Sharon Van Etten at 44: ‘I'm still learning what is safe or unsafe for me’

As a solo songwriter, Sharon Van Etten’s “really personal songs” are beloved by many Kiwis and make John Campbell cry.

After making six records on her own, Van Etten braved a "sonic trust fall" to write a new album with her band the Attachment Theory - a tongue-in-cheek reference to the close relationships of bandmates and Van Etten’s plan to one day become a therapist.

“I saw a therapist at a time when I really needed one, and I learned a lot about myself, how to manage my anxiety without having to take medication, and how to communicate better. Those tools that I was given early on in my adulthood are something that I would love to help other people with,” she tells Saturday Morning.

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On her previous albums, Van Etten has been “definitely a loner in the writing process", but when she and her band spent a week together in the California desert preparing to tour the 2022 album We've Been Going About This All Wrong, she found herself inviting them to jam.

“I was feeling really inspired by the sonic palette that we had created together, and I wanted to see what would happen without it having to be for anything, just to connect in that way. In that hour, we ended up writing two songs just stemming from a jam session, and I left feeling really inspired.

“I went back home to my family, and I talked to my husband about it, and I said, I think creatively, this is the next step for me - to learn how to let go and write songs from the ground up with a band for the next record.

“The next break [from touring] we had, I booked the same place and we had breakfast, lunch and dinner, and in between we wrote songs. In a week, we wrote 14 songs.”

Watch Sharon Van Etten & the Attachment Theory perform 'Trouble' live in London:

Although everyone else in Van Etten's band was used to freestyling with their voices and instruments, she had been “intimidated by the jam” before discovering a way to do it with the Attachment Theory.

“I felt like I was able to conduct or direct in a way that there was still this forum and communication without it just riding off into the sunset, if that makes sense. I'm still learning how to do it, but it was very inspiring. I want to do more of it.”

Bringing her band in on the songwriting process was also a way to give a nod to their craft and artistry, Van Etten says.

“[Touring musicians] give up so much of their lives for another artist. I feel like people don't get enough credit for the amount of work and time they put into a tour and how they bring more life to the songs in a live setting than you could if you were solo.

“I was just trying to show my band the love and invest in them creatively, as much as trying to honour them.”

Watch Sharon Van Etten perform 'Tarifa' at RNZ in 2015:

She also had to learn to trust her bandmates to let them in on her “therapeutic” songwriting process - “I'll pick up an instrument, and I'll sing stream of consciousness, and then I'll just try to get this feeling out of my body that's usually an intense and dark or heavy feeling.”

Writing the songs on Sharon Van Etten & the Attachment Theory, Van Etten found herself still singing from her own deep feelings, but about the band's shared and collective experiences.

“We would talk about our lives, we would talk about the world. We would talk about books and movies and articles we had just read and all of that, seeped into my stream of consciousness form of writing and singing.

“I was able to let my guard down and be vulnerable enough to sing gibberish in front of everybody and find that part of my writing in front of an audience. It was easier than I thought it would be once that first general feeling of anxiety went away pretty quickly.

“It's like a sonic trust fall to be in a room with people like that, but I trust them so much, and I know that there was no judgment, and I think that's what enabled me to keep going.

“Now more than ever, we feel such a deep sense of connection, not just as friends, but as a band performing live, and I feel like the audience feels it as well. I would not be able to do this without people who I felt really loved and supported by.”

Responding to the “very personal things” fans share with her and ask for advice about comes with a responsibility that Van Etten takes seriously.

“Sometimes people are looking for advice from me, and I don't feel qualified to do that. I was curious if I'd even be good at it, or if I would be able to help people, because I feel like people just open up to me naturally. Maybe it's something I could hone over the years. The number one thing is being an ear in those situations, right?

“I feel like I'm still learning my boundaries and what is safe or unsafe for me or for somebody else ... At the moment, I feel like I can be an ear and help people feel heard along the way.”

Due to the current political divide in the US, Van Etten says there was "a dark umbrella over our little microcosm” when she and the Attachment Theory recorded their new record, but the songs on it are about being defiantly joyful even in the midst of darkness.

“Overall, there is a hopeful message [on Sharon Van Etten & the Attachment Theory]. It's trying to connect with community and solidarity [and communicate] that everything is going to be okay, we just have to lean in on each other, regardless of the outside darkness.”

As someone who is married to a Southerner and has lived in the South, she sees "all sides" of the divide.

To try and help her “very sensitive” son feel safe, she and her husband try to stay focused on family, community, connection, communication and tolerance.

“Now more than ever, what we need to do is put ourselves in somebody else's shoes, and just have some compassion and try to see both sides of the coin and be able to coexist with people that we wouldn't normally coexist with.

“Even when it's hard, and even when it's not somebody you want to be like, you have to embody the world that you want to live in. These are exercises that I try to teach my son as much as [live out] myself.”

Next year, Van Etten hopes to return to her psychology studies and explore which style of therapy she might specialise in.

“I would love to become some kind of counsellor or therapist, but I'm not far enough along to even know exactly what that would look like.”

This November, Sharon Van Etten & the Attachment Theory visit NZ for three shows:

25 November: The Opera House, Wellington

27 November: Isaac Theatre Royal, Christchurch 

29 November: The Others Way Festival, Auckland