Freda Love Smith, with high praise for 'Get There':

I have known Juliana Hatfield for 28 years. We have worked together in two bands, toured together countless times, and well—I love her. But even if I’d never met the woman who put the babe in Blake Babies, I would admire her agile guitar playing, ambitious songwriting, and gorgeous, unmistakable singing voice. Juliana’s productivity is staggering – she has released 19 full-length albums, and her current project, Minor Alps (a collaboration with Matthew Caws), is just about the best thing she’s ever done.

I caught Juliana before she leaves for a string of European tour dates with Minor Alps. My longtime vegetarian friend recalls the time that Denny’s slipped her a meat burger, and shares a recipe for her virtuous, tasty go-to dinner at home.

Read the article, which includes a Juliana recipe (!) at Paste.

Juliana Hatfield and Matthew Caws (Nada Surf) give us insight into co-songwriting, combining their voices and the '90s threads that pulled them together.

Because one video interview for Radio.com is not enough.

New York's Q104.3 has a Minor Alps interview and performance available to view or download.

Musicians @julianahatfield and @nadasurf discuss Minor Alps, Hulk and more: http://t.co/hriWwaop62 pic.twitter.com/YCrIaIkwIk

— Marvel Entertainment (@Marvel) December 3, 2013

Juliana, speaking in New York last month in the aforementioned interview:

What’s really strange for me is that I realized I have absolutely nothing planned for after tour. I guess I’m just going to rest for a little while and then start writing again. I’ve been painting and writing and that’s all I have planned.

Minor Alps, the duo of Juliana Hatfield and Matthew Caws recently sat down with Anthony Mason of CBS Sunday Morning for an in-depth interview where they talked about how they came to work together and co-writing all 11 songs and playing 90 percent of the instruments on their debut album "Get There."

Last night's acoustic show for Radio.com at Rockwood Music Hall in NYC is also covered in a feature and photo gallery.

“We’re not reinventing either of our wheels, but it does go in a slightly different direction than places I’ve been in the past,” Hatfield said. “There’s not a drummer on every song but we did more with drumbeats than I usually do. I also played a lot of keyboards, which is something I haven’t normally done – that was really fun for me. I studied piano for many years, so I was like, hey, I remember the keyboards. But it was more because some songs cried out for instruments that weren’t stringed instruments – like this feeling or vibe where a mellotron was needed, or we could mess around with something else.”

Taken from a feature on Minor Alps at The Patriot Ledger.

There's a further piece behind a paywall at The Boston Globe.

“We’re doing a lot of singing in unison, it’s really cool, it’s fun,” says Hatfield, her voice picking up pitch and speed. There’s a genuine expression of excitement to her tone that seems to catch her off-guard. It isn’t surprising, though–even in the more dour moments, it sounds like Hatfield and Caws are having a blast.

“For me, that’s the best part,” she says. “It’s natural, it’s not having to try to very hard or to force it. We just blend really well and it’s really easy to harmonize, which is great because I rarely ever sing with other people.”

Full article at Dig Boston.

(Diffuser): We’re going to put each of you on the spot for a second: Matthew: What is your favorite Juliana Hatfield song or album? Juliana: What is your favorite Nada Surf song or album?

MC: Whoa. Well, there’s a recent song called ‘Candy Wrappers’ that I adore. I love a lot of songs by the Who, but the first one I fell for was ‘Can’t Explain,’ and it’s still my favorite. So in this case, the [Blake Babies] song called ‘Out There’ on ‘Sunburn,’ is still one of my favorite songs by anybody. But I’m just a big fan in general. I really feel like a lot of what Juliana does is stuff that I wished I did myself. I said once that I thought maybe our ancestors are from the same town in Scotland. There’s something deeply connected for me, melodically.

JH: It’s weird how when we sing together, it just falls into place easily. It just makes so much sense without having to think about it. It’s just like a real nice thing that happens to happen. You can’t really explain it. I, like many people, think that the ‘Let Go’ album is probably like Top 10 desert-island-disc-type [material], and then from the recent album [‘The Stars Are Indifferent to Astronomy’], I was really obsessed with the song ‘The Moon Is Calling.’ I was in art school that year — for that one year the record was out — but I would drive back and forth to school every day and that song was on repeat; it was the only thing I’d listen to over and over and over again to art school for months. And I was really obsessed with it. I’m not sure why. It’s nothing I can explain. Something just hit that spot deep inside of me.

There's a terrific interview with Juliana and Matthew at Diffuser, where they talk in depth about the songs and recording of Get There.

Juliana:

I was living in a studio apartment in Allston, Massachusetts, which is sort of like a student ghetto of cheap apartments. Evan Dando was sort of crashing there. He had nothing to do with it, but I just remember he was around. And I was trying to write something catchy and accessible, but not in a crass, commercial way. I just came up with those four chords that are the verse, and then it sort of ended up not having a chorus.

I've always been in this sort of perpetual state of existential longing. I feel like something's missing. I almost feel like I have a twin who died at birth but no one ever told me that the twin existed. And with this song, I was trying to explore the idea of a sister who I never had. In the beginning, that seemed like a really nice idea. I had two brothers, but I never had a sister. But then the song ended up being kind of sad. It was more of a longing for a sister who was never nice to me, or a relationship lacking the things that I wanted from it.

SPIN has a lengthy article revisiting 1993's My Sister featuring quotes from many including members of The Juliana Hatfield Three and, yes, the Violent Femmes and the Del Fuegos.

You don't want to miss this one.

Another little Aussie Q&A with Evan and Juliana at news.com.au:

J: We don't talk much about feelings. We have this thing in common, we like to make music and it's a language we both can speak. We don't really have to connect in other ways.

