Q&A: Kindled By Trust, Aubrey Haddard Raises Ardent Tenants Of Being With New Album ‘You Think That’s Air You’re Breathing?’
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY SYDNEY TATE ☆
FREEWHEELED EMOTIONS RAISED IN SPLENDOR — Aubrey Haddard blesses the modern world of self-belief with new album You Think That’s Air You’re Breathing?. For those who are finding peace in water, willing and wanting, Haddard poses candor as a vibrant and most-valued character towards transformation.
Haddard operates widely out of New York, joining Psymon Spine on various tours while acing a solo excursion with flair. You Think That’s Air You’re Breathing? feels like the skies parting to welcome a golden, glittering sun — that of surrender and belief to an ancient ache of wisdom in change. An openness to life safely veils those brave enough to trust.
The affirmations in the album’s title track, “Thought It Was Air” wrap around listeners earnestly, categorizing a sureness and shift in tone musically and emotionally at the time of writing. It is the breakup record I’ve needed!
We enjoyed discussing memories in water, whether it’s more valuable to be vague in songwriting and circus dreams with Aubrey.
LUNA: If we could be having this conversation anywhere in the world right now, where would you like to be?
AUBREY HADDARD: What a good question. Can I give three answers?
LUNA: Yeah.
AUBREY: Does it have to be on the Earth?
LUNA: No, not necessarily.
AUBREY: Okay, the Shire, 1,000%, or Rivendell. I don’t know, I feel like between you and I… us? We belong in Rivendell, but we would thrive in the Shire too.
A close second would be Pompeii, that would blow our minds. Maybe we wouldn’t have much to talk about, but we'd be enjoying ourselves. And then the third would be a castle in Ireland.
LUNA: I love those. What’s something small that gives you joy?
AUBREY: I have a little porcelain bunny trinket catcher [type] vessel. Any kind of small vessel brings me a lot of joy. I love something small that contains.
LUNA: Do you find yourself exploring a lot of the same themes in your songwriting?
AUBREY: Oh my gosh, yes. It's so funny talking about this with you, because I've known you for so long, but yes, I do. I was sort of explaining this to someone the other day that music has always been the same valve and the same key to the kingdom, but the tenacity and authenticity that is achieved varies.
Occasionally—yes, I’m always writing about the same themes—but sometimes it’s masked by something else. I really like writing about books that I'm reading, or movies and other media, but at the end of the day it's because it's relating to the constant duality of life.
That is really what it boils down to: the human experience and the unrelenting duality of life.
LUNA: I was listening to You Think That’s Air You’re Breathing? again this morning, and I liked that you put the title track in the middle of the album. It’s a turning point in sound, but I wondered if it was also representing a certain point in the aftermath of this situation for you.
AUBREY: Yeah, I mean that song is easily the saddest song to me, but it's also a prayer for my future. It is the title track. It’s exactly what the whole album is about and it’s thematically super central, so putting it in the middle made sense, but also, I need an arc, you know? Putting “Thought It Was Air” before “Hook Tight” was like: “Okay, we’re gonna bring it down, then we’re gonna bring it back up.”
LUNA: Like a good arc in an anime.
AUBREY: Exactly.
LUNA: Are you more of a coffee or tea person?
AUBREY: Coffee at 1,000%.
LUNA: At all hours of the day?
AUBREY: Great question. Just mornings, for sure, always mornings. Then if I'm having an afternoon coffee, especially in the wintertime, I like a hot coffee with some cinnamon and some oat milk. Always black in the morning, but if it's an afternoon coffee it's got a little bit of milk in it.
LUNA: Absolutely, the oat milk cinnamon situation is important.
AUBREY: Have you had pistachio milk?
LUNA: I have had it before, but not recently. Are you on that?
AUBREY: I'm not on it, but I had it for the first time and I thought it was amazing.
LUNA: What's the sweetest memory that you have of swimming?
AUBREY: Oh my god, you know I love to swim. I'm gonna give you a weird answer because it was actually a dream. I dream about swimming all the time, especially in the late winter and the spring when I'm really longing for it.
This was years and years ago, I was at the Ashokan Reservoir, shout out, and you're not supposed to swim there, but I was swimming there in my dream. So I jumped in and I saw these giant carp, and I was swimming next to these giant carp. Then I scaled the side of the rock, which is not something that I'm capable of doing at all. It was covered in moss and there was no fear whatsoever. I was just climbing towards the sun. It was unbelievable. I have other real swimming memories, but that one is like…
LUNA: Peak.
AUBREY: It lives with me.
LUNA: What's the best compliment that you have ever received?
AUBREY: The only thing that's coming to mind right now is definitely not the best compliment I’ve ever received, but a few months ago, this guy came up to me after gig and he was like, “Do you thank God every day for the gifts you've been given?” And I said, “Yes.” And he said, “You're gorgeous,” something about me being voluptuous, “you’ve got the voice of an angel, and you shred like Jimi Hendrix.” And I thought, “Okay. He’s not wrong.”
It was obviously kind of weird, it was in the middle of the day and this was a total stranger but I think intentions were good, so I can take it with a grain of salt. I really appreciated it.
LUNA: Are there any mistakes that you've made when making music that turned out for the better?
AUBREY: I honestly want to say yeah, every one. Every mistake, big or small, but I think the small mistakes are f*cking awesome. That was something I was super conscious of on this album, like full sending it. Mikey was really good about encouraging me to do that too when we started mixing it. Little pickups and things.
When “Hook Tight” came out on Spotify, I spent that day listening to it, and right away there’s two wrong notes in the first two verses. They stick out like sore thumbs to me now, but I didn’t hear it before so I just have to live with it. It’s really good practice in acceptance.
