Don't Look Back

Allison Gallagher chats with Sharon Van Etten about the worldly and wonderful influences behind her new album, Remind Me Tomorrow

On her latest record, Remind Me Tomorrow, songwriter Sharon Van Etten takes the messy, the complicated and chaotic, and turns it into something beautiful.

Her first since Are We There back in 2014, Remind Me Tomorrow is a record that is as driving as it is reflective. There’s a pulsating energy to each of these songs that feels deeply, undeniably human – perhaps more so than ever before.

The writing period for this album seems really busy and chaotic, what was it like?

Sharon Van Etten: Well, in 2015 I decided to take a break. I didn’t really know I was going to write a record, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go back to music. My intention was to go back to school. Everything kind of unfolded, and while all these other things were going on I still found time to make music just for myself. By the time I had a breath to kind of assess all the things I had written behind the curtain, I had about 40 demos.

In that time you guest starred on The OA and appeared in Twin Peaks. Had you acted before? What drew you to that?

Sharon Van Etten: I was always in musicals in high school. I wanted to be on Broadway when I was a teenager. And then I started writing songs. I was on tour with Nick Cave and a casting director saw me perform and that was what made him reach out to ask me to audition for the role of Rachel on The OA.

I’m not a good actor. I have a hard enough time trying to be myself, so pretending that I’m someone else? I realised you have to conjure real emotions to bring that out and perform it. I’ve struggled doing that with my own music, so I was nervous, but I really connected to the role because a lot of her backstory is parallel with mine. I felt like I could honestly conjure myself through it, and that’s why I took the audition to begin with.

With Twin Peaks, of course David Lynch is an inspiration, and how am I going to say no anyway? But it was a no-brainer when I was able to play myself. I’m self-conscious in the context but I was still able to be myself. In both cases I was still able to draw on my own life.

I’ve always thought your music had a real cinematic quality.

Sharon Van Etten: Thank you. I’m still learning how to bring that out more in my music. I feel like over the years I’ve learned how to have a band and express that instrumentation on the record. But I think this record is kind of a step beyond the band, and a step towards that cinematic feel when it’s live.

I think one of the most powerful songs on the record is ‘Seventeen’ – could you talk a little about that one?

Sharon Van Etten: I’ve lived in New York for about 15 years and I remember the first year I lived here I had a friend who had lived here a little longer walking me around Williamsburg when I first moved, and he said something like “civilisations throughout time, rise and fall” – it was his way of saying, like, things were going to change.

Sharon Van Etten photo by Ryan Pfluger

IT’S A BITTERSWEET CYCLE, LIVING SOMEWHERE LONG ENOUGH TO SEE CHANGE”

He had convinced me to move to New York – I was living in my parents’ house in New Jersey at the time in the suburbs. He said, if you want to pursue music it can’t be out of your parents’ basement in the middle of nowhere playing open mics and pubs. You need to get yourself out there, you’re an hour and a half away from New York. He kind of gave me the gumption.

I moved here and I was definitely overwhelmed, I’d never lived in a city before. I’m 22, 23 years old at this point. I had no idea what I was doing. I found an apartment at the edge of Williamsburg and that was my first experience of someone who had lived here longer than me reacting to gentrification.

I was walking down the street in 2015, 2016 and found myself doing the same thing – walking past the place I used to know, that was no longer. I started laughing, remembering that moment. It was in a neighbourhood I couldn’t afford anymore, and I saw younger kids walking around this neighbourhood who lived there.

It’s a bittersweet cycle, living somewhere long enough to see change. So that’s what prompted ‘Seventeen’.

The whole album feels very reflective while still being placed quite in the present.

Sharon Van Etten: A lot of these songs started as love songs about a new relationship. Then I got pregnant, and I’m literally pregnant while Trump is getting voted into office. I start writing again and I’m reflecting on these demos I started in a very different context.

When I revisit the songs in round three of my editing process, I’m looking at these songs while my son is sleeping. I’m staring at this product of my love and the state of the world. It’s a different perspective; there’s an innocence, there’s a guilt, there’s a responsibility. There is reflection on who I used to be and who I am now but when you’re looking at a baby you’re thinking of the future too.

As soon as I was staring at my child I realised all the things I was writing about had to be a bit more hopeful, but also acknowledging what’s going on in the world. Production-wise, sonically, I wanted the weight to remain, without having to necessarily talk about politics. It was about letting myself be happy in this moment. I still feel like I’m processing a lot.

Was this album a way of working out those feelings?

Sharon Van Etten: All the time. I’m so much more in touch with my emotions when I have time to process them. In the moment, I’m reactive, but if I can write it down, get the guts out first and then be able to actually talk about what it is, I’m always better off. Music has always been therapeutic for me.

What: Remind Me Tomorrow is out now