Q&A: Hana Eid Navigates Relationships and Personhood with Debut Album ‘Trains Running Backwards’
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY LUCY BULLINGTON ☆
“MUSIC REMINDS ME I’M NOT THE FIRST PERSON TO FEEL SOMETHING, AND I HOPE LISTENERS FEEL THAT TOO.”— This is how Hana Eid wants you to feel while listening to her debut album, Trains Running Backwards. The 12-track record is an honest account of the rollercoaster that is your late teens and early twenties.
There are tracks like “Come Over,” which describes the feeling of almost calling an ex to… well… come over. Then there are tracks like “Stare,” which is an intimate documentation of falling for someone. What’s so interesting throughout Trains Running Backwards is how seamlessly Eid balances vulnerable and intimate lyrics with powerful climaxes and guitar-driven rock instrumentals.
The record is driven by a sense of release and catharsis—a constant push and pull. Raw and intimate vocals built up and released with searing guitar and drum solos. For Eid, Trains Running Backwards is about “navigating moments where you feel like things are moving opposite to what you want.”
With Trains Running Backwards, Eid delivers something rough around the edges yet undeniably sincere. What makes the album so compelling is her ability to blend introspection and vulnerability with outwardly emotional instrumental climaxes that draw you into another realm.
Released on November 14, Luna had the chance to sit down with Eid the day before it came out and chat about the record. Read the full interview below.
LUNA: Your album comes out tonight, right?
EID: Yeah, which is crazy.
LUNA: How do you feel?
EID: I feel good. I feel excited. I also feel insane. It's weird—like, it’s years of writing and experiencing and then promoting the art. So much time just for this one moment. It’s nice that it’ll finally be out because I’ve been holding these songs to myself for so long.
LUNA: When did you realize it was time to release your first album?
EID: I always wanted to do a full-length record. That was one of my dreams. And a year or so ago my manager and I sat down to figure out my next EP. I had so many songs I liked that I thought maybe I should just do an album. The songs were there, so why wait? I decided to put it out in November literally like a month ago while on tour. I was going to wait until the new year because of the holidays, but then I was like, what am I waiting for? Nothing catalytic is happening between Thanksgiving and Christmas and I’ve had these songs for so long so I thought I’m just gonna put it out.
LUNA: What was the process of choosing which songs made it? Was there a thesis or were they just your favorite twelve?
EID: Honestly both. They accidentally ended up thematically similar because I wrote them between ages 19 and 21, navigating relationships and personhood. Some songs were contenders, but I narrowed it down by what made sense together and how they interact with each other. I wasn’t writing toward a thesis, though.
LUNA: What do you think the main themes are? Or what did you find yourself writing about the most between the ages of 19 to 21?
EID: A lot of it is navigating relationships, friendship, and romance. Living on my own and being blessed with awesome friends came with challenges because I found myself to be very socially anxious and romantically inclined. I think a lot of it is about learning through connection and personal metamorphosis. Also just being the ages of 19 to 21 are crazy years for everyone. I don’t know anyone who is the same from 19 to 21.
LUNA: One thing I noticed about your writing is how intimate and sensory it is. I love “hear your heart” and “feel your stare” in the track “Stare.” What’s your process with such intimate lyrics like that? Are you a notes app person? It feels so in the moment so I’m wondering if you immediately write things down as they occur to you in such vivid detail.
EID: Yeah. I don’t write super intentionally, which is probably bad. It’s very stream-of-consciousness, or like a journal entry. But usually what lands on the page stays there. Sometimes I look back and think, I don’t know what I meant here, but it’s a vibe and it reveals itself later. Most lyrics on this project are exactly what I wrote at the moment, especially songs like “Stare.” I barely revised them. I think that’s why people find it vulnerable—I’m not trying to be. It’s just what’s on my brain.
LUNA: How do you decide what should stay in the journal or what should be in a song?
EID: If I have my guitar in my hands, it’s a song. I start by playing guitar and singing nonsense, then writing down whatever comes out. Songs have to fit syllables, rhyme, melodic intentionality—that’s really the only difference. The internal experience feels the same though.
LUNA: What were you reading or listening to while making the album?
EID: The earliest song was written in 2022 or 2023. Around then I got into Pinegrove—that was huge for me. Their music influences me a lot now and was very catalytic for me.
I was also reading a lot of philosophy as I was writing the album, which isn’t usually my thing. I normally read fiction like realistic fiction or sci-fi. But I started reading Kurt Vonnegut. Vonnegut is probably my favorite author. I love how his books are fictional but have philosophical undertones. He throws little universal truths into these awesome stories. One of my life goals is to read all the books in his catalog.