Pursuing music has been such a big part of the narrative of my life, and my whole life gets entangled in it. The ripple effect of having a misstep of some kind in my career as a musician has only led me here. You have to be accepting about that too. I gotta find my zen with that ‘cause otherwise I would not be myself.
LUNA: I have a question that I might want to save for a later conversation because I feel like it would take me way too long to articulate the thought.
AUBREY: Wait. I want to know what it is.
LUNA: I was talking to someone else recently about this, and my specific experience has been a little odd, because I've dealt with other people who have been weird about it. Like where I've written something, and to that person it's clear that it is about them in some way, but to any other person in the world, it's not obvious.
I've been made to feel odd about writing about intimate experiences. I'm wondering when we have relationships with other people, and when we have experiences with other people that are inherently ours, what is the responsibility that we have to keep it more vague or not identifiable in the art that we put out?
AUBREY: You know, I feel like I'm a horrible person to ask to be honest. That's an unanswerable question to me. I think you're right that there is a responsibility of some kind, and it matters, and we should be accountable for it. But also, when I was 22 I wrote a love song that point blank names the person. 10 years later, it’s still the song that connects with people all over the world the most, so I don’t know. I really don’t know how to answer that.
There are many days where I wake up and wish that wasn’t the case, that I hadn’t put their name on blast like that. I wish people were connecting with other music maybe more sometimes, but I have no control over that, and I’m so grateful that people [do connect with it.]
I think that question is also tied into the reception of your music, and as soon as you introduce the thought of what other people will think, you're on thin ice. You should be finding a steadier ground to just be creating something.
LUNA: I agree. I do think it should come from the point of creating and not focus on the audience. I was listening to Bill Callahan, and he's very much saying, “We got married, my beautiful wife, I love her and then we had a baby.” and it made me think about all the different ways to approach songwriting and storytelling.
AUBREY: Hopefully, I'll be writing more vague from here on out. That's my wish. Finding the piece of vagueness that feels authentic still, but you feel cryptic, like my Scorpio *ss is always thinking how do I remain so mysterious? *Laughing* I always want them to not know what I’m talking about, but I want them to feel what I’m talking about. I’m always looking for that.
I also think sometimes, details. I mean, talk about good songwriting, undeniably Taylor Swift is so successful, and her songwriting is detail after detail.
LUNA: Are there any small things that annoy you that maybe don’t annoy other people?
AUBREY: Big pet peeve. I'm gonna put the men on blast right now, it’s when boys say the lines to the movie that you're watching. *Laughing* I literally… yeah—
LUNA: You don't even have to explain. Are there any songs that you feel represent the past few months for you?
AUBREY: Mm, yes. I’m going to shout out an album first called Hammer of My Own by the band Closebye, they’re a Brooklyn band. This album has been on repeat for the last month. It’s only been a month and I know every word, okay? I had heard it, and I put it back down, and then Mikey played it for me a month ago, and the sound of it is so cohesive. That's the sound of my Summer right now.
There's also a song called, “Some People Are Crazy,” and it's got fretless bass and some of the most beautiful lyrics ever, it’s by John Martyn. I'll shout out one more EP, Hallelujah Showers by Christian Sean. I randomly walked into a show of theirs in Montreal because I was having fun with my sisters and we thought it looked like a cool show. We walked in and this was this big EP release for a local artist, and Christian Sean was opening the show by themselves and playing 404, synths, doing all the vocal effects.
You know when someone just reaches you out and snatches you up? Then lo and behold, I’m so grateful that when I looked up their music everything that they had performed that night was their latest EP. I could just go straight to consumption on all of their music. Those are the three things that are my sounds right now.
LUNA: If you could tour with any two artists from any era, who would they be and why?
AUBREY: Whoa. Are we all on the same tour?
LUNA: Yes. If you want to get funky, it could be half and half.
AUBREY: Okay, I feel like that does change it, because I would want them to get along and I would want them to sound enough alike too. I have a combined answer. Bjork and PJ Harvey. We could hang all three of us.
LUNA: The Holy Trinity.
AUBREY: I wish it was me, but I know it’s not. It’s okay.
LUNA: Do you remember what you wanted to be doing right now when you were a kid?
AUBREY: I wanted to be the girl on the elephant in the circus. That was my answer. I wanted to be in the leotard, I wanted to be doing all the moves, but more than anything, I wanted the elephant. And honestly, if the music industry isn't enough of a beast for me to ride, I don't know how much closer I could have gotten.
LUNA: It’s basically the same.
AUBREY: But I'm doing figurative moves on the elephant.
LUNA: Is there a particular lyric on your album that is most special to you?
AUBREY: Wow, oh God, there's a lot. At the end of the record, when I say “Selfish I've been, but when I was a fish, I learned how to swim.” It's the acceptance of the whole piece of my life that it's about.
I've written a lot of songs about being a fish, and this era puts a cap on my fishdom, and I can be something else now. That lyric at the end of the album sort of is license to not be a fish anymore, which is great.
LUNA: Full circle. Are there any times in the past year where you've struggled to feel understood?
AUBREY: I mean, yes. I think the past year of my life has so much to do with understanding myself, and for a long time I just did not. It’s almost like I wasn't even trying, so for my whole life it’s kind of been feeling misunderstood or struggling to be understood by myself. I’m getting there.
LUNA: What are you excited for in the next couple months?
AUBREY: I have some time at the beach to create music coming up. I’m a child of Summer, I need the Summer, and I’m going to thrive.
