Petra Haden
Petra Haden
Petra Hadenis an American violinist and singer. She is or has been a member of several bands, including That Dog, Tito & Tarantula, and The Decemberists; has contributed to recordings by The Twilight Singers, Beck, Mike Watt, Luscious Jackson, Foo Fighters, Green Day, Weezer, The Rentals, Victoria Williams, Yuka Honda, The Gutter Twins, and Cornelius. She is the daughter of the jazz bassist Charlie Haden; the triplet sister of bassist Rachel Hadenand cellist Tanya Hadenwith whom she has performed as...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMusician
Date of Birth11 October 1971
CountryUnited States of America
When I was recording my first solo album 'Imaginaryland,' I was listening to a lot of movie scores.
'The Conversation' was a movie I saw probably for the first time in the early 2000s. I immediately loved the piano and just how simple it is.
I wish I finished music school, because then I feel like I could talk more about the dissonant notes.
The bass line is the anchor for me. I started with the bass, and either doubled that and then added the harmonies, or sometimes added my own harmonies that I've always wanted to sing on the song. And then it just went on from there - singing violin parts and trumpet parts and just trying to emulate the sounds of the instruments.
That's what I love about those old movies - the music is like a constant companion. Even in scenes that aren't particularly dramatic, like a woman checking her watch, you hear the music as a comment on that action.
Old film-noir movies. There's something comforting about watching black-and-white movies, and hearing this kind of music just puts me in a fantasy world. It's a really great escape for me.
I didn't know who Meredith Monk was, and I knew about Laurie Anderson but I didn't know her music that well.
When we were on breaks from recording and touring, I was kind of moping around, like not knowing what to do. It was hard to adjust back to normal life after being so busy.
I thought about what I wanted to do besides playing violin and singing backup in a band. Don't get me wrong, playing and singing in That Dog was really fun, but I wanted to work on other musical projects and sing more. So I started a vocal project, i.e. Imaginaryland.
I didn't know how write a song, (verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, bridge, verse), etc., and I didn't know how to write lyrics, so that's when I thought, well, I don't have to write a song with all those verses and choruses or lyrics. I can just sing everything the way I want to. So I sang all the instruments with my voice and just went with it.
People are born with the knack to write poems and songs. I'm not a poet at all.
You have to be a poet to know how to write a song with lyrics.
I just recorded in studios, you know, people pressed the buttons for me. So I just started recording the bass lines and guitar parts with my voice, covering classical pieces, or just making up melodies so I could learn how to use it.
I love the Bach Prelude No. 2 in C Minor and had that stuck in my head: why don't I put this on Imaginaryland? So I brought it to my friend Tom Grimley who recorded That Dog's first record. I played him all my a cappella pieces, and he said, "P, you should really make a record, it would be great! You can record it at my studio and I'll put it out!"