Q&A: Hanna, The Big Bad Wolf Touches on Denial and Acceptance of Heartache in “One Last Time”

MusicQ&A

Sep 19

INTERVIEW

HANNA, THE BIG BAD WOLF CAPTIVATES FROM THE FIRST SECONDS WITH HER SINGLE “ONE LAST TIME.” Beginning with a soft guitar moment, her vocals tune in perfectly with the tempo. With her harmonious interpretation, she approaches a feeling many have been through – that of knowing a relationship is ending, but refusing to let go.

The Ukrainian artist has been a musician for a long time, but began putting music out into the world this year with her first single “In Between.” Although she’s only released two songs so far, Hanna, The Big Bad Wolf crafts her artistry in a way that shows she’s been contemplating what she wanted out of her artist concept for a long time. Each of her songs has thoughtful lyricism and production that draws you in, making for a decisive artist.

Hanna, The Big Bad Wolf knows where she’s going. She weaves a stripped-back atmosphere with rock influences, bringing to the surface emotions that you can’t quite put into words. All of this makes her potential as an artist astounding. Though she aims for stability due to the impact of the war in her country, she has bigger dreams of becoming a Ukrainian artist representation on an international scale.

Read below to find out what makes Hanna, The Big Bad Wolf the artist she is.

LUNA: Could you tell us more about yourself?

HANNA: So my name is Hanna, and I was born in Ukraine. I've been doing music since I was like six, but I never really thought I could make a career in it, because I come from a background where if you tell your parents you want to be a musician or an artist, they just look at you like you're crazy - but I was also always independent, so at some point I just realized it's something I really want to do. And then, sadly, when the war started in my country, I had to leave, and that's how I ended up in the UK. In my life, I've been doing lots of different things, studying philosophy, which is completely far away from music or, for the longest time I thought I'd be like a comic artist. It was just all so chaotic. I think if I look back at it, it all makes sense altogether, but just retrospectively thinking about all these things now, I'm just like, where am I going? But, yeah, I'm quite a messy person.

LUNA: It's good, because it sounds like you really have a lot of interests within the arts. That's always good to have, especially as a songwriter and as a musician. It's good to have several inspirations. You released your first single this year, “In Between.” What pushed you to take that step?

HANNA: Well, another thing that is really important about me is that I'm very harsh on myself. I'm a big, big time perfectionist, and I just feel like I have to be in control of everything at all times. And that also regards releasing and creating music. Before I even considered releasing any of my own stuff as an artist, I wrote songs with other artists, and did music direction or production or engineering, but I never really thought any of my stuff was good enough - but then I was just seeing so many people around me, who literally don't care if their music is perfect, like sound quality, or potentially chart topping songs. They were going with it, and they were also confident about themselves. Whether their music is great, it's very subjective, but what I really respect about people like that is the confidence and the willingness to just put themselves out there and do something that they care about.

So I was looking at all these people, my friends also, and I was like, why am I not doing that? What's holding me back? “In Between” is one of those songs that took me a long time to finish. I made the first demo almost back when the war started and I ended up in Paris seeking refuge. I was really depressed there, and this song was kind of just an outlet for my emotions. Not a single thing has changed since I recorded the first demo, but I always thought it was sort of a therapeutic, very personal experience. Up until I thought, okay, well, this song is about who I am in a way. If I don't get it out now, I might never do it, because the more I listen to it, the more I was like, Oh my God, I hate the sound of my voice, I hate that. But then I was like, stop. There are all these people, and they do their music, and it doesn't seem like they care about those things, so why should I? And I just put it. When I was uploading that I was just so fast. I was like, Please, I don't want to hear this song anymore. I just wanted it out. If I listen to the master again, I might go crazy, I don't know, switch career paths and go to med school or whatever, because I was just so tired.

LUNA: We tend to be our biggest critics, it's difficult to tell ourselves - okay, we're done criticizing. Now it's time to actually do it and put it out and take that risk.

