Solo artists can’t break up with themselves, but they can evolve. For Sharon Van Etten, it meant becoming a quartet to create her seventh full-length album. Released on February 7, Sharon Van Etten & the Attachment Theory solidifies a group dynamic into the name and the music.

All three supporting members have collaborated with a wide spectrum of different musicians over their careers. For two of them, bassist Devra Hoff and drummer Jorge Balbi, that includes helping shape Van Etten’s 2022 album, We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong. Hoff also leads their own projects and has worked with Nels Cline, Julia Holter, and Xiu Xiu. Balbi has lent his talents to artists including Teepee and Zella Day. Keyboardist Teeny Lieberson records as Lou Tides, appeared on Sleater-Kinney’s 2024 album Little Rope, and was a member of Brooklyn-based bands TEEN and Here We Go Magic.

All of this talent comes together with powerful results. Van Etten and Lieberson's close vocal harmonies showcase lyrics examining the imperfect, fractured state of existence and the acceptance that it eventually ends for us all. Fans of synthesizer-driven tracks like “Jupiter 4” off Van Etten’s 2019 album, Remind Me Tomorrow, will notice this collection explores more of that sonic universe. The group’s aligned musicianship and dramatic transitions give Sharon Van Etten & the Attachment Theory structure, movement, and soul.

The Current caught up with Van Etten at home before she and the Attachment Theory began their current North American tour, which stops at St. Paul’s Palace Theatre on Saturday, May 10. The conversation touches on Van Etten’s recent tribute to a musical hero, writing music in the desert, and the thrills of working with other artists.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Reed Fischer: Hello, Sharon. 

Sharon Van Etten: Hi Reed, how are you? 

Doing well today. Yourself?

Doing well. Just in a packing frenzy. I don't know how many times I go on the road, but it's still a hard thing to know how to do.

What are your final preparations for this tour? What feels different this time around?

Right now, I'm just packing. I fly to Atlanta and have a day of rehearsal before our show on Thursday. Our party is a little bit larger as a five-piece band with guitar tech, monitors, front of house, merch, and tour manager. It ends up being about 12 people on the road. So, just checking in with everybody and making sure that with some new people in the mix that everyone is feeling good. But you don't really know until you start a tour what the chemistry is like, and how this moving organism works. It's a little bit different every time.

These are people you've played with for a while, but you are now calling them your band, the Attachment Theory. Do you feel a tighter obligation to check in at this stage?

Prior to having this specific iteration, I always checked in with everybody. You can't make everybody happy, but I always try to. I think now more than ever, yes, I want to make sure that everyone feels heard and seen, and that everybody's concerns are met. It's like a family. I think I've made the joke before that I named the [band] the Attachment Theory because we're all connected on a deep level, almost like siblings, and we have these sibling-like dynamics. You create these familial connections when touring in a band at this capacity. With the highs and lows of any kind of travel, let alone touring, can feel like, it's important to just check in with each other. But it's a mutual check-in, not a one-way street. 

I’m super curious about this recent experience you had onstage at Carnegie Hall taking part in the Patti Smith tribute. How did that feel? And what has her music meant to you over the years?

It was a beautiful event to be a part of. It's redundant to say I'm honored to have participated in a tribute to someone who has carved out a path for so many. To be on stage with all these incredible musicians from her band, Flea, Tom Petty's band, and the other performers, Karen O, Alison [Mosshart] from the Kills, and Matt Berninger. It's musicians that I look up to, that I've come up with, but also that continue to influence and inspire me.

I was a late bloomer to her music, or at least digging deep into her catalog. I really didn't connect with her music on a personal level until I was writing the album Tramp, and I was reading her book, Just Kids. This was in 2010 or ’11. I got to see her play at Bowery Ballroom for her New Year's Eve shows. She performed "Pissing in a River," and it blew my mind completely, just floored me. It made me want to immerse myself even further. I found out that she met [photographer] Robert Mapplethorpe about two blocks from where I was staying in this [Brooklyn] neighborhood near Clinton Hill, on Hall Street.

I felt all this cosmic-like energy around rediscovering her music and pursuing music on my own. I was learning how to carve a path for myself and not shying away from being more of a performer [which meant] leaning into the angst and the anger that I was maybe too shy to lean into before. It goes without saying that she's legendary beyond my moment of connection with her.

Thank you for sharing. I have some questions about your work, too. I never connected the expression "Idiot Box" [track three on Sharon Van Etten & the Attachment Theory] to my iPhone before, but now I'm stuck with it. The utility of non-stop connectedness via devices has changed the way we live, work, interact, think, and all that. It's not all bad, of course, but that song hints at some of the downsides. What led to that lyrical direction for you?

When it came out of my mouth, I was half joking about it, because I think we all bust each other with staring at phones. But as I started dissecting my relationship with my phone, I also think about my son who's eight years old. … You have to check in with yourself and be more present, for yourself and others. When either me or my partner reprimand our son about how much screen time he's getting, we're like, "We're such hypocrites, you know?" We know what we need to do, and it's hard to do. It’s giving a nudge to myself for learning how to figure something else out, to have some more meaningful time, and just being more compassionate and aware.

"Live Forever" is such a great opener for this album, and it makes sense that you've used it to kick off early shows on the tour. It feels like easing into the material and introducing the members of the Attachment Theory to an audience because it starts kind of small instrumentally and then gets really big. Can you tell me about how that one came together?

