Singer/songwriter Holly Lovell takes us track-by-track through her unflinchingly personal album ‘Hello Chelsea,’ a poignant exploration of addiction, loss, grief, and healing through an intimate indie folk lens.
Stream: “If I Had It My Way” – Holly Lovell
Chelsea, Manhattan: A name that, for many, conjures images of creativity, ambition, and endless possibility.
But for Holly Lovell, it’s a place forever tied to loss. Her latest album, Hello Chelsea, is a deeply personal excavation of grief, addiction, and the complicated ways we try to make sense of absence. Through raw storytelling and evocative soundscapes, Lovell confronts the heartbreak of losing her uncle to a drug addiction in this very neighborhood, transforming sorrow into something that lingers, resonates, and ultimately heals.
Independently released February 7th, 2025, Hello Chelsea is more than just a tribute; it’s an attempt to bridge the distance between memory and meaning. Lovell doesn’t shy away from the pain of addiction or the long shadow it casts over those left behind, but she also doesn’t let it define the narrative. This album is an offering: an acknowledgment of love, loss, and the unspoken emotions that haunt grief. It’s in this space that Lovell begins to process it all, a journey she describes in her own words:
“I wrote this record over the course of two years processing the loss of my uncle to a drug addiction in Chelsea, Manhattan. At first the songs were just ways to understand my feelings, or help a family member understand their own. Then they became a way for me to try and make his life matter and to somehow justify our long grieving process to a world and community that felt like it didn’t understand.”
“My vision going in was to paint the picture of a life that mattered,” Lovell continues. “To give an honest account of a man who meant a great deal to me, even when he hurt and betrayed. To try and capture that strange balance of reaching and rejection so often found in a story of addiction. I, perhaps naively, didn’t expect this album to be for me though.”
“I thought I was writing it for my family, for my mom, for my grandma, for ‘others’ who had experience with this and would maybe find some resonance in my words. During the recording of the last song on the record, ‘100 Different Ways,’ I wept and realized this record was as much a gift I was giving to myself as anyone. It has been very healing to make and release.”
In allowing herself to grieve through the music, Lovell found something unexpected: A deeper understanding of her own artistry.
What began as an act of remembrance became a reflection of her own creative identity, shaping not only the stories she told but how she chose to tell them. That realization, in turn, influenced the way Hello Chelsea was brought to life in the studio – with a delicate, tender touch, and a raw, visceral heat, together with producer Brian Joseph (Bon Iver), in the remote woods of Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
“Brian Joseph, who produced this album, helped me finally feel like my true self was on display in the work I was putting out,” Lovell says.
“He knew just the imperfections to leave in the music and wouldn’t you know it, that what the secret sauce for me. Single takes with a band, leaving in all the human…it mirrored the human elements left in the lyrics. The truths we usually like to shy away from, but to heal we need to expose them to light. Producing this music in that way really let the lyric shine, which is truly where I shine as an artist I would say. Music is my vehicle for the words.”
Additional participation on the album came courtesy of Courtney Hartman (guitars, vocals), Shane Leonard (drums, percussion), Steve Garrington (bass, synth), Ben Lester (pedal steel, synth) and Sean Carey on (piano, vocals) – a truly world class group of musicians, each of whom leaves a tangible impression on both the album and its listeners.
Lovell candidly describes her album as intimate, yet expansive.
That duality – of something being both inviting and haunting, beautiful and devastating – runs throughout Hello Chelsea. Lovell’s songwriting captures the push and pull of memory, place, and loss, grappling with the way environments shape our lives in ways both subtle and profound. The album is as much about searching for understanding as it is about preserving what’s left, and at its core, it’s a reckoning with the spaces that hold both dreams and tragedy.
“It often felt like everything would have been different had my uncle never moved there to pursue Broadway,” she says. “On the last trip I took to NYC to visit him, I stayed in a hotel two blocks from his apartment and had to walk to meet him each morning. There was a neon blue sign halfway up a brick apartment building that said, ‘Hello Chelsea!’ in scripted writing that I would pass on my way to his place.”