Ahead of the Australian tour which begins on Sunday (Dec 16), Melbourne's Beat Magazine has a short interview with Evan & Juliana:

Dando remembers encountering the members of the Black Babies (sic), albeit with the odd skewed image. “The drummer had a really nice rack,” adds Dando, to Hatfield’s amusement. “She did, she had a really nice rack,” Hatfield laughs. “Yeah, it was a great rack of toms,” Dando clarifies. “Actually, she didn’t have a rack of toms at all,” Hatfield counters.

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Juliana:

Painting requires more concentration and more time. It’s quieter, obviously, and more solitary. Painting hurts my brain in a way that music theory does—I’m forced to think about what I’m trying to do, and why, and how. Physically, they feel different, too— playing music can be a cathartic release whereas when I’m painting, I’m usually in a state of heightened anxiety the whole time.

Juliana has shared three of her paintings in an article at Paste which also features the work of 22 other musicians.

Q: “I Got No Idols.” What’s the story behind it? The first verse seems to respond to the media-hyped virginity brouhaha you found yourself in after the Interview interview (“you may think we all need that stuff/but I don’t think about it much”) while the second verse tackles false gods as well as how some ardent fans may perceive you (“but I’m a liar, that’s the truth/go home and think it through”).

JH: It was existential. (Become What You Are, the album title, was taken from Nietzsche, you know). I think I was trying to be tough, or to appear tough, to mask my fragility/weakness by claiming to not need anyone, and to not be impressed by anyone, but then acknowledging/admitting my weakness and fragility (“when I do I have to leave the room/I’m scared of what i might do”—i might get weak in the knees, I might fall in love). I am trying to convince myself while trying to convince the listener that I am a lone wolf. But not really believing it 100%, even as I am saying it. I don’t remember the specifics of what was going through my head. I think I was thinking of Sonic Youth and “Kill Yr. Idols,” on one level trying/wanting to be ‘cool’ like them. I think you are right about the second verse. I wasn’t comfortable in the role of rock or pop star or objectifiable object and I thought it was all really stupid in a way and I never was any good at it because I could never believe the hype.

Read another of Juliana's PledgeMusic Q&As at The Old Grey Cat.

Juliana:

I will say that from the last album [There’s Always Another Girl] I am really proud of the song “Wasting Time”. I think it might be the saddest song I’ve ever written but it’s so pretty and so grown-up. It’s subtle and toward the end of the album so I think it was overlooked by lot of people.

As part of Juliana's current PledgeMusic drive she has again offered the opportunity to ask her 20 questions via email.

With thanks once more to N'Awlins Contrarian (and Juliana) for sharing, you can read a set of her responses here:

Another20QuestionsAnswered.pdf

If you missed last year's Q&A between the same parties, you can view that pdf here.

People discussing "The Internets" will never get old.

Who will you be covering and was it hard to narrow down the songs?

A funny thing is that a bunch of the songs are from about 10 years ago. I don’t know what it is about that period of time, but I keep going there. One example is the song “Fruit Fly” by Nada Surf, a band I like a lot. And I was lucky to have Matthew Caws (the singer from Nada Surf) sing on a few of the songs on the album. He did not sing on his song, “Fruit Fly,” though.

You can read a short Q&A with Juliana on PledgeMusic's blog.

Juliana:

If I could afford to, I would just paint for the foreseeable future. It’s the way I saw music before. I only wanted to do that. Now I want to paint. That is probably going to sound so pretentious coming from someone who’s been a musician. It’s weird, no one even knows I’m doing this school. None of my quote unquote fans knows that I’m in school. I haven’t really told anyone.

Juliana is interviewed by Middle Mojo - a site focusing on "what happens when creative people get older and older people get creative."

Juliana goes on to indicate that the proceeds from There's Always Another Girl were intended, in part, to fund art school.

The interview also covers why she has previously found it difficult to fulfil her wish to quit performing live, and how her art is proving a different form of expression to her music:

It’s going to be interesting to see. I am starting to see some of the themes from my music in some of my paintings. It’s not really planned, it’s just sort of happening. Look at my past few album covers. It’s naked parts of my body. And I’m painting stuff like that. Body parts with no heads. Fake boobs. I’ve always had these issues with my identity, anxiety about my femininity. I never felt I really expressed it the way I wanted to with music. This is just another way to work through some of the issues I have.

The music side isn't being neglected though. If you've been following Juliana on Twitter in recent days she has, amongst other topics such as complaining about her Wikipedia image (now changed), indicated that new tunes are forthcoming:

that was too many tweets& i'm sorry& & i have to get back to work now but THANK YOU ALL for EMO & TECH SUPPORT and new album coming soon

— Juliana Hatfield (@julianahatfield) January 8, 2012

Juliana:

My fans are so cool. (They) understand that it's not 1992 anymore, and that I've evolved and they have evolved with me. They understand that in writing music, I'm in the moment, and I'm not trying to do anything that relates to anything I've ever done before. I'm just doing what feels right now.

Juliana and other artists talk about fan funded projects in a feature at Salon - Don't Just Buy The Record - Help Fund It. (update - this is now a webarchive.org link - the original Salon link is dead)

It's worth a read, although it's a shame they haven't given the new album its updated name.

If you missed the chance to take part in the Q&A email incentive offered in Juliana's PledgeMusic project, one participant has kindly shared their exchange via the This Is The Sound group.

If you're not a member of that group (and why not?!) you can view the Q&A as a pdf here:

Hatfield20QandAApril2011.pdf

A big thanks to N'Awlins Contrarian (and Juliana) for making this available.  If anyone else wants to share theirs (or parts thereof) please feel free to do so.