On the new episode of Proud Radio, Hannah Juanita joins Hunter Kelly, following the release of her debut album ‘Hardliner.’ Amy Grant also stops by to discuss the 30-year anniversary of ‘Heart in Motion.’ Listen to the interviews with Hannah Juanita and Amy Grant in-full anytime on-demand here.
Amy Grant on “Ask Me”
We were taking a long walk at the end of the day. And you know like, it’s so funny. Vulnerability is somehow in direct proportion to lighting. Because as the sun went down and we couldn’t see each other’s faces as clearly, the conversation got more vulnerable. And I guess I was at the right place at the right time. But she started telling me about her childhood, years and years of her childhood. Anyway, and she was acted upon by more than one person. And she described a scenario one time when – she was from the South – and that she was being acted upon on the screen porch, and that her brother was out in the yard. And they caught eyes. And I said, “But didn’t you say something to him?” And she said, “Oh, Amy, I had already disappeared by then.” And I was just like, “Ugh.” And it just killed me, it just killed me. And I’ve got four daughters, and I’m sure they’ll have daughters. One already does, and it’s just like, oh my gosh, there are so many ways that… And I just said daughters because she was a woman. But so many people are acted upon sexually. I just could not get away from those visuals and all that. And I wrote it into a song. Tom Hemby had given me a track because, you know, I’m not as good with music. I get so sick of the same four chords that I put. And I had said, “Just give me a track, a fully-developed track without a melody so I can have a playground to write on.” And that was exactly the track he handed me, and I wrote the melody and lyric on top of it. And when I played it for my friend, she just said, “How could you have known?” And I just think when we listen to each other’s stories, there’s different ways to do it, you know? You can do it with “what’s gonna be my comeback story?” But I think one of the essentials of writing and creativity is to listen to another person’s story in such an interactive, embracing way that you actually are able to sing their story back to them.
Amy on being enough
When I am anxious, when I have a short fuse, whenever I am not loving to myself and others, it always comes back to that I’m afraid of not being enough. I remember one morning on the way to school, my daughter, Karina, she’s 20 now, but she was probably middle school, and by then I’d had enough therapy. I think I had told her at some point, “If I’m ever snappy with you, somewhere in there I’m afraid. I don’t even know what it is.” But we were on our way to school. We were running late, and I was like saying whatever I was saying, and her little middle school self, she turned to me, and she said, “What are you afraid of this morning?” And I said, “I’m afraid because we’re running late, you have something special going on at school, I’ve been on the road, I don’t think you have the right clothes on for it. I’m afraid that I’m a bad mother and I’m letting you down.” And she said, “I’m okay being late. I’m okay with what I have on. I love you and we’re all doing the best we can.” I mean, I told her, “You should be the therapist.” But it’s so funny, because all of that fear of not being enough, those moments that sometimes are just like a little tiny wave, kind of on your toe, and sometimes it’s like the tsunami, but those come when we do not believe we’re loved for who we are. And that’s where my thing about putting Jesus in the bridge of the song to go, “Who loves us more than the one that made us?” I mean, none of us are a surprise to God. [laughing] Nothing but who we are, what we’ve done. You know? And I just feel like, to me, it’s so important to set a welcome table, because I was invited to a table where somebody said, “You’re loved right now. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid. You’re loved.” And music can do that. Music is the easiest conversation you can have with somebody, gay, straight, it does not matter. It doesn’t matter how we behave. It doesn’t matter how we’re wired. We’re all our best selves when we believe to our core, “I’m loved.” And then, suddenly our creativity flourishes. We’re like, “I’m gonna arrange flowers on your table and my table.” You know, when we’re loved it’s like we are brave enough to say yes to every good impulse that comes to us.
