Lilly Hiatt, the sensational Nashville singer-songwriter who has been creating exciting and eclectic music for years, is now back out on tour in support of her latest release, Forever – a fun and intimate collection of new tunes that celebrate her ever-growing voice as a female artist and her current state of mind.
Recently, Glide magazine caught up with Lilly to chat about the new album, getting back out on the road after the pandemic, and the perils of social media before her show in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at the famed Middle East Nightclub where she and her band performed an energetic set that featured new songs including “Hidden Day”, “Thoughts” and “Ghost Ship”, along with a handful of tunes from her outstanding record Trinity Lane and more.
The first time that we met was seven and a half years ago to talk about your breakthrough album, Trinity Lane. Since then, it’s an understatement to say that a lot has happened in the world. You’ve been extremely busy and celebrated not only releasing a handful of new albums, but most importantly, you just got married. Congratulations!
Thank you. Yes, that was huge and almost bigger than anything else I’ve done. It has been a huge change in my life and a good one.
You’ve just released your new album Forever, along with three music videos. Do you enjoy the process of making music videos?
For sure, it’s a different side of things. I feel it’s a different collaboration with another kind of creativity. It’s always fun to have some visuals to accompany the music. I think people really like that sort of thing.
When we first met, you had just released Trinity Lane. Since then, you’ve released Walking Proof, Lately and now your latest, Forever. Do you think that you’ve experienced an evolution with your writing and recording process?
Yes, there is an evolution on some level. I don’t really know how to describe or define it. The music I want to write feels different now. That’s the only way I know how to put it. It’s like I used to want to reach into a setting, and now I’m kind of just playing with words, and of course, I wanna set a scene still, but I’m kind of trying to take some words out. Actually, that’s been the evolution, continually removing words so that things are kind of just simplified. It’s kind of what I’m interested in right now.
Now that the album has been released, if you have had any time to reflect on it, are there any songs that you’re most proud of?
To me, the songs are all still finding their own space. I really like playing “Thoughts”. I like “Shouldn’t Be” the best. That’s my favorite to play.
Is there a song on the album that you feel captures the essence of where you were at that time in your life while you were writing it and recording it?
Yeah! I think “Kwik-E-Mart” has the overall emotional arc of the record. It kind of just tells a story about where I was wanting to take things in my life.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I seem to remember that you took a hard break on social media at one point.
Yeah. Honestly, my own addictive tendencies coupled with reading varying opinions about everything all the time and being in a post-dark era in our culture – I was just done with looking at all of it for a little bit. I did stay on Facebook, which is kind of one of the darkest ones. I just kind of got too many voices in my head from it. I was just hooked on it too. I was then trying to get out of a lonely place and rediscover some things about myself, so I just wanted to be more mentally quiet, and it’s hard to do that with those distractions.
Did you feel that social media was having a negative impact on you?
It really came from dealing with consistent, self-righteousness across the board. I got really tired of that. On the flip side, I also learned a lot, like, there were a lot of outspoken viewpoints, and important viewpoints, and I thought that was beautiful. I felt like I took some stuff in, but I just wanted to have more in-person conversations with people about those things rather than deal with them online. Getting through the pandemic was tough. Being a musician, I was constantly trying to figure out if I should get out to perform or not when things were opening back up. People had really conflicting opinions about that and I kind of just wanted to use my own inner compass to make those calls.
Are you still in East Nashville?
We moved out. We moved a little north of town. I miss East Nashville, but I’m not very far from it. I love where we live. It’s quiet.
Nashville has been evolving quite a bit. Has that affected you musically, professionally, or personally?
I think downtown is really special. It catches a lot of flak, but some of the best musicians I know play downtown. I have goosebumps just thinking about it. For some reason I want to cry thinking about it because I’m that far away enough from it to hit me. I think that’s beautiful, but of course there are some weird scenes with the whole Broadway area for sure, but I love Nashville. It’s always keeping people on their toes one way or another, so I do have a lot of faith in it. There are things that are annoying too. I wonder, can’t we leave old, beautiful buildings and open areas alone rather than turn it into something brand new, but I guess that happens everywhere. You know how cities go.
