Tramping Over The World

You know that friend of a friend who writes, plays and sings those awesome songs with that unique voice? That's Sharon Van Etten. The New Yorker whose mates, Aaron Dessner (The National) and Justin Vernon (Bon Iver) you might know. Her 'big break' came about from their cover of her track, Love More, and after rubbing shoulders with Neil Young, John Cale and scoffing some of Patti Smith's birthday cake, she's bringing her third studio album, Tramp, to Australia.

The latest adventure on a whirlwind of crazy happenings, she is desperately looking forward to the Australian leg of her world tour, if only for some time alone with her man. “It'll mark the end of all this crazy touring, because at that point it would have been a year straight and he's been so supportive of that. He is coming to meet in Sydney and then we're going to Byron Bay for a few days after that.”

A year's straight touring of Tramp, an album of growth and development for Van Etten, both musically and in life. She was homeless while recording it, and for the first time brought on an outside producer in the way of the aforementioned Dessner. “Aaron pushed me a lot more than I have been before,” she explains. “The first two records were me leading everything. This is the first time I really took direction from someone else. It took me a little getting used to because I'm used to working alone. Every time I tried or did something he suggested it ended up working really well. Turns out he does know what he's doing.

“It was actually really comforting because we only started becoming friends because I wrote to him about that song and we became closer over time. Working with someone I knew was a fan of my music and just wanted the best for me kind of helped me let my guard down more than if I had just picked a producer randomly. I was still touring on the album, Epic, when I was recording this record. It's really hard to pay New York rent and have a band and tour all the time. I wasn't living out of my car or anything like that – I don't want anyone to think that I was down and out. It was a choice to put all my belongings in storage and stay at friends' houses and only every now and then subletting an apartment if I was really going crazy and needed a place to myself to work on stuff for a while. For the most part I was just floating couch to couch, relying on the kindness of my friends.”

From couch surfing to meeting a personal hero while performing on the UK show Later... with Jools Holland, opening herself to Dessner's direction certainly seems to have paid off. Yet Van Etten remains as ingenuous as ever, fawning over her idols and appreciating the path she's now on. “It was pretty crazy. I got to meet [John Cale], and he talked to me and he thanked me for the cover, and the dedication on the album. I had a friend that was helping with the show and she was like 'You haven't met him yet?' and I was like 'No' and she dragged me down the stairs to meet him. I was like 'Do you know him?' she was like 'No'. She just knocked on his door! I was like 'How are you just knocking on John Cale's door, how do you do that?!'  I just felt like, 'What am I going to tell him that he hasn't heard millions of times from other people?' He's John Fucking Cale, pardon my mouth.

“I think if I would ever get to meet PJ Harvey I would probably be the same way. Patti Smith, I was in the same room as her and I had a piece of her birthday cake, like two years ago, because a friend of a friend plays guitar for her. I went to her birthday celebration at the Bowery and I was literally a room away from meeting Patti Smith but I couldn't do it. I was freaked out enough that I was eating her birthday cake!”

While being the awkward fan-girl is something that Van Etten thinks is sweet, she has an even harder time knowing how to react when it happens to her. “After the show if my throat isn't hurting I'll go out to the merch table and meet people. That's one thing that still blows my mind is that people react that way to me. But I'm nobody.” A nobody with a hell of a talent. After suffering depression and using songwriting as a cathartic process, her latest album has moved away ever so slightly from introspection, while her current writing is exploring more than just depression, buoyed by a new confidence in herself and her life.

“I hope that it's a reflection that I'm growing up a little bit, that I'm getting over myself a little bit. When I first started writing it was because I was broken and living with my parents and really depressed. Over the course of six years I've moved to New York, I've started a career, and thanks to my depression and my outlet I have a career. Now I'm more confident in who I am.  I am not depressed as I was back then. I believe in what I do and I'm allowing myself to show other emotions than just sadness, acknowledge anger, letting myself be happy, being a more rounded human being. I hope that shows. I am writing now and they're still love songs. I'm in a stable relationship; maybe that will bore people on the next record, but I hope not. They're all love songs though, they're all pretty happy even when they're a little dark – they're still happier than they used to be. “

As we talk Van Etten forms a picture of an artist on the cusp of greatness; still entirely starry-eyed, deeply grateful and a little in disbelief that she is where she is having achieved so much so quickly. Yet she's slowly becoming comfortable with her talent, with people wanting to hear her stories and with the fact that she belongs with the PJ Harveys and Laura Marlings of this world.

“I think it's a really special time because I think for the first time since, I would say the '90s, just because I was inspired by a lot of female musicians then like Liz Phair and Juliana Hatfield and PJ Harvey and the Murmurs and Frente, and all that stuff. I think that for the first time in a long time women are letting their own voices be heard. They're letting their idiosyncrasies shine instead of trying to sound like Cat Power or something. They're finally finding themselves and it's important to have their individuality again, which is really nice. As opposed to being somebody they're just part of something. I think it's really special. For a long time I felt like female artists were all grouped together and now they're their own women.“

Sharon Van Etten will be playing the following dates:

Friday 28 Deecember - Tuesday 1 January - Falls Festival, Lorne VIC
Saturday 29 December - Tuesday 1 January - Falls Festival, Marion Bay TAS
Wednesday 2 January - The Zoo, Fortitude Valley QLD
Friday 4 January - Saturday 5 January - Southbound Festival, Sir Stewart Bovell Park, Busselton WA
Sunday 6 January - Sydney Festival, The Famous Spiegeltent, Sydney NSW
Tuesday 8 January - Sydney Festival, The Famous Spiegeltent, Sydney NSW
Wednesday 9 January - Sydney Festival, The Famous Spiegeltent, Sydney NSW
Saturday 12 January - A &  Hall, Bangalow NSW