What’s the best piece of advice you have ever received?
I don’t want to be name-droppy, but this advice definitely came at a time in my life where I really needed to hear it. In 2013, when I was on tour with Nick Cave, I was having a problem with my partner at the time. Our biggest fights always broke out when I would go on tour, because he felt like I was choosing my career over having a relationship.
So I asked Nick: “I’m sure you and Susie have a lot of fights about how often you can tour. What kind of work do you do to find the balance?” And he said: “Well, Susie and I fight, but never about my job. That’s my work. That’s everything to me. And she knows that, so we don’t fight about it.”
My mind was blown. I knew this is something that I need in my life. So when I came back from that tour, I started making big changes.
What’s been your most memorable interaction with a fan?
There was a woman named Ariel who was very sick. She had a lot of breathing issues and was waiting for a lung transplant. She came to multiple shows and befriended me and my bandmates. I remember we were in Charlottesville, Virginia, and I saw her in the street with a friend. They were in tears, telling me how much our music meant to them, and how it helped Ariel through all her hospital stays and every time she had to do her breathing exercises. Her parents would help her come to all of our concerts and she was always upfront. I would sing Seventeen to her at the end of the show.
We stayed in touch over the years and we had one last talk on Zoom before she decided to go into hospice care. It was really, really intense. She was scared, but also really at peace. She had a profound effect on all our lives. I wrote Afterlife around the time she died.
You are a musician who doesn’t like jamming. How does that work?
As I’m getting older, I’m just giving less of a damn, you know? But I tend to be solo during the writing process. I am also trying to connect more with my bandmates [The Attachment Theory] – I am trying to let go and grow as an artist and do things that I don’t normally do. So this album is the first time I’ve really jammed. It came after a week of rehearsals for the last tour, when I was really tired of hearing myself. I asked, “Could we just jam?” Then we ended up writing two songs in like an hour and it left me feeling very inspired. That’s what sparked the idea to start writing together.
You acted in the cult hit Netflix show The OA. If it hadn’t been prematurely cancelled in 2019, how would you have ended it?
It’s funny because I know what they wanted to do with it. I’ll say it because who cares! Every time the season changed, it was going to be more about the life of one of the captives. If I got my season, I think it would have been about being in a band. I am very curious how that would have taken shape. But how to end it? I don’t know. Waking up from a dream and none of it had happened?
I’m a little embarrassed about my experience on the show because I’m not an actor. I feel like I just have a resting face and a concerned face, and that’s about it.
Tell us about your favourite instrument
It has to be the piano that I learned to play on. It came with the house that I moved into when I was about five or six. My mum tells this story about when we first moved in – I’m one of five kids, so it was very chaotic, everyone was running around, claiming rooms and exploring the house. It was an old Victorian fixer-upper – boxes were everywhere and everyone was getting splinters just from running up the stairs. My mum couldn’t find me, so she kept looking and looking until she heard me quietly crying under this baby grand. I had found safety underneath the piano. It became a place where I would find comfort – my mum would find me just playing a note and matching the tone of the note, which is how I learned to sing. I had no idea as a kid, but that moment, I think, really began that course of seeking solace in music. I’m so curious if that piano is still there. I’ve thought about knocking on the door.
What is your most controversial pop culture opinion?
I really don’t understand fashion. There are some really, really short skirts out there, and also extremely baggy stuff – why can’t you just wear clothes that fit you? How do people walk around with half of their ass hanging out of their skirt? Is that comfortable? I’m not saying don’t wear it. I’m more concerned that you aren’t comfortable. Oh, I’m so boring!
What pets do you have, what other names and what other nicknames?
We have a rescue dog named Lindy. He’s named after a boy called Lyndon that my son had met only once at the time, but he left a profound impact on him. Sometimes we call him Lindylooloo or Digger, because he loves digging in the dirt. He is a wire-haired, mangy-looking freakazoid. I don’t know if Lyndon actually knows if a dog has been named after him. I would love for them to meet some time. That would be so sweet.
What is the weirdest thing you have done for love?
I started watching sports. I’ve never been a sporty person, but my partner’s from North Carolina and his family are hardcore UNC [University of North Carolina] fans. I stopped paying attention to sports as a kid. But major league and college sports are completely different worlds. When I started following these college kids and watching profiles on them and how they’re literally playing for their lives, because it’s make or break for them at that level, the games become so intense. When we get together to watch games, everyone is wearing Carolina blue. I laugh at myself sometimes, but it brings us comfort. I’m still learning all the rules. I love all the rivalries and the camaraderie and the back stories, which has really surprised me.
If you had a sandwich named after you, what would be in it?
One of my guilty pleasures that stems from my early days working at Ihop [International House of Pancakes] – I would do mashed potatoes on toast with gravy. It would have to be white gravy and it would be open faced on rye bread. I would get the bottomless coffee too. Together – the mashed potatoes on toast with white gravy, with the coffee – is the Sharon Van Etten. Without the coffee it doesn’t work. Very starchy, but very tasty.
What are you secretly very good at?
I used to tap dance. I haven’t taken classes, but I did theatre and stuff, so I can do a Liza Minnelli impression. I don’t have tap shoes any more, but if I’m feeling spicy and I’ve got shoes that can clickety-clack, I will rip out my time steps. It’s not like a whole performance, it is just a little taste. It depends on how spicy I am, but it makes people giggle. I’m not the most graceful person by any means – in tap dancing, there’s a fine line between an elephant in a china closet and Fred Astaire.
Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory is out 7 February (Jagjaguwar)
