ITV: HANNAH EPPERSON

“I’m so glad I could achieve unpleasantness.”

Hannah Epperson was unknown to yours truly prior to discovering to her second album ‘Slowdown’, but her talents were undeniably in abundance after the first listen. During our chat, she confirmed herself as an awesome badass of excellence. Smart, funny and sharp, the whole shebang. Be sure to catch her live, in Belgium, rather sooner than later

Hannah Epperson: ‘I was born in Salt Lake City. Utah is a really interesting state, I like it and I want to go back. But I moved to Vancouver, Canada when I was thirteen, finished high school there, and went to university. My parents were both raised in the Mormon church, and my dad was a history and theology professor in Utah. They ended up being ex-communicated from church, because they were always kind of radical and progressive. My parents have never stopped progressing; some people get to a certain age and say: ‘Okay, I have figured it out’, get complacent, and then get old. But my parents have always been fucking shit up, and I love it. So, they got ex-communicated from the church and my dad ended up becoming a Unitarian minister and there was a job opportunity in Vancouver.’

Julian De Backer: ‘So you’re no longer a Mormon?’

Hannah: ‘I was never baptized. This happened when I was about five. I was never inside of a Mormon community.’

Julian: ‘For being just a young girl, you’ve had quite the mileage.’

Hannah: ‘Yeah, lots of adapting to new worlds.’

Julian: ‘Which may be a good thing for an artist, because you have seen the world.’

Hannah: ‘It’s definitely a very different way to move through life. I’m fairly politically-minded, and I’ve felt very disconnected from an actual movement, because I’m a sort of satellite. And that’s hard.’

Julian: ‘I’m pretty sure it shaped who you are, and it’s still shaping who you’re becoming.’

Hannah: ‘I like to think of it as doing a lot of field research. When I do sort of settle, I will have a lot of tools.’

Julian: ‘You do plan to eventually settle? Or will you forever be a searching spirit?’

Hannah: ‘Being able to live in stillness is very important. I love animals, I like physical labor, these things are really important to me. Family and community as well. I don’t want to be living out of a bag my whole life.’

Julian: ‘Well, you’re always welcome in Belgium.’

Hannah: ‘Thank you! I would feel guilty, though, because I only speak English.’

Julian: ‘I’m pretty sure you picked up some French in Canada.’

Hannah: ‘I should speak French, because of the Canada thing. The West is not very popular on the West Coast. In Québec, some people don’t speak English. I studied Spanish and German before French. We can talk about the weather in those languages.’

Julian: ‘So, your album ‘Slowdown’ offers five songs, all sung from the perspective of both Iris and Amelia, for a total of ten songs. How will you perform them live? How will you choose between Iris and Amelia?’

Hannah: ‘The Iris character is a lot closer to how I perform alone, it’s an isolated character, very solitary. That’s the performance I’m interested in exploring right now. It’s challenging, raw and vulnerable to go and stand in front of 2000 people as one girl and a violin. I’ve built that world from scratch. It’s very humbling and exposed, and I’m interested in that dynamic, and how much you can ask people to come in and support that. It’s a fragile, super quiet, introspective sonic world. It’s scary. It’s really scary (laughs). In the future, when ‘Iris’ is really confident, then I can feel like a big enough person to bring in more people to help bring an ‘Amelia’-esque interpretation to life. I can’t do Amelia alone, unless I prerecord shit, and I’ll never do that. I need more people to bring Amelia to the stage.’

Julian: ‘Does it take some time for the audience to adapt to how you perform, or how you approach your Iris material?’

Hannah: ‘I think it’s really demanding. I hear everything in a room. If I hear someone sneeze in the back, my attention will go there. The experience is exciting and exhilarating to be in a room where there is that much collective focus. It’s a lot easier in theatres where people are seated, or in a church, where people are more aware of the sounds they make. I don’t think it takes them a lot of time, it should be obvious after the first few notes. ‘Is it just her? Is she gonna pluck on her violin? What’s going on?’ Right from the beginning, you establish a tone or a pallet. So far, so good.’

Julian: ‘You’ve played in churches?’

Hannah: ‘Yeah, that’s kind of my thing. I love playing in churches. I like the collaboration with the space and sound, in which the sound takes its own life. Once I draw my bow across the violin, the space picks up the sound and interacts with it. I love that dialogue, as if I’m working with the space. Churches were built for music. So many young people are moving away from religion, but are rediscovering churches for the music. There are so many churches in Europe.’

