We had the pleasure of chatting to Hannah Hooper (vocals, keys) from Grouplove about music, inspirations, success and more.
S] How is your day so far?
Just finished up our Grouplove Instagram live stream we’ve been doing every day since the quarantine started. It makes me feel connected to people for a moment, and Christian and I have been playing a bunch of early Grouplove songs which has been fun, so I’m currently feeling pretty okay.
S] How do you define success, personally?
For me it’s being able to make art and not stress about rent, and food and so on.
S] How do you look back at the success of ‘Never Trust A Happy Song’ now?
You know, I don’t really look at back at things. I’m someone who pretty much only looks forward, and I’m working really hard on being in the present, but I love that album for so many reasons and have really enjoyed revisiting a lot of those songs over the last few weeks.
S] Talk us through the experiences that inspired the track, ‘Deleter’ and what it means to you?
‘Deleter’ came out of a four hour jam. It literally just erupted out of this space almost in the entire form you hear it now. We feel it is a call to action – look at this mess of a world we’ve made, let’s fix it before we aren’t around to.
S] What about ‘Healer’ as a whole, what has this new record done for you as a band/people?
We aren’t living in the Obama years anymore. This is the Trump era and if feels more and more like the world is going to shit. We inevitably had to reflect some of this in our music along with a hopefulness we also feel towards building a new future. As a band we have really learned to trust ourselves as artists on a much deeper and primitive level than we have before.
S] Aside from the obvious challenges at the moment, what would you say your biggest challenges are as artists now?
Right now the world is on hold. Everyone we know is out of work. Festivals cancelled, tours cancelled. Our album launched the day this quarantine started so our biggest challenge is staying positive, and sharing our music and our new album with our fans in an authentic and vulnerable way while simultaneously using our platform to help local hospitals and charities.
S] We work a lot with young people from challenging backgrounds – how would you advise a young person, who is perhaps a musician, and inspired by Grouplove’s work, to make a dent in the music industry as you have been able to do?,
There is no method to the madness but being authentic, finding your unique voice, style, colour palette, temperature, mood, and being able to share it without your own fear messing it up – that more often than not can break through the bullshit.
S] What inspires you outside of music – think specific people, places and movies for example?
Love inspires me. Acts of kindness and deep friendships inspire me. Mother Nature inspires me. Silence inspires me.
S] What makes you happiest in the world?
I love falling asleep next to my daughter and my husband after slaying a live show.
S] Thanks for your time!
