Q&A: Rising Indie-Folk Artist Hazlett is Captivating Souls While Pouring Out His Own
AUSTRALIAN-BORN, STOCKHOLM-BASED INDIE-FOLK ARTIST — Hazlett is winning over the hearts of millions. With a voice that carries the weight of experiences untold, his lyrics are poetry woven into melodies. If "Blame the Moon" or "Missionary Feelings" haven't made their way onto your rainy day playlist yet, now’s the time.
In his latest release, "Goodbye to the Valley Low," Hazlett delves into themes of raw emotion. His lyrics are like pages torn from a weathered journal, offering glimpses into the depths of the soul with honesty and vulnerability.
While writing this EP, Hazlett found himself tapping into emotions rather than specific experiences. But as Goodbye to the Valley Low evolved, Hazlett found himself resonating with the lyrics in a new way.
Coming off his first US tour supporting indie-pop icons LANY for 21 stops, Hazlett has no plans of slowing down. The artist is gearing up to hit the road again this month for a European tour supporting Calum Scott.
Luna had the chance to sit down with Hazlett while on tour in Seattle. Read on below to learn about life on the road and plans for a second part to Goodbye to the Valley Low.
Photo by Rachel Lane
LUNA: You’re at the tail end of your first North American tour. Tell me how it's been!
HAZLETT: It's been pretty wild. When I landed, I didn't have much time to think. I was running on adrenaline for the first few shows in North Carolina and Atlanta. I found out about the tour when I was in Australia, but my guitars were up in Sweden. So I flew to Australia then back to Sweden, and then flew to New York. It all hit me, I think, by Nashville. I was so excited to see Nashville, but I was asleep by 6:30 p.m. the first night, so I didn't get to see anything. But it's been wild. It's crazy how different America is state to state — it’s like different countries. The Midwest is a very interesting place.
LUNA: How did you get connected with LANY?
HAZLETT: Actually, I met their manager 10 years ago before I even started singing. I was a bass player. I went to LA on a writing trip and met him. He had just moved to LA from London to pursue a job being an agent at a talent agency. I met him before he even managed LANY and we stayed in touch through the years. I remember seeing that he started managing LANY, so I threw my hat in the ring to open for them every time I saw they were touring. This was the first time I didn't put my hand up to ask if they needed support. He actually reached out to me, like, a month before the tour started. It was a mad rush to get a visa in time, which usually takes three months — we had to do it in two weeks. It was a lot of work, sleepless nights, and money to make it happen. I still didn't believe it was legit until I actually got into North Carolina. I was like, “There's no way, someone's gonna stop me and it's all gonna fall apart at the last minute.”
LUNA: What's been your favorite city so far on tour?
HAZLETT: Salt Lake City was crazy because there were 12,000 people. Seattle has probably been the city I would live in the most. Austin was pretty cool, as well. I feel like I've just picked all the music cities naturally, but when you go into these venues and play, you can tell when the crowd is a music crowd — you can feel it.
LUNA: Do you feel like each city has a different music crowd or vibe?
HAZLETT: I mean, I feel like my music suits this city [Seattle]. We played in Dallas and that was a wild, rowdy crowd. They were very chill during my songs and then just insane during LANY’s set. I feel like I've gotten the whole spectrum of crowds throughout the whole tour.
LUNA: What's going to be the moment you look back on as a fond memory from this tour?
HAZLETT: We played in Boise and it was probably my worst show of the tour. Not necessarily that I played bad or anything, but I could just tell the audience was trying to party, and my music isn't exactly party music. I was feeling pretty down after the show, but it was fine, just one of the shows where people aren't really into it, and that's okay. This girl came up to me afterwards — she and her parents had driven 10 hours from Montana just to come to that show. She was saying how much one of my songs, “Oh Downhill,” helped her out so much, and it was a nice, refreshing moment. It made me think about how even the shows that I believe aren’t necessarily the best, if there are one or two people there that give a crap about it, it makes it all worthwhile.
After speaking with her, I was watching LANY, and her dad came by 20 minutes later and just stopped and said, “By the way, I'm the father of the girl you just spoke to. Thanks for talking with her — you helped her so much.” I just started crying at the back of the show because this dad went out of his way to thank me for spending time talking about music with his daughter. It was very wholesome and a good reminder that that’s really the whole point of it, as cheesy as that sounds.
