Heather Nova: Surviving The Hype

Very often, when a female artist gets assigned the appellation of Next Big Thing, she paints on the Maybelline, does videos and talk shows, snags a cameo in a film and invents some sort of foul-smelling fragrance. When the lavishly-gifted Heather Nova got hit with such hype in the nineties, she simply put her head down and worked. This songstress, who sometimes seems like an amazing amalgam of Joni Mitchell against a sonic background of The Velvet Underground, used to tour up to eight months a year. It definitely worked. Even if she’s not a household name, this super Nova developed great work habits that helped her forge a fine career; one based more on artistic ambition than the material kind. Her newest album, The Way It Feels, her ninth, might just be her best yet. Showcasing her gorgeous, still-girlish voice, full of both wide-eyed awe and astute adult perception, Nova sings about her “Treehouse” (so winsome and nostalgic, it will make you cry) to darker fare like “The Archaeologist” and everything in between. The Way It Feels feels like a keeper.

Nova, an exotic but down-to-earth beauty, who lives in Bermuda, is especially pleased that this writer mentions “Treehouse” as one of her new songs that touched him deeply.

“I’m so glad it resonates,” says Nova. “The song is deeply significant for me. For a while I couldn’t actually play it without crying. Before I went into the recording session I had to say to myself-‘get yourself together, Heather.’ I wrote this and ‘Moon River Days,’ about the brevity of childhood-my son’s in particular. There was this day he asked if we could build a treehouse together … so we made a very crude treehouse. I was so struck by the preciousness of that time together; the sweetness of our relationship.”

I query Nova (whose songs have appeared in movies such as “Serendipity” and “I Am Sam”) about the haunting tune “The Archaeologist,” which has such an exquisite lyrical precision that makes it makes hash out of much of today’s Pop sound Hallmark greeting card verse. And I feel compelled to ask the artist about her approach to the craft of songwriting. The song begs the age-old question: which comes first, the words or the music?

“Honestly, lyrics and melodies usually come together for me. At least the first few lines come that way. The words kind of sing out of me; That’s the only way I can describe it. From there I let the melody take me where it wants to go, but the lyrics I work like clay. I am very fastidious with my lyrics-I work each line until it feels like poetry. Every sound, every word. ‘The Archaeologist’ was inspired by a trip to Pompeii. I was surprised how deeply moved I was by the experience. The sense of the past buried there; peoples’ lives and dreams and plans cut short. And I tied that in with the feeling that I needed to be an archaeologist at that time in my marriage-to try to recover things that were buried and lost.”

Finally, remembering the media heat surrounding Nova’s debut in the mid-’90s, I need to know if not becoming The Next Big Thing, The Taylor Swift of her time, was disappointing for this gifted, prolific, and clearly, well-traveled songsmith. Nova answers as directly and poetically as she seems to do everything in life.

“The ‘next big thing’ thing can be a blessing and a curse,” she says forthrightly. “I mean, if you’re the next big thing, you can also be the ‘where are they now?’ very quickly! I’m glad I never got huge because I might not have had the long career I’ve had (Nova is very big in Europe). I wish I had read the fine print on a couple of contracts I signed, and there were times I wish I’d trusted my instinct more when making decisions. But I learned from it all and ultimately feel that everything happens as it’s meant to happen. It’s all brought me here. And here is ok!” Heather Nova’s new album, The Way It Feels, is available now at both www.heathernova.com and iTunes.