The Last Music Podcast
The Last Music Podcast
The Last Music Podcast: Hannah White ~ Fine Day
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In this episode, Last Music founder Malcolm Mills sits down with Hannah White and talks about her upcoming album, "Fine Day" out 12th September (19th September in North America), about her singular year, busting genres and the future.
To download/order or pre-save the album visit: Hannah White
For a list of upcoming tour dates, visit Hannah's web site at: https://www.hannahwhitemusic.com
Brought to you by The Last Music Company, an old school haven for fine music in this mad world.
Come visit us at https://www.lastmusic.co.uk to see what we're up to.
It was there in her eyes that she'd never love again. Seems laying down a shield, but for the heart is but his soul is on the ground and he won't pick it up again. He won't pick it up again. But a pick just so clear it's all she's believed in. All she's believing is she knows that he's letting her this is Malcolm Mills from The Last Music Company with another podcast.
SPEAKER_00That was Fine Day by Hannah White, and she is my guest today. Hello Hannah.
SPEAKER_02Hello, Malcolm.
SPEAKER_00Ah, right, okay. Well I'm glad you made it over here today. What we can't show these people at the moment is that just before we started doing this podcast, I was able to give you a copy of your new test pressing for the vinyl working.
SPEAKER_01I know, I've forgotten that this was even a thing and happening, and it's yeah, massive moment, very exciting.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, it sounds great. I mean the the the thing about test pressings is that you really do have to listen to them to make sure that they haven't lost anything in the cup from one thing or another. And I'm very happy with it as you will be as one of the people who rush out to buy it when it comes out. So uh so exciting Yes, yes. Yeah, vinyl is good, isn't it? It's interesting how it's it it's it has made a comeback. It's not selling in the sort of truck loads that everybody thinks it is, but the people who want it definitely want it and they go and get it and they're always very pleased.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think they become a bit of a collectible thing, but I think that's what's really nice about this record. Um I don't know how much we're allowed to say, but you know, the fact that it's gonna look so nice and it's got you know, it's not just the the product, it's but it's just the packaging and you know the lyrics. It's like you know, that's so special.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I agree. I think what I I like about being able to put your recordings onto a 12-inch vinyl is that uh you you're uh we are of course restricted by the amount of uh space that there is on each side. It's not like a CD where it's endless. I'm sure most people know that. You're restricted to about 18 minutes, maybe 20 minutes of top whack. So we've been able to put this album out, just like Sweet Revolution, on vinyl as well. So um the CD version, of course, has got a bonus disc in it, which has got all those great digital singles that you did over the course of the year.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, which you kindly allowed me to do in a bit of a maverick sort of way. Um but yeah, that's been and it's just so nice to be able to like honour those songs as well because they're all kind of out there and it's all been sporadic and uh haphazard, but but now it doesn't feel haphazard, it feels like they're a collection and yeah, they belong somewhere, they got home.
SPEAKER_00Well, is it I I remember when we first uh did one of these podcasts before, it was back in 2023. Yeah one of the things that I was asking you about is how long you'd been writing songs and what you did for Source, because I was always impressed by the sheer variety of styles that you managed to uh make examples of your music in. And you said that you started writing your first song when you were eight years old.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, uh maybe even younger, yeah. But I I remember the songs which you were not here, but I remember songs that I wrote when I was eight. Like, yeah, I it's just always been a way of processing, dealing with the world. I don't know why. Music and words just come together. Um yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well what what I liked about when we did Sweet Revolution, yeah, we were just about at this stage where the test pressing came through and all the rest of it, and you said, Oh, I've got enough material for a new album again already, and we hadn't even got that one out yet. And so that was a good example of how prolific you are as a writer, and uh yeah, I I can tell you that even as a as a record company guy, you know, I really like the music that you make, and it's it's very difficult for someone like me to find a way of uh getting that out there to people to be able to buy. And so the old uh way of doing that was just to make a CD or an album every couple of years. And so, what we were able to do with that last group of songs is uh put them out as a collection of digital singles so that you could still make this new album, Fine Day, which is a standalone group of recordings and songs that work very well together, yeah, but we'd have been able to incorporate all the other stuff that you've done as a bonus to you.
