Heather Little photo by Carley Dumenil
Heather Little By Now Celebrates Her Own Voice
Heather Little is a songwriter whose music has won two BMI awards and through original writing and co-writing her songs have been recorded by many artists including Miranda Lambert and Sunny Sweeney. Until now, she had only made one full studio album of her own, 2013’s Wings Like These. On April 19th, 2024, her new collection, By Now, arrives from Need to Know Music. The experience working on By Now with Brian Brinkerhoff has gotten Little excited about making albums and now she’s thinking about her next effort.
To make By Now, Little went out to California to record vocals with Brinkerhoff, but the production process ended up taking an unexpected twist for her that brings an extra dose of directness and authenticity to the record for fans. Her very personal songwriting is exposed to a healthy dose of live performance when she deems those songs fit for sharing publicly, but seeing this album come together has given her a big boost in terms of creative identity as a songwriter that has helped fuel future work. I spoke with Heather Little about the process of recording By Now and why she prefers the freedom of writing very personal songs even if that brings with it some limitations.
Americana Highways: I know that you have been primarily a songwriter and released one full album before, though it’s been a while. Do you think of albums as whole units, or is it more about collecting the individual songs together?
Heather Little: I tend to think of records as compilations, but I’m kind of starting to think differently because I’m looking forward to beginning the next record already. I’ve written a few songs for that. It’s a little different to start thinking in those terms, but I never have.
AH: Were you at all surprised by what songs ended up being gathered for this album? Did Brian Brinkerhoff help decide that?
HL: I was a little surprised at a couple of his choices, not because I disliked them, but because I didn’t know that they would necessarily be something that other people would like to hear. I usually write a song and it just is whatever it is, and then I think, “That’s oddly specific and has some strange references in it that no one is going to get. Well, that’s how that song goes!”
I was surprised that Brian picked “Five Deer County” because it’s a reference to deer hunting in the state of Texas, specifically. [Laughs] I was surprised that “My Father’s Roof” was one that he had a vision for. But he’s so great at that. He’s great at being able to visualize what something can become and make the best choices. He knows how to complement what the song is about and not take away meaning from it.
AH: It says a lot about him to see what songs he chose, but it also says a lot about how he sees you as an artist. That’s interesting. Maybe that can be helpful to see how other people value an artist. Those songs clearly reached him. Is that reassuring?
HL: Yes. I have a lot of imposter syndrome going on pretty often! Through this whole process, every time we turned another corner, or he had a new track that he’d send to me, I’d think, “Gosh, that’s really my song! I really made this song up and this person heard it, and he really did pull in musicians, and they played parts on it. Now it’s real!”
Most of what I’ve done so far has been playing shows, just me with my guitar, playing in front of people. Then it’s over, and the next time that you see those people, you’re that person who played those songs last time. But to yourself, in your own mind, you played those songs, and had those experiences with those people, but then you got in your car and drove home, and had a regular, normal life. You don’t see yourself as that person who played those songs all of the time. But this process now makes you look at yourself as that person who wrote that song. It is kind of an affirmation. It’s proof that I really did write that song and I really did sing it. It’s very validating.
AH: Seeing the whole album all put together must really contribute to a sense of artistic identity.
HL: Yes, very much so.
AH: What had Brian heard before you went to record the vocals and basic tracks in California? Were they basic demos, or very worked out?
HL: They were not very worked out at all. He had heard Youtube videos of the songs that I sent him, which were just me playing the guitar and singing them. I did sent him a couple of home recordings, but those did not end up being the ones that were chosen. It’s pretty interesting to me because all of the other times I’ve recorded, whether it was for myself or doing vocals for someone else, you go in an put down a scratch vocal, and then your musicians who are playing guitar, bass, and the parts, chart out what they are playing. They make this beautiful track and then, later, you go back and put down your real vocals. If you sing a line kind of crappy, you can go back and re-sing it.
We had already talked about it and were on the same page about not wanting autotune, not wanting it to sound super-polished. We wanted it to sound like if somebody comes to see me play, and they buy a record, it’s going to sound pretty much like what they just heard. That’s what I wanted for my first record. I also made a live record which is just me playing live.
Brian and I were on the same page, but I didn’t know what the process was going to be. I went to California and we spent three days. I think we did 14 or 15 songs where it was just me playing guitar and singing. Then it was the process of elimination of which one’s we were keeping. Then I said, “So, how do you want to do the vocals? Do you want me to come back out to California, or is there a studio that you want me to go to in Nashville?” He was a Nashville guy for a long time. Then he said, “No, no, we have our vocals.” Then I panicked.
I had just been singing. I hadn’t been thinking, “This is the way that I want to sing this on this record. This is permanent.” So after I panicked, I thought, “I need to put my money where my mouth is. If I say that if you come and see me live, it’s going to sound like my record, I have to be okay with that.” I have to be okay with my voice. That, for me, made me really accepting of myself and the way that I sound. I thought, “Get over your insecurity.” There are artists who I love who sing this one note a little sharp, or a little flat, or their voice scratches a little. I live for those parts of those songs. I hear it with Patti Griffin. Every artist that I love, even Joni Mitchell, has things that are unintentional in their vocals that I want to hear.
AH: I’m so glad that you shared that full explanation about the vocals, because I certainly wanted to hear more about the approach. I find the vocals really mesmerizing on this album. Your vocals sound so responsive so it’s so hard to imagine that you were not reacting to all the other instruments. They are so detailed. It is pretty amazing the way you did it! Do you feel like you’re hearing other instrumentation in your head when you’re doing it?
