Artist X Artist: Courtney Hartman & Rachael Price

In our latest series of artist-led Interviews, Rachael Price of Lake Street Dive talks with Courtney Hartman about her transition from the big apple to a Winnebago in the Colorado countryside.

Rachael Price: Ok cool, let’s do it. First thing I would like to know is about your solo record. This is your first solo record?

Courtney Hartman: Yes it is.

And how long did it take you to make this record?

The writing of the record happened within a year. The first song that I wrote was on Janurary First, and it’s also titled that. I wrote throughout that year and recorded the following winter then it took about a year to wrap it up.

Did you set out to make a solo record when you started the writing process, was that in the back of your mind or did you just start writing songs?

I often isolate myself for a few days at a time to write, sometimes I’ll go places ­— out into the woods or something. But for this first batch of songs I decided to stay at home in my apartment I knew I needed to be writing and wasn’t exactly sure what it would become. So that was the first batch.

And then the second batch of songs I wrote while I was walking the Camino de Santiago. I didn’t know if the two clumps of songs would work together. I didn’t know what they would become or not become, I just knew that I needed to write and then answer that question. 

Did you feel a difference in the songwriting process writing those songs in your apartment and then writing songs on the Camino?

Definitely. 

What was different about the process?

Both involved a good amount of sitting and listening. But when I got out onto the Camino I realized that there was a big part of me that wanted to procure material and I actually needed to shut up and not write for a while.

So there was  a portion of the trail when I knew I needed to not play the guitar I was carrying with me and not write at all because it all felt really forced and not true. The writing at home was a chunk of five days versus the Camino which was 40 days, so everything there was elongated. 

I find it interesting that you went on this journey with an intention to be creative and then also felt within the beginning of it that there was a certain aspect of inauthenticity that you had to then sort of quell that, you had to put it down for a while so that the authentic feelings could come up again. Doing a trip like that not only yielded the fruit of songs, but did you also learn something about how inspiration works, within yourself?

Mmhmm. I think one of the biggest things was learning how to listen more deeply and more patiently. The whole time there was still constant internal doubt and that churning never stopped. And I never really felt like I was writing very much, battling feelings like I wasn’t doing enough, or not good enough. Which is the same thing I struggle with here.

I also think that the physical aspect of moving while writing, where writing became a vessel that carried me through walking, sometimes really painful walking. I haven’t fully brought that into who I am here and how I write here but the physicality of walking and writing was powerful. 

Ya, Erykah Badu calls that downloading ­— when people ask her about why she hasn’t put music out in a long time she just says, “I’m downloading, I don’t have writer’s block. I’m just taking it in,” and that’s a comforting way of thinking about those moments.

I love that. 

Sometimes I say you have to hit your head against a wall for a really long time before it cracks open.

Ya, we get impatient when we’ve poured ourselves out and then we feel dry and wonder why. I just think that sometimes you just have to let yourself be filled up again. 

So when you got back from the Camino and you had these songs how much editing or rewriting, changing did you do to the songs after that?

A lot. I took one moleskin with me and filled it up, and then I had voice memos. I thought I would be recording more there in tiny churches along the way. But one after another they were locked up or I would get kicked out. And so what I thought I went to do, didn’t end up being the thing that I accomplished. But I had all these snippets­ — I came home in May and then all summer long just chipped away at things.

Some poetry and some songs, just hewing them away. Then I had a group of close friends come over to my apartment, I just wanted to play these songs for people I loved and trusted first. Way more than half of them won’t ever make it past my notebook, at least that I know of. 

Did you have expectations for the songs or for the type of songs you were going to write? If you had those expectations, were you ever disappointed by them or did you have to set down those expectations?

I think part of me realized toward the end that I had set a bit of an ultimatum for myself. Somewhere deeply I felt like if I couldn’t do this then I needed to move on. I think that the songs are maybe more quiet than I anticipated and the songs certainly dealt with more internal struggle, because that’s literally what I was dealing with.

On the trail, in some sort of self-therapy way, you think that you’re going to get through all of your past stuff and figure out your future stuff but then when you’re there all you can do is be fully present. 

Right, and by that you mean that you thought you would sort of deep dive back into your life and the history of yourself but that wasn’t actually easy to do or seemed possible because you were just like, “Well here I am today walking down this trail.”

Ya, the physicalness of it ­— you couldn’t be anything but present. And I thought, “I’ll go out there and figure out what life will look like when I get back,” and that wasn’t what was gonna happen either. 

Right, there was still lots to figure out.

Oh my gosh, ya. 

So did you feel like that in itself was your lesson or did you just feel like you had an expectation and realized that just wasn’t how it was?

That was certainly one of my lessons. And letting go of feeling like I needed to figure it out. 

Ya. I mean, I often look for lessons in things and sometimes look for lessons in places where there isn’t really a lesson. It’s just life.

Ha, exactly! 

And so, since then you’ve moved back to Colorado.

Right, almost exactly a year ago. 

And you lived in NYC for how many years?

Five years. 

Five. Creatively and community-wise, what are some things that have really changed you since you moved to Colorado?

I think moving back was something I was pretty scared of. I’m sure how to say this exactly, but I wasn’t sure if I could find validation outside of my community in NY or be able to create. And I think I need to figure that out because all of my family was here in CO and always knew that maybe someday I would need to end up here. And even now I don’t know if this is for forever, just that it is a season.

But I needed to come back and be present in this space. That was pretty challenging in itself, it was just like ripping apart a lot of what I knew. I moved into a Winnebago last summer on my family’s property, and garden[ed] a lot and wrote a lot and didn’t perform at all last summer.  I needed to know what I was without that. It’s been 10 years since I’ve lived here, and so it’s a humbling learning experience. 

This idea of space, landscape  —  what we attach to where and how we can create. How do you feel about it now? Having moved to Colorado, having written some of you solo album in your apartment in New York, which maybe isn’t the most ideal of circumstances; do you feel like you need a specific environment to write?

I just have to not make excuses, and just do it. But it’s so different, there is a whole different sonic landscape here. Let alone the visual landscape. And I know that I’m deeply affected by that. It’s really quiet, and that’s not the most optimal place to make something either. For me, I need the little corner of room or the outside space. 

So you have figured out the specific of what works for you?

Well, if I say yes, I’ll probably be wrong and jinx myself. So no. 

So what’s next for you in your creative life? You’re putting out an album, the album comes out on — ?

It comes out on June 14. I’ll have release celebration on June 8 over at Etown in Boulder — I have this pile of song that I am kind of carrying around from over the course of this last year and they will become something I’m not sure what yet, but part of what’s next is continuing to add to that and to see what that looks like as a whole.

I’m about to dive into my first film scoring project with a group in Denver, and so that will be a new form of creating and listening and writing, and I’m about to get my butt kicked.

Definitely —

Yeah, but I’m very excited to just explore that as a new outlet, and beyond that hopefully just play some more shows this year. 

Do you plan on doing any touring with your record?

I don’t have anything set out right now, but that is my hope, so we’ll see — I’m pretty excited after not playing last year and needing music to be something that was healing again. I feel psyched to play, is what I’m trying to say. We’ll see what form that takes.