{"id":52935,"date":"2025-09-09T12:48:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T12:48:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/52935\/"},"modified":"2025-09-09T12:48:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T12:48:07","slug":"my-songwriting-process-is-the-most-therapeutic-part-of-my-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/52935\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cMy songwriting process is the most therapeutic part of my life\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cT<\/strong>he cool thing about a love song is that it\u2019s forever,\u201d Karly Hartzman says, nursing a hot black coffee and croissant. \u201cEven if it was written about my bandmate, Jake, before we broke up, it\u2019s kind of universal in a lot of ways.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Wednesday<\/a> frontwoman is in London for a whistle-stop tour of acoustic live shows, interview junkets and a surprise appearance with bandmate and ex-boyfriend MJ Lenderman<\/a> \u2013 aka Jake \u2013 at the Roundhouse. Despite the jet lag she\u2019s fighting off when she meets NME in the cafe of her London hotel, now is an exciting time for Hartzman. Her band scored critical acclaim for their 2023 record \u2018Rat Saw God\u2019, which NME called \u201cone of the year\u2019s defining rock albums\u201d<\/a>. Now they\u2019re back with its follow-up \u2018Bleeds\u2019 \u2013 an album that bridges the gap between personal confessions and documentation of modern life in North Carolina.<\/p>\n

The new record is Wednesday at their tightest, Hartzman\u2019s vivid lyrics bolstered by noisy sludges, classic indie hooks and country-inflected bursts of energy. Lyrically, the record plays like an archive: stories Hartzman picked up from neighbours, friends, and acquaintances are woven together with her own experiences, delivered as though each memory belonged to her. It also carries fragments of her past relationship with Lenderman, most clearly on the bittersweet, finger-plucked ballad \u2018The Way Love Goes.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were written over a year or two, and then recorded just a month after Jake and I broke up. It\u2019s such a crazy experience, but I\u2019m kind of thankful for it,\u201d she explains. There\u2019s no bad blood between Lenderman and Hartzman; she still calls him the writer of some of her favourite songs. \u201cLooking back, I think it\u2019ll have helped me process a lot, now, and I think more critically about the way love works in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Naturally, some songs have shifted in meaning, as Hartzman adopts more of a storyteller\u2019s role. Performing the new material feels, at times, like leafing through old photographs; there\u2019s a detachment to them now. \u201c\u2018Elderberry Wine\u2019 can almost pass as a happy song because of how it sounds,\u201d she says. \u201cI think it would be kind of re-traumatising to put myself back in my own shoes, as I was at the time, every night on stage. But I dip my toe in to make sure it still feels authentic.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve yet to play \u2018The Way Love Goes\u2019. We\u2019ll see if the crowd can handle it. I think it would be hard to perform to an audience that wasn\u2019t receptive, because it\u2019s such a vulnerable moment. There\u2019s a chance I won\u2019t play it live\u2026 I don\u2019t want to feel uncomfortable on stage either.\u201d<\/p>\n

Initially, the pair kept their split quiet from their bandmates while finishing the recording of \u2018Bleeds\u2019, not wanting to unsettle the process. \u201cI just desperately wanted to make sure we were capturing the way the band had been operating before that,\u201d she says. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to mess with that dynamic, but they mostly knew. But because we\u2019re best friends, once we relayed the news, they were mostly just relieved for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keeping her private life quiet is Hartzman\u2019s preferred approach. You won\u2019t find her on social media, and she\u2019s moved to a bucolic countryside area to maintain a \u201cnormal\u201d life. So, having to explain her breakup, first to the band and then to the rest of the world, feels a little weird. \u201cI think about if I were online and I saw anyone who had something to say about it, I\u2019d be like, \u2018how would that person feel if I asked them about their relationship?\u2019\u201d she remarks. \u201cIt\u2019s so funny, the way that it\u2019s, like, different, if you\u2019re sort of a public person.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cWith each album, I try to challenge myself to do something I haven\u2019t done yet\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Staying offline helps her not just avoid gossip about her love life, but also stops her comparing herself to her peers and feeling pressure to replicate the success of \u2018Rat Saw God\u2019. \u201cI get to be like Hannah Montana,\u201d she jokes. \u201cI can put everything, all of the compliments and the positivity, more into the music, rather than feeding back into myself. I think if those two worlds mix more, it might fuck with my head.\u201d<\/p>\n

H<\/strong>artzman\u2019s songwriting is deeply narrative, gripping the listener with raw, often grisly details. She cites Richard Brautigan and cartoonist Lynda Barry as inspirations for her style of simplistic yet heavily detailed and, ultimately, beautiful storytelling. Her passion for photography feeds into the same instinct, as she finds herself constantly scanning for details that might one day find their way into a song.<\/p>\n

