Wendy Wang aka The Sweet Hurt recently had an interview with Radio Free Silver Lake where they discuss a lot about her new self titled album and everything that went into it. You’ll get to read about all the contributing folks that helped bring the record to fruition along with how it differs from her previous EP releases. In particular she mentions her working and personal friendships with Priscilla Ahn & Bobby Choy (aka Big Phony). Catch the interview in full after the break of make the jump to RFSL.
The last time we interviewed Wendy Wang of happy/sad indie pop act The Sweet Hurt, it was around the time of the release event for her Where Would You Go? EP. Earlier this week, we spoke with her about the recent release of her self-titled album and the many other bands that she plays with. Read both!
Hey, Wendy. How you been? Congrats on the album release!
I’m doing well! Thank you, sir!
How long was it in the works? When did you start working on these songs?
The pre-production, recording, mixing, and mastering spanned from October 2009 to March 2010. I started writing songs for it right after “In The Shade Of Dreams”, which came out in June 2008. I wrote new songs for it all the way up until January 2010.
What do you think is the biggest difference between these songs and your earlier material (the two EPs)?
This album is much more cohesive. EPs are like running 5Ks and albums are like running marathons. Or like the PSAT vs. the SAT. But really, I had to have a clearer and stricter path than the ones I took for the 2 previous releases to get the album done. Dan Long, my co-producer, was a big help with that. Because the process and mindset was more structured, the songs came out sounding, or at least I hope, like they belonged together.
It sounds like you have a love of pop music, singer-songwriters, and maybe even a little country. (I think I heard some pedal steel in there.)
Yeah, I love all those genres. There’s actually no pedal steel on this album, unfortunately, but there is some slide guitