Singer/songwriter Ha Vay discusses the connection between spirituality and her music, her enchanting new single “Spellbound,” and her unconventional strategy in constructing her subsequent document.
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Steeped in mystical imagery and folksy rock of the ‘90s, Ha Vay is an ethereal artist on the rise, constructing a discography that’s transportive.
Her debut album, 2024’s Child I’m The Wolf, was a mission rooted within the fantastical, with thematic constructions much like artists like Florence + The Machine, the moodiness of ‘90s rock bands like Mazzy Star. Ha Vay spoke with Atwood after wrapping up her tour, discussing her dedication to her artistry, her new single “Spellbound,” and the way she needs to construct her subsequent mission.
Like many artists, Ha Vay had all the time been writing songs and making music since she was younger, however by no means noticed it turning right into a profession. Creating for creation’s sake, she ultimately was pushed by shut family and friends to begin placing her music out into the world. “It wasn’t essentially me who needed to share it,” she confides. “It was sort of the individuals round me in my life who actually inspired me… virtually did it for me to start with… I used to be simply making music for myself my entire life, actually.”
That push rapidly propelled Ha Vay right into a neighborhood that deeply resonated together with her artwork, one thing that grew to become clear on her previous tour. “It’s like, the sweetest crowds possible… All of them are available, you realize, their flower crowns and their clothes and every part.” Aside from aesthetic overlaps, she was struck by how her sincere expression fostered a like-minded fanbase. “I feel you’ll be able to sense that you simply’re being true to your self as an artist if you discover that the people who find themselves coming to your exhibits actually replicate who you might be.”
Followers have already developed a deep connection to Ha Vay and her music, clear by means of small acts of admiration all through the tour.
“In Toronto, I used to be actually sick and I couldn’t meet individuals after the present,” she smiles. “They wrote me little notes; it was simply the sweetest crowds… open individuals and deep thinkers and I don’t know, it’s very unusual… I additionally began this mission simply enjoying at like, you realize, frat events and stuff, so the distinction between there and being [on tour] is huge.”
The flower crown carrying, note-writing followers might have by no means come to be if Ha Vay’s imagery, sonics, and general inventive model wasn’t so strongly occult and otherworldly. Ha Vay grew up round girls that had been religious, one thing that undoubtedly influences her discography. “I’d say particularly each of my grandmothers, in very other ways, are each very religious and really witchy. And I feel I, you realize, I admired each of them a lot rising up… I simply absorbed a lot of that and that’s positively a number of the place my creativity comes from.” That examination of spirituality comes with countless reckoning of the unknown, Ha Vay admittedly saying that’s additionally an enormous driver by way of creating music. “I query a number of issues. I don’t have any solutions, I’m simply asking questions,” she says jokingly.
Whereas these spiritualistic influences are current all through the vast majority of Ha Vay’s tracks, it takes on an entire lifetime of its personal on the not too long ago launched “Spellbound.” Ha Vay describes the tune as one which “cleverly walks a line of ambiguity. Is it a straightforward summer season tune out of a 2000s witchy rom-com? Is it a tongue-and-cheek reference to my fame as a siren? Regardless of the origin, the observe is an surprising mix of glittery Y2K singer-songwriter pop… a assured pop anthem for the unusual ladies.” A sonic departure from Ha Vay’s different items, the tune is inherently playful, sultry, and sounds as if Ha Vay is actively casting some kind of spell on the listener. The melodies are hypnotic and her vocals tackle this ethereal, whispery high quality that solely provides to the quiet and alluring confidence throughout the tune.
I’ve bought you, you’re spellbound
Dream of me as you please
Hypnotic, praying in your knees
Now you’ve bought a nasty illness
Want me just like the air you breathe
No such factor as heartbreak
Since I’ve bought a hand on destiny
Magnificence by no means dissipates
I’ll be your countless summer season day
Ha Vay labored on the observe with co-writers and producers Noah Weinman and Sean Silverman in a matter of hours. “‘Spellbound’ was similar to me with Noah and Sean, and we had been simply virtually three strangers tossed in a room for sort of a random session… I really feel prefer it actually married all three of our types collectively in some way without delay, which isn’t usually how I make music. It was a little bit of an experiment, however a number of enjoyable.” It’s a testomony to Ha Vay’s imaginative and prescient and craft {that a} tune as layered and hypnotizing as “Spellbound” got here collectively in such a brief period of time.