“I was in such a dark place with the city, feeling like it was the animal that kept my uncle imprisoned in his addiction, that I would pass this sign and feel mocked by it. It felt so positive, but didn’t it know what Chelsea was doing to me? To my family?”
Ultimately, these raw emotions spill out in a flood of feeling across Hello Chelsea.
From the album’s heartbreaking entrance to closing songs “Family” and “100 Different Ways,” Lovell paints a poignant tapestry of love and loss, reckoning with the weight of grief while searching for understanding. Each note and lyric serves as a thread, weaving together memories, regret, and ultimately, a quiet acceptance of both the pain and the beauty found in remembrance.
“The record opens with an audio clip taken from family video of my uncle singing ‘New York New York’ with me and my mom in a New York subway when I was 15,” she says. “He moved to NYC to originally pursue Broadway and he had the most beautiful magnetic voice. He never got to fully realize his dream and I love that his voice is on there for all to hear.”
“‘When Did I Lose You’ has been a surprise favorite of mine on this record, actually. It was originally written for my mom as a song of anger and release but I’ve taken it on as my own recently. I feel so much energy and freedom in the delivery of the lyric and it just feels good. ‘I Love You’ has always been my song on the record, and so therefore it still speaks to me greatly.”
In addition, Lovell cites a few lyrical highlights that stand out for her. “I have a few current favorites which have found me in the past weeks since releasing this,” she smiles. “‘Baptized by the space between us and that place’ is one that I have re-resonated with recently. The second verse of ‘Lions Den’ took me a while to crack, that image of the addiction being both slave and enslaver. It was a verse that helped me greatly on my empathy journey towards forgiveness of my uncle.”
‘I hear it speak to me, familiarity
Puts me on my knees and then back on my feet
I never understand who has the upper hand
I’m one in the same
both the slave and the chain’
In the end, Hello Chelsea is more than just a personal reckoning; it’s an offering of solidarity, an invitation for others to sit with their own grief and allow it to be seen.
Through unflinching honesty and a willingness to embrace imperfection, Lovell has crafted an album that doesn’t just mourn a life lost, but affirms the love that remains. It’s a testament to music’s ability to hold space for pain, healing, and ultimately, the quiet but powerful act of remembering.
“So many albums have held me through big heavy portions of my life,” Lovell shares. “Helped me stay there as long as I needed and then provided the way out. I hope this album can be that for someone. I hope they can provide a lens of understanding or empathy to any party going through the repercussions of addiction. I hope it can validate someone’s grief process the way it did mine.”
“Brian said to me upon completion of the album, ‘I hope this record goes on to do great things, but know that it’s already a success. It’s done what it needed to do.’ and he was right. This album was initially for me and my family and, I did it. I rest in the knowledge that in some small way I made my uncles life matter. I already have the next chapter in my story in the works and I’m looking forward to being able to create that and move forward from this moment of heaviness.”
Experience the full record via our below stream, and peek inside Holly Lovell’s Hello Chelsea with Atwood Magazine as she takes us track-by-track through the music and lyrics of her debut album!
— —
:: stream/purchase Hello Chelsea here ::
:: connect with Holly Lovell here ::
— —
Stream: ‘Hello Chelsea’ – Holly Lovell
:: Inside Hello Chelsea ::
— —
If I Can Make It There (intro)
This is a sound recording of my uncle singing on a subway train from a trip I took to visit him when I was 17.
Louis & Me
This song is a moving memory for me- I am walking down 30th St in Chelsea, NY. I am wearing him on my arm. I feel more important when I’m with him, I love to be seen with him. – He is walking down 30th St in Chelsea, NY. He’s wearing his armour of Louis Vuitton. He feels more important when he’s with him, he loves to be seen with him. The chorus is both at the same time. I think I’m there with him, but in retrospect, does he even see me? The rhythm feels like walking to me.
