For Sharon Van Etten, making her latest album was both spiritual and psychological
As she was putting together her seventh and most recent record, Sharon Van Etten came up with a tongue-in-cheek idea for its title. 'Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory,' she wanted to call it — a reference to both her interest in psychology and a play on the familial dynamics that often exist within a band.
Although most of Van Etten's bandmates have been with her for several years, this was her first time writing songs with them, so playing with that relationship felt apt. But when the indie musician approached her collaborators with the idea for the title and band name, there was one stipulation: 'They said, 'I don't mind you calling it 'The Attachment Theory,' as long as we don't have to talk about our attachment styles,'' Van Etten laughed.
As they gear up for a fall tour, announced Monday, Van Etten spoke with The Associated Press about her stream-of-consciousness style of writing and how being a mom has made her more cognizant of how much time she spends on her phone. The interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
AP: What prompted the change in how this record was made?
VAN ETTEN: Writing as a band was a complete accident. We were rehearsing in 2022 for the 'We've Been Going About This All Wrong' tour and figuring out how to take this album, which we recorded piecemeal during the pandemic because we couldn't all be in the same room together. I thought the best way to reconnect after recording the album from afar was to rent a house and a studio in the desert and have it be more like a literal band camp, instead of doing one of those sterile rehearsal environments, just to have a way for us to reconnect as people as well as musicians.
As we got to the end of the week, we realized we had gone through the whole set that we were planning for that tour, and I asked the band if they would want to jam. I was so tired of hearing myself. I was very inspired by the sonic palette that we had created together, and I wanted to see what would happen. And in an hour or two, we wrote two songs without really trying. And we laughed it off, we packed our bags and we left the next day. But my engineer recorded those jam sessions, and I remember playing them for my partner at home, saying, 'I think creatively this is the next thing I want to do.' And so, after we did that first tour for the previous record, I booked a writing session right away and we returned to that same studio and worked for a week with the intention of writing. And it was a very prolific week.
AP: Did you have the lyrics written beforehand?
VAN ETTEN: All of the writing in the desert was from the ground up. I didn't have anything going into it, which I've never done before either. My process from being solo is something that I brought into the session with the band, where I find the melodies first and I sing stream of consciousness.
AP: Singing stream of consciousness sounds very spiritual, almost like speaking in tongues.
VAN ETTEN: It very much is. There's something about it that, if I'm going through something emotionally that I don't have the words to express yet and I can sit at an instrument and just sing, I get something out of me and release something in a way that I still don't really know how to describe to people. Even if it's something I end up writing about later, it's more of like, I get the emotion out, but then I turn the song into something else that hopefully is more healing than the moment that I'm trying to get over.
AP: How did you come up with the album name?
VAN ETTEN: The name The Attachment Theory at first was a bit tongue-in-cheek because I am interested in psychology and I am from a big family. I think being in a family and being in a band are very similar because you become a family, you become each other's chosen family, and you go through a lot together. So from rehearsing to touring to making a record together, you create these dynamics with each other, and you also become each other's support systems. And I know attachment theory is mostly about your connection with your parents but it's also a little bit about how you connect as a unit.
AP: I'm sure your attachment styles came up in the desert.
VAN ETTEN: Yes, and they will remain unnamed.
AP: I love your song, 'Idiot Box.' I wondered, as an artist, how you think about our addiction to entertainment.
VAN ETTEN: Oh my gosh, well that's a can of worms right there. I mean, we're all addicted to our phones. We all have screens. I'm also a mom, and I tell my kid not to do the things that I do. And I think now more than ever, I have to be way more mindful about when I choose to interact. But I don't really have an answer. It's more of an acknowledgment that we need to check in with each other when we feel like we're getting lost in that scrolling zone and I just feel like it's a constant battle.
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