LUNA: Who are some bucket list bands you want to tour with?
HAZLETT: I want to say Bon Iver, but I also don’t feel like I would be confident enough to open for him because that’s my idol. Hozier is someone I’ve always wanted to meet and talk music with. Maggie Rogers, I’ve always wanted to open for. I have this idea in my head of doing a duet, Fleetwood Mac style, with Maggie Rogers. There are so many like Sam Fender and Holly Humberstone, [who] I would love to tour with some day. I like opening for people — there's less pressure.
Photo by Rachel Lane
LUNA: When did you make the move from Australia to Sweden, and what drew you there?
HAZLETT: 2019, so fairly recent. I've quit music several times throughout my career. I started singing, then worked in a pub, then got fired from the pub for singing my own songs, and then quit music again. An old friend who's a music publisher based up in Sweden called me saying, “You didn’t tell me you could sing.” I responded with, “I can’t.” He invited me to Sweden to record with some people he thought I would really click with. I had started working at an advertising agency so I didn’t go, but he called for, like, three months trying to get me to come to Sweden. Then my mom gave me the push to give music one more chance, so I went. He organized some people for me to meet and one of them was this guy named Freddy. He was the first person I worked with and it was immediate chemistry. Every song I've written has been with him ever since. He’s essentially a silent member of the band, and we make the whole thing work together.
LUNA: How have your surroundings and the places you’ve lived influenced your music?
HAZLETT: Australia doesn't really get seasons. It's kind of just different degrees of summer. In Sweden, it’s really nice to go through seasonal change, and even kind of nice going through seasonal depression. I think it definitely helps give you a different viewpoint — it's a completely different way of living. They have different people up there as well. When I first moved, I had this bank of stuff that I got out and wrote, and then once I'd gotten rid of that, I think I filled my cup up a bit from Scandinavian life. For the last EP, we went to a cabin in the woods on the west coast of Sweden and just sat around for a week or two.
LUNA: With your last EP, Goodbye to the Valley Low, there is definitely an overwhelming sense of vulnerability from you. What was going on during that time of writing? What did you want to portray within the tracks?
HAZLETT: I mean, it's funny. I'm really proud of that EP, but it's also the least that I've thought about stuff. I spent two years making the album before, Blue Mountain. I tell this story on stage, but the weekend Blue Mountain came out I was like, “What if no one likes it? What if it sucks?” So I started writing. Writing has always been my coping mechanism. So I was in my apartment writing the weekend my album came out, and by the time the weekend was over, I had six songs that I liked. These poured out of me while I was stressing about my album. I immediately wanted to record. I didn't want to finish them in my apartment — I wanted to go somewhere and write them and finish them in one place, so we booked the cabin.
My first album took two years. The second one took two weeks. One of the songs from that EP [Stolen Seasons] is the first one I've started playing live that actually makes me cry during the song. When I wrote it, it was more of an emotion, but now playing it live, I'm realizing that the EP is a lot more vulnerable than I thought. I've only been able to figure that out after I wrote it, which I think is a good thing.
LUNA: Does playing that song live bring up something specific or just a general feeling?
HAZLETT: A lot of the EP is full of personal experiences that I've turned into generalized feelings. I think because it has that generalization, each night it will tap into something different. There's plenty of people who have wasted a season of someone's life or … stayed in a job too long or whatever you've wasted your time doing. Each night, this song probably triggers another thing.
LUNA: Is there anything that we do in the US that surprises you?
HAZLETT: Yeah, you guys don't use the indicators [on the road]. I tried to explain to someone that you guys don’t use indicators and they didn't know what that was. I’m like, “The thing that indicates where you’re going to go.” It's tough because I use that a lot of the time to gauge crossing the road. I'm like, yeah, “That person is not turning, I can cross,” and then they'll just start turning. That's probably the only thing that I've noticed, though.
LUNA: What’s next for you after this tour?
HAZLETT: Going back to Sweden to finish recording. Goodbye to the Valley Low, [which] came out in December, I'm doing a part two. I started trying to write and move on to the next project and everything felt like it was pulling back towards Goodbye to the Valley Low, so I just decided I wanted to do this whole part one, part two of that album. I've been calling it “pre-cabin confusion” and then “post-cabin clarity” when talking about it. We're going to put them together as a full album.
