Hello Hope Dunbar

Photo by Karyn Rae

Hey Hope, thanks for your time, how the devil are you?

I’m doing very well, thanks for having me.

So tell me, where are you right now? And what have you got on your agenda today?

I’m in Nebraska, USA lovingly referred to in America as a “fly over” state on the central plains. Today I’m working on a song I need to finish for next Monday, I’m teaching a new tune to some teenagers for a graduation ceremony in May and I’m taking a walk in the country if the wind isn’t blowing too hard. Pretty standard day, really.

I normally do a mini intro piece in interviews, but if you were introducing yourself in a paragraph what would you say?

I’d say Hope Dunbar is from a small town in Nebraska where the corn grows high in summer and the sky goes on forever. She writes songs that I think are in the “New American Prairie” style rooted in resilience, hope, and seeing the blessings even amidst burden. Kinda wealth and want at the same time all the time. She’s released two full-length records, Three Black Crows in 2017 and this newest piece, Sweetheartland.

You released Sweetheartland a couple of weeks ago, tell me about it in two sentences.

It is a project centered around expansiveness, heart, hope, and emotion. Just like most things we observe from a distance, the Sweetheartland is more than you think it is.

‘What Were You Thinking?’ has a real drive to the music and a rawness to the lyric and vocals, what’s the story to that song?

Well, thank you. I was imagining a situation where a woman sees her lover cheating on her. I wanted the woman to be less sentimental victim and more fire and fury. It was the song, as I was writing it, that revealed to me how she’d come to realize her lover wasn’t even worth it and how she turned some of that clear-eyed rage into seeing she was better off without him.

And “She was mutton dressed as lamb / In a One Direction t-shirt” That’s a real burn. How did you come up with that lyric?

I am really proud of that, but also, I read it in a book. The moment I read it, I laughed out loud and looked for places in my writing I could use it. This was the perfect place. To describe her appearance as an old sheep trying to pass as a young lamb is so funny and exactly what an enraged lover might say about the person who wooed her man away from her.

If you could steal one of John Prine’s songs to be your own, which one would you choose?

Probably ‘Sam Stone’. It’s so sad. It kicks ass. 

Which was the first song that you wrote that made it onto the album? When we went into pre-production I was really decided that ‘Dog Like You’ had to be on the album. After that was ‘Woman Like Me’ and we kinda started building the album from there.

Were there any songs you wrote that you loved but didn’t make the final cut? Yes. This album was originally 11 tracks long, but two songs got sidelined for later releases. One song was a love song with a really cool Bossa Nova groove and the other was about not going to a Bruce Springsteen concert once. So a very heartbreaking song.

What can you tell me about the cover art for the album?

I love the cover art! Thanks for asking. I called up a local tattoo parlor, made an appointment with a tattoo artist I had never met before, but who friends had recommended, sat down for my “consultation” and then said, “I’m not here for a tattoo but have you ever drawn art for an album cover?” Dave Robinson was so cool. He was so awesome to work with and understood my vision right away. This is my rock n’ roll album and I wanted something that gave a nod to that rock ‘n roll spirit, the legacy of vinyl album art you hang on you can’t divorce from the record itself. They go hand in hand and I love what the cover looks like.

You released Three Black Crows in 2017, what do you think is the biggest difference is in you and/or your music now from your debut?

I think I’ve just grown into the understanding that I can write whatever I want. I think I’ve become more confident in my writer’s voice to tell any story, to bring my voice to the story, to love it and take it seriously no matter whether it’s a song about cheating or a song about a music legend. I used to think the best songs were the songs that dealt with the heaviest material, but I’ve grown to see how the song universe is much deeper and richer than that.

What are you up to for the rest of 2021?

Well I’m very glad to be releasing this album at this time. It looks like there’s light at the end of this pandemic tunnel and I’m slowly adding some dates to my calendar. I’m also writing quite a bit these days and thinking about my next album project.

Who (or what) has inspired you?

People inspire me. I just love hearing people tell their stories, talk about life, tell me where they’ve been. I love travel (haven’t had much of that to speak of lately), my fellow songwriters, summertime, films and TV. I find life pretty inspiring.

If you could recommend one artist to hear this week, who would it be?

A friend of mine in San Francisco, Bob Hillman, is an amazing songwriter. He has been writing a lot during the pandemic and released two projects so far, but I think his album Some of Us are Free, Some of us are Lost is outstanding. His writer’s voice is very different from mine and, speaking of inspiration, his work is very inspiring to me.

What’s the question we should have asked you today but haven’t?

What’s next after Americana world domination? Probably a couple weeks on a beach somewhere. I’m open to suggestions. 

Finally, how do you take your coffee?

Coffee is so important to the process. I take it with a splash of cream.

To find out more about Hope you can visit her official website, or you can check out what she’s up to on Twitter and Facebook.

Her album, Sweethearland, is out now and available to buy from Bandcamp and stream on Tidal, Spotify and Apple Music.