HANNA: Yeah, right? That's the hardest part for me as an artist. I'm always very analytical, but for some reason, it doesn't really include other people. When I see my friends do something great, I never just say, “Okay, this is so cool,” if I don't think so. Genuinely, if I say your song is incredible, it's only because I really think so. It's not because you're my friend. If the song was bad, I would have just told you but it's just, with myself I'm like, This is the worst thing the world has ever heard. It's just this voice in my head. Also objectively, people have told me they really like this song or, with my recent release “One Last Time,” a lot of people that I don't really know, they write to me in my DMs, and be like, I'm just crying to this song at night. And I'm like, What do you mean? So it's fun.

LUNA: When I first clicked listen on “One Last Time,” I was like, Whoa, this is great. I need to interview the artist. Immediately I was like, this is amazing, during the first thirty seconds.

HANNA: I'm really happy to hear that! It's good that you said 30 seconds, it's good for the Spotify algorithm.

LUNA: Could you tell us about what inspired “One Last Time?”

HANNA: The way I approach songwriting is very intimate, and I'm always very honest about my feelings. I've written songs with other people, and it's always a matter of creating this really cool idea that is inspiring and interesting, but then it's crafting the song, and finding the best melodies and everything, and just trying different stuff. I found that, with my songwriting, especially for those songs that I'm working on now and “One Last Time” as well, I just start playing something and then I let whatever is on my mind spill onto paper. I feel like there's a bit of weirdness in my music that I go for almost unintentionally, but then also when I think of cliche stuff, I'm like, How do I make it strange?

With “One Last Time,” I feel like this song was really special, because it sort of manifested itself out of thin air. I've been in a long term relationship for the past two and a half years, or maybe even more, I'm not exactly sure, but I was just imagining this fear of mine of growing apart with my partner because he's also an artist, and sometimes it feels like there's this potential of going different ways in life. In my other relationship, which ended up really badly, I kind of had that thing where we eventually parted ways, not because the feelings were like over, but because I just realized that we've become so different as people that it would be unsustainable to date anymore. I didn't feel like I could be myself with that person, and whatever I told them, it felt like I was just bouncing things off a wall, not someone who I thought could understand me.

I think what really inspired me to write “One Last Time” in that moment was just imagining a similar situation within my current relationship, and I was just thinking, how painful would that be? Because I love my partner a lot, and just thinking that something like that could happen, it really hurts. Then also, I feel like at some point you have to accept that people come and go and the only person that's going to stick with you is yourself. So many of my friends have experienced that and ultimately, it's better to let each other go, if you understand that you have a better chance of growing as a person on your own. I think it's beautiful, but it's also really painful if you love someone. So I think that's sort of the idea behind “One Last Time,” it's really trying to recover those feelings. I think the point of the song is sort of, I would love to have it again, but I don't think it's possible, it's a little delusional in a way.

LUNA: The single starts with “If you ever loved, you know how short it takes to burn out to the core.” I was wondering, what is the biggest lesson that you've learned in love?

HANNA: I think there's something that comes from my time of studying philosophy. I believe love is not only romantic, there's many kinds of love, and like Plato wrote, whether he wrote it or not, but there is a body of work, supposedly by Plato on different kinds of love, that's where platonic love comes from. I also feel like there are other kinds of love, and it's just so universal in a way, but it manifests itself as loving yourself or loving people around you or your significant other or the things you do. I think at its core, love is just this feeling of longing, of in a way obsession, but in a healthy way. When you feel that you really want it badly and you really want it to work, and you want it good, and you want to make good things happen. Obviously, “One Last Time” is more of a romantic love, but I think you could also think of it as letting a friend go, it's up to whoever's listening.

I think the lesson I've learned is that you just have to stay true to yourself. Love is not the kind of thing that you can replicate. If you're not honest with yourself, if you're pretending to feel something, it's not going to work out. And it's very self destructive to try and do that, because love is also energy, and with energy it's really important to give and then also receive. If it just goes one way, you're gonna burn out, not only in the context of relationships, but in general. I also believe that as humans, we have a certain amount of emotional energy that we can choose to invest in different things. Say I choose to write a song, or I choose to go and bike to my favorite park and read a book there. There's also physical energy, but I feel like emotional energy is the most sacred of them all, because that one really needs a certain degree of receiving something back. Ultimately, if you're not honest with yourself, and if you're, pretending to love something because you think you're supposed to, because you think you're gonna get judged. People fall out of love, and it's normal, but I know some of my friends would stick in their relationship because they thought they couldn't do better, or because they didn't want to be alone. I feel like pretending to love just takes up so much emotional energy, and it can really lead to burnout.

