Petra Haden
Petra Haden
Petra Hadenis an American violinist and singer. She is or has been a member of several bands, including That Dog, Tito & Tarantula, and The Decemberists; has contributed to recordings by The Twilight Singers, Beck, Mike Watt, Luscious Jackson, Foo Fighters, Green Day, Weezer, The Rentals, Victoria Williams, Yuka Honda, The Gutter Twins, and Cornelius. She is the daughter of the jazz bassist Charlie Haden; the triplet sister of bassist Rachel Hadenand cellist Tanya Hadenwith whom she has performed as...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMusician
Date of Birth11 October 1971
CountryUnited States of America
I put out Imaginaryland, I heard a lot of, "Oh she's copying Laurie Anderson," and I was like, wait... but I don't know her music! Maybe - didn't she have a song called "Superman"?
I played violin from when I was about eight to thirteen, so I could read a little bit, but if you put a piece of music in front of me now, I would probably know the notes, but not the timing, how they're supposed to be played, and I just don't know how to read chords. If I'd stuck with it, I'd probably have more jobs.
Everyone knows about The Who, but I didn't. I knew the popular songs like "I Can See For Miles." So that was the first song I worked on because it was the catchiest and easiest.
People want to hear clean sounds; they don't want to hear coughing in the background, pages turning.
My grandparents on my mom's side played in a mandolin orchestra. So when I hear mandolins, I automatically think of them.
I've already done two cover albums. I don't know, maybe it wouldn't be a good idea to do another, but I just did the Led Zeppelin song for fun, and I thought I could do it kind of quick since songs that I love a lot I can do fast.
Harmony has always come very natural to us because we started singing harmony at an early age. We heard a lot of different music growing up.
Our dad played us a lot of old country songs by The Carter Family and he would sing along to it. I loved listening to him sing.
I never punched in anything when I recorded Imaginaryland. Where the title came from is a whole other story.
It's my favorite movie score and because I had such a crush on Christopher Reeve. The music made me love him even more. You know when you hear music in a movie and it makes you fall in love with the characters? That's what happened.
The first song I wrote was "Look Both Ways Before You Cross" from Imaginaryland. I started the song by singing a bass line, "hoo hoo hoo hoo."
Eventually I had so many little melodies and ideas that, you know, that they were all songs to me and I threw in a few cover songs like Enya's "Watermark," Bach, and my dad's song, "Song for the Whales."
My forte is playing along and singing along to music I love. I mean, who knows, maybe I could develop that knack or develop that ability to write, and I do actually co-write with people and friends, which is fun, too, because then I don't have to worry about writing lyrics, because for me writing lyrics is impossible.
The Conversation was a movie I saw probably for the first time in the early 2000s. I immediately loved the piano and just how simple it is.