1. Can you tell us the inspiration behind the name “Hemlock?”
no strike of lightning, or ‘eureka’ moment, or deep meaning behind the nomer ‘hemlock.’ I don’t know that I even chose it - the word simply kept presenting itself to me around the time the project started, in books, media, street names, in a wonderfully mundane way. I guess I just chose not to ignore it - to keep it around, because it seemed like it chose me.
and then I moved to the Pacific Northwest not long after this endeavor began with that name, where the hemlock evergreens are so abundant and cradling, and it felt right. the word and the plant were more present than ever. it felt prophetic, in a very ordinary sense.
there’s also an ambiguity about it that I appreciate. some people associate hemlock with poison, with Socrates, some with western hemlock, some with eastern hemlock. it holds many truths and can be sheltering, and beautiful, and deadly. it’s been interesting to hear different people’s experiences with the presence of hemlock in their lives, and the different assumptions or about what might mean that it’s this project name. to me, it calls to mind the color green. lush, delicate, strong.
the lowercase ‘h’ feels important to me for some reason that I haven’t put my finger on quite yet. maybe because it implies a more casual approach. or a tenderness. or how the name itself isn’t necessarily precious to me. or maybe because it better differentiates me from a Nevada-based metal band called capital ‘H’ Hemlock, lol. I wonder why they named their band Hemlock.
all this being said, I don’t really feel attached to the name, or even to my own personal name. they don’t carry much importance to me, but rather are just a representation or sort of placeholder symbol for the thing itself. I don’t mind them, the names.
2. Why and when did you start this song a day project, and how many months have you been doing it for?
I’ve always been objectively bad at the habit of practicing. music, stretching, flossing, anything. have a hard time with routine, but thrive under deadlines and perceived time pressure. I want to make consistently, but will often not prioritize my time in a way that allows me to easily. so this began with the impetus of carving out intentional time to keep making, a lot in a short period of time, and see what could come of it. maybe I was trying to rewire my brain in the hopes of shifting my creative practice into something more reliably present. I don’t know if it works like that, but I think I’ve gotten gentler with myself about allowing the ebb and flow of songwriting in my life with the song-a-day project as a long-term creative anchor that I can count on.
my first song-a-day was February of 2019, after listening to Michelle Zauner’s ‘June’ demos on bandcamp that also came from the premise of writing a song idea per day. some of them went on to be more fleshed out Japanese Breakfast songs. it was full of potential. she introduced that possibility to me. hemlock was less than a year old, and i felt intrigued to explore how something of a similar structure would feel in my own life.
I ended up going through a major bout of heartbreak in the time after planning to attempt ‘February’, but before the songwriting month began. so a lot of the songs spoke to that grief. calling it an accidental breakup album feels like a reduction, but is not untrue. for all of the discomfort, it was also cathartic. I felt proud of having followed through, and ultimately happy with the songs that came out of it. I was grateful for how it pushed the boundaries and broke open the boxes of my songwriting practice, and how it made me make the time, in spite of it all. so I decided to keep going. more months, more songs to be written. doing one month out of each year felt like an attainable but still impressive goal. logistically reasonable - spaced out enough to not burn out or get tired of it. an opportunity to keep checking in with myself as time passes and I keep growing every which way. and as the people around me do, too. like notches in a doorframe. measurements of change, slow and sure.
so far, those sentiments have held true.
May 2023 makes five volumes. before that, in reverse chronological order, were: October (2022), August (2021), December (2020), February (2019)
almost halfway through, 12 months total. I’ll be finished with the saga once the entire calendar is filled up with songs, sometime in 2030.
3. You mentioned the song a day was very personal to you. Why is that?
It’s something that has grown with me for half a decade, now. it’s an inherently personal process. month-long snapshots of my life & it’s derivative stories. ‘may’, in particular, was a tough month. I think that comes through in many of the songs from this collection. in writing these songs, I do my best not to focus on what i should or shouldn’t share. that allows it to be personal. a potential audience is just something that’s there, not something I’m trying to accommodate. I’m not hiding anything, nor am I always laying my heart bare. people can assume what they’d like to about what the songs are about, and I can’t help that, and accepting that is freeing.
I recently read ‘Bluets’ by Maggie Nelson and this passage feels resonant and relevant here:
“Clearly I am not a private person, and quite possibly I am a fool.”
I guess what I’m saying is that I don’t know how this couldn’t be personal and still feel so steeped in purpose, to me. and that, because of that inherent intimacy, it is strange to share so much of myself sometimes (whether explicitly autobiographical or extremely derivative), with strangers & friends & family, alike. but, I’ll keep making, and I don’t have anywhere to put it but *out there*, and it’s each person’s choice whether they listen, when and if they find the songs.
4. What goes behind the inspiration to your songs? I have noticed the appreciation for the littler things, memories, family and friend emphasis, and a great love for nature. Why are those themes that you come back to in your music?
the experiences of love in my life, in all of its forms, are always are informing my music at its core. they’re what I want to sift through, and what I want to spend time with, and what I want to share with others.
songwriting, for me, whether approached passively or actively, is a practice of presence. it feels like a way to filter the diluted and distracting end-of-the-world everything, to see through the seemingly-ordinary, and glean those quotidian moments of true, unadulterated wonder. are wonder and love the same thing? does this answer your question?
5. Typical Q, what comes first for you, the music, or the lyrics?
they come together, somewhat simultaneously, more often than not. many times I’ll have one fragmented phrase in mind when I sit down with a guitar, and the rest builds a home around it, in no particular structure. with the song-a-day, sometimes it takes a bit of wrestling, but I try to approach those works with a “first thought, best thought” intention, which allows for acceptance of imperfection and, occasionally, of not even liking my idea at all in the moment.
with most of my favorite songs I’ve written, though, it feels like it falls from somewhere, like it’s been waiting and is ripe for the picking. it has been helpful for me to not try to define what a song will be about but instead following the feeling, following intuition, pulling from what presents itself - and that feels easiest when the music and lyrics are braiding and shaping to each other.
6. How important to you is the writing process? Can you talk about your journey as a writer?
I don’t know how I’d go on without writing as a means of processing and of remembering.
it feels partly archival, partly poetic, but all necessary. function & form.
since I could, I’ve always written, and I think I always will.
phil elverum, who is one of my greatest inspiration, has spoken about - and I agree - that songs and poetry are one and the same. there is no tangible line separating the boundary between the two.
7. Anything else you’d like the readers and listeners to know about your art or this project, past albums?
I think I, instead, want to offer the affirmation:
you can record shit on your phone or make art without nice supplies and it can and it will be good, and true, and fulfilling.
please don’t let the means be what stops you from the making.
oh, and I use a free and wonderful app called Spire to record the song-a-day projects, entirely on my phone.
very grateful to have been shown it’s existence, and hope it’s helpful to someone else, as it has been to me.
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