The idea of fate is a topic that musicians grapple with constantly. Whether it’s a predetermined destiny, a relationship or death, fate always has a funny way of making its presence known. With her latest album, Lightning Might Strike, Boston singer-songwriter Juliana Hatfield explores these themes through simplistic yet dynamic production and existential lyricism.
From her home in Western Massachusetts, mxdwn had the honor to chat with Juliana Hatfield about the new album, Lightning Might Strike, how the concept of fate has weaved itself throughout the writing of the new album, what home feels like to her and the potential for a new covers album.
mxdwn: I want to talk about the new album. It’s beautiful. I love it so far. When I think about the title of the new album, Lightning Might Strike, it sounds like accepting a sort of fate or a natural outcome to occur. When working on this new album, did the songwriting come naturally as you were experiencing all these new and big life changes throughout the past couple of years?
Juliana: It was kind of a tough slog writing these songs. It took me longer to make this album than it normally takes me to make an album. And a lot of that was just getting the words together and trying to figure out how to express what I was going through. Because I was going through some kind of heavy things. And so just trying to find ways to write about what I was going through as I was going through it, it was a little bit complicated. Because normally I have songs written when I go to record, but this time I was writing them as I was recording. So it just took me a little bit longer than it normally does.
mxdwn: How do you feel like music helps you navigate through these difficult moments in life that other outlets might not be able to do so?
Juliana: It’s just the one way I seem to be able to communicate anything because I have a hard time communicating directly to people. And even though I have a hard time getting my thoughts together a lot of times, that’s what music helps me. When I’m writing songs and lyrics, it helps me to order my thoughts. It helps me to figure out what I’m feeling also because I’m not really in touch with my feelings. My feelings are not accessible to me. Sometimes I have weird physical things that are, I believe they’re manifestations of feelings that I can’t access. So, that’s a whole other thing. That’s a whole other story. But what I’m trying to say is that writing the songs and the lyrics really helps me to just sort of process what it is that I’m going through and to communicate what I’m going through which helps me to be able to deal with what I’m going through because you need to talk about stuff just to get it out of you.
mxdwn: Yeah, and I feel like music is a language on its own. It’s kind of like tapping into some kind of subconscious part of your brain that you don’t even really know that is there.
Juliana: That’s what I love about it is the unconscious part. It’s like trying to, like anything with drawing or painting also, or writing prose. I think that you have to be or at least I have to be partly unconscious or not fully conscious. You get into a zone or into a place where you’re not completely controlling what’s happening. You’re just letting it flow. You’re like tapping into this well or a river that’s always flowing. The river of ideas. And you just try to hop on and float on it for a while. And to do that, I have to be partly or not fully conscious for me to be able to really tap into that inspired place or that transcendent place.
mxdwn: Yeah, you have to let go and just trust that the process is going to get you where you need to go.
Juliana: Yeah, but it’s a weird combination of letting go, but also being really focused at the same time. So it’s this balance that you’re not thinking about, but you’re doing it. You’re very focused, but you’re also very free. So it’s a weird combination that I can’t achieve in any other part of my life. But it really is kind of a grace. But you are working hard, too. You’re not just floating, you’re also focusing.
mxdwn: I love that. It’s a nice little balance of both. Sonically, I love that the album has elements that a lot of your music is known for like the crunchy guitars, but also very soft and easy moments too. Were there any unique or new production techniques that you tried working on the new record that you haven’t done before?
Juliana: Most of the percussion was done with an aspirin bottle, a little plastic aspirin bottle. I really was really into it. When I was trying to find percussion sounds, the only thing I really liked was this little bottle of aspirin. It just worked really well. I’m not really a technical person and I’m not really into gear so much. I’m actually kind of tech-phobic. I hate it. I don’t enjoy having to deal with technical issues. I don’t enjoy engineering, but I was doing it. I needed to do it on my own at home. Just the most basic recording techniques. I used one mic for everything. I was plugging in my guitar to GarageBand and finding guitar sounds that way. I don’t think I even broke out an amplifier on my own. There are a few sounds that I really like that are built into GarageBand. I just use them over and over again because there’s nothing wrong with them. I like them a lot. They’re easier than getting amp sounds in my house.
mxdwn: I love that. If it’s not broken, why fix it?
Juliana: And I’m kinda an idiot. Whatever’s easiest for me and if it works, like you just said, if it’s not broke, why fix it?
mxdwn: Exactly. The latest single, “Popsicle,” is a very fun sounding summery track with these very vibrant guitars and a really catchy chorus. But there’s this one set of lyrics that I love. “Denial is a passport to acceptance. It’s the only way to break free from yourself.” Why do you feel like it’s hard for some people to accept fates in life than it is to continuously fight against these outcomes?
Juliana: I could ask myself that. It’s like, that’s the question everyone has to constantly ask. Why am I, why can’t I accept anything? Why am I constantly fighting against what is? That’s the thing. That’s the goal. We want to accept, we want to be here now, right? We want to accept what’s happening to us right now. But it’s hard for people. It’s hard for me because we just, we think about things that we want, and we think about the things that we lack, think about what I’m doing wrong. I want to fix everything. That’s so funny that you called out that line because that’s one line that I remember writing and I remember thinking like, “This is expressing exactly what I’m thinking.” But now I can’t remember what I was thinking. I don’t know what that line means. “Denial is the passport to acceptance.” I don’t understand it anymore. I was thinking about something particular and it made sense then, but now it doesn’t make sense to me anymore. I mean, I like it, but I can’t remember specifically what I meant by that.
I don’t know if it’s denial of what… sometimes when you’re in a relationship, you have to be partly delusional or else you’re not going to be able to be in the relationship because it’s too freaky and there’s too many things wrong with it. You have to sort of deny certain things about your partner in order to be able to deal with them and accept them and live with them. So denial is just part of life. If you want to live in society, you have to close your eyes to certain things and you can’t always be confronting the reality or your head will flip.
mxdwn: Yeah, that makes sense. It’s kind of like you have to zoom out every once in a while to see things from a different perspective and see what the bigger picture looks like.
Juliana: Yeah. You sometimes have to shut certain things out in order to be able to move forward.
mxdwn: It sounds like a lot of the songwriting on this album just comes from a place of questioning things that are out of your control. As an artist, do you feel like creating music is the one thing that you are fully able to control? Or do you feel like the songs already exist in a way, but you’re just a vessel for these songs to flow out of you naturally?
Juliana: It’s kind of both. I definitely feel like I’m tapping into something when I write a song. And I feel like every time I’m writing a song, it’s like a wonderful gift that I’m receiving. I feel so grateful and so lucky that the songs are coming to me. But I’m also putting a lot of time into crafting them and molding them so that they can express exactly what I want to express. So they’re really valuable to me as these things full of meaning in my life.
So in that way, they end up as these really meaningful little morsels. And I do feel a great sense of accomplishment in the sense that I controlled a part of my destiny. Even though part of destiny means that, it’s preordained, right? These songs were going to be written. And maybe they were going to be written by me, or maybe they were going to be written by someone else, but I ended up being the one to write them, so it feels like a destiny. But it also feels like I’m controlling it, so it’s like, what’s that word? I can’t think of the word. This is why I write songs, because I can’t… Contradiction, it’s a contradiction. I’m controlling it, and yet it’s preordained.
mxdwn: So it’s both. I love the idea of a song being a gift because obviously it’s being gifted to you, but at the same time, you’re also gifting it to other people. And I think it’s just the gift that keeps on giving. So that’s really beautiful.
Juliana: That’s a really nice way to look at it because it is, if I didn’t have anyone to hear the songs or to experience them, to take them in, I don’t know if they would have any point. I mean, they would because writing brings me so much joy. But then I want people to hear them. And it’s great that anybody at all hears them. And sometimes people really can connect with them. And that’s such a beautiful thing. It’s a deep communication without having to be in a room with anyone.
mxdwn: “Scratchers” is another song that I really love on the album. And it’s also talking about this theme of fate. What is your opinion about the concept of luck? And do you think luck is a determining factor for people’s success in life?