As Ha Vay says, she usually likes to spend extra time on a observe, one thing she did with “Blush,” one other single launched earlier this summer season. Extra in line with the floaty and delicate power that’s interspersed by means of Ha Vay’s different songs, she says, “I began the method in my supervisor’s lounge… we bought the drum tracks from that… then like a month after that, I needed to evacuate LA through the fireplace. So I went to my buddy’s home and I simply purchased a microphone and did all of the vocals myself in a room, my buddy Derek added strings later. So it was simply this very lengthy course of that took some time, nevertheless it was very a lot an enormous collaboration between lots of people, which was nice and actually, actually enjoyable.”
Ha Vay expresses how it is a sort of inventive area that she usually likes to function from, taking time to digest her ideas and musings and bringing them to individuals who may also help tracks tackle an entire new sound or that means. Particularly, Ha Vay is set to strategy songwriting and making in a kind of ‘quaint’ method, together with her complete band within the studio reasonably than working with one producer. “I like to experiment with my band. I really like them a lot, and I really like a collaboration like that. I feel that having actual musicians on every part… it is a drummer who performs drums, it is a guitarist who actually performs guitar. All of us are in a position to contribute concepts, contribute their ideas and let it reside and breathe and develop itself.”
I may inform you something
I feel you’ll cling to any phrase I say
Anyway, anyway
I muse, I write, I want and pray
To not fall, however I’ve no say
Strive as I could, attempt as I could
And I worry your coronary heart is catching on
By the best way, you’re scorching to the contact
If you hear my identify
And also you begin to (Blush, blush)
Come nearer to me (Rush, rush)
Earlier than they see (Hush, hush)
The best way that we breathe
And also you begin to (Blush, blush)
Come nearer to me (Rush, rush)
Earlier than they see (Hush, hush)
The best way that we breathe
Ha Vay herself admits that enjoying in a band comes naturally to her. “I grew up enjoying reside so much; I performed in bands on and off only for enjoyable my entire life. And so that’s, I feel, this area the place I really feel the happiest… In order that’s actually my aim, like for the following document is to carry my band within the studio and in rehearsal areas and like, develop every part collectively and let it have an actual, residing, respiratory soul… When it’s working nicely, it’s really essentially the most like out of physique expertise on the planet and essentially the most particular factor I’ve ever skilled… I would like that to exist and to translate into the document, in order that’s what I’m actually attempting to attain.”
When it comes to the brand new document that Ha Vay is engaged on, she says that there’s a sizable departure from final yr’s debut LP. “It’s an enormous distinction. I really feel like with Child I’m the Wolf, it began with all these characters that had been archetypes of various kind of levels of girlhood that I used to be exploring with every tune and it was, I’d say in so some ways, very a lot a departure from the best way that I’ve made music my entire life up till then. I really feel like now I’m actually returning to how I used to be making music earlier than that, which could be very very similar to an in-the-moment processing of my feelings and expertise. It’s a bit extra summary in some senses… it’s much more uncooked and like simply very front-facing private, which is a bit terrifying, however I’m actually enthusiastic about it.”
It’s thrilling to listen to that Ha Vay is leaning extra right into a mode of expression that feels extra authentically her.
Her hottest observe, “Moon Woman,” is a chunk plagued by ominous howling, shouts, syrupy vocals, and delicate strings, and occurs to be an instance of a observe that feels closest to her most earnest self. “That was the tune that I primarily constructed the entire first album round… It’s humorous to me that that’s my hottest tune as a result of I feel once I was engaged on that album, I positively didn’t assume that that was going to be the one which took off.”
Within the unique model of “Moon Woman,” Ha Vay says, “I wasn’t, you realize, barking and howling in it and whatnot and didn’t have all my unusual synths, counter melodies and every part. So I’m glad the imaginative and prescient I put out actually linked with individuals as a result of I used to be like, ‘I really feel prefer it’s actually me.’”
Discover me within the timber with my limbs lengthy swinging
Child skinned knees and my hair’s all tousled, up
Meet me on the sea with my cheeks glowing roses
I can dance so free when you simply hold smoking up, up
Gained’t you’re taking me
As I’m meant to be?
Wild, wild
Don’t mistake me
For the wind when she
Howls, howls away…
With that in thoughts, Ha Vay says that the brand new document is interweaving her personal private struggles with what she sees occurring on the planet round her.
She leaves Atwood with this: “I actually landed on one thing that I felt actually, for me, linked that private journey with how I see the world and what’s occurring and what I worry and what I hope… What I’ll give for now’s that to me, it’s very a lot the colour blue… not in a tragic method.”
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© Emily Oreste
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