Hannah Frey Photo credit: JP O’Rourke
Chicago indie-Americana songwriter Hannah Frey shares the dreamy and tender single “People People” today with The Big Takeover. Accompanied by slide guitar by band member Mitch McAndrew on slide guitar and featuring guest vocalist Julia Morrison, the single shows a more introspective side of the Midwest songwriter ahead of her album Lucky Girl she’s self-releasing on March 11.
Frey recorded the album with mixing engineer and producer Nathan Roseboom (Cusp, Lawrence Tome) and mastered by Steve Marek (Nnamdi, Luke Titus, Cordoba), who both complement Frey’s warm vocals and country-folk sound by building on her music’s dreamy qualities in the production. Along with McAndrew on guitar, the rest of her band and record is rounded out by Josh Ruebeck on bass and 12-string guitar and Jonah Penningroth on drums.
Frey said of the song:
I didn’t realize it at the time but I wrote ‘People Pleaser’ as a way to make peace with all of the times I chose not to do what’s best for myself — especially in relationships. I think I probably wrote it in 20 minutes or less. I realized it wasn’t helping to pick myself apart for the ways I’d coped with hard things that had happened. It felt good to give a voice to past versions of myself that never spoke up.
While sounding wistful, the song leaves the listener with a positive message of the importance to prioritize yourself when too much people pleasing can leave you feeling exhausted.
Hannah Frey is self-releasing Lucky Girl on March 11.
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