I also loved Tom Robbins when a friend recommended him in 2023. And I read The Wisdom of Insecurity by Alan Watts. He coined “the eternal present:”the idea that past and future are hypothetical and only the present exists. He talks about how anxiety only exists when you’re disengaged from the present. He also talks a ton about how so much robs us from the present moment, and I was really anxious when I read it and it brought me peace. It’s a book everyone should read in their early twenties.
LUNA: I was listening to “Stare” and the ending is so good. I kept imagining how awesome it must sound live. What song are you most excited to play live?
EID: “Stare” is always a favorite to play. It’s so fun and energetic and I love ending a set with it because of the crazy outro. I also haven’t played “Headfirst,” the first track, live yet. It starts with vocals and then gets super loud, so I think that’ll be a fun opener.
LUNA: My favorite track was “Come Over.”
EID: Really? That makes me so happy. I love that song, even though I haven’t resonated with it recently.
LUNA: What’s it about? What inspired it? Can we talk about that song for a bit?
EID: That song is kind of tea actually. It was about someone I was seeing. He had just gotten out of a relationship and I was emotionally involved, but he kind of just wanted to hook up. We ended things, and it was chill, but there was a part of me that wanted to ask him to come over because I knew I could, even though that wasn’t what I actually wanted long-term. It’s like wanting to call your ex to hook up even though you shouldn’t. The song is the emotional pinnacle of that situation.
LUNA: Have you ever written something and thought it was too personal to release?
EID: Like… no. In 2023 I wrote two songs where I used the actual names of people I was seeing, and the titles were their names. My friends were like, “You cannot put this out.” I tried changing the names but it didn’t work. So I thought I could never put them out, but honestly it would probably be chill to release them at this point since it was so long ago.
LUNA: What do you do creatively outside of music?
EID: I was on TikTok this morning and saw someone making a winter creativity syllabus, so I started one. I want to make the perfect homemade ranch. I love ranch. I also want to start publishing poetry since I’ve always been writing poetry. I write poetry but I’m shy because a lot of poetry feels commodified now. I’m not really trying to be a Rupi Kaur if you know what I mean… like Milk and Honey. I also try to paint… I’m lowkey bad at it, but I’m trying.
LUNA: That's funny. What poets inspire you?
EID: I love Crush by Richard Siken. Some Mary Oliver as well. I read random poems on TikTok. I like essay-style pieces too. If I’m not writing a song I like writing in a poem form.
LUNA: So do the lines ever blur between writing a poem and a song?
EID: I sometimes use lyric ideas in poems, but I haven’t yet taken a poem and turned it into a song.
LUNA: You went on tour with sombr, right? How was that?
EID: It was fun. It was my first tour ever… 14 shows across the U.S. and Canada. I got asked two weeks before, had no experience, flew to Detroit with my guitar, and got in a van with strangers. His crew was so sweet. His fans were amazing. It was the longest tour I’ve done and really different from touring with friends from Nashville, which is how I’ve typically done it.
LUNA: What are you listening to now?
EID: A lot of folk, Americana, and some country but not pop-country. I love rock. I love Wilco too. I saw them live two years ago and it was one of the best shows ever. I love the new Wednesday record. Also I love Daffo.
LUNA: I love Wilco! I saw them live a few years back and it rocked. The first time I heard your music was when someone sent me “Weird.” What was it like when that song blew up?
EID: It was awesome. It was the first time a song really had a moment. It felt like a step up for my career. I’m proud of that song, and sometimes your “big” song isn’t your best, but I actually love “Weird.” People have such sweet stories attached to it. A couple once told me “Weird” is the reason they started dating.
LUNA: I feel like there’s been a lot of talk about the issues with having to post constantly as a growing music artist on media platforms like TikTok and Instagram. How do you feel about that?
EID: I don’t love it. Content creation isn’t my passion. I like making videos, but not promotional ones. It sucks that attention spans are so short, so you have to pick the best 10 seconds of a song that took months of work. It’s a double-edged sword though. The only reason my music has reached people is because of social media. It’s accessible, which is a blessing. But I wish people engaged with music differently.
LUNA: Was the tracklist order a big conversation?
EID: Definitely. I thought about it a lot. I listened to it often with different song orders and just decided to focus on what felt best sonically.
LUNA: Why Trains Running Backwards?
EID: I got the title from “Come Over.” It’s about things not happening how they’re supposed to and having to pivot. A lot of the record is about that: navigating moments where you feel like things are moving opposite to what you want.
LUNA: Last question: What do you want people to take away from the album?
EID: I hope people listen with intentionality and really sit with the songs. I hope they feel more human and more connected to themselves. Music reminds me I’m not the first person to feel something, and I hope listeners feel that too. That they’re not alone.
