Singer/songwriter Ha Vay discusses the connection between spirituality and her music, her enchanting new single “Spellbound,” and her unconventional approach in building her next record.
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Stream: “Spellbound” – Ha Vay
Steeped in mystical imagery and folksy rock of the ‘90s, Ha Vay is an ethereal artist on the rise, building a discography that’s transportive.
Her debut album, 2024’s Baby I’m The Wolf, was a project rooted in the fantastical, with thematic structures similar to artists like Florence + The Machine, the moodiness of ‘90s rock bands like Mazzy Star. Ha Vay spoke with Atwood after wrapping up her tour, discussing her commitment to her artistry, her new single “Spellbound,” and how she wants to build her next project.
Like many artists, Ha Vay had always been writing songs and making music since she was young, but never saw it turning into a career. Creating for creation’s sake, she eventually was pushed by close friends and family to start putting her music out into the world. “It wasn’t necessarily me who wanted to share it,” she confides. “It was kind of the people around me in my life who really encouraged me… practically did it for me to begin with… I was just making music for myself my whole life, honestly.”
That push quickly propelled Ha Vay into a community that deeply resonated with her art, something that became clear on her past tour. “It’s like, the sweetest crowds imaginable… They all come in, you know, their flower crowns and their dresses and everything.” Apart from aesthetic overlaps, she was struck by how her honest expression fostered a like-minded fanbase. “I think you can sense that you’re being true to yourself as an artist when you find that the people who are coming to your shows really reflect who you are.”
Fans have already developed a deep connection to Ha Vay and her music, clear through small acts of admiration throughout the tour.
“In Toronto, I was really sick and I couldn’t meet people after the show,” she smiles. “They wrote me little notes; it was just the sweetest crowds… open people and deep thinkers and I don’t know, it’s very strange… I also started this project just playing at like, you know, frat parties and stuff, so the difference between there and being [on tour] is vast.”
The flower crown wearing, note-writing fans may have never come to be if Ha Vay’s imagery, sonics, and overall artistic brand wasn’t so strongly occult and otherworldly. Ha Vay grew up around women that were spiritual, something that undoubtedly influences her discography. “I would say especially both of my grandmothers, in very different ways, are both very spiritual and very witchy. And I think I, you know, I admired both of them so much growing up… I just absorbed so much of that and that’s definitely a lot of where my creativity comes from.” That examination of spirituality comes with endless reckoning of the unknown, Ha Vay admittedly saying that’s also a big driver in terms of creating music. “I question a lot of things. I don’t have any answers, I am just asking questions,” she says jokingly.
While those spiritualistic influences are present throughout the majority of Ha Vay’s tracks, it takes on a whole life of its own on the recently released “Spellbound.” Ha Vay describes the song as one that “cleverly walks a line of ambiguity. Is it an easy summer song out of a 2000s witchy rom-com? Is it a tongue-and-cheek reference to my reputation as a siren? Whatever the origin, the track is an unexpected blend of glittery Y2K singer-songwriter pop… a confident pop anthem for the strange girls.” A sonic departure from Ha Vay’s other pieces, the song is inherently playful, sultry, and sounds as if Ha Vay is actively casting some sort of spell on the listener. The melodies are hypnotic and her vocals take on this airy, whispery quality that only adds to the quiet and alluring confidence across the song.
I’ve got you, you’re spellbound
Dream of me as you please
Hypnotic, praying on your knees
Now you’ve got a bad disease
Need me like the air you breathe
No such thing as heartbreak
Since I’ve got a hand on fate
Beauty never dissipates
I’ll be your endless summer day
Ha Vay worked on the track with co-writers and producers Noah Weinman and Sean Silverman in a matter of hours. “‘Spellbound’ was just like me with Noah and Sean, and we were just practically three strangers tossed in a room for kind of a random session… I feel like it really married all three of our styles together somehow at once, which is not normally how I make music. It was a bit of an experiment, but a lot of fun.” It’s a testament to Ha Vay’s vision and craft that a song as layered and hypnotizing as “Spellbound” came together in such a short amount of time.
