Coursing within the heart and mind of singer/songwriter Kristen Rae Bowden is a beautiful turmoil of tenderness and willfulness. Her latest single, the indie pop “Hard to Love,” was released on Valentines Day as an ironic eye-roll at commercial romance. The song expresses the cynicism that shelters a broken heart after a breakup.
The track features a steady heartbeat of muted electronic drums, a vintage-y analogue synth, a smooth guitar melody, and Bowden’s layered harmonies on the anthemic chorus. The song boasts of courage and strength as Kristen asks how she can move on, or as she puts it, “how can you restart a heart?”
We interview Kristen about her song, her upcoming work, her career, and what inspires her.
Full Q&A along with links and music below.
What can you share with readers about your new project?
“Hard to Love” is about the age old story of being afraid to fall in love again. I wrote it when I was in my early thirties and I just felt sort of dead inside… I had emerged a year earlier from a devastating breakup, and the open wound of that had healed and scarred over, but I just didn’t feel like myself. I hardly felt anything. I realized I was pushing everyone away, wriggling out of new relationships like they were traps, all out of fear for my tentative, newly healed heart.
The song is framed around a central question: “Can you restart a heart?” I felt I really didn’t know, would I ever really recover? I knew I had to try and re-claim my vulnerability. I wanted to be brave enough to do that, to risk getting hurt in order to be truly known and seen, and to know and see others. I wanted to be brave enough to experience the fullness of life again.
The song itself just came out one day after I’d been up for too many hours. Later I made some conscious choices about the sonic landscape: I went in a more electronic direction (compared to my previous work) on purpose, in order to convey the somewhat robotic way I felt. Framing the song around a heartbeat of electronic drums felt obvious, artistic, and fun, as the whole story is about the human heart. I’m singing about my human heart, of course, but just think of all the songs that have been written on this topic. I knew I was having a truly human experience that so many people have been through, and realizing that made me feel known, comforted. Writing and recording this song was part of my healing process, and I hope hearing it might do the same thing for someone else, make them feel known, comforted.
How does this project compare with your other projects you had in the past?
My first and only previous release is a full album entitled “Language & Mirrors.” It was very important to me to put out a full album with a cohesive play order, a shape, because that’s what I love listening to. “Language & Mirrors” is an orchestral rock record with a few songs that live in the Americana realm. The soundscape is full of real instruments, largely unaltered vocals, and I’d say the record lives on earth, if that makes sense. It’s grounded.
In contrast, I wanted “Hard to Love” to live in space sonically, or in an imaginary world. When I wrote the song I felt like I was underwater, awash in anxiety, or floating above myself somewhere, watching my life but not experiencing it. So the sonic difference there grew out of the emotional uncharted territory I found myself in.
And “Hard to Love” is a single with no album immediately following. I feel now like I’m so happy I put out a first, full record because it was what I wanted to do as an artist, and I feel sort of freed from that (for now, anyway). I have a group of new songs and I’m just giving each one lots of individual attention and planning to release them all as singles. I think people’s attention spans are shorter these days and that nobody will mind. And it’s fun for me to take the time to talk about each one and give them all their separate spotlights, a moment in the sun.
On the other hand, “Hard to Love” and “Language and Mirrors” live in the same world, where all my music lives: they’re about me and my experience of being a human. I suppose I’m dreadfully self centered, but how does the old saying go? Write what you know? I write about how love feels and how it feels to lose it, about the nostalgia of times gone by, my feelings. Nothing groundbreaking. But the cool thing about art is that humans often feel the same, and art lets us know that without us ever even meeting.
What about this project makes you most proud? Was there a specific goal you were trying to accomplish with this release?
It’s a challenge to make a finished product that you truly love out of a tune you heard in your head one day. So much can change about the song and its significance to you during the recording, mixing, etc. Sometimes by the time you’re done you’re sick of it and its meaning seems muddled. That is not the case here.
I’m most proud of the fact that “Hard to Love” is a cohesive, collaborative finished project that I really adore. By cohesive I mean that the music conveys the meaning of the song, the soundscape creates the world that I was feeling, and the video expands upon what the lyrics mean, giving you a better understanding of the song. Every person who was a part of this project added to my love of the final product.
This is always my goal when I decide to take one of my inner songs and bring it into the outside world. I want to continue loving the song over time, and have it be like a snapshot of where I was in my life and mind when I made it, with all the right colors, flavors, temperatures. It’s pure magic, like putting a part of your heart in a suitcase you can carry on down the road.
This was also my first release in four years. My goals once the artistic part was finished were centered around finding new eyes and ears that’d never heard a song of mine and getting it in front of them. When you love the art you’ve made it becomes a pleasure to do the marketing work and try to push it out there to the world. This interview is part of that, so thank you!
What inspires you to create music? What motivates you to keep going?
