So PXP001 aka the Just They Way tape from Hettie is all sold out (original tape post here!). I made 50 baby-pink tapes and they are all gone (save for a few at Rough Trade NYC and 1 forever held at The British Library. The lucky few of you are currently in possession of this hopefully soon to be legendary tape, and I’m sure by now you want to know a little more about Hettie. Well she is 16 from Littlehampton and she goes to BIMM which is that music college in Brighton that basically creates pop stars. In this post I am going to give you all the info I can and by the time Hettie releases her next record, you will presumably be able to relate more to her lyrics. as you’ll know her!
Okay so let’s start with how I know her. Hettie came on my radio show on Phoenix 98FM (www.phoenixfm.com) in September 2013. She wasn’t meant to be on my show, but another presenter had left the station and she was scheduled to be on his show… so she ended up on mine. FATE! Usually I am a little cautious when this sorta thing happens as I like to pick the bands that appear on my show, myself, that way there is some quality control, but I sometimes it all just works out. Hettie came in and we made a horrible tasting smoothie, on the previous presenter’s show as she needed 2 volunteers. That was a good introduction to just how bad Hettie is at making smoothies. I now know to never to accept a drink from Hettie as it will taste like pond water 🙂 My show was up next and below you can hear the audio and see some videos from it! The audio is 2 hours long so listen to this in the bath or something 🙂
great huh? So that was my intro to Hettie and her music. She obviously has something special, so I got my friend Kenny Lee – who has been in approx 1 million bands – to remix the original version of Just The Way and that’s what you hear on the single!
We then decided to film more videos as the ones above came out really well so I went to Brighton (btw Brighton, your arcades have gone downhill in the last decade, sort that out please) and filmed the videos you see below:
this is “bad blood” and this particular video got 250k+ views on Vube.com. We filmed it in one take!
an acoustic version of “just the way”. I persuaded the nervous looking carny guy to let us jump into his booth and film. His boss walked past so thats why you can see him biting his nail as he was about to get sacked.
this one is called “cut me off” and its quite a sad little song, but Hettie isn’t always so emo!
We did a few more but I am making that into a little documentary at some point. Oh we took tons of photos too. Hettie is modelling the amazing sunglasses/3D glasses from Ingri:Dahl in alot of these photos. If you want them too, go to http://www.ingridahl.com as they are amazing supporters of Hettie’s music and just lovely people to boot!
Not too shabby with a camera if I do say so myself! You are welcome to use any of  the photos above for any articles or to just generally show to people! So what happened next? Well Hettie came on my show again in December 2013. This is a XMAS themed video! By now, I was very much into getting a cool looking vid, even from a live recording….
I absolutely love this song. Â It’s called No Guarantee but you ARE guaranteed to enjoy it.
I first heard No Guarantee when in bed, half asleep I got a text from Hettie syaing “I made a little song, dont know if it’s any good, I’ll send it to you if you want…’ So through hazy dreams, I replied “okay” and drifted back into Nod. The phone in my hand buzzed to wake me up and I had a text with an attachment. I pressed play and closed my eyes again. I listened and then when it had finished I listened again. I was now wide awake. “Hettie you do realise this is the best song ever right?” I text back. She didn’t realise and she still doesn’t, but it really is some kind of wonderful. A few days after she appeared on my show for the second time, I got her into the studio, Resident Studios to be exact, where they film bits of X-Factor when prospect-pop-stars get cut down for not giving “110%”.
Hettie wanted the songs she did to sound like CHVRCHES mixed with Phantogram mixed with a few other amazing bands and somehow the engineer/producer – brilliantly named Caradog – did it. We came out with 2 fully formed songs; uptempo, current pop/electro songs with a hint of folk that will hopefully amaze everyone. If you listen to Phoenix FM you will have heard both songs on my show, but all the other DJs also play No Guarantee frequently.
Here’s what American fashion company Ingri:Dahl had to say about Hettie and her music
And here is what Resident Studios had to say about Hettie.
So I think it was the natural evolution of our collabs so far that I release something for her but it had to be special. I’ve wanted to start a tape label for a while as I have always loved the format and like Hettie, I am obsessed with all things 80s (I am going to do an even longer article on why I started this label – featuring another appearance from Injured Fox!) so it felt right that Hettie would be the first release. I don’t think Hettie will mind TOO much if I tell you that she told me she cried when she first heard her music on  cassette tape (in a good way!) because it’s a physical object that holds meaning. You can touch it, feel it, throw it across the room, but its there. It exists. It makes the music REAL instead of the song-skipping culture that exists now, as with tape you kinda have to listen to everything in one big go. Look there she is with her tapes!
And what most people don’t know is if you put a bunch of the tapes together you get a big photo of Hettie! Idea thanks to Neil Buchanan of ART ATTACK!
Now you know why the label on your tape looks like the corner of someone’s face. Thanks for supporting HETTIE and POST/POP in these early days and as you can see, I have alot of stuff happening in a very short space of time, so keep your eye on this site and especially on Hettie’s career.
If you are reading this and want her to play your gig somewhere or guest on your track or if you just want to proclaim your undying love, then hit her up on twitter!
check out more of her stuff at:
http://www.hettiesteinmore.com – website
https://twitter.com/hettietheyeti – twitter
http://t.co/2dnGKuv9Rq – soundcloud
http://instagram.com/hettietheyeti – instagram
thanks for reading!
Jed
post/pop
POST/POP 