Q&A: tenderhooks Makes Up for Lost Time on “Summer Driving Fast”
WHETHER YOU TAKE THE COAST OR THE COUNTRY ROADS — “Summer Driving Fast” should be in every playlist this season. The newly released track is the third single from tenderhooks, an alt-pop artist who has flexed her talent on recent releases “Anything You Felt” and “Enemy.” After leaving a career in technology, tenderhooks is embarking on what is sure to be a quick ascent as an artist.
Keen listeners may already recognize “Summer Driving Fast,” as the London-based artist shared part of this song on TikTok last summer; the unreleased track amassed over 1M plays across ads for Ferrari, Glossier, and Sky Sports. It’s a fresh contrast to prior singles released in the run-up to her debut EP, tenderhooks.
The pumping rhythm and subdued vocals craft an enchanting push and pull on “Summer Driving Fast.” Think of the ground shifting beneath us at the onset of COVID — we tried to grasp when nothing was tangible. We relished the little things and reveled in our few good times. In this latest effort, tenderhooks makes the tiny moments massive and turns the pleasant euphoric. You can’t help but imagine the chords washing over a giant festival crowd as they dance the sun down.
Read below to meet tenderhooks and learn about her latest single.
LUNA: Listening to “Summer Driving Fast” brings me back home. It has a windows-down, carefree vibe. How does this song relate to the rest of your music?
TENDERHOOKS: My EP is darker and moodier. This song is the antidote to all of that self-exploration. I wrote it at the end of the first [COVID] lockdown, so you can hear that escapist feeling. We had so much to make up for — being with friends, laughing, and having a good time. We lived for the moment because we didn't know when we would be separated again. It reminds me of being 16 and driving for the first time, even without a destination. It’s that first feeling of independence.
LUNA: Did you write the other songs on your EP around the same time?
TENDERHOOKS: It was all written in about 18 months. I grew up playing piano, and I write poetry. I had never put those two things together until I had the time in lockdown. “Summer Driving Fast” is the third song I wrote from start to finish. I wanted it to feel a bit like Karen O singing a summer song. The vocal is melancholic and restrained, almost thrown away. The arpeggios and melodies push against it and give that driving feeling, an opposite feeling.
LUNA: What music were you playing when you started learning piano?
TENDERHOOKS: I was super into Beethoven, Debussy, Chopin, and Rachmaninoff. I never learned pop songs on the piano. Now, I love classic songs, pop, indie music, and electronic music. The main draw to music is to change and enhance my mood. As a songwriter, it's the same. I want to play with light and dark. I want all of this exploration to enhance how I feel.
LUNA: How do you find music to be a part of a healing process?
TENDERHOOKS: It's about an emotion. That's usually what sparks the instinct, rather than a thought or attitude. The process naturally draws me into self-confrontation, where I have to look at a moment, a hesitation, or a fear and decide what to do with it. And that's what the song is: trying to provoke the answers to my questions.
LUNA: How do your experiences from your previous career overlap with music?
TENDERHOOKS: I worked in civic communications, trying to empower people to take action on issues they cared about. We built election and donation software. It was about expression and civic expression. Music is the same thing, just in a different form. But I was always an artist.
LUNA: You mention poetry as one of the early avenues for your creative expression. What effect does poetry have on your songwriting?
TENDERHOOKS: It's a very different process. They might even come from entirely different places. With poetry, you're following the sound of words, and that's your music. But with lyrics, your words have to fit into and enhance the melody. It's almost harder to say something because of the constraints of sound and pitch. I have to be more patient with the songwriting process. I've ripped up poems I've written and pulled lines out, trying to fit them into melodies. Those usually end up being the better of my lyrics when they work, but they don’t work every time.
LUNA: What excites you about releasing “Summer Driving Fast”?
TENDERHOOKS: The character singing the song, or the part of me singing the song has surrendered. She’s in “fuck it” mode. That's not something that I can always access. It parallels the lockdowns. There was a high that came with letting go of control and taking it back. I'm excited to finally have other people hear it, make videos, and have their own summer experience with the song.
“Summer Driving Fast” is available for streaming now. Her forthcoming debut EP, tenderhooks, is set to drop later this year.
