of connected.
MD: I can kind of relate to that. I recently started going through me and Mom's old mixed CDs from, like the 2000s and the early 2010s. And you know, I thought that all the songs on there were gonna be like, just super not good sounding by today's standards, but a lot of them actually held up really well. And it made me realize that I kind of missed some of the sounds that were present in the music of my childhood, and so I've been working on incorporating them. As much as possible into my music.
HC: Yes, that's awesome. I totally agree. I think there's a grittiness and a human-ness to those older songs that’s honestly missing in a lot of music today. I think a lot of indie artists are trying to capture that feeling again.
MD: So, in an interview with Youngster Year, you said, “I think it's like some of the best music is, you know, related to relationships and even, I think that my record, if you don't know what about, this pursuit of success or whatever, I think you could even listen to these songs and think it's about a relationship. But I just think I'm just better now than I was before. I know what I want to sound, like, I think my inspirations are better now, and I also kind of looked to the past a little bit. ” So, can you elaborate on this?
HC: Yeah, I think there's this kind of romantic element to someone's relationship to their passion. I think passion in itself is kind of a romantic thing, and we associate that word with romance, so I think it's interesting that your relationship to pursuing a career and your passion ends up feeling kind of like a romantic relationship, even in songs like “MMA”, when I say, “never knowing when to leave,” it can almost sound like you're in this toxic relationship. In my song "Give", I say, “I give my all to you, I do. I do.” That sounds like this passionate, romantic thing almost, so I thought it was funny that I could go back and listen to my record and be like, “oh, I could see if people maybe thought this was about something different.” And then also just in terms of my growth, I think I just have matured a lot in my writing, and I think that I see things moreso now from this 360 view instead of just seeing things as a black and white experience, I think. In a lot of situations, two things can be true. Um. I think I, I know, this album seems pretty cynical at first, but I think that there are so many beautiful parts of doing music as a career and I wanted to be able to explore more of a 360 view of my life experience and I think, when you're younger, it's easy to write songs when something happens to you. You're like, “this is all bad or all good.” And I think about life differently, and that's probably shaped my music more.
MD: Was it you who made the connection between your songs and songs about relationships or the interviewer?
HC: I think it was me.
MD: I think that's a really interesting connection because. If I can't relate to a song, I don't really associate it with any sort of topic that I can't really relate to. I guess it's maybe an embarrassing thing to admit at 23, but I’ve just never been in a relationship. So on. So when I heard MMA and some of the other songs. I understood that they were about music, and I didn't really see any sort of secondary connection there.
HC: That's cool. That's what I wanted. Like, I think there's just so much music about love today, which is fine. I just think that there's so much more out there, as like, a human being, that I think we owe it to ourselves to make art that goes beyond just what we think everybody wants to hear. And I think we owe it to everyone. So, I'm glad you could relate to it.
MD: So you also mentioned in in a recent interview with Off the Record that you met with a lot of labels and started doing sessions with professional songwriters. As someone who is only taken a few music business classes, what would you recommend for new artists who have very little work experience?
HC: That's a good question, I think first and foremost, I would recommend going to shows in your local scene, getting involved with artists, just talking with artists about your experience. I think that as artists we are stronger together. And the more we talk to each other, I think the easier our paths will get. I know that's not like possible for everyone, but going to a college where they had music business classes obviously helped me get a foundation. I think. And this is something they'll say in music school, too. They're like, “Go where the business is, be where the business is.” I think now with social media and stuff, it's becoming a lot more accessible to be in the music business from kind of anywhere. So I say, like, honestly, if you're not in a music city like LA, Nashville, New York, just stay like tapped in on social media. I also love reading articles about music I love. Controversial, but I love reading some Pitchfork reviews.
MD: I get that.
HC: I guess, just staying tapped into the music first and foremost, because the thing about so many industry people today is that I can immediately clock an industry professional that is coming up and has no real idea about the good music that's coming out of today’s industry. And I can tell when people are in it because they want the connections. And because they want to like, almost seem cool. For me, I'm like. I think, just like developing a solid knowledge of like the good music that's coming out right now. And also, I don't know, just always connecting with artists? What is the music scene in Detroit like?
MD: It's very focused on house and techno and some styles of hip-hop. But like, outside of that, it's kind of… I don't know how to phrase it because, like, Detroit, is a great music city, but no one is really breaking out outside of those scenes. Like all the indie bands, they're doing their thing. All the punk bands are doing another thing. And they mostly stay very local. It’s even worse for people across the border in Windsor. There's only like a few artists that are from there that have had like success in the past few years. Do you know PONY from Toronto?
HC: I don't think so.
MD: They're really good. I'm friends with them. They moved from Toronto to Windsor a few years ago, and they're one of the few bands that has sort of taken off in that scene recently.
HC: I’ll check them out.