SPEAKER_01I mean, to be honest, quite a few people were saying to me, What on earth are you doing? This like I don't think this isn't a standard thing, people don't seem to do this, and I don't know about strategy or like labels or business, but I just know that I like making songs. So this was great for me, but I just I actually didn't so many people were saying this is I don't know, this seemed a bit of a dubious plan. And I I wondered, oh maybe is this a ridiculous idea, but it seems to have I don't know, they're just like I don't know, from all the data, whatever. It's it's been brilliant. It's been it's drawn people to my music and um and not just yeah, and networks and whatever, radio stations, whatever. It's that's been really good. Uh, and it's obvious it's allowed me an outlet. I don't know if it's the right thing for a label to do, but for me it's been brilliant.
SPEAKER_00Well, I can tell you from the from the label's point of view, um obviously most of the things that record companies have to do is make a profit and make commercial releases that have a return on that investment. But in the case we're talking about here, because you have made these recordings at your own expense and with your skills of Kearan Marshall engineering and a band playing with you, and all those kind of things going on, you've been able to keep making music. And the reason I was so keen to get them into the marketplace without regard for financial return on them, if I can put it as bluntly as that, yeah, is because the beauty of the digital marketplace is that if you've already invested your time, effort, and money into making the recordings, I can get it out there to people to help help your whole career. And the the beauty of it for me is that it's a genre bust thing. You haven't had to make a folk album or an Americana album or a blues album. You've been able to express yourself as a songwriter. One of them is a solo piano piece where you're singing with a piano that you play. And so, you know, we've got all these singles that came out that represented an area of your songwriting that couldn't possibly be put together as an album in the conventional way. So we've achieved it, and you did, and I'm so pleased to have been able to get those songs out there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, that's just yeah. I I mean I do wonder whether like being, you know, not confined to one specific genre has not done me any favours or is a bad thing, or whether I should try and think about putting together like a collection that's just more consistent. But I just can't, you know, I just yeah, I just songs turn up and they're they are what they are. So yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, I think where you are with your sort of recording career at the moment, yeah, if you you know if you express it like that, when this album Fine Day comes out, people will be able to hear songs that you've been working on for a number of years. These weren't just a bunch of new things that came out straight after the next one, as I said. It was work in progress at the time because that's the way you are. What you've been able to do is sort of put these into a corral that works as a group of material in an album in physical format with a really nice sleeve when it comes back to the vinyl thing, you know. It looks great, and and it says the the art says everything about the music that's in there, yeah, and it does cover a variety of styles, but I like that. I don't I don't believe in anybody having their music put in categories.
SPEAKER_01Boxes, yeah, the the boxes, the words are really difficult, and people say, Oh, what sort of music do you make? And I'm always like, But I don't know. It's really hard to say. Um yeah, but I I mean I agree, and that's the sort of artist I I like artists who do I love Richard Thompson and Dylan and a lot of these people who do a lot of different things. Um yeah, I like songwriters, but I don't know, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well those people and you are not constrained by what you think the fans are expecting from you. You know, in the early days of Bob Dylan's recording career, in the record industry in those days was governed by what the producers wanted the record to sound like because they knew they thought they knew what the market was expecting from it. And those days have completely gone, all those barriers are down, and now anybody can make music and make it available for anyone to enjoy anywhere in the world. It's fantastic. And and the the biggest hurdle to jump for everybody in that uh arena is just the sheer volume of material that gets released by every minute of every day. But in the words of the great Duke Ellington, yeah, there's only two kinds of music, good or bad. Yeah, it's nothing to do with whether it's blues, jazz, folk, classical anything. And in my view, all the stuff you do falls into the definitely the good box. And so we'll the way I see it from here to answer your early question about you know what happens next. I think that there's nothing to stop us after we've got this fine day out there, and people have been able to appreciate that body of work. I'd really like to start releasing your music as singles without necessarily having a timetable like we did before. But if you've got something that you're happy with and you've recorded it and you got it to a standard that you want, I'm more than happy to get that out. And so you can do anything because your fans will find it, and they're gonna be happy for you to make any kind of music you want because they know you now.