As Ha Vay says, she typically likes to spend more time on a track, something she did with “Blush,” another single released earlier this summer. More in keeping with the floaty and delicate energy that is interspersed through Ha Vay’s other songs, she says, “I started the process in my manager’s living room… we got the drum tracks from that… then like a month after that, I had to evacuate LA during the fire. So I went to my friend’s house and I just bought a microphone and did all the vocals myself in a room, my friend Derek added strings later. So it was just this very long process that took a while, but it was very much a huge collaboration between a lot of people, which was great and really, really fun.”
Ha Vay expresses how this is a type of creative space that she typically likes to operate from, taking time to digest her thoughts and musings and bringing them to people who can help tracks take on a whole new sound or meaning. Specifically, Ha Vay is determined to approach songwriting and making in a sort of ‘old fashioned’ way, with her entire band in the studio rather than working with one producer. “I love to experiment with my band. I love them so much, and I love a collaboration like that. I think that having real musicians on everything… this is a drummer who plays drums, this is a guitarist who really plays guitar. All of us are able to contribute ideas, contribute their thoughts and let it live and breathe and develop itself.”
I could tell you anything
I think you’ll cling to any word I say
Anyway, anyway
I muse, I write, I wish and pray
Not to fall, but I have no say
Try as I may, try as I may
And I fear your heart is catching on
By the way, you’re hot to the touch
When you hear my name
And you start to (Blush, blush)
Come closer to me (Rush, rush)
Before they see (Hush, hush)
The way that we breathe
And you start to (Blush, blush)
Come closer to me (Rush, rush)
Before they see (Hush, hush)
The way that we breathe
Ha Vay herself admits that playing in a band comes naturally to her. “I grew up playing live a lot; I played in bands on and off just for fun my whole life. And so that is, I think, this space where I feel the happiest… So that’s really my goal, like for the next record is to bring my band in the studio and in rehearsal spaces and like, develop everything together and let it have a real, living, breathing soul… When it’s working well, it’s truly the most like out of body experience in the world and the most special thing I’ve ever experienced… I want that to exist and to translate into the record, so that’s what I’m really trying to achieve.”
In terms of the new record that Ha Vay is working on, she says that there is a sizable departure from last year’s debut LP. “It’s a huge difference. I feel like with Baby I’m the Wolf, it started with all these characters that were archetypes of different sort of stages of girlhood that I was exploring with each song and it was, I would say in so many ways, very much a departure from the way that I’ve made music my whole life up until then. I feel like now I’m really returning to how I was making music before that, which is very much like an in-the-moment processing of my emotions and experience. It’s a bit more abstract in some senses… it’s a lot more raw and like just very front-facing personal, which is a little terrifying, but I’m really excited about it.”
It’s exciting to hear that Ha Vay is leaning more into a mode of expression that feels more authentically her.
Her most popular track, “Moon Girl,” is a piece littered with ominous howling, shouts, syrupy vocals, and delicate strings, and happens to be an example of a track that feels closest to her most earnest self. “That was the song that I essentially built the whole first album around… It’s funny to me that that’s my most popular song because I think when I was working on that album, I definitely didn’t think that that was going to be the one that took off.”
In the original version of “Moon Girl,” Ha Vay says, “I wasn’t, you know, barking and howling in it and whatnot and didn’t have all my strange synths, counter melodies and everything. So I’m happy the vision I put out really connected with people because I was like, ‘I feel like it’s really me.’”
Find me in the trees with my limbs long swinging
Baby skinned knees and my hair’s all tangled up, up
Meet me at the sea with my cheeks glowing roses
I can dance so free while you just keep smoking up, up
Won’t you take me
As I’m meant to be?
Wild, wild
Don’t mistake me
For the wind when she
Howls, howls away…
With that in mind, Ha Vay says that the new record is interweaving her own personal struggles with what she sees happening in the world around her.
She leaves Atwood with this: “I really landed on something that I felt really, for me, connected that personal journey with how I see the world and what’s happening and what I fear and what I hope… What I’ll give for now is that to me, it’s very much the color blue… not in a sad way.”
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Stream: “Spellbound” – Ha Vay
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© Emily Oreste
© Emily Oreste
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