LUNA: When listening to the song, I felt like there was really an emotion that you needed to put into words and out there. Did you feel the need to put it out into the world?

HANNA: At the time when I wrote it, I was just practicing songwriting. There was a part of me that only wants to write when I'm inspired, but then there's also the craft part. I'm also writing songs with other people, so I have to stay consistent in my practice. I think writing that song was one of the times when I was exercising. I think I wrote it in a couple of hours, and it just felt so natural to let it out. I was also listening back to the voice memos I made, and it sounds exactly the same. The key is a little different, it used to be slightly higher, but I just felt so natural to sing those words. I never really thought I should release it, because it was a manifestation of what I was feeling at that moment, but then I was showing that to a friend of mine, who at the time was going through a pretty bad situationship, and I played her the song, and she was like, Oh my god, that's me. I thought, well, there actually might be people with similar experiences, and they could really relate to that. So I decided to put some work into the song and release it.

LUNA: Both of your singles have been pretty emotional. Do you ever overthink putting them out? Besides the perfectionistic side that you have, just when you think about the vulnerability of the songs, do you ever get scared of sharing them?

HANNA: Not really. Even in real life, I'm a very honest and straightforward person. I come from a background where people, especially younger people, really like to gossip, and that was really hurting me at some point, because I was this really shy kid in middle school. I come from a part of Ukraine that's been occupied since 2014 and I got a lot of people bullying me for that reason. So I was keeping to myself, but then when I grew older, I was like that's hurting me because I have so much shame about who I am, but I feel like one of my favorite qualities about myself is, I'm not gonna say something that I'm gonna feel ashamed about. I'm the kind of person that, like, I do swear a lot [laughs]. And I do say pretty explicit things, I'm very to the point, but it's not the kind of thing that can hurt anyone. At this point, I'm quite shameless, in a way. With these songs, yes, I am vulnerable. If you come up to me and ask about my mental health, it's not something I'm ashamed about. Yeah, I would rather you not ask me really personal questions if you're a stranger, but this is the kind of information that's not gonna hurt me, and it's true. Whatever I say about struggling with mental health, or any of my really bad experiences, yes, that happened, so what's the point of trying to hide it?

With the songs, there is a lot of vulnerability in them, and there were cases where people would be really annoying about my lyrics. I had a sort of friend complain about the line “how short it takes.” That person said, You know, it doesn't make sense grammatically in English. And I'm like, So what? Because so many people have heard this song, and they were native English speakers, and no one really cares. Yeah, there are some songs that don't make sense grammatically. And also, it does make sense grammatically, it's just not something you would say, but that's the point, because it's not supposed to be sort of the opposite of something like “how long it takes.” It's “how little it takes,” but it doesn't go with the melody. I think it's more of those things that would make me feel vulnerable, because it's the actual craft. The meaning, the delivery of the songs, well, that's me. I don't have anything to be ashamed about.

LUNA: That's a really good answer. There's a prominent guitar in both of the songs. Are you the one that plays it, or is it someone else?

HANNA: No, I do play guitar, but I think I'm not confident enough to play it on my songs, so it's my boyfriend, who's also producing the songs for me, who plays it. I'm always the kind of person that's gonna like, I like this guitar tone, or like, Could you play these chords and do it differently? I'm always there, sort of directing everything, but ultimately, there are people that focus on some things more than others, and I'd rather be the visionary than do everything myself, because I know there are people that would prefer just playing a really good guitar part.

LUNA: Could you tell us what more music you have planned?

HANNA: Yes, there are a couple of songs I'm currently working on to put out sometime soon, because I also really struggle with consistency, especially with releasing. There's just so much more than music, and it's really draining. I feel like I'm trying to be really strategic, which is probably good for developing my artist project, but also I feel like sometimes it's really impacting my creativity because I start thinking about my own music, almost not like an artist, but like an A&R person. And it's a little draining at times, because there's just so many things that I take into consideration. But then also I feel like the songs that I'm working on right now, they're similar to “One Last Time” in a way that I write them really quick and it’s just something that feels right in the moment.