Juliana: That’s what I was kind of grappling with that with this album. Because when I was making this album I was feeling that I was unlucky in a way. There are certain things I feel that I’m never going to be able to accomplish. And maybe they were things that when I was younger, I wanted to accomplish. But now I feel like I can’t do all the things I want to do. It’s not my path, and I can’t control it. I can’t control the things that I’m not able to make happen. It’s like playing the lottery. You’re just trying to make something happen and then you never win. And that just reinforces the idea that you can’t control your destiny. Your destiny’s already; everyone has a fate. That’s what I was… that’s just an idea. I’d like to think that things that I don’t expect might still happen.
I have to say that underlying this whole album is the fact that my mother’s younger brother was struck and killed by lightning when he was a teenager. So that’s like the worst thing that you could imagine happening if you’re a parent, that’s like the worst thing you could think. One of the worst things that could happen to your child and it actually happened. Sometimes the worst things you can imagine actually happen. But then again, wonderful things can happen too. And you have to hold both of these facts in your mind all the time. I don’t ever completely lose hope in the future. Even the older I get, I still believe that there are unknowns in my future. I can’t give up because you never know what might happen. But you have to fight against the feeling that “Oh, my fate is already determined and I can’t change anything.” You have to fight against that or you might just lose all your hope.
mxdwn: Even the whole story of your mother’s younger brother being struck by lightning, it’s both tragic and oddly poetic in a way. Do you think that people really have the power to change or rewrite their life’s path? Or do you feel like there’s something in the universe telling you this is how it’s always going to be?
Juliana: I think some people are better at changing their destinies than other people. Some people would just accept that, “Oh, I’m a loser. I’m just, I’m a born loser.” I’m not saying me, but some people would say, “I’m just a born loser.” But then there are people who make things happen. I don’t know which one I am, somewhere in the middle.
mxdwn: So people have these narratives that they keep telling to themselves where it’s like, if they say something is one way, then that’s how it’s always going to be. But if you have a perspective shift, you’re able to get out of it.
Juliana: I guess you could say that everyone has free will, but sometimes it doesn’t always feel like that. Sometimes there are certain things that you can’t make happen. You know, “God laughs at our plans” or whatever that quote is. Try to make changes and sometimes it just backfires. But yeah, this is just the big question. How do we change our lives? How do we change ourselves?
mxdwn: Those are really big questions. And I really do love that you were asking these questions on this album because I feel like it’s a lot of stuff that I think about, too.
Juliana: And there’s all the things that happened to us in childhood. How did those things affect us later in life? Trauma and things like that. We don’t know how that will affect us until maybe later on down the line. That’s a whole other thing.
mxdwn: Yeah. Another track I really love on the album is “My House Is Not My Dream House.” I’ve been thinking about the idea of home a lot lately and how it’s not necessarily always tied to a physical place or structure. It’s more of an emotional or a place where you feel safest and comfortable. What is the story behind this track and how would you describe what home feels like to you?
Juliana: Well, the song’s pretty literal in the sense that I bought… I got into homeownership very late in life and I’m a newly established homeowner. I’m in a starter home; I like to think of it as a starter home, and it’s not my dream house. It’s just the house that I was able to get into at this point in my life. And so I was just going down a list of all the things about the house that make it not ideal. But also just noting that I’m grateful that I have a roof over my head at all. It’s really tough out there these days and so to be able to have my own home at all is pretty amazing as someone who didn’t, who never really planned for that or never really cared about homeownership and got into it very late in life compared to the norm. So yeah, it’s about, I think I’m just taking a jackhammer to the idea of homeownership is this wonderful American dream, and it’s not necessarily a fairy tale.
mxdwn: Congratulations! Obviously, that’s a big feat in this economy and everything.