HL: I always do when I write. I can’t make it happen. I’m not a piano player, but there’s a piano song on the album called “Landfall.” When I wrote it, I wrote it in my head driving. Then the other half of it I wrote when I was working in a bakery in Texas. I was doing bakery things and writing this in my head, but it was always piano, which was weird because I don’t really write piano songs. But I borrowed a keyboard from a friend of mine and found the chords and said, “Yep, this is what it’s got to be!” So Brian heard the most ridiculous, awful piano part when I sent it to him, but when I went out to record, he said, “Can you just play those chords on the guitar, just as quietly and softly as you can? Maybe it won’t be in the vocal.” I thought it might be distracting to the piano player, but apparently it was because Brian was going to use that vocal!
AH: He was tricking you! Sneaky.
HL: But yes, I hear all the instrumentation when I’m singing and writing. Even if it doesn’t end up that way in the end.
AH: There are a lot of little twists and turns in your vocal presentation that probable suggested to Brian where the instruments could work. “Landfall” is a great example of this. That song is a whole vocal soundscape where the vocals are super-important. That fits with what you’re saying about how it was written and recorded.
HL: There were times when we were recording and I would normally go right into the next verse or right into a chorus and Brian would ask me if it was okay to put some breathing room there. I thought, “Okay, I can do that.” There wasn’t a single time where he said, “You have to do this.” That happened on “Bones.” He put beautiful things in that space. It was amazing. It’s amazing what can happen when you find someone who has real vision.
AH: The songs feel like they are unhurried and have their own pace, like “Landfall.” I think it needs to, to contain that much, and let the audience process the emotion. His instincts seem great.
HL: In “Transistor Radio,” there are times when the temp changes a little bit and the time signature changes a little bit and there was no part of any of that I had to explain. I didn’t have to say, “Right here, the instrumentation pulls back.” I didn’t have to say any of that. He just knew. For me, it’s just a feeling, like driving a car. If you’ve ever driven a stick shift, your body knows when to shift. It’s like a certain pitch, and the RPS get to a certain point, and you hear it and you just know. You know it and you do it in far less time than it would take to explain to anyone why you’re doing what you’re doing. All of the ways the songs shift, he just knew. I couldn’t be happier with it.
AH: I love that song “Transistor Radio.” It’s much faster and it’s got this rock feeling, but it’s got this echoey dreamy feel to the guitars and the vocals. It shows how each song on the album is different with its own personality. How much of that sound was part of the first idea for the song?
HL: Probably the only difference from what was in my mind is that when I first wrote it, I was doing some shows with some friends of mine that are singer/songwriters and they are great harmony singers. We would play song-swaps together where all of us would sing harmony on eachothers’ songs, so when I first wrote this, I was singing it out at shows and I had three people singing harmonies with me.
On the big “Oooooo” lines on the chorus, there was all this harmony stacked up. Here, instead of human voices, there are these beautiful steel parts. It’s almost freaky, since I can’t tell if I’m imagining it because I heard it so often with human voices, or if the instrumentation is just that good, because it sounds like a human voice singing harmonies. But mine is the only voice on there and there are no harmonies on that song! That’s trippy and I like that.
AH: You mentioned earlier that you don’t think of whether other people are going to hear your songs when you’re writing them. Is that freeing, in the sense that you don’t restrict yourself at all? Or does it mean there’s a high rate of songs that you don’t ever share with people?
HL: Yes, it does mean that. The degree to which I think about whether other people will hear a song has a lot to do with reading the room. I am a big fan of cuss words. When I’m in a situation and I can’t really cuss words, or shouldn’t use profanity in some way, I do feel restricted. Some people don’t use those words at all, and I’ve known a lot of people in my life who didn’t use profanity. I’ve always felt like, when people didn’t use those words, even sometimes, there was something that they weren’t saying. It would feel like, “This person isn’t really being authentic with me.” Or, “Maybe they don’t trust me.”
If I go to visit someone in a nursing home or a hospital, with older people, there’s a certain context that goes along with a person using profanity, so I read the room. I don’t want to be crass, and I don’t want to be impolite. I don’t want to be rude and dismissive of someone’s feeling. I wouldn’t want to roll up into a fifth grade classroom slinging cusswords. When I have a song that I’ve used the “f-word” in, or something like that, if I feel in that moment that it needs to be censored, I will do that. I don’t feel like that’s breaking my own rule of writing and saying what I want to say.
And there are some songs that I don’t play because of who they are about, not necessarily having to do with the language or subject matter. It has to do with specific people alive on earth who they are about. I don’t play those. “My Father’s Roof” almost did not get played in front of anyone at all. At first, I thought, “Maybe this just needs to be a ghost track. I don’t plan on explaining to the world what it’s about.” I don’t think I have to. I think it’s okay for people to just wonder what that’s about. But yes, it does keep me from playing songs.
It is freeing, in comparison to when I wrote for a publisher, since they are in the business of getting someone else to sing certain words. They would sometimes come to you and say, “We’re not cutting any songs that are about back porches, or living in the country.” One of the people, one time, actually said, “I’m not pitching any songs with love in the title!” I thought, “Oh, wow! This is outta control.” When you’re not writing for yourself, there are constraints put forth that do not feel authentic to you, because they are not. It’s like you’re going to cook your very best meal you’ve ever cooked, but you have to do it within certain parameters that are impossible.
AH: It’s like they are saying, “Here, make a cake, and here’s some sawdust.”
HL: Yes, and don’t use any butter!
AH: In this context, love is definitely the butter. That is crazy to remove that.
HL: When I was a kid, with my first experiences listening to music, I used to play this game in my head of trying to think of songs that didn’t have the word “love” in it. And it was really hard!
Thanks very much for speaking with us, Heather Little! You can find more information on Heather Little on her website here: http://www.heatherlittlemusic.com/