The concept I'd really like to sort of dive into for my next releases is this whole concept - even the name, Hanna and The Big Bad Wolf, sort of elaborate what this means. I'm a big fan of really conceptual artists, like Tyler, The Creator, for example. I really like that there's a lot of lore behind just the music, and that's something I want to do, so I feel like my future releases are really going to dive into what this Wolf character is and how it's affecting me, and just sort of kind of give people a little more information about what's going on inside my mind, and hopefully that's gonna really connect. I feel like a lot of the songs like that I'm working on right now, they're very, sort of intrinsic, like they're about the thinking process inside my head, rather than a story that is happening physically, but there is a song that I'm quite unsure about just now, but maybe I'll change my mind. There is a really big manifestation of what I am as a person, but then there's an actual physical story going on. It's a tune about stalking someone, like being super, super delusional, but we'll see how that goes.

I'm just exploring what this project could be and trying different things, trying to write with more people. I've written most of my songs completely by myself. It's really hard now to let other people into this world, because normally when I'm writing with artists, I'm the therapist girl. I just sit there and I'm like, How do you feel about it? What do you want to say? When people do that to me, I'm like, What do you mean? But I only released two songs, I'm very early on, so I'll probably feel more comfortable eventually.

LUNA: It sounds very exciting in any case. I feel like you have this curiosity, as an artist, that is necessary to put out art, and that's really nice to hear. My last question is, what hopes do you have for your future as an artist?

HANNA: Oh, I feel like most artists, they're like, Oh my god, I want to be like the biggest thing in the world, and tour the world and everything - but over the past few years, so many unexpected things have happened to me. I'm really excited for the future, but it's also terrifying because there are lots of things that are outside of my control, like the situation in Ukraine. It's a really sort of unique experience. There are a lot of Ukrainian refugees in the UK but we're all different. We all come from different backgrounds in Ukraine, but in my case, the thing that really stresses me out is I don't feel home anymore. I feel like my aspirations as an artist are sort of really tied to this feeling that I have to protect myself, I have to build something, because otherwise I don't have anywhere to go. So I'm like, okay, I gotta make this work. And it is stressful, but it also gives me this kind of hunger, because I know what I want to get. I know what kind of lifestyle I want to have, and I don't know whether it's like artistry, or songwriting and production, or working in music business that's going to get me there, but I feel like I would love to release an album, and go on tour and just see the world, and meet more people. We'll see how that goes, because I've released two songs and I've been loving it, but ultimately, there's a point where I'd like to make a living off it. I'm based in London, and it's expensive living here. It's just crazy, I don't understand how people do this.

Ultimately, I want to be big in a way. Maybe not like a pop star kind of thing, but someone who people can relate to on a bigger scale. Also in terms of representation, if you think of Ukrainian artists, there's a lot of incredible musicians in Ukraine. There's a lot of incredible musicians in Ukraine that tour outside Ukraine, that open for major artists in other countries, and they're incredible - but if you think of international big stars, there isn't anyone. I feel like the music industry, in terms of artists, I mean mainstream big acts, it's been very America centered, or UK centered. I just had a conversation about that with some of my friends recently, if I think of commercial pop, that part of the music industry, I mean acts like Chappell Roan – and I love Chappell Roan, by the way – but the point is, we've got Sabrina Carpenter, Charli XCX, Taylor Swift, and they're all American, British. I mean, I don't know specifics about their ethnicity, but I feel like back in the 80s, you had more people from all around the world being sort of recognized as these big universal stars, like ABBA. They were big and they're Swedish. Where I'm from, there hasn't even been anyone at all. There have been incredible classical choirs or classical singers that immigrated to France and America, and made incredible careers there - but something sort of widespread and massive, it hasn't happened yet. That’s me sort of going big, but I feel like this is something that I would really love to see happen. And if I don't see another Ukrainian artist do that, well, I might have to do that myself.