Juliana: It’s a big deal. I think it’s a whole, after renting for so many years, it’s a whole way of looking at home. The idea of home to me, I’m still dreaming about it. You know, the house, the home I grew up in was not really a very comforting environment for me. So the idea of home to me was always the idea of escape. Like whenever I was in a situation or a place that wasn’t, whenever I was uncomfortable in an environment, I would flee. I just want to escape because I was so used to not being comfortable in my home that escaping from anything uncomfortable, that was my way of dealing with anything. I guess home for me it’s a safe space. I’m still kind of searching for it. I’m doing what I can to feel at home right now. But I still have dreams about a space, my ideal space.
mxdwn: I love that. It feels like when you’re younger, you’re put into a home kind of unwillingly, and when you’re older, you have the decision to create your own home, whether it’s in the place you grew up in, somewhere else.
Juliana: Yeah, you have to create it within your means. You can’t always get what you want. But you try to create something. It’s like when people create their chosen families; we can’t choose the families we’re born into. I think of home as a house or home, it’s a creative pursuit, really. You try to make it into some image that you have in your mind of what is comforting and nurturing to you. I’m kind of a homebody, so I want to feel good in it. I can’t just throw so much junk in it that I don’t care about. I actually really care about what’s around me; the things around me.
mxdwn: I’m glad that you found your home, at least for now. I do want to zoom out a little bit. Over the span of your career, you’ve put out so many albums across multiple bands and projects. What do you feel like you’ve learned in working, especially on this new album about yourself, and what keeps you excited about making new music?
Juliana: I’ve learned… that’s a really big question. I don’t know if I can give you a good answer. I can’t really answer that. Can we come back to it?
mxdwn: Yeah, of course.
Juliana: The second part of the question.
mxdwn: Yeah, you know, thinking about what makes you still excited about making new music.
Juliana: Oh yeah. Well, I keep having ideas. I’m an idea person. It’s just really, it’s the only thing I feel like I can do. I feel like it’s what I’m here to do. It’s almost like regardless of how anyone reacts to it, I just have to keep doing it because it keeps me going in a way. It’s almost like breathing or eating or something. I just feel constantly compelled to make more music. And I don’t know why, but it fulfills me somehow: in ways that other things fulfill other people.
It does feel sometimes like I’m just cursed. Like I can’t really do anything else and this is all I can do. That’s what it feels like. Sometimes this is all I can do. So I do it. But it’s a good thing to do because it feels really healthy for me to do. It’s like salutary, it sustains me somehow. That’s all I can say. I know that’s not a very interesting answer.
mxdwn: No, I think it’s a perfect answer. I feel like music for you, it’s what gets you through life and it keeps you… it wakes you up in the morning. I think that’s a beautiful way of looking at it.
Juliana: I’m always singing. I sing through my days. I live alone, but I have a dog and I’m all singing to her. So instead of talking to her, I sing to her a lot. And I sing about what I’m doing. That seems sad. But yeah, melodies are always swirling around my head.
mxdwn: I love that. As you continue to look forward, see what fate has in store for you in the future. What stories do you feel like you have yet to tell in your music that you hope to write about? Or are there any more artists that you feel like you want to make cover albums for? What does the future look like for you?
Juliana: I keep going back to the idea of doing “Juliana Hatfield Sings REM.” I think that one would be really fun for me to do. I do want to do another covers album for sure. And then I actually have a lot… I have a handful of songs that I was working on for this album. I was originally going to make this album, Lightning Might Strike, a double album. But I realized it was going to take me like four years to complete it. So I ended up just putting 12 songs, completing 12 songs. And then I have about almost a whole other album with the songs that I’m working on. So I’m thinking I might do a volume, some sort of volume two of Lightning Might Strike. It wouldn’t be called Lightning Might Strike Volume Two. I’ll probably have another title. So that’s another thing I’m working on.
mxdwn: That’s exciting. I mean, in a way, I know that they say lightning doesn’t strike twice, but in this way, it actually does.
Juliana: I like the idea that the second album would be the second Lightning Strike, which never happened.
Make sure to listen to new album, Lightning Might Strike, available 12/12/25. And check out Juliana Hatfield’s website for news regarding upcoming releases and shows.
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