Hello Chelsea
A letter to Chelsea, NY, who I have always seen as a living, breathing, active participant in this story of addiction and loss. New York always seems to lose its shine one way or another, doesn’t it? This is the song where Brian and I started to get really excited, like, this is going to be something we are really really proud of. We had Jeremy Ylvisaker (Andrew Bird) drive down for the day and play electric on this track. He used his credit card running down the strings to emulate a subway screeching past and did his tracking in one take. This is the song we played LOUD and showed anyone who swung by the studio.
If I Had It My Way
This is a song that surprised me by being one of my favorites on this project. It feels like driving across the country at dusk, you switch the headlights on and press on. This is my reflection on addiction when the court gets involved.
Lion’s Den
I spent a long time judging my uncle for his choices and addictions. Sitting in anger. This song was an experiment at getting inside the addiction. This song built my empathy and helped me move forward in my grief. My younger brother drums on this song, he stayed in a mini van on the property while we were recording and helped in any way he could. We have played music together since he was 10 and I was 13 and to have him on this record means so much.
When Did I Lose You
In this song we experimented with chaos and confusion of relationship disintegration. There is a breakdown at the end where we literally recorded ourselves wailing and screaming. I was worried it was too much at first but, in the end I chose to keep it because when I listen to it, it’s the release of grief from the body.
I Love You
This song sparked the entire record. I finished writing it for my uncle on the morning of my birthday. That afternoon I found out he had been found dead in his apartment from a drug overdose. When I found out I was in shock and just kept saying ‘I told him I loved him. I finished the song this morning. I told him I loved him.’ This song is very low in my register because every time I wrote it I was crying, turns out that register is hard to access outside of that space but it speaks to me about where I was in composition so I left it there. The piano has sticky putty on the strings to get that ‘plunk’ sound.
Grief
The last two minutes of this song are a salve for me to listen to. The pedal steel, played by Ben Lester, makes this for me. I made a music video for this on a playground merry go round from the 60s and spun on it for at least two hours worth of takes. I can officially not do spinning rides ever again.
Helpless Mother
Over the course of writing this album I had my first child causing me to see my grandmother’s loss of her son through an entirely new lens. She nursed the baby that became the man who never called her, lied to her and let her down and yet, when he called out to her in times of need she always went running. I always hated that. Now I understand. S. Carey played piano on this and lifted it to a new place. Courtney Hartman’s guitar and harmonies on this song are everything to me.
Selling Your Shoes
This is recorded on an iPhone in Brian Joseph’s living room. This song is a memory in a bottle for me and it needed to feel like thinking out loud… and now it does. Thank you Apple.
Family
A friend of mine listened to this song and said ‘This sounds like you’re the firstborn.’ Oooph…accurate. My absolute favorite moment in this song is when S. Carey and Courtney Hartman’s vocals surround me in the choruses and make it feel like my family is all around me. It’s the coming back together after the storm of grief. It’s the ‘we’re gonna be ok.’ finale.
100 Different Ways
If ‘Family’ is the ‘we’re gonna be ok’ finale then this is the reality reprise. I wrote this song a capella on my voice memos app while driving my napping baby home. Fast forward to the last night of recording and we had this one last song to go. We set a tracking time of 10 pm (because Sean Carey was going fishing and wouldn’t be back until then) and met around a big bonfire just outside the studio. One by one out of the darkness came each player. Matthew Tiller, the neighbor, with his clarinet. Ben & Sean with bottles of wine and no fish. After staring into the blaze a while we took a deep breath and filed quietly into the studio. Everyone crammed into the control room, sitting on angles to fit the instruments. Candle lit and intimate. We tracked the song 100% live and I cried through the outro of it.
— —
:: stream/purchase Hello Chelsea here ::
:: connect with Holly Lovell here ::
— —
— — — —
Connect to Holly Lovell on
Facebook, TikTok, Instagram
Discover new music on Atwood Magazine
© Shane Leonard
© Shane LeonardHello Chelsea
an album by Holly Lovell