Amy on the re-release of ‘Heart in Motion’
Amy: I remember getting a remix for a song called “Good For Me.” And I think the only lyric from the original is just so good. So, so, so, so good. Yeah. And everything else is just this crazy mood. You know, I laughed going, “I don’t really… I really clearly am not a participant on this song, except for that one phrase.” But what’s been fun now 30 years later is to go back, look at all of the material. And we’re gonna make it all available, all the remixes, except some of them. They’re like you can’t even hardly tell a difference. You know, we’re taking all of the real statement remixes and making them all available on the vinyl and on streaming. It’s been so much fun. And one last thing. Keith Thomas on the liner notes of the album, which by the way, I didn’t even have a copy of ‘Heart in Motion.’ I didn’t have a cassette. I didn’t have a CD. Not a LP. Nothing. So I was sitting there, like when it was time to talk about redoing it, I said, “Uh, first off, I haven’t listened to the record top to bottom in at least 20 years.” But there was, written on the liner notes, I wrote out the chorus to a song that didn’t make it on the record. And when we were trying to think of additional material, I found that song on a YouTube-
Hunter Kelly: “Let me savor this time. Let me capture the moment. We’ve come this far to find that without a wind in the fire, the burning can smolder. Don’t let this feeling die. I don’t ever want to lose it.”
Amy: Yes.
Hunter: So that was just in, what you wrote in the liner-
Amy: Yeah. We took that old song and rewrote the verses, like looking back now. And Keith produced it. And I’m telling you, he would come in with all these little keyboard things, and it was like, “Oh my gosh.” Genius is genius. And Michael Omartian even said the record started with the two Keith Thomas productions. And Omar said Keith was so far ahead of the rest of us.
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Hannah Juanita on writing “Hard Hearted Woman”
Human emotion is so complex. And you can sort of be in your brain, and you’re thinking one thing and telling yourself one thing. You know, where maybe deep down that’s not really the whole truth or the whole thing about it. There’s a number of songs on the record that really represent my transition from being out West and my life before coming and really pursuing country music in Nashville. And this is one of them. And I’m just leaving everything behind and really needing to do me and to do what I wanna do and to make sure I’m pursuing that. And that, in a way, at the time especially, required me to put up this walls and be like, “I am unavailable, so unavailable and in a lot of ways [laughs] to everyone but myself.” It’s like selfish in a good way.
Hannah on the origin of the album name
It’s become like a part of, I guess, who I am over the last few years. And me and some friends were trying to come up with a band name. I wanted the alliteration with the H, the H-H, Hannah and Hardliner. And a friend of mine came up with that, and then they were like, “That fits your personality.” Because I’m sort of a strong… Like a sassy, no-nonsense, very direct kind of personality. And so I sort of started rolling with that. And then, I was trying to think of a title for which title track I wanted to use for the album, and I was kind of going with “Big Secret,” because I thought that sounded a little alluring, and then my buddy, my guitarist and my drummer, they were like, “What about ‘Hardliner?’ ” Like, “You’re the hardliner.” Like, “That’s your debut record,” you know? And I was like, “They’re right.”
Hannah on writing “Green Eyes”
I have a vivid memory of writing “Green Eyes,” actually. I sort of wrote it in two different sessions, and one I was literally sitting out in a field in Oregon, and I was just kind of like going through… I had never written a song about my ex-girlfriend, and I just like really wanted to just draw on that. And so I just went back in time and was just like drawing on these feelings and what it felt like when we first met. And so that was the beginning part of the song. And then, we were together for over a year, so it was really good for quite a long time, and then it just really went downhill and I really wanted that to come out in the song. And so I knew from the beginning that it was gonna have that musical shift where it goes to the upbeat part and… Yeah, you know, sometimes relationships don’t go as you think they will. But yeah, I remember writing the last verse. I was driving. I think I was driving from Eugene, Oregon to Portland, Oregon at the time, and I feel like this song really represents the relationship. Let’s say that. And the last line in the song is, or one of the last lines in the song is like, “I, at this point, you know, I’d do it all over again,” kinda thing. So, there’s no regrets there.