Julian: ‘The institution has to allow it, of course.’

Hannah: ‘That’s true. It’s a really interesting relationship. You start to realize there are churches that are adapting, and they are becoming more open-minded and reconsidering the way they understand or identify. My dad is a Unitarian minister; there are people in his congregation that are Buddhist, Muslim, atheist and pagan, and they’re all coming to a space together. Churches should be about community and about song, as a safe place to come for many generations. There are so few places where children and old people and teenagers can all be in the same space, and I think that’s so important. I think churches are really cool, and it’s fun to build relationships with progressive, younger reverends that want to be involved in the community.’

Julian: ‘Once you’ve got a bigger audience in Belgium, you should consider touring here. Belgium has literally hundreds of churches. Almost every village has one. We’re amongst the church capitals of the world.’

Hannah: ‘I could just tour all Belgian churches for two years!’

Julian: ‘Yes, and see every church.’

Hannah: ‘That would be amazing. And go everywhere by bike. I would love that.’

Julian: ‘The lyric that stood out to me, is ‘Kids these days are smarter than you’ll ever give them credit for’. Do you remember what inspired that lyric?’

Hannah: ‘This album features the first song I ever wrote, ‘We Will Host A Party’. On my two albums, ‘Slowdown’ and ‘Upsweep’, I needed to put a collection of songs from a certain period and viewpoint of my life together, in order to move on. The lyric you like is from the song ‘Tell The Kids It’s Gonna Be Alright’, which I wrote on my last day in the studio. I needed another song, and I wrote the lyrics in a coffeeshop. I’m on Twitter a lot, which is my favorite outlet because it’s really political. That’s where all the writers are. I’m getting older, I’m not a kid anymore, I’m thinking about how mad I am about the baby-boomer generation that is continuing to be in positions of power across the board and government. Just the selfishness of the policies that have fucked my generation, and even more, the kids that are growing up right now, and inheriting so many messes they had no part in. I wish I could hang out more with kids, because today’s kids are just SO SMART. They’re so smart and aware. Some people will call them lazy, and say they’re on the computer all day. Have you heard about the Parkland shooting in Florida?’

Julian: ‘Sadly, I have.’

Hannah: ‘All these kids are organizing marches. It’s crazy. I’m getting goosebumps just sitting here. We just needed someone to have an opportunity and a platform to speak. Kids all over the country are organizing strikes, and are getting political. I’m so glad this new generation is finding their voice, because we need their voice and their participation if we’re going to make better policies for the climate. I often feel very frustrated at the bigotry of older generations that are looking down and poo-pooing these young people that are growing up, having to hold the anxiety of having an uncertain future - often very apocalyptic. Young people are saying: ‘Yeah, we’re fucked!’ They have that in the back of their mind. And yes, they’re engaging in superficial online stuff. But it’s not superficial, it’s what you do when you’re a teenager, you try to figure out how to socialize. Everyone knows. All these kids know what’s going on. The song just poured out of me, because I sometimes want to fucking break shit.’

Julian: ‘‘Sometimes you just want to watch the world burn’, to paraphrase Christopher Nolan.’

Hannah: ‘Parts of it, yeah.’

Julian: ‘Same with the Brexit. Senior people voting to leave, without thinking about the younger generations. Those voters, who may well have been deciding voters, may be dooming their grandchildren, because they’re making a decision about a future they won’t even be a part of.’

Hannah: ‘Yeah, it’s crazy.’

Julian: ‘I’m glad you’re giving these children a voice, with songs like that.’

Hannah: ‘It’s really exciting to get a little bit older, and knowing I may be able to help. Just knowing that there are some fucking cool young kids! I’m excited. Sometimes, I don’t feel optimistic, especially with the climate stuff. It’s hard to sleep easy at night. I’m glad you found it a resonant lyric, because it felt really important when it came out of me. It’s super simple, but it feels really good to sing. Cool! I haven’t really talked to anyone about the actual songs on the record. It’s fun to do.’

Julian: ‘Speaking about your songs, the Iris-version of ‘We Will Hold a Party’ has a very creepy, unpleasant atmosphere. Musically, it reminded me of a fairytale gone bad.’

