Q&A: How to Be Unapologetically Harriette
AUTHENTICITY IN THIS DAY AND AGE CAN BE HARD TO FIND — but Harriette has it down pat.
This Texas-born, Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter proudly wears her heart on her sleeve, never straying from the quirks and odd ends that make her uniquely Harriette. With her bubbly effervescence and undeniable charisma, Harriette moves through life with a sense of unbridled play.
Harriette’s spirited nature and intuitive sense of self can most clearly be heard within her debut EP, i heart the internet, released April 27 via AWAL Recordings. The spunky musician offers listeners eight tracks of unwavering honesty, complemented by her signature quippy-yet-sincere confessionalism. Walking her audience through a narrative entailing complicated relationship dynamics and juxtaposing that bitterness with her go-with-the-flow attitude, Harriette’s debut is a masterclass in fully owning your feelings.
Happily embracing the age of technological modernity, Harriette asserts, “I think Google is really awesome. I love being online. I do love the internet.”
Coming of age during the digital revolution allowed Harriette plenty of time to refine her online presence — if you venture onto her socials, you’ll find creative fit pics, plenty of cameos featuring her best friend Puma, and quintessential post-tour recaps. A bona fide online it-girl, Harriette truly is the blueprint, shining bright in cyberspace.
Despite her affinity for curating a compelling online presence, the World Wide Web cannot fully contain the magnitude of Harriette’s artistry, as she transcends past the limits of a browser and funnels her way straight into listeners’ hearts.
With an indie-pop sound tinged with jangly country flair, Harriette’s melodies simultaneously get listeners delving into their feels and onto their feet dancing. Harriette gives her audience one condition: sure, you can be sad, but you have to revel in it — head-bang to the crashing power-chords in “Lying is Cute,” shake some booty to the twangy sound bites in “Goodbye Texas,” and take a quick breather and emotionally reset to the somber waves of sound in “Sunday.”
With this diverse yet cohesive sonic palate of whimsy, Harriette teaches listeners that the process of letting go can be fun.
“The biggest thing I would want people to take away is to be true to themselves and be exactly who they are — the truest version of each individual,” Harriette shares. “For me, in putting this EP out I was very true to myself in how I wanted the songs to be and how I wanted to write them and everything like that. That's my wish for everyone else.”
And so, accept the i heart the internet EP as a generous gift from Harriette, an invitation to let go and happily submit to the spontaneity of life.
Continue reading below to learn more about why Harriette loves the internet so much, how she navigates through the music industry, and what she hopes listeners get out of i heart the internet.
LUNA: Before we dive in, I wanted to check in and see how you're doing today — what has been going on in your world?
HARRIETTE: Nothing much! I'm in California right now with my best friend Puma, so I'm hanging out and having some chill time before I go on tour in a couple weeks.
LUNA: Chill time before busy times is always so needed. I love that. I also wanted to ask when music started to be a meaningful outlet for you? Why does it continue to be meaningful for you?
HARRIETTE: I started writing songs when I was [about] 10. I always loved art and loved performing. I was the kid that would always make up a dance for my parents at every family function. I love to be on stage. Working on my act and working on the songs and the creative process started becoming more and more fulfilling. I was building that muscle as I got older. I'm still working that muscle; each time I work on it, build it, and write more, it gets more fulfilling and more enjoyable.
LUNA: I'm so happy that it continues to be something beneficial for your life instead of being like, "Oh, I have to write music now."
HARRIETTE: It adds to my life for sure — in a good way.
LUNA: That's awesome. I love it when musicians are able to have a healthy relationship with their career.
HARRIETTE: Right, exactly.
LUNA: Going off that, you career really launched with the release of "at least I'm pretty." Has your relationship with that song changed since you wrote it since it's so popular and went viral? Do you still enjoy playing it, or has the novelty of it worn off a little bit?
HARRIETTE: That's a good question. I still really like the song — I still think it's a great song. I'm kind of surprised I wrote it when I wrote it. My boyfriend really loves it too. He played it the other day and I was like, "I enjoy this, it's not half bad!" I don't really ever listen to it — I only really listen to it when I play stuff like that. That's also the key, that I don't drown it out in my head.
LUNA: I love that you can still enjoy it because sometimes when artists have a hit, it's like, "Oh, I gotta play this again," or "I've got to listen to this again.
HARRIETTE: Yeah, I really like it!
LUNA: I'm happy that you can continue to be proud of your work that you put out in the past. The title of your most recent EP is i heart the internet — can we take this title at face value? Do you actually wholeheartedly love the internet?
HARRIETTE: Yeah, for sure. I think Google is really awesome. I love being online. I do love the internet.
LUNA: What's your favorite website to visit?
HARRIETTE: Zillow — just for fun! When I was writing I was really talking about Instagram and TikTok. I wanted to name it that because this whole EP came to life pretty much because of the internet — because of TikTok and "at least i'm pretty" being viral online. I wanted to name it around social media, but I really do love the internet, and I love being online and I love learning and being in touch with media and all of that. That's it! I love it all.
LUNA: The internet is a fun place. Also a little scary sometimes, but mostly fun. Your music has been described as a blend of pop melodies with western dance floor groups. What is your favorite way to describe your music?
HARRIETTE: I definitely do have the country flair happening. I don't really have control over it — it just kind of happens. But I would say it's indie pop with a country flair. I don't know if I'd say those exact words, but I would describe it as a pop thing with the country happening and an indie undertone.
LUNA: Yeah, definitely. Genres can be kind of confusing because they can either put you in a box or help explain your sound to people who haven't listened to it. It's definitely a double-edged sword.
HARRIETTE: For sure. Yeah, I totally agree.