Post-pandemic, you’ve consistently grown more and more busy. You quickly became involved in music festivals, tributes to Dolly Parton and The Last Waltz, playing with Steve Earle, joining the Allman Betts Family Revival tour and most recently being a featured artist on the Outlaw Cruise. Which ones stand out as having an impact on you?
Oh, yeah, I mean, I think a really important tour for me was co-headlining a tour with Lydia Loveless in 2021. It was the first one getting back out there since 2020 and that was eerie, but also really cool. It was just a weird time to be traveling the country, you know? The Allman Betts Family Revival tour was eye-opening. That was a whole different thing. I’ve never had a gig where I was just singing. So, I only had to do two songs a night. Being around a ton of musicians and learning about all these other musical worlds were out there along with seeing how the Allmans bring so many people together. So that was very special. And I got to ride on a bus, which I don’t get to do on my own – so that’s always cool.
That reminds me of our first interview that we did back in 2017 and one of the last questions I asked was where do you see yourself in ten years? You said, “I better be on a damn bus.”
I’m still saying that! It’ll happen one of these days. No matter what though, touring is tough. So, I don’t mean that we don’t love it, but even on a bus it can be lonely and hard, too, you know, so one way or another, it’s like, I’ll do it.
In the past few years, I know that you’ve crossed paths with a lot of different artists. Are there any that had an impact on you?
Going back to the Allman Betts tour, that was so cool because there was like a blues scene, it opened me up to. A scene that I didn’t know so much about. I became good friends with Joanne Shaw Taylor, who was an awesome blues guitarist. Eric Gales was on that tour. He was mind blowing and I don’t know if I’ll ever get a chance to sit backstage with Eric Gales again, you know? I got to watch him and Robert Randolph and Eric’s wife LaDonna jam. That was really cool. Just hearing them jam backstage, I was blown away by that. Everyone on that tour kind of blew my mind, honestly.
Are there any artists that you’ve discovered recently that you’re impressed by?
For sure. So many people come to mind. There’s Silver Synthetic that I think is so cool. I’ve consistently listened to their records, and I like where they’re going. It’s like indie rock, but it’s got a touch of the Grateful Dead in there or something similar and it’s laid back. I think they’re from New Orleans. I love hearing bands like that because they don’t seem like they have too much of an angle or agenda. It’s just cool music and it’s disarming.
You’ve just started this tour and only played a few shows. How’s it going?
We’re pacing ourselves because we’re on the road for another month. I think we’re about to hit the first part of the tour, where for me, at least, it always feels exhausting, just because you have to kind of work yourself back into that adrenalized place, and it’s just nonstop. It’s like you drive the van, you check into the venue, do the soundcheck, sell the merch, pack it up, go to the hotel, and do it all over again. But you get in a rhythm. It’s been fun. I’m hoping the northeast springs the electricity because I’ve had a lot of fun in the cities we’ve played so far. Philadelphia kind of started it up yesterday. All of the shows have been cool so far.
What are your plans after this tour ends?
Yeah, I think when I get back, my husband will be ready to go. Coley (Hinson) produced most of Forever. He’s got our studio setup. I’m going to get some songs happening so we can record. I’ll have some more solo tours, and I’m gonna go to Europe. So, I think it’ll be a busy year, and I haven’t been this busy in a while, so I’m kind of trying to just pace myself and get ready to be away from my dog, and my husband, but it’s good. We hope to make another record this summer.
I assume Coley had quite an influence on the new songs.
He’s really good with melodies. He doesn’t have any ego about his own self as a songwriter, but he is so good. He’s probably the only person that can just be as straight as he is with me about things. He could literally ask me to take some words out of a song’s line and if somebody else said that I’d be like, no, this is what I mean. But when he says it, I’m like, okay. He loves and listens to a lot of Oasis. We talked about them a lot. He had me think about some of their song’s choruses. They’re simple. They’re things people relate to. It’s not like we’re trying to be Oasis or anything, but he helped me remember that I don’t have to write a thesis paper to make a good song. I like that about him. He’s lighthearted about it.
What do you want your audience to take away from your shows?
I just want them to have fun and feel like they can be themselves. You don’t have to be “cool” to come to my shows. It’s not some hip scene; it’s just people hanging out. I want people to get together and smile or grimace, or whatever, but just feel okay to be who they are in our company.