Hannah: ‘Yeah! (laughs)’

Julian: ‘There’s a German word for it which you might know, ‘unheimlich’.’

Hannah: ‘Yeah!! I’m so glad I could achieve unpleasantness. (laughs) I’m a blonde girl with a violin, and people tend to think I’m so sweet and free-spirited, whereas all I want to do is make uncomfortable sounds!’

Julian: ‘Does it make sense? Is it a fairytale gone sour to you?’

Hannah: ‘It’s another very environmental song. I wrote the lyrics after I played a frisbee tournament in Las Vegas. During a road trip, I stopped in a small village and talked to an old lady in a café who asked me to sign a petition. She explained that Las Vegas was trying to buy the rights to the water of this small town that had always subsisted off of agriculture during the past 150 years. Las Vegas was going to build a pipeline to bring all the water to Las Vegas, which meant that the town would have no water in twenty years and the town would go under. The mayor of Las Vegas was buying school buses, which is just grotesque, because he was choking the future of this place. So, I wrote a verse of the song about the gluttony and excess of Las Vegas. The other verse I wrote was about the Olympics …’

Julian: ‘Excuse me? Dylan pigs? Pigs by Bob Dylan?’

Hannah: ‘Haha, no, THE OLYMPICS. They were happening in Vancouver, and there was a big heat wave. The local mountains didn’t have enough snow. Helicopters were hired to fly snow from another park, for $10,000 an hour. Meanwhile, there’s a social housing crisis in Vancouver. It’s hard to house poor people, but it’s so easy to go into crisis mode to put on a party when the world is watching. How is it possible? The song ‘We Will Host a Party’ is about how it’s totally fucking creepy, the idea of putting on a spectacular show like the Olympics. All the while, people are compromised, and their basic needs can’t be met. The inequality of it, is indeed a fairytale gone wrong. Or what happens after the happily ever after. There’s a great musical by Stephen Sondheim, ‘Into The Woods’. It combines all the famous fairytale stories, and talks about what happens after the ending. It’s dark, really dark. So, the song is supposed to be unpleasant.’

Julian: ‘Mission accomplished. We just have to try our best to stay real, focused and not go along with the crazy ones in charge.’

Hannah: ‘Oftentimes, the ones we call ‘crazy’ have the clearest head.’

Julian: ‘That’s why the stand-up comedians are now voicing truths as if they were politicians, and why politicians seem to be comedians. (pause) So, some of your songs have cutesy, dreamlike soundscapes and melodies, but you’re not afraid to use profane language. It’s quite unexpected.’

Hannah: ‘When it’s light, you make it dark, when it’s cute, you make it profane. I just don’t care. I don’t want this to be a heavy interview, but … look at what’s going on in the world. Why do people care about me swearing? I don’t care! It’s ridiculous. It’s absurd, when you think about the atrocities that are happening. It makes me want to swear more. Inside of my vinyl, there’s a picture of me flipping the bird, and I have it as a button. If that offends you, you’re so clouded. Your perspective is disjointed, so I’m going to hammer it into you until it’s not offensive anymore.’

Julian: ‘Have you ever heard the Kurt Cobain anecdote? On the ‘Nevermind’ album, the baby’s penis is visible. Record company Geffen prepared an alternative cover, but Cobain said the only alternative he would accept was a sticker covering the penis saying: ‘If you’re offended by this, you must be a closet pedophile’.’

Hannah: ‘It’s disgusting they wanted to remove it. To put ‘being polite’ above ‘speaking a truth’ or ‘being critical’, that’s the biggest offense to me. If being polite is more important than being good. The good people are oftentimes the most uncomfortable to be around. It’s very easy to be nice, and enable terrible things to happen. True evil comes from people not standing up. That’s what happened in Nazi Germany. It comes from people turning an eye, being polite, not thinking critically, not being courageous, not sacrificing their comfort or their high ranking. That’s how real evil happens. For me, using a swear word to emphasize a point is a given.’

Julian: ‘Look at any talk show in which any curse is bleeped. It appears to be frowned upon to use your own vernacular, and be yourself.’

Hannah: ‘I just don’t care. I don’t.’

Julian: ‘You should hold on to that.’

Hannah: ‘I don’t need to hold on to that. It’s just in me. I can’t be another person. I have no choice.’

