Juliana Hatfield Talks About Her Upcoming Album of Electric Light Orchestra Covers: Behind the Setlist Podcast

Juliana Hatfield made a name for herself in the era of ‘90s college rock with hooky, pop-laden rock songs that comfortably fell outside of the mainstream. Now, Hatfield is about to release an album of covers of one of the most celebrated mainstream pop bands of the ‘70s and ‘80s, Electric Light Orchestra. 

For Hatfield, ELO’s orchestral, multi-layered sound — a signature of its primary member, Jeff Lynn — has been an attraction since before she became a musician. “Growing up, ELO songs would come on the radio, and I was always mesmerized by the sound,” Hatfield tells Billboard’s Behind the Setlist podcast. “ELO just lit up the radio.” 

Juliana Hatfield Sings ELO, out Nov. 17, is her seventh album for American Laundromat Records and the third of cover songs following tributes to Olivia Netwon-John in 2018 and The Police in 2019. “It’s like an escape back to a more innocent time,” Hatfield says of recording the cover songs. “I was full of hope back then. And the mystery and the magic of music was first enveloping me and I was just very excited about it. So when I’m playing these songs and singing the songs of The Police or ELO or Olivia Newton-John, I think part of it is I’m trying to recapture some kind of magical, innocent love of music. And it works. I’m getting those feelings back.”

Ahead of the album’s release, American Laundromat Records has released three tracks that are among ELO’s most popular and successful songs: “Telephone Line,” “Can’t Get It Out of My Head” and “Don’t Bring Me Down,” which reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1979. The 10-track ELO album delves deep into the band’s repertoire and includes such songs as “Bluebird is Dead” from 1973’s On the Third Day and “Sweet Is The Night,” a deep cut from the 1977 album Out of the Blue that peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 albums chart. Two additional songs, “I’m Alive” and “When I Was a Boy,” released as a separate 7” vinyl single. 

“When I was choosing songs for the album, I definitely wanted to focus on some of the really well-known, catchy ones like ‘Telephone Line’ and ‘Don’t Bring Me Down’ just because they’re such great constructions and they’re so fun and well made. But then I wanted to highlight some of the more obscure stuff that maybe people hadn’t heard of like the later albums, like the Zoom album [from 2001] has the great song, ‘Ordinary Dream’ on it.”

Hatfield will begin a string of headlining shows beginning at City Winery in Pittsburgh on Oct. 4 and ending at POP in Providence, R.I., on Oct. 14. Performing the songs live requires Hatfield to translate ELO’s Phil Spector-like “wall of sound” production to a more modest setting. In concert, Lynn’s ELO has a full band — including strings and backing vocals — to bring the familiar recordings to life. Hatfield has less to work with. “It’s difficult to play,” she says. “It’s difficult to get my head around. How do you play an ELO song live when there’s so many layers on the recording? My recordings of ELO songs are slightly stripped down compared to ELO. I don’t have an orchestra or even the string quartet.”

She figured out some workarounds, though, such as substituting keyboards for strings and singing some of the string parts. Hatfield got a helping hand at some recent shows from some backup singers, including Kay Hanley, the singer for the band Letters to Cleo. “You need some extra vocals for sure,” Hatfield says. 

Listen to the entire interview with Juliana Hatfield at Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeart, Amazon Music, Audible, Scribd.

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