SPEAKER_01I mean that's amaz that's just amazing for me because that's just yeah, freedom. Oh that's wow, that's really exciting. I I it's really weird and refreshing and just brilliant because obviously you've you're obviously you run this label, but you've run obviously proper and um done massive things and worked with massive artists. But so hearing from someone who's on that side of it and has got all that experience, but you're like the general consensus is that music these days, like the industry side of things is is bad or hard or is going against artists, and I know all the reasons there's probably loads of valid reasons, there definitely are loads of valid reasons why. But just to hear that you're like the the positive side of things, which is classic you, looking at like the opportunities and what we can do, and uh yeah, and if we I mean if we're allowed to do that, I'm really happy.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, I don't see any reason why not because I think you you are a prolific songwriter, yeah, and the worst thing that can happen is that you build up a stack of songs that can't find their way into the market because somebody at a record company says, Well, you had a record out two years ago, you can't put another one out, nobody will be talking about it in the music press. Well, I'm sorry, I was you know, I think with the kind of music that you're making, you d you don't need to actually create those kind of barriers. So let's not do it again. And I think like we do with these digital singles, every now and again we can put a group of them together and you can turn it into a CD or a vinyl record that you can sell at your shows to your fans and things, you know, and um um and and eventually do another record in good time, you know. Without putting any sort of targets or goals up there, just keep working as a creator, yeah. And as it comes out, we'll get it out there, and that's the way to do it.
SPEAKER_01Wow, you heard it here first. Yeah, that's amazing, yeah.
SPEAKER_00So we're we're people are gonna be able to know what you've been doing over the last few months leading up to this record.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But what have you got lined up in terms of dates of things between now and Christmas?
SPEAKER_01Oh, it's it's actually mental. Um so between now and Christmas, so we're currently in July 2025. We're going out to well, we're going, we've got a date at the end of this week with Jules Holland in Scotland. We're playing Usher Hall, which is gonna be lovely, gorgeous venue. Then we're going out to Germany, we've got a few festivals in Germany, and then we're coming back. Um well, actually, then we'll be going to Nashville, won't we? Kieran? Kieran's sitting next to me, nodding silently. Yeah, then we're going to Nashville, so we're showcasing the American's um Americana Fest. So that's really exciting. My first time in the US and yeah, and at the Americanas. Then we're coming back and launching the album at the 100 club, and we'll have a tour, record store tour across the country, so we're everywhere doing little record stores. Um, and then we finished at the Royal Alba. We don't finish the record store at all at the Royal Albable, but we are playing the Royal Albou Hall um with Jules Holland. Uh yeah, and in November. So that's so exciting. There's a lot of firsts, a lot of major things. If I die at the end of the year, it's going to be okay because I've done all this stuff.
SPEAKER_00Well, yeah. That's one way of looking at it. Hock ahead is the Native American say. It's always a good day to die.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, there you go. Is that the thing?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, hockey. A good day to die. Oh god. That's why people they've always got a smile on their face. And me too. Yeah, you are definitely like that. You don't You should be ready.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Don't be disappointed when you're I've got to do this first. I've got to do this first.
SPEAKER_01I've got to get to December.
SPEAKER_00Oh dear. Yeah, well, great. Well, um, I think rather than try and think of something else to talk about, no, we've done it. Why don't we entertain our listeners with a track off the album? What would you like to play us out with here?
SPEAKER_01Okay, well, because it's summer and we're sitting in your conservatory and we can see all the birds and all the wildlife around us, um, we should play Campbellwell, which is a song I write about my sister, but it's in butterfly metaphor.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00Yep, I really like that. And so here he comes right now. And so this album, as you well know, everybody is out in September, and Hannah's out on the road promoting it, and it's a pleasure to be involved with somebody who's such a gifted artist as Hannah and her partner Kieran.
SPEAKER_02Synchronized the old perspective of a high I was drawing just to my fingers to the dust and side my head. We're talking social justice and on the forest, reasonables.