To an outsider, Sharon Van Etten’s spur-of-the-moment decision to ask her backing band to jam, during rehearsals in February 2022, would hardly be worth mentioning. It might seem natural that the singer-songwriter would let off creative steam from time to time. And yet, this session was to be utterly transformative, “not just creatively, but emotionally”, she tells NME over video call. Despite having released a steady succession of albums since 2009, this was the first time she’d ever asked any other musicians to simply play with her, with no fixed parameters.
Until then, she’d kept her creative process solitary, the after-effect, she says, of an abusive relationship that began in her late-teens and lasted for five years. Her then-partner would try to prevent her from writing and performing, forcing her to pursue her music in secret. “When I escaped that, I still didn’t realise how psychically injured that I was,” she says. “All I wanted to do was play music and protect it, so I shielded other people from being a part of it. It took me a long time to even trust people to play in a band with me live, to feel that they had the best intentions to help me grow my sound.”
That evening in February 2022, however, Van Etten’s long efforts in building trust reached a breakthrough. This was partly thanks to the individual musicians who happened to be present – drummer Jorge Balbi, guitarist Teeny Lieberson, bassist Devra Hoff and multi-instrumentalist Charley Damski. There was something about the alchemy of their personalities “that just left me feeling very seen, heard, inspired”, says Van Etten. “That made me want to push myself. It sounds silly on the surface, but I’d never felt that way before.”
The band immediately wrote two of the songs that appear on their upcoming self-titled debut album – the thick, motorik goth of ‘Southern Life (What It Must Be Like)’ and the springy glam-pop sucker punch ‘I Can’t Imagine (Why You Feel This Way)’. After Damski later departed to work with Lana Del Rey, the remaining foursome took the name The Attachment Theory.
Hoff, whose lithe bass-playing is the record’s relentless engine, joins NME on the call. She has been touring with Van Etten since 2018 and is eager to point out that even when working purely as a backing musician, she felt a deeper-than-usual connection. “Tobi Vail from Bikini Kill used to say that ‘Kathleen [Hanna] is singing, but I have to mean those words just as much as she does in order for it to work and for Kathleen to feel safe up there.’ I think it’s the same with Sharon’s music – it’s very vulnerable, emotional, honest music, so we all have to be there for her. So that emotional trust was already being built.”
They’d grown close on a personal level too. When a mutual friend died at the end of 2023, Hoff says, “I was really devastated, and Sharon was really there for me.” She was there, too, when Hoff came out as a trans woman. “There’s been a lot of support, and I hope I’ve been able to give some back.” When Van Etten asked her for that fateful jam, however, “it was creating a different reality for us in this music and really becoming a band.” Hoff continues: “I think that one of the things that makes this a band and not a ‘songwriter and a group of people’ is that music and life are not separable. Everybody in this band really cares and feels about the music on a level, and it reflects who they are as humans. That’s not always the case in professional music.”
Van Etten was “intimidated” at first by the chops that her musicians were bringing to the table, while she communicated mainly via “side conversations and Jersey girl hand gestures”. She protests that she is “not schooled” but instead “all feeling”. Hoff, however, saw something else entirely. “Time signatures and key signatures are all just shorthand, but the actual music is the sound you make,” she says. “Teeny and I were rooming together and every day we would say ‘Gosh, Sharon’s coming up with so many melodies, all these amazing ideas!’ I’ve played with a lot of great free jazz musicians, but I’ve never seen creativity on that level, sustained over those periods of time. It was just remarkable.”
The only thing remaining was a producer who might wrangle this creative energy into a record. Marta Salogni, who Van Etten had bonded with at the wedding of a mutual friend, was the perfect fit. “She asked what my goals were, and I said I wanted to make sure we all played live in the room, that we would produce as a band.” Offered a choice between Peter Gabriel’s sprawling studio in the Wiltshire countryside, or an altogether pokier space, nestled in a converted church down a North London side street, the choice was obvious. “I was like, ‘This doesn’t feel like an estate record,’” says Van Etten. “‘This feels like I’m in the city, I’m hunkered down.’” The austere surrounds of The Church Studios also brought a welcome dose of gothic atmospherics, she adds.
As soon as recording finished, they debuted the project at an intimate surprise show at the capital’s legendary 100 Club, with fans told nothing about who this mysterious ‘Attachment Theory’ actually were. Van Etten saw the show as an opportunity to “give something back” to a city – and country – that’s long held a special place for her. It was via a MySpace friendship with a London designer that the then-unknown Van Etten ended up supporting Meg Baird on tour, which in turn led to landing a deal for her first record. The gig also offered an opportunity, Van Etten adds, “to remind ourselves how we started – with that feeling of intimacy. I got into music because of connection with the audience, and I missed that. I wanted to remind myself what that means.”
Given Van Etten’s profile, The Attachment Theory’s time as a club band could only ever be temporary. She says that she “had to beg” her husband Zeke Hutchins – who is also her manager and former backing drummer – to let her add a stop at Seattle club The Crocodile to the touring schedule. She’s half-joking, but it is worth taking stock of just how bold The Attachment Theory really is as a creative decision; just as Van Etten’s stock was soaring, she’s turned her back on ego and individualism at exactly the point that others would lean into their stardom.
“The ongoing joke with my partner is that I’m constantly figuring out how to completely flip my career. He’s like, ‘You’re in your forties and you’re starting a band – why? You spent so long developing who you are as Sharon, what are you trying to do?’ And I’m like, ‘I just want to play clubs!’”
Sharon Van Etten & the Attachment Theory’s self-titled debut album is out February 7 via Jagjaguwar.