This may sound like a snarky answer to start with, but being alive inspires me to create music. Just being a human with emotions requires some sort of outlet, in my opinion. And I have to admit that I really feel the need to write when I’m experiencing an emotion that has some pain or confusion involved… emotions that we might call “negative” are more inspiring because that’s when you NEED to write. Personally I don’t like to think of any emotions as “negative”. I love my anger, jealousy, grief, etc. (People close to me are probably laughing because I might love those feelings a bit too much.) But I think it’s natural, human. The trick is not to wallow in anything for too long, and that’s quite a trick. Writing music helps me to get it out, let it go, and move on.
Sometimes I’ll be inspired by a particular person or a poetic situation and then a lot of time will go by and a single phrase with a melody will come into my mind about it, as if it took that long to filter through my mind, like mountain spring water. It takes a bit of time and distance.
As far as motivation to keep going, I’ll always create music, just for myself, because I need to. The thing that requires motivation and re-examining is the sharing of the music and what I’m hoping to get out of sharing it. It also takes discipline and motivation to practice and write more frequently than I may feel like it, or on days when it just feels difficult. In order to stay motivated in this way, I keep a journal of my practice. I’m a list maker in general, it helps me feel more organized and eases my anxiety. Keeping a practice journal keeps me honest and gives me confidence when I see all the work I’ve put in written out on paper.
If you could collaborate with anyone – dead or alive, famous or unknown – who would it be and why? If it’s an indie/DIY artist, please include a link so readers can check them out.
What a great question. Today I’m going to say: Imogen Heap.
I first discovered Imogen Heap when I was in college. Everybody seemed to be playing the movie soundtrack from “Garden State” at our theater parties, and I loved the Frou Frou song “Let Go” and went looking for more info. Since then I’ve become obsessed with more of her songs, “Hide and Seek” (isn’t everyone obsessed with that song? It’s so sparse yet completely all encompassing) and “Canvas” (I think I listened to “Canvas” and only “Canvas” straight for a whole month). I love listening to her albums cover to cover, they take me on a journey with a beginning and ending and sound somewhat different to me each time, as if the many layered sounds allow me to hear what I want to hear, like a Rorschach ink blot. The soundscape is specific, but subjective, impressionistic.
I’m at a place with my own songwriting where I know the next step is going to be about production. When I was younger I never thought much about this aspect. Growing up my parents listened to a lot of older country music, Emmylou and Patsy Cline and Hank Williams Sr. Also James Taylor and CCR. And when I started writing songs as an adult I was listening to Joni Mitchell’s Blue record on repeat. I grew to love songs with fairly simple, natural instrumentation, songs recorded on tape before everything was digitized, songs that were all about the lyrics and melody in a simple, analogue, beautiful way.
Perhaps it’s just a natural progression, or maybe it’s because I’m older with more complicated experiences that I wish to explore through song, sometimes more with sounds than with words… but these days I find myself writing songs with emotional soundscapes in mind. Making real what I hear in my head will require electronic elements of production that I’ve never explored, learning to work with new tools, etc. So far I’ve barely scratched the surface of this impulse.
Imogen Heap is a master of the emotional soundscape. She created a song based on the sound of a bat’s wings flapping! She creates a sonic universe of layered, processed vocals and ethereal sounds that move easily from outer space to earth, making me realize that the earth is literally in space. And from what I understand, she does it all herself, the engineering and producing and singing and playing, and I admire that. It sounds like a certain type of freedom, creating a piece from top to bottom with your own skills and vision. I’m really in awe of her.
What was the last song you listened to? Favorite all-time bands/artists?
The last song I listened to is a new song by Heather Woods Broderick called “Admiration”. I discovered her music through Instagram and I really like its spacious, clean, smooth vibe, and her lyrics. Here’s her Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/heatherwoodsbroderick/
My all-time favorite bands/artists are Radiohead, Led Zeppelin, Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nada Surf, Death Cab for Cutie, Bruce Hornsby, Imogen Heap, Tom Waits, PJ Harvey, and Kate Bush.
Favorites discovered in the last decade include Phoebe Bridgers, Madi Diaz, CMAT, The Smile, Junip, Kurt Vile, Kishi Bashi, Saint Sister, Susan O’Neill, and Mick Flannery.
And I’m sure I’m forgetting some of my very favorites, as I always do when asked.
Where is the best place to find you and stay connected?
My website! https://kristenraebowden.com
If you enjoyed reading this, sign up for my mailing list or send me an email here: https://kristenraebowden.com/contact
All my social media and music links are here:
https://kristenraebowden.com/lynx
Or if you prefer, here:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kristenraebowden/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bowdenrae
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KristenRaeBowden/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@kristenraebowden
I really appreciate your time. Is there anything you’d like to share before we sign off?
Yes! I have another new single coming out on April 25th. It’s a folk-pop piano ballad called “Marry Me Once”. It’s about personal independence and being enough, a whole person, all on my own.
Pre-Save it here! https://ffm.to/aza2mop
