Editor’s Note: Sophie B. Hawkins performs at World Cafe Live in Philadelphia, PA on Tuesday March 28.
Singer-songwriter Sophie B. Hawkins needs no introduction, but we’re giving her one anyway! Coming up on the 30th anniversary celebration of her classic album Tongues and Tails, a new album on the way (entitled Free Myself, out next March!), and an incipient tour, her schedule is jam packed, but she was gracious enough to take a few minutes to chat with me about her career, upcoming music, loving ourselves, and more.
Andrew Howie: Thirty years is a long time; how does it feel to have this celebration going on for Tongues and Tails?
Sophie B. Hawkins: Well, I appreciate it more now. I love the sound and the songs, the lyrics, the chord changes, everything about it, just more. I think in retrospect, it was way more groundbreaking for me as an artist than I knew at the time, because back then it was just me, and I was always trying to have a hit, and be more like George Michael and this or that, and now I’m so grateful that I simply was who I was, so just that deep appreciation for the beginning of my career with such an incredible album (I feel). I also love singing the songs on stage so much, the lyrics are so good, the music is really, really rich and different. I can’t say enough how much I love that people know it, and they get excited! It is beautiful, and they’ve grown with it and I’ve grown with it.
AH: What can you tell me about this new single, ‘Love Yourself?’
SBH: So the basic thought of that song…first of all, all of my songs come from some kind of trigger. The story in the song, ‘I went to a party, the folks were fine,’ that is exactly what happened that night. I did come home, I did sit at the piano, and these beautiful words came to my head. They were self-loving: ‘Love yourself; I’m the only one who can carry my soul.’ I thought that was nice. I’ve absolutely evolved into this state where I’m not hating or criticizing myself or thinking I could’ve done better at this or that. I was just really grateful honestly that the song came out and was so simple and soulful, and that it represented where I was. Now again, all my songs are a little bit ahead of me, so I’m still growing into that one, but I love singing it for the audience. Gosh. To say to an audience, “Love yourself/no one else can fill that hole/Love yourself/only you can carry your soul,” to look at someone’s face and say “love yourself,” it’s like, wow! That’s what I want to say to somebody! So it’s a beautiful thing to share.
AH: Without giving away too many details, what can fans expect from this upcoming record?
SBH: I think the fans are going to be so happy to hear it. I think it’s going to be like a present. The reason why is because all the songs are very present. It has the Sophie B. touch of taking left turns all the time in the song, and you never know quite what to expect, which is good. The lyrics are very much where I am now, which is a whole other place from where I’ve ever been, so they’re going to get that. I think there is a beauty to the album, and there’s a giving-ness, there’s not one song that’s going to jar them. It’s not middle of the road, it’s not that, but there are also no songs where I’m trying to be the self that needs to get attention by showing you something. It’s not that, it’s really deep, loving material, but it’s transcending the dialogue of the days: ‘She’s in another place, I want to be there with her, I like that.’
AH: Your involvement in your records goes beyond songwriting, vocals, and instrumentals – you produce, you’ve engineered, you’ve done it all. Do you find that to be intentional or is it just the way things are?
SBH: It did used to be about a level of control for the sake of wanting to get the actual work out there the way it was supposed to be, the way an author wants to get a book out there. They don’t want somebody changing their sentences; they want to know if they’re really good. So there’s a little of that, because I’m not just the lyric writer or music writer, but I’m not ever asking anybody what they think. When I send somebody a song, and I do, I will write it and record it in my bedroom, and I’ll send it to a really close friend. Not to critique it, but to see what their emotional reaction is. Luckily my friends are really honest. It’s not control anymore. It used to be ‘I have to get this the way it’s supposed to be, guys, please don’t mess with me.’ That was the first and second record; by the third record nobody wanted to mess with me! Then I was on my own and felt isolated by the process. I was engineering and I didn’t even want that level of control. I couldn’t find the support, so I never wanted that again.
AH: So is this new record sort of a debut in terms of you sort of embracing that support and working with this new process?
SBH: The record people are going to hear, I wrote the songs, I recorded them extremely simply. I did maybe some violin arrangements, some background vocals, some drums, and then I brought it into the studio, and I said ‘Let’s rehearse this, what do you guys think, what would be best?’ Sometimes the guys would just play and it came out beautiful, and sometimes it took a while to get there. So I was much less controlling with this one, and now my whole ideal is to record as little as possible.
So if I record just a piano and vocals, I might sometimes even take the piano out, that’s how much I don’t want to control. I want to get the exact truth of the work out while taking away as much as I possibly can. Then when I get to the next place, which is with musicians in a studio, a professional recording. That’s when I say ‘What is our goal here?’ I’m open, I’ve become less and less controlling. Part of that is being a mom, and part of that is realizing I don’t have to live in fear all the time.
AH: I read recently that you’re in a new creative chapter – what can you tell me about this new phase and what it means to you?
SBH: The defining aspect of this creative chapter is I’m not using obstacles to define me. For lack of a better term, I’m not in prison writing about being free. I’m really saying I actually want to have the peace of mind and peace of space within me. My internal world is peaceful and free. I want to write from there, because that’s where I’ve been longing to be. So I’m acknowledging that I’m here; I said the word ‘trigger’ before, and now maybe it doesn’t have to be triggers. To be at a place where you feel like God really is within you, that’s a place of not conflict, and to get there, you have to go through all the conflict, and you have to really acknowledge that you’re trying to get to another place. Then once you’re there, you have to say, ‘I’m actually here, and now I need to sit down and write what this is.’ It’s different, and it might not be as easy at times to be creative from there, although I’m finding it really fulfilling and I’m trying not to judge it, because I don’t like any judgment at all anymore.
I really am sick of the paradigm that I grew up in and used to live in. I’m really in love with the new way I’m approaching life. And it’s not even totally new, I’ve been developing the whole time, but I’m finally at a place where I’m saying I know what I was doing all these years, and I actually like it.