LUNA: What has your experience been like as an artist working in the industry? What has been the most challenging thing for you to work through as a rising artist?
HARRIETTE: At first, when a lot of people are coming on board to be on your team working on a project together, it's hard for us to find footing and where everyone fits in and where everyone is helpful. It's figuring out how to work together as a team and how I can be the best version of myself for the team and the ship that we're building together. The hardest part is figuring out my sound and my voice and what my brand is — especially online and offline. It's figuring out those specifics differently.
LUNA: Do you feel like there's a lot of separation between Harriette online versus the one that's offline? Are you basically the same person with both?
HARRIETTE: It's definitely a character I put on. It's definitely something that I've built and put more effort into building it as a character rather than I normally would as a human online. That's also something that I feel really good about now. At first when I started this and was just being an artist online, it was hard to figure out what my tone was and how to not just be an announcement machine. It was a lot of figuring out what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say it and how it felt the most natural for me. Now I have a better footing on what I want to say and how I want to say it.
LUNA: You have a very fun online presence, and your fans really resonate with it. You started writing i heart the internet when you were around 19. Do the themes in the EP still feel relevant in your life even after a couple of years have passed?
HARRIETTE: I look at the EP now as an almost–24-year-old and I see them as a big full-circle moment in my life of being in my early twenties and being a kid on the internet. I don't know if it's necessarily applicable to my life now, but I definitely feel like it's a big part of where I am now. I think of it as a chunk of my early career and life. It's definitely a part of me, but I don't know if it still holds the same value to me as it did when I wrote the songs.
LUNA: It's a coming-of-age EP.
HARRIETTE: That’s how it feels when I think about it.
LUNA: You've stated that in the beginning [as you wrote] some of the songs, you weren't really intending to write breakup songs but they kind of turned into them naturally, as your brain dumped lyrics onto a page. Do you find that your songwriting process exposes these truths that you don't really acknowledge in the day to day?
HARRIETTE: Sometimes I'll write a bunch of different ways. For half of the songs on this EP, I picked a topic that I wanted to write about and wrote about it and stuck to that narrative and stuff in that theme, like "Fucking Married" and songs like that. With "i heart the internet," I didn't really know what I wanted it to be, but it came out, and then later it was helpful as a song for me to listen to. Sometimes I write and I don't know what's gonna come out of it, and then it's either awesome or embarrassing. Then sometimes I write and I have a full narrative and theme and something that I figured out in my head.
LUNA: You can never know where some songs will go and that sometimes those songs turn out to be the best and resonate with both yourself and so many other people. “Bc i love you” is a post mortem examination of a past relationship that was kind of unhealthy. What are the telltale signs that a relationship is healthy or good for you?
HARRIETTE: I don't necessarily even look for anything in a relationship — I think I would just know that it's healthy. When I know a relationship is unhealthy is when I'm so focused on the other person that I end up not having my own experience anymore. Being able to go through life and feel like you're fully experiencing everything is a tell-tale sign of it being healthy. Also being able to focus on the things that I value the most — if I have space to do that in the relationship, for sure.
LUNA: It's important to kind of maintain that sense of self. A lot of us get caught up in that other person and how awesome they are and forget that we are people too, so I love that answer. I also really liked the track "Goodbye Texas." It's about having this loving attachment to a place where you don't necessarily fit in or approve of anymore. I come from North Carolina, so I have similar feelings about my home state. How do you separate your fondness for the place that you were raised in from the problems it has? Is it possible to separate these two varying ideas of a place?
HARRIETTE: I think it's definitely possible. Specifically speaking for family and my relationships back home in Texas, I had to separate them in order to maintain the relationships. It takes a lot of patience and compassion for the person and for the relationship for you to look past whatever political opinions or differences they may have.
LUNA: It's really hard when you love a place so much but then so many different things are happening in that place that are not as great.
HARRIETTE: Exactly. It doesn't really have anything to do with you, either. Their opinions on politics or religion or whatever differences we might have. I had to keep close to the fact that they weren't doing it to spite me or be against me. It was really because we were just different. It wasn't because of me that they were like that.
LUNA: Yeah, that's a good point. It's always about the different walks of life and meeting other people where they are. Another track that really stood out to me was "lying is cute,” a lesson on gaslighting yourself about a relationship. It takes a lot of courage to stand up for yourself when you realize you're not really getting the treatment you deserve. Do you have any tips on how to set those standards of how you want to be treated and stand up for yourself in any relationship [in which] you're not getting the kindness you deserve?
HARRIETTE: It's really hard to figure out that you deserve more while you're in an unhealthy relationship or while you're in that situation. The best thing you can do is stay as true to yourself as possible. If you could stay inside your body however that looks like for whoever, it's easier to listen to yourself and to hear if you're not getting treated fairly or if you don't feel as valued in the relationship. It's easier to figure that out if you have a good sense of listening to yourself.
LUNA: What do you want listeners to get out of i heart the internet?
HARRIETTE: I don't know if I even have anything specific I want them to have. The biggest thing I would want people to take away is to be true to themselves and be exactly who they are — the truest version of each individual. That's my goal in putting this EP out. For me, in putting this EP out I was very true to myself in how I wanted the songs to be and how I wanted to write them and everything like that. That's my wish for everyone else.
LUNA: I love that. It's unapologetically Harriette. We're at my actual last question now, it’s a really simple one. I like to end my interviews on a happy note. What has been giving you joy lately? It can be anything music related or not.
HARRIETTE: This is a good question! I love this question. I would say my friends — all my people who I have in my circle that have hyped me up around this release for sure. I'm bringing my best friend with me on tour. And my boyfriend. I feel like those are foolproof.
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