We were working in the desert. We had just moved into the studio called Gatos Trail [in Joshua Tree, California]. It was a house in a studio where we all camped out together, had breakfast, lunch and dinner together, and had discourse about  what had been going on in our lives since tour and since COVID. I was on a walk with my bandmate, Devra. I think we had just ran an errand, and I was talking about this article I had read about this British study of mice injected with a serum that reversed the aging process. They said if you take it after the age of 50, it works, but if you take it before the age of 50, you can have the opposite effects.

We were just having a laugh, and got into this philosophical conversation of like, "If you could live forever, would you and why?" And like, "What kind of a world would that look like? If you know nobody, nobody died?" The movie Death Becomes Her comes to mind. We were having this conversation, and as I opened the studio door, I just heard the synth bass going boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Teeny had her synth sequence going diddle do diddle lo. I just started off as a joke because we had just talked about it, but I walked up to the mic and said, "Who wants to live forever?" And then everyone just started falling in. In some ways it was very natural.

How far were you into the process by that point?

That was our first writing week, and we wrote it in one sitting that day. That was a song that, for me, defined at the get-go what I wanted the album to feel like. I knew it was going to be the opener of the album the whole time, because, as you said earlier, it introduces the listener to the band and allows it to unfold. You can hear all these hints about where the album is going based on development over the course of the first half of the song.

The themes of aging and death come up a lot on the album. It’s not in a downer way, but moments that feel unifying. Your narrator seems to be saying, “This is happening to all of us.” How does that feel to put themes like that out in your music more?

Now that I’m writing through more of this collective lens and filter it broadens my perspective. In my past work, I've tried to open my mind and think beyond my solo perspective, but inherently whatever I write about is from my perspective. Having conversations about what was going on in everybody else's life and our concerns in the world, it felt like it was my responsibility to field everybody's lives and opinions and try to find a voice that represented us all. I'm still learning how to do that, but this was a great introduction to collective writing.

Another song that hit me was "Fading Beauty," which feels almost like a poem set to ambient music. I love how the couplets evolve. When you have all these people in the room and you find a song that needs fewer elements, how do you navigate that? It's not a quiet, empty song, but it has more subtle characteristics to it than some of the other ones on the record.

For that one, I had just been sitting in the desert. It was more of a meditation on mortality and thinking about other people's parents, my parents, my husband's parents, and just the time of life we're in. I was standing in the desert writing these lyrics down and looking into the distance and the darkness. The stars were just shooting down, and I just felt overwhelmed by life, the universe, and love. It’s scary and it's also really beautiful. So I started off writing about that outside of the studio, and everybody was just kind of jamming. The record definitely needed this breath, because there's so much intensity the entire time. It can be fun, but some of the subjects are very dense. There is a lot of space with the instrumentation. It was the perfect moment in this sequence of the record to have a bit of a breath and a meditation and reflection on a lot of what the songs are already about. 

Your 2021 collaboration with Angel Olsen, "Like I Used To," was a pandemic anthem for me. And I'm sure I'm not the only one to say that. It became something that you featured in your tour with Angel Olsen and Julien Baker every night. What was it like to bring that to life, for yourself and for those audiences?

I felt in that moment it was more important than ever to show camaraderie. We're all coming out of COVID, and we're like, “Should we even be touring? Should we even be putting out records?” Instead of touring around the same time and competing against each other during an already difficult time, I was like, "What are we doing here?" When my husband, who's also my manager, and we put our heads together and were talking about it with other people. Angel, Julien, and I were already friendly, and we all had music coming out. For our fans, who are risking their lives to go to shows, it was a mutual respect and show of support for each other. It did feel like summer camp, and everybody in all of the parties was incredible. I would love to do something like that again and just support each other. It's not easy, but it was fun.

You've done many successful collaborations with other artists that feel like partnerships more than features. Not that features are a negative thing by any means. Just to give a few examples of recent ones: Ezra Furman, King Hannah, Deep Sea Diver. It feels like you're finding something new with the duet partner that maybe neither of you could have arrived at on your own. How do you get into that headspace for working with somebody? What keeps you coming back to do more of them?

When people reach out to collaborate, first of all, I'm honored. I try to say yes to things for people I'm already a fan of and/or a cause that I believe in. These are artists I admire, that I care about. It means a lot to have their support, and I know it means a lot for them on the other end, too. Now more than ever, we also need to support our community. I've never really been a competitive person, and the more that I get to write with other people and be turned on to new ideas, the better writer and collaborator I am. I like challenges. I like meeting people. I like uncomfortable situations, to a degree, to push me into the unknown a bit more than if it was just me and ideas that I've been accustomed to.

How are you at taking direction?

When it's someone else's project, it's really easy, right? You're showing up to help somebody else's vision come into fruition. That is really exciting to help be the interpreter for their words, their sounds, their palette, and what you can bring to that to help lift up their music. With my own music and bringing people into the fold, it's an ego check. As I let go in those collaborative moments for specifically this collective, I feel like it's always “we.” I've always benefited from letting go, hearing everybody out, and letting it be a shared idea instead of trying to control it.

Lots of people are collaborating. Some of it's about the algorithm, and some of it is what you're talking about, just building community and using it as a chance to grow.

I try to shy away from the algorithms. You know, sometimes they get me on the opposite side. I've been very fortunate with everyone I've gotten to collaborate with.

Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory. With Love Spells. 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, May 10, at Palace Theatre in St. Paul. Tickets and Info.