Hannah Fairchild Is Straight Out of Brooklyn

By Roland Finger
Contributing Writer

Her voice can throb, bob and roll. Hannah Fairchild is a Fargo/Moorhead native who’s doing a show at the Red Raven. She majored in musical theater in college and moved to New York in 2005, planning to ignite a Broadway stage career. But she grew tired of the theater scene with bossy directors who thrash on actors for kicks. She needed more freedom and decided that she wanted to sing without the acting, so she bought a guitar and has been playing ever since, while letting loose her own unique style of vocals. These days, she does shows throughout New York and is immersed in Brooklyn’s indie music community.

She’s a cool do-it-her-way vocalist/guitar player who recently released her first album, “Paper Kingdoms.” Despite loud neighbors, ice cream trucks, and muscle cars revving on the mean streets, she managed to record the album in her Brooklyn apartment, almost entirely by herself. The tracks truly were an enterprise in do-it-yourself-at-home artistry. She taught herself how to use recording equipment. She scrimped and saved and borrowed equipment from friends to make it all happen.

While securing a hard-drive to back up her music because her Mac was giving up the ghost, she broke her ankle. But she turned the liability and pain into her own gain. No, she didn’t sue Best Buy. She had to take time off from her day job waiting tables and was able to put more time and energy into recording. Hannah is a one-woman show who can belt it out with impressive range and depth.

Her lyrics are full of her own complex poetry, often touching on doomed relationships and tough and feisty women who might just be a little “mad, bad, and dangerous to know.” Hannah Fairchild feels that “making the album was cathartic” because she had recently ended a less-than-ideal relationship, and she needed to “find an outlet for expressing a strong independent female voice.”

In her songs “Pin Up” and “Poor Leander,” we see needy, clingy women and the men who get off on female dependence. Hannah recognizes that many women casually give in to pressures around them, conforming to sex-toy stereotypes to seem appealing. Hannah knows that these women often underestimate themselves, ignoring their own internal calls and inclinations. In the album, the female characters progress toward becoming women who pick themselves up and are assertive and confident. The song “Slow Burn” portrays a seductive, dark, and strong woman who takes a golden boy on a rough ride.

Hannah blends blues, jazz, and folk styles, producing haunting and moving rhythms and tones. Currently, she is planning her next album, which will be out early next year. One song on the album will be “Jordan Baker,” based on the independent, athletic woman in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Hannah has a thing for the 20’s jazz scene, and it comes out in her, at times, smoldering and lilting vocals. Her next album will be recorded in a studio and will include more musicians.

She recently gained some acclaim for her guest vocals on Dinosaur Feathers’ album Fantasy Memorial. She plans on continuing more collaborative projects in the near future. It seems a Hannah Fairchild band may be next.

Her music has a feminist message: don’t take crap from bossy men. Sometimes, she has to fend off smarmy male customers while she tends bar and waits tables in a snooty New York restaurant. But she does it all with a bit of Minnesota nice. While getting in trouble and building her street rep as a club and barroom songstress, she is famous for her big laugh that matches her big voice. If she doesn’t have much money yet, she’s got some major assets in soul.

For more information on Hannah Fairchild, check out her website, http://www.hannah-fairchild.com, where you can find the “Paper Kingdoms” lyrics, catch an interview she gave with BreakThru Radio, and listen to some of her music. “Paper Kingdoms” is available for download through iTunes.

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[Roland Finger is Assistant Professor of English at Concordia with a Ph.D in English from UC Davis.  -R. Leingang]

If You Go
What: Hannah Fairchild
Where: Red Raven
When: Thurs, June 17, 8pm
Info: 701.478.7337