Q&A: Emily Haber’s “Nostalgia” Traces Memories and Healing
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY KIMBERLY KAPELA ☆
THERE’S SOMETHING SACRED ABOUT THE WAY EMILY HABER TELLS A STORY— It’s not just in the words—though her lyricism has always had the kind of emotional precision that leaves a mark—it’s in the way she holds space for the messy, the beautiful and the unresolved. On her latest EP, Nostalgia, she doesn’t shy away from any of it. Instead, she leans in—gently, bravely—and gives us five songs that feel like pages torn from a well-worn journal.
Haber bares her soul through five indie pop-meets-singer-songwriter tracks that shimmer with poetic depth, emotional nuance and hard-won clarity. Produced by Grammy-winner Daniel Dávila, the project marks a defining moment in Haber’s career—an evolution not only in sound, but in purpose.
Known for her evocative lyricism and profound storytelling, Haber has long been celebrated as a quiet force in contemporary music. But Nostalgia is something different. It’s a bold step forward—more vulnerable, more personal, and more essential than anything she’s released before. For the first time, Haber felt there were stories that only she could tell. And she tells them with an arresting sense of presence and care.
Nostalgia is steeped in themes of grief, connection, and memory, each song unfolding like a page from a diary written in real time. The title track is a centerpiece, a tribute to the childhood Haber longed for but never fully had. It's a song that walks the line between wistful dreaming and the ache of growing up too fast.
This is a project about grief, yes—but also about hope. About finding beauty in the ruins. About learning to live with the things that never quite healed. There’s resilience in these songs, and an undeniable sense of growth. Nostalgia doesn’t offer neat conclusions. What it offers instead is something braver: truth.
For Haber, Nostalgia is the sound of an artist stepping fully into her voice, and most importantly, it reminds us that sometimes the most personal stories are the ones that resonate the loudest.
LUNA: Thank you for talking to Luna. Our readers would love to get to know you and your music more. For any readers who aren’t familiar with you yet, what inspires your artistic style and sound?
EMILY: Honestly, everything that has led to this moment, I feel like life in general has been a source of inspiration for me all along the way. I love music. I grew up listening to music, playing music. I was in a family band for 10 years, there was no escaping it, and in a lot of ways, this felt like the only creative outlet. Music is something I always come back to, and my inspirations are still some of the same people I listened to when I was seven years old, so it's Joni Mitchell, Carole King, and James Taylor, and they've stayed with me over all these years.
LUNA: What is the ideal environment to experience your music? Is there a particular setting, mood, or time of day that enhances the listening experience?
EMILY: I love that question. I haven't been asked that question. I feel like, at least for me, in terms of the title being “Nostalgia,” it's something to be listened to in a space that reminds you of where you've been or in a space that allows you to relax into the moment. What I mean by that is, as an example, I loved going through car washes as a kid, driving through being in the back seat, listening to music, seeing the colors and the soap and all of it. It was such a magical experience in such a mundane moment. That's one place where you can reflect back a bit potentially, or even have permission to be in your feelings, and sometimes we need the space to be able to feel.
LUNA: Your new EP Nostalgia is such a moving and introspective collection. Can you share what the opening track “Nostalgia” means to you personally, and how that meaning shaped the rest of the project?
EMILY: It is a combination, just with “nostalgia” as a word and as a feeling, is a combination of feelings. That track is kind of a combination of things. For me, it's a childhood I didn't necessarily get to experience because I was traveling with my parents and a family band, and at the same time, there’s pieces of it that I still miss a lot, and so it's this combined world of longing and wishful thinking. I do think that we take things for granted. This is not a profound thought or a unique thought, but we take things for granted as we grow up. This was my own interpretation of what that feels like all these years later.
LUNA: You’ve mentioned that these were stories only you could tell. Was there a specific moment that made you realize you were ready to tell them now, through music?
EMILY: I've been writing songs for other people for a long time, and I love it, and it's been seven and a half years as a signed songwriter, which is something I didn't know I would get to say and was really working towards when I first moved to Nashville. Then about a year ago, I realized that I was going into certain sessions and keeping some of my ideas, and I'd never done that before, and I didn't necessarily even want to do that. It felt like okay, if this is something that I'm not saying out loud in another room, then what can I do with it for myself? I explored from there.