MD: They're, like, very Charly Bliss-esque. Oh my God, I almost said Charli XCX laughs. I have a few more questions for you. What is your favorite venue that you have played so far in your career?
HC: Oh my gosh. It's crazy because I haven't toured like crazy, like some artists, but I've been around because I went on a super long tour with this artist named Annie Dirusso.
MD: I’ve heard of her.
HC: Yeah, she's awesome. I really love her. That was my first tour. We went around the entire country. Buckhead Theater in Atlanta with Silversun Pickups was my favorite. That was crazy. That was also probably the biggest show I've played. That's probably why I'm saying that. The bigger the venue usually the nicer the accommodations. That had a capacity of a few thousand. I’ve played everything from that to a dive bar in Wilmington, North Carolina to three people in the audience, so I've gotten a wide range. They've all been fun.
MD: Do you ever go see shows outside of Nashville?
HC: The closest is probably Atlanta. My boyfriend and I saw Mk.gee in Atlanta once. There's so many people that come through Nashville. Um, so we're really lucky. I grew up in Louisiana and nobody, like, nobody ever played Louisiana, unless you were like Ariana Grande. So it was very limited before, but now that I live in Nashville, it’s like I can pretty much catch all the shows that I want to see. Or all the bands I want to see in Nashville. People weren't coming to New Orleans. Not really, I guess it’s so, out of the way, it's like not on a lot of people's tour routes because you have to go like all the way down to Louisiana to get there. But like, huge people, like, huge people go like One Direction, or like, Ariana Grande, you know, Katy Perry, they played.
MD: That is one of two. U.S cities I still have on my bucket list. I like that there's like a whole lot. There's so much music history there. I've been to every single City in the U.S that I want to go to, except for. Except for that and El Paso in Texas.
HC: Yeah, I can't remember if I've been to El Paso before.
MD: What was your favorite venue that you've as an audience member?
HC: My favorite? I mean, I love the Blue Room in Nashville. It's part of Third Man Records, so Jack White operates it. And that venue's awesome, like, and honestly they have the best green room I've ever been in in my life. Um. So, I love going to shows there. I would say the Ryman, but it's kind of awkward, like seating wise. Like, it sounds great in there, but the seating is a little bit weird, if people don't know, there are pews, so people don't know if they're supposed to stand or sit. But it's still really like, historic, cool. The Troubadour’s really cool in L.A.
MD: I haven't been to a whole lot outside of the Metro Detroit area, but I liked. I liked The Ark in Ann Arbor. I like The Meteor in Windsor, and then there was this one venue I went to in Quebec City. Like two and a half years ago. For a synth pop band or the synth pop artist [Annie-Claude Deschênes]. It was one of my favorite shows because she used parts of the venue in her performance. So, like she had chairs and a table out, and she would use that as part of the concert.
MD: What was it like studying at Belmont? What did you learn there and how did the schooling influence your record?
HC: I studied songwriting and music business at Belmont. I enjoyed it. I thought it gave me like a really good foundation. I thought that the songwriting classes were helpful. Not only because I think I learned a couple of key rules there, but because I also learned a little bit more about how the songwriting industry works, which is quite different from the artist route. Um, so I learned a lot about, like, how you make money as a songwriter, what it looks like to go into co-writing how you should go into co-writing, and how you should kind of move in the business of songwriting. And then also, I think it just kind of forced me to write songs all the time, which was helpful because I think the only way you really learn something is just by doing it over and over and over again. And so I got a lot of my worst songs out through having to write all the time. But every now and then, you know, hit the jackpot with a good song, and your teacher would be like, “I think this could win a Grammy,” and you're like, “oh, great, we’ll see?” It was cool to kind of be around that all the time. I didn't have that growing up. My high school barely even had an arts program, so it was my first time kind of being surrounded by artistic students. Honestly, the most helpful and the first thing that came out of that was meeting Josef, who's my partner and my collaborator, and meeting some other really awesome musicians as well who I'm still friends with to this day and I think that is probably the most important thing. I think just surrounding yourself with really talented people helps you grow a lot.
MD: One more question what new music have you been enjoying as of late?
HC: Good question. I've been really enjoying the band Teethe. They made an album called Magic Of the Sale that came out this past year, I think. An incredible record. I'm also shocked I haven’t seen more about it, but beautiful record! I've been really enjoying the new Porches record called Mask. Sonny DiPerri, who mixed my record Switchbacks showed me and Josef this record that I'm shocked I hadn't heard before. Future Perfect by Auto Lux.
MD: I’ve heard of them.
HC: Yeah, it's from 2004. It's insane! Awesome recommendation! I'm so glad Sonny recommended that to me because now, I'm gonna always recommend that to everyone else.
Hannah Cole’s new album, Switchbacks, is available for purchase digitally through her Bandcamp page. You can buy a CD and/or vinyl record through Tight Knit’s page.
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