Julian: ‘You’ve made this excellent album. What’s next? You have more ideas to explore? Will you continue to use Iris and Amelia?’

Hannah: ‘I think this is a chapter that has reached its end. The whole journey to find my voice meant a lot. I have always played the violin with other people, I never was a singer, I never thought I would do music, I didn’t have the ambition to make records. This was a really interesting, challenging perimeter to give myself, to see what I could discover. With my limitations, I still feel very confident. I have worked with many amazing vocalists, so I always felt apologetic since my voice is limited. But that’s okay. I don’t have to force some other voice that’s not mine. I don’t know what’s next. I’ll always write music, I like writing music for other people, for other genres like dance and film. Creating sonic landscapes to help support a narrative, is lovely and fulfilling. I’ve been working on a score to a short film while touring, and I’m really enjoying it. As for another album, I’m sure there’ll be one, but right now, I don’t want to think about it. I need someone to give me a deadline. And then, two weeks before the deadline, I’ll be forced to make a world. I want to go back to school, eventually. There’s so many things I want to do that aren’t musical, but thinking about other things always come while I’m making music. When I hit a wall, I can make music. The best thing for me would be to step away from music, in order to make a new record. And start working on a Masters, for real. So I’m not really sure. There’s always the fear to lose your momentum. There’s other people involved now, there’s a label and a booking agent. If I just fuck off, I’m sort of fucking them off too and I don’t want to do that. I like being part of a team, and have responsibilities. I really have no idea what I’ll be doing next.’

Julian: ‘The future is open. Do you think you’ve accomplished what you wanted to do with the album, if you look back on it in five or ten years?’

Hannah: ‘I never had an idea that I wanted to achieve, it was all so much process. And while the process was going on, I was trying to figure out what I was doing. We are ultimately the meaning-makers, we want to understand and create stories to make the things we feel meaningful. I feel like the process of being a storyteller, and bringing a world to life, is really enriching. In a year from now, if I was asked to reflect on who Amelia and Iris are, I would probably say something very different than what I was saying today. And that’s great, that’s a good thing. That’s a sign of growth. This has been a really important process of cleaning some shit up, and confronting some personal and honest things in the world. I’ll always know these were honest moments, periods of time captured in an honest way. Hopefully, in five years, I’ll have different things to say, and different songs and sounds to explore. These songs are done, and they’re the best I could do at the time.
The content of the song has always been very real, available and important. The content and the framework of the albums was creating interesting and creative perimeters for me to work with. I lost my brother three years ago. He was a big musical inspiration, and had for a lot of my life been my closest friend. Looking back, I created this whole other world about a character who is very much like my brother. I wrote a screenplay with two women that have different ways of seeing the world and the main character becomes tethered to these two women, to hold himself together because he can’t do it anymore. I think I used the narrative fiction world to deal with the loss of my brother. It was too close for me to be able to deal with it; I would have unraveled if I went too deep in my own reality, so I created another one where all of it is fiction and I can have the outcome that I prefer. Or even if it’s a bad outcome, that’s okay, because it’s fiction. Amelia and Iris are the women that support the screenwriter, and it became so obvious that I could use that structure to find my voice as a musician without my brother. He was always the musician in the family.’

Julian: ‘So as a coping mechanism …’

Hannah: ‘The album was a really effective coping mechanism. I don’t think I could have endured otherwise. That’s why I thank fucking whoever for music and art, because it gives you these avenues to express and keep things alive, and deal with grief, let the grief pass through you, and be able to use that grief as a positive force, instead of it being something evil. Grief is an amazing thing.’

Julian: ‘I think it’s quite wonderful that’s you’ve immortalized your brother with this record. You’ve used your sadness to make something beautiful. That’s very worthy.’

Hannah: ‘Yeah. It feels important.’

Julian: ‘He’ll never be forgotten, because he influenced your record.’

Hannah: ‘Absolutely.’

Julian: ‘Thanks for your time.’

Hannah: ‘Thanks so much for coming. It was really easy to talk to you.’

HANNAH EPPERSON WILL BE PERFORMING LIVE ON ‘LES ARALUNAIRES’ (ARLON) ON 2 MAY 2018, AND IN TRIX (ANTWERP) ON 3 MAY 2018.

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