Interview By: Emma Hintz
Emma Hintz (Small Talks Magazine): To start off, introduce yourself to the readers at home!
Hannah Hill: Hello Hellooo I’m Hannah Hill! I’m 19, from Chicago and I currently live and go to school in New York!
Emma: How would you describe your sound to someone who has never listened to you before?
Hannah: Like a bowl of chili. Hot and heavy with a little kick.
Emma: You are located in New York City currently, how do you think that has affected your
musical journey?
Hannah: There’s always such possibility for spontaneity just as a result of the way Manhattan is set up. People are out and about at all times, the most eccentric fashion everywhere you look. I could completely lose myself walking around for hours there. Because of those things, I’ve never felt more inspired than when I’m in New York. On top of that I think it’s so evident when you go for the first time that everyone is so driven and invested in what they do and it’s extremely inspiring. The people I’ve met at school are undoubtedly going to be my lifelong friends and collaborators and finding those connections has significantly changed the way I make music. I’ve been more collaborative than ever and have really cultivated a musical community to navigate the industry with.
Emma: Where do you find inspiration when writing music? Are there any specific artists that inspire your sound?
Hannah: All of my music is a completely honest recollection of a situation I’ve been through, down to the colors, smells, and quotes I use in my lyrics. It’s not that I can’t make up stories, I just find that when I fabricate or make things up, the song weirdly ends up feeling dishonest and I don’t fall as in love with it as I do with my others. So my main inspiration are my real life experiences and feelings. This is honestly pretty terrifying because it means whoever I wrote the song about will definitely know it’s about them. There’s no hiding in the lyrics. I do, of course, get writer's block sometimes and when that happens I get myself inspired by watching music videos and artist interviews on YouTube. There’s something about a visual paired with lyrics that really gets the wheels turning for me. Lyrics usually come to me before the melody does, and they’re what I spend most of my time on so I gravitate towards artists that are really unique lyrically - artists that are talking about things that people are afraid to say out loud. Some of my favorites are Phoebe Bridgers, The Japanese House, and Julia Michaels.
Emma: You have a pretty good following on Tik Tok, how do you think social media has impacted the way that you go about releasing music?
Hannah: It’s definitely impacted the way I release music but something I try really hard to do is not have the actual creation of my music be impacted by tiktok. The era of tiktok artists is still very new but I think what we’re going to see are artists that got their start on tiktok, and then separate from that, tiktok artists. It’s super easy to see a trend on tiktok and want to write a song to fit that or create a verse just because you think it has potential to be a viral sound on the app. I just don’t think there’s longevity in that, in tailoring your music to what will pop off on tiktok. Trends die as fast as they grow so I look at tiktok as a really easy and efficient platform for growing a fan base but it’s certainly not the decider of what’s good music and which artists will maintain success for a long period of time.
Emma: We are featuring a beautiful open letter to Pride written by you, in the letter you stated that you used to be pretty secretive about your sexuality in your songwriting in efforts to “appeal to a larger crowd”, and now you are extremely unapologetically you and killing it! What advice do you have for other queer artists going through this exact same mental battle?
Hannah: It all comes down to the music. If the music is good and the message resonates, people will find your music and connect with you. I spent way too much energy worrying about how I would be received, not how my music sounded so I never felt like I actually got really good at songwriting until I was totally comfortable with myself. As important as you may feel that your sexuality is to your artist identity, it’s not what’s going to make people decide if they like you or not. Writing lyrics that are so brutally honest and vulnerable is terrifying but those are the songs you will feel the most proud of and those are the songs people will cling to because as songwriters, part of our job is to say what people are afraid to. I have this amazing opportunity to use my creativity and artistic ability to make other people feel seen and validated and that’s such a gift. With that said, I think it’s extremely important to give yourself as much time as you need to come to terms with your sexuality and feel confident in who you are. Don’t rush it. Talk with other queer artists and even just other queer people.
Emma: What advice do you have for up and coming artists struggling to find inspiration +
confidence in the music they are creating?
Push the envelope. If the prospect of showing your mom the song you just made is totally daunting because it’s so shocking and vulnerable, it’s probably a banger. When it comes to finding inspiration, actively expanding my music taste has been pivotal for me. What that looks like is staying keen on other up and coming artists as well as artists that don’t fall into my genre. Whenever I get in the car with a friend, instead of playing my own playlist, I ask them to show me what they’ve been into lately. I think when it comes to confidence, you can’t go wrong with the old “fake it till you make it”. The fact is, you teach people how to treat you. If you portray yourself to others as confident in the way you speak, carry yourself, and interact, they’ll start to believe it. Then, after some time, you’ll actually believe it yourself. That confidence will rub off into everything you do, including music. I can’t thank my parents enough for how they built up my self esteem
as a child. They cheered me on and filled me with confidence from a young age, telling me I could do anything I wanted even when I was scream-singing completely out of tune in the kitchen. Then, as most teenagers do, I had a little phase in the beginning of middle school and then again at the beginning of high school where my confidence withered away a bit. I can confidently say the “fake it till you make it” motto (and pimple cream) got me out of those blips of insecurity.
Pride By Hannah Hill
When I was younger, probably about age 13/14, I started to realize and come to terms with the fact that I was attracted to girls. Interestingly, what terrified me more than the possibility that girls might feel uncomfortable around me in the locker room, or that my friends might not want to have sleepovers anymore, was how it would impact my career. I knew I wanted to be an artist, I've known it my entire life, but when you have no one you can relate to and look up to in your industry, you feel like it simply cannot be done. At the time, Hayley Kiyoko was slowly on the rise and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t spend hours secretly watching her music videos in my room. But she certainly wasn’t a household name or even an artist any of my friends had heard of. But besides her, I didn’t know of any lesbian artists killing it in the music world. I was convinced that if I was going to be completely open and out about my sexuality while pursuing a music career, I would only appeal to other queer women and the rest of the world would rule me out as too niche or unrelatable, or taboo. So, I started writing songs where I’d leave out all pronouns and just make the subjects of each of them completely gender ambiguous. That was extremely short-lived because every one of those songs felt very inauthentic and awkward as I danced around words I wanted to use but couldn’t because they’d give me away.
A year or two went by and as I started to feel more comfortable with my sexuality, I began to let go of that need to hide who I was in my real life and in songwriting. Once I opened that door for myself, I felt my songwriting abilities grow tremendously as I was no longer limiting what I wanted to say. I decided that it was absolutely insane and quite honestly sad that I ever felt like I needed to be anything less than my full authentic self in order to have a prosperous career. People shouldn’t care what gender I’m writing my songs about, all breakup songs are at least a little relatable for everyone right!
As I grow older I become even more appalled by how impossible my success felt, because surely I wasn’t the only one feeling that way. I never want anyone to feel that their sexuality could stand in the way of their success so now I make music that is so shamelessly and unapologetically me. I talk about sexual experiences with girls, heartbreak with girls, falling in love with girls, the over-sexualization of queer women, and coming to terms with your sexuality in my lyrics. I also write songs entirely unrelated to my sexuality that deal with topics like mental health, failed friendships, and growing older. But telling those undertold stories is extremely important to me because some little girl standing at her gym locker terrified of what the other girls will say if they knew who she was, needs to feel seen and represented.” - Hannah Hill
Emma Hintz
Hannah Hill
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