Hannah Wicklund’s Most Personal Song Yet, “Witness”
The record is a culmination of years of growth and hard work, with “Witness” serving as the perfect result of her efforts. This project as a whole, showcases personal development translated through intentional musicianship all pointing to the thesis of the record: passing the baton from girlhood to womanhood.
“Witness” is about claiming heartbreak, embracing it and using that to heal through some of the toughest times in life. Perhaps one of the most satisfying songs she’s ever written, a song she says truly helped heal her. “Getting into your first relationship as a strong, driven, and accomplished young woman, it’s very difficult to experience someone dim your light, but even harder to recognize it,” Hannah confesses. “Insecurities within young people play out in terrifying ways, and it’s very hard to not absorb other people’s darkness. Witness was the awareness I found in myself that it is not my responsibility to save anyone.”
X marks the spot where the weary girl, speeding towards the woman she will become, meets in a fiery head-on collision. On this album, produced by Sam Kiszka of Greta Van Fleet, we hear from the woman rising from that wreckage. The woman who’s scarred but smarter, holds compassion for the girl who carried her here, and with wide-open eyes, unflinchingly stares down the future.
Growing up on the beaches of Hilton Head, South Carolina, Hannah has always had music in her bones. At just three years old, she started taking piano lessons at her teacher Miss Ruth’s house. Surrounded by bright purple walls and bunnies they would feed in the backyard, music has been a fully immersive experience from the start. Playing rock n roll by the beach throughout her childhood, Hannah had abundant opportunities to cut her teeth playing every show that came her way, playing on her signature Anderson and Orange guitar/amp combo that she’s continued to use for 17 years straight. Through endless hard work and resounding determination, she continued to build her career on her own. She’s gone on to achieve multiple levels of greatness leading to this moment. She’s played Firefly Music Festival, Shaky Knees Music Festival, Bourbon & Beyond as well as Summerfest Kaboo Del Mar. In 2022, she toured as direct support for Marcus King on 45 dates of his North American tour and opened for Greta Van Fleet on the Canadian leg of their Dreams In Gold tour.
Though the road hasn’t been easy. “The struggle of being a woman in rock ‘n’ roll is truly real,” Wicklund states. “Men in power have quite literally said ‘she’s great, but it’s too hard to break a female in rock,’ and that’s just bs.” She decided to release her first record — Hannah Wicklund & The Steppin Stones (2018) — on her own label, Strawberry Moon Records, but the decision to release The Prize the same way was not a quick or easy decision to come to. “Having my hands tied behind my back by men in the music business one too many times lit a fire in my soul to do it myself,” she reveals. “Five years has felt like an entire lifetime between records, but I truly believe I had to come full circle and believe in myself in a way I never had before and claim responsibility for my own success.”
The Prize sonically parallels the experiences behind each lyric, working together to create an entire world within the record and highlighting the musical diversity Hannah brings to her music. Ethereal texturing, smokey falsetto vocals, string section surprises and guitar solos that carry equal parts pain and joy are woven tastefully into what Hannah says is, “A record that just sounds like ME.” “Musically, I’ve always had a very strong sense of self, especially with a guitar in my hands, and I have never had to reach very far to express what I’m feeling,” she admits. “Lyrically, however, this record encapsulates something new, or at least more evolved within myself. The life I have lived has not been easy, or stagnant, but it has offered me ample opportunity to learn and grow, even if it’s been the hard way.” Staying true to her own vision throughout this process, she’s remained grounded in the belief that how you do one thing, is how you do everything; “I’m messy, creative, emotional, and very, very passionate… If I can inspire one soul to follow their personal legend, I consider that a victory.”
