Music: Sharon Van Etten

Are We There is amongst the albums of the year. Jeff Hemmings spoke to its creator

From 2012’s breakthrough album Tramp to this year’s Are We There, New Jersey raised Sharon Van Etten is proving herself to be of durability; her intimate, warm and insightful outpourings and her fantastic voice have been slowly but surely winning fans and praise from critics. And while Tramp was in essence a solo record made with guest musicians, Are We There is more a band effort, the music generally slower and expansive, suiting the often harsh lyrics that mainly revolve around a long-term relationship that is coming to an end.

You would think that the openness of her lyrics is reflective of the creator. But, according to Van Etten, it’s not so simple. “I’ve always been shy and an introvert,” she says. “It takes a lot of guts … I never thought I would be playing music for people. ‘How the hell did I get here’?” she asks herself. “When I started writing, it was for me. Some of my friends heard my songs and they encouraged me to play, at open mics. There was this interest, like: ‘Oh, my friend cried when I played that. I wonder what that means?’ Even recording didn’t come into it. it’s a weird thing to do – to share – when you think it’s just for you.”

Her big moment came when she met Kyp Malone of New York band TV on the Radio … “My friend invited me to a show and he was opening. I had no idea who he was, I didn’t know his band. But when I looked at him and saw his name, I knew it was the brother of my friend from high school. His brother turned me onto music; Pavement, mix tapes, PJ Harvey, Sonic Youth. I had been away from home for five years and I felt really disconnected from my past, and I reached out to him after the show to try and find myself again, and to let him know how his brother had been a huge influence on me growing up. He had a huge crowd around him and I left to the bar upstairs, but he came up and sat down next to me and asked me about my life,” she laughs. “He said, ‘any time you want to hang out…’ He started recommending me shows in New York, and showed me what was cool. He asked me what I did, and I said I did music. He asked if I had a CD on me and I did.

“I didn’t hang out in New York when I was a kid. All I knew was Yankee games, arena concerts, and musicals with my mum. I didn’t know about the music scene, I was pretty naive. He gave me the confidence to move to New York (from her home state of New Jersey) even though I was still having panic attacks. New York was a great place to move to for that,” she laughs. “But I met people on the way that gave me confidence, to make baby steps.”
Corn Exchange, Brighton Dome, Thurs 27 Nov, 7pm, £19

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