The company that I signed to, their TV and film team had also been asking for a project that was just me, and I've written a lot of songs for TV and film that I love, and I hadn't been in a space where I'd felt open enough to sing on anything publicly. Honestly, this was a combination of perfect timing of this request and an ask to jump out of my comfort zone, but they believed in me, and they knew the writing that I had shown them and had heard a couple of things I'd sung on that hadn't been released. At the same time, I had these concepts that were coming up, been in therapy for a long time, love therapy, and had been working on some childhood stuff. It was this combination of the two that led to this perfect storm.
LUNA: Can you walk us through your creative process for this EP? How did the songs come to life—from the earliest ideas to the final recordings?
EMILY: In that time period that I was just describing last year, I was also working with my fiance, and he ended up producing this. Actually what happened was I wrote the songs alone, and over the course of about a week, I wrote these songs alone on my guitar, the same guitar I've had since I was 13, which also feels nostalgic, and brought them to Daniel.
The music that I love so much comes from a very singer-songwriter focused world, and so my idea of the production was pretty stripped down, which a couple of the songs are. But then my fiance comes from the opposite world, and I love him for it, and he comes from this hip-hop background and heavy on the production background. He was showing me an example of what this could sound like. We both realized this is what it should sound like. It was so organic. We hadn't even planned on working together and this just happened where, over the course of the last year, the production really fleshed out, the mixes came together, and it was a really cool blend that I had not anticipated.
LUNA: Is there a specific track on Nostalgia that feels closest to your heart or represents you the most right now? What makes that one stand out for you?
EMILY: I feel like it changes. “Next Time” is a song that I had not planned on writing, and still feels like every time I listen to it, I feel closer to my mom, who passed away 10 years ago. I feel like whether or not there is reincarnation, whether or not we meet again, whatever that looks like, it means a lot to me to carry a piece of her through the rest of this lifetime, so that song feels really special. Personally, I've had different answers at different times. “Nostalgia,” there was a reason it is the lead single and the title track, and feels like an all encompassing reflective song. Right now, “Next Time” is one that is hitting close to home.
LUNA: Your lyrics are incredibly evocative and personal. Do you find writing from a place of vulnerability comes naturally, or is it something you've grown into as an artist?
EMILY: I have been in rooms with so many different artists over the years where we've had to spend the first hour of the session potentially with an artist talking about their most intimate, vulnerable moments, and so I've spent a lot of time in those moments with other people, and less so in my own. Because I didn't anticipate releasing my own project until a year ago, I hadn't been as well practiced in that. I think sharing anything vulnerable is always inherently scary, and so the process of being vulnerable creatively, I wouldn't say it wasn't natural, because I had done it with other people for their projects, it felt deeper and more intense being for my own. But then this is the least natural and most scary part of the whole thing.
LUNA: If Nostalgia were a letter to your younger self, what would it say?
EMILY: You will be okay. Emotions are okay to feel something. I'm still learning. No matter what life throws at you and all of the trials and tribulations that come with growing up as a human on this planet, you will be okay.
LUNA: What do you hope listeners feel or understand about you—and about themselves—after hearing Nostalgia from beginning to end?
EMILY: I hope that listeners feel like they have been given some kind of opportunity to reflect and permission to go back in time a little bit in their own life. I've said this before to friends of mine when we've shared stories about life and loss—I feel like it goes with this EP to me—I'm so glad that you resonate, and I'm so sorry that you resonate.
How I feel about the EP, in certain ways, where I am so happy to provide and write and release a song, or whatever resonates that feels like it hits a nerve. Some of my favorite songs that I've written with other people have been the ones that are the most vulnerable for them. I read the comments, like I wrote a song with Andy Grammer, and it was about both of our moms who had passed, but really his mom who had passed. All of the comments are so beautiful because they talk about people listening to the song and feeling more connected to their parent. If I can provide any ounce of relatability, I really think it's a permission slip to feel, then I feel like I've done my job.
LUNA: How did you celebrate the EP release?
EMILY: Had some friends over, got a cake, wrote “Nostalgia” on it and hung out at the house and was with people I love here in LA.
LUNA: How are you feeling in this current era of your career and what does the rest of the year look like that you would like to share with Luna?
EMILY: I'm feeling more inspired to release other music. I didn't ever think I'd say that. I'm still writing, and I'm in sessions for other people most days, which is truly a gift. I feel very lucky and honored that people want to share their stories, and I get to be a part of them, and that that is now my job. But for the rest of the year, I feel like it's between that and writing my own songs. Yesterday, I was writing some things that may or may not come out later this year, and have some travel on the books for family and friends. Otherwise, I'm here in LA.
