Hello My Name is Juliana
Juliana Hatfield ( photo : David Doobinin )
06 • 2021
No man is an island , John Donne once wisely noted . Juliana Hatfield would respectfully like to disagree . At 53 , the charming Boston folk-rocker is quite happy just kicking back at her Cambridge home with her beloved 11-year-old chocolate lab , Charlie ( who ’ s actually female , she points out ), sans any unwelcome interlopers . And while other people ’ s pets have grown neurotic during the pandemic lockso accustomed to your presence that they experience severe separation anxiety if you step outside to get the mail , Charlie is still cool as a cucumber . “ She hasn ’ t gotten neurotic at all because nothing ’ s really changed for me ,” reports Hatfield , phoning to discuss her new lockdown-conceived album Blood . “ So my dog ’ s not seeing anything dramatically different — it ’ s still just her and me , relatively isolated here .” And you might think this ex Blake Babies anchor has done it all by now — launched a successful solo career with 1992 ’ s Hey Babe ; formed offshoot duos like Minor Alps ( with Matthew Caws ) and I Don ’ t Care ( with Paul Westerberg ) as well as her on-again , offagain band The Juliana Hatfield Three ; cut two tribute albums to The Police and Olivia Newton-John ; and maintained a cottage industry selling personal artwork on Etsy . But she bravely conquered new frontiers during lockdown , just to record musically-jangling , lyrically-dark ** Bloodanthems like the bouncy “ Splinter ,” a punk-poppy “ Suck It Up ,” and the dinosaur stomper “ Dead Weight ” — with a Connecticut engineering friend ’ s help , she taught herself the intricacies of home recording via laptop . “ And I have to admit , there were times when I almost threw my computer through the wall ,” she chuckles . “ But I actually figured out how to make an entire album on my computer . And if I can do it ? Hey — anyone can !”
6 illinoisentertainer . com june 2021
IE : You ’ re happy on your own . Have you ever stopped to analyze why that is , or do you just accept it at this point ? JULIANA HATFIELD : Well , both . I spent a lot of years agonizing over it , trying to take part in socially approved life activities , and I just realized that the stuff that works for the majority of people just doesn ’ t work for me . So I stopped beating myself up about it and just embraced my true nature , which is solitary . I ’ m a loner , and that ’ s just the way it is for me . So yeah , I ’ ve thought about it a lot . But at some point , you have to stop fighting against yourself and stop torturing yourself , and just live the life that feels like it makes sense .
Continued on page 8