This comes through most clearly on the album\u2019s closer, \u2018Gary\u2019s II\u2019, written about Hartzman\u2019s former landlord and neighbour, an elderly man she\u2019d often chat with on the stoop of a friend\u2019s house. The story follows his unfortunate run-in with a local who whacked him over the head with a baseball bat, resulting in him having a mouth full of dentures by 33.<\/p>\n

Gary has since passed away, but the song serves as a cheerful tribute. \u201cHe was always smoking a cigarette with his oxygen tank in,\u201d she recalls. \u201cSo you\u2019d just kind of be terrified while he\u2019s telling you these stories. But he experienced the town that we live in 70 years ago, and it\u2019s nothing like it used to be. So just hearing that, having a connection to a man that age, that isn\u2019t family, is really interesting. He\u2019s choosing to be there and share with us; it\u2019s not unconditional love, and it just means a lot for that reason. I\u2019ll probably write songs about him for a really long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Wednesday\"Wednesday credit: Graham Tolbert<\/p>\n

Hartzman\u2019s sense of empathy literally bleeds through the verses of each song, as demonstrated in \u2018Townies\u2019, written for a friend who was subjected to rumours while growing up. The lines \u201cYou sent my nudes around \/ I never yelled at you about it, \u2018cause you \/ Died\u201d are particularly poignant for anyone who experienced leaked nudes or slut-shaming as a teenager.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe wasn\u2019t holding on to the anger at those people, but you know how sometimes you\u2019re more defensive of your friend than yourself?\u201d she laughs. \u201cI feel like it was just nice to tell someone that someone loves you, \u2018I feel this deeply about something that happened in high school\u2019, and I think that dynamic is really interesting. It was a fascinating thing to think about how people interpret women being \u2018promiscuous\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

This feeds into the magic of how \u2018Bleeds\u2019 comes together. Though it\u2019s a series of vignettes, there\u2019s an unexpected cohesion to it all. Hartzman acknowledges this as a sort of happy accident, and something that only happens when writing from the heart. There\u2019s an instinctive nature to how the band plays, which Hartzman calls a \u2018telepathy\u2019, finessed through years of experimentation together, complementing her distinctive lyricism. \u201cI think my songwriting process is the most therapeutic part of my life,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Wednesday follow a classic country blueprint in terms of lyrical content, but the band have been more synonymous with experimental, underground indie scenes for the best part of a decade now. Famed for their riotous live shows, where Hartzman is often screaming (because \u201cthere\u2019s so much to be angry about\u201d) against a maelstrom of lap guitars, pummelling drum beats and fuzzing guitar riffs, the group have finally managed to capture a sound that feels distinctly theirs.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been a band for almost nine years now, and it\u2019s taken that long for me to feel like I\u2019m writing my dream music\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

She\u2019s also been open about pushing herself vocally, introducing new layers and textures to her voice. Fans of \u2018Rat Saw God\u2019 will be well familiar with the gutteral scream on \u2018Bull Believer\u2019 which gets a neat follow-up in the form of \u2018Wasp\u2019, where Hartzman yells the lines, \u201cCanary shrieks and screams and spits \/ I\u2019m stuck down here inside the lift \/ I\u2019m sick, can\u2019t fuck, push the paint around \/ Castrated in my mental death.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWith each album, I try to challenge myself to do something I haven\u2019t done yet, and the goal was to scream a song in its entirety for the first time,\u201d the 28-year-old explains. \u201cI don\u2019t know where to go from there, challenge-wise. I guess it\u2019d be a whole album of screaming.\u201d<\/p>\n

Right now, Wednesday really are riding a natural high. They\u2019ve created something that feels authentic, resonating with fans and drawing praise from critics, even if that isn\u2019t where their focus lies. \u201cI finally gained the experience to create the songs I felt like I deserved,\u201d Hartzman reflects. \u201cSomeone asked me recently how much raw talent it takes to do what we do, and I said 99 per cent of it has just been playing a lot and writing a lot. It wasn\u2019t inherent. We\u2019ve been a band for almost nine years now, and it\u2019s taken that long for me to feel like I\u2019m writing my dream music.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hartzman is determined to keep things low-key and offline when it comes to her personal life. But you\u2019ll still hear snippets of her emotions, accurately conveyed by illustrative songwriting and the natural tightness of a band that\u2019s endured a decade of grafting. This is a positive time for her, even if she does have to talk to strangers about her ex-boyfriend.<\/p>\n

Wednesday\u2019s \u2018Bleeds\u2019 is out on September 19 via Dead Oceans<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThe cool thing about a love song is that it\u2019s forever,\u201d Karly Hartzman says, nursing a hot black…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52936,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[264],"tags":[18,117,19,6082,17,337],"class_list":{"0":"post-52935","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-indie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-music"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52935\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}