Local May_Final.qxp_002houston 4/23/15 12:19 PM Page 39
HANNAH ANDERSON
Q&A
LOCAL ARTIST AND SINGER-SONGWRITER HANNAH ANDERSON
FITS INTO THE LOCAL HOUSTON MUSIC ISSUE AS A GLIMPSE
INTO THE FUTURE. SHE IS ONLY 21 YEARS OLD AND HAS
ALREADY BEEN MAKING MUSIC FOR SIX YEARS.
Right now you’ve got a new project going on and
a song coming out next month?
My friend Dakota and I are working on a project, and so that is
coming out next month.
And what’s the vibe — have you worked together
before? This is the first time working together, and it’s a really, really
cool dynamic kind of vibe. It’s very exciting because he actually works
at the barber shop that I go to, and I’m just really close friends with all
the guys over there, and somehow I ended up working with him on
music, and it’s just been amazing, actually. We’ve just got a really
cool sound happening.
How often are you at the barbershop?
Every few days probably. [laughs] They let me use their back room as
a workspace sometimes. It’s pretty interesting when that happens.
Do you pick up any particular musical vibe from the
barbershop?
Not anything in particular. They’re always playing old school hip-hop
and stuff like that, so that’s always cool. I actually was doing part-time
reception work over there for a while, and would get to play music for
everybody while they’re getting their hair cut, which was fun. And then
Dakota took over the job I was doing.
What were some of the first records you latched onto
when you were growing up, where you first heard the
musicality?
My dad actually, growing up, listened to every genre of music. He listened to a lot of Brazilian music — bossa nova, jazz … a lot of classical music, and my family and I are big fans of musicals. So growing
up, we had musicals on always. So I mean, my musical inspirations
were pretty diverse, but I don’t think that I realized until a few years
ago how impactful that was on me.
And when did you first pick up a guitar?
Maybe when I was 15? My brother started playing – my older brother – I used to do everything that my older brother did, and he was
playing guitar, so I was like, “Oh, I have to play guitar now.” So he
ended up teaching me just a few chords, and then ended up giving
up on teaching me, so I just kind of went with it and started teaching
myself.
This was the brother that helped shoot that video in
West Texas?
That was my younger brother who shot my video. We’re actually five
siblings total, and I’m in the middle of the five.
It’s girl/boy/girl/boy/girl.
There’s a certain symmetry to your family.
Yes! For sure.
And where was that in West Texas?
That was in Monahans, actually in Monahans Sandhills State Park. It
was like a mini-scale – well, I’ve never been to the Sahara Desert, but
I would imagine this is what the Sahara Desert looks like on a miniscale. It was beautiful. We ended up having to go out to West Texas
for some photos, and since we were out there,