Lilly Hiatt, Forever
Second generation songwriter talks about her sixth album
Lilly Hiatt had already written several songs for a new album when she realized that the post-pandemic world was making her feel paralyzed, questioning whether she was on the right track as an artist.
So she scrapped everything she’d written and started over again, this time focusing on what she knew for sure was going well: her new marriage, and a new house on the outskirts of Nashville. And, crucially, she deliberately gave up the self-doubt. This did the trick: songs that felt right came flooding out.
The result is Forever, Hiatt’s sixth full-length studio album, which is set for release on January 31 via New West Records. Her insightful, emotional lyrics set her solidly in the singer-songwriter realm, but her music is also highly upbeat and up-tempo, proving that she’s definitely hitting her stride once again.
“Honestly, I just want people to have fun listening to it, and if they felt any sort of hope at all, that would be cool, because that’s important. I would love that,” Hiatt says of the album, during a recent call from her home. “I love songs that I’m like, ‘I want to put on my cool dress and dance around with this, just feeling good.’”
Hiatt’s friend Scot Sax helped her write the album’s opening song, “Hidden Day,” and produced it, as well. “That was like a low pressure hang that turned into a really fun song,” she says. “We were like, ‘Cool, we like this — let’s record it.’ So that was a fun kickoff.”
The rest of the album was produced by her husband, Coley Hinson. “It was really fun,” Hiatt says of that experience. “We have a great time working together, and probably are the happiest in our house when we have a project going on between us. We like to be immersed in something. He’s very fun and easy to work with, [and] pretty straightforward about stuff. And not too precious about it, which is really important.”
To support the album, Hiatt and her band will start a headlining tour at the beginning of March, with shows continuing through April. Beyond playing songs from Forever, Hiatt also intends to put material from across her entire career on the setlists for these concerts: “It’s fun going through the songs and being like, ‘Hmm, what are we going to play from my one hundred songs?’”
Making albums and hitting the road are literally in Hiatt’s blood: Her father, John Hiatt, is a highly respected singer-songwriter. She says that it was always clear that she was destined to follow in his footsteps.
VIDEO: Lilly Hiatt “Kwik-E-Mart”
“I just knew,” she says. “That was something that I didn’t even really think about. I was just like, ‘Oh yeah, I can do that, too.’ Not because, ‘I see my dad and I want that kind of attention.’ I was just like, ‘Yeah, makes sense to me.’ It just felt like the music was inside of me.”
Her musical ambitions got off to a rocky start, however. Growing up in Nashville, she took piano lessons, but she disliked them. “I did love keyboards. I just I don’t think I had the discipline as a child to take lessons and retain anything. I just wanted to mess around on my dad’s keyboards in his studio; I didn’t want to go learn stuff,” she says.
The same problem occurred when she started guitar lessons when she was twelve years old: “I hardly listened to my teacher or practiced, ever. I kind of had to find my own way. I lightly kept up guitar from there, and over time I was like, ‘All right, I can play chords.’ I looked up tabs and figured out D, A, F, stuff like that — at least enough to start making some songs.” She recalls that the first song she wrote was about a weeping willow.
In junior high, Hiatt joined the chorus and started appearing in her school’s musical theater productions. She also noticed that her teachers had begun praising her writing skills, often referring other students to her if they needed help.
“And then we had this thing in high school called the Artists Guild where you could audition in your preferred art,” she says. She tried out, singing and playing the guitar. “I was super nervous when I auditioned, when I finally had the courage to do that, and I didn’t get in. That was my junior year. And my chorus teacher was like, ‘Hey, just make sure to try it again next year.’ And I tried out again, and I got in.”
Finally feeling confident in her musical abilities, Hiatt enrolled at the University of Denver in Colorado, where she met many other musicians. Though she joined bands, it became clear to her that she would do better as a solo artist, where she could follow her creative vision more freely.
VIDEO: Lilly Hiatt “Shouldn’t Be”
“I think I’ve always known, ‘Okay, I want to make country rock type stuff,’” she says. “It might sound a little different on each record, but it’s definitely become a little more straightforward over the years. My earlier stuff is almost more poetic, in the sense of, ‘I think I’m a poet.’ I was fresh out of college, I had taken a lot of literature classes, I was really into that stuff. So I look back at some old stuff and I’m like, ‘There are a lot of words in here.’ Over time, I’ve simplified it. Like, ‘This is what I’m trying to say, so why not just say it?’”
Her debut album, Let Down, came out in 2012, and she followed that up with Royal Blue three years later. Finally, in 2017, her third album, Trinity Lane, brought her a significant amount of attention and acclaim. So far, including Forever, she has put out six studio albums, plus several standalone singles.
And now that she’s feeling self-assured again, Hiatt is certain that she’ll keep on creating for the foreseeable future. “I look at my life, and for sure, it’s had some hard times, like anybody – but I’ve had so much fun,” she says. “And even the times that hurt, where it’s heartbreaking, I look back and I’m like, ‘Dang, I’ve had a good damn time.’ I’ve connected with a lot of people, and that is just thrilling to me because it’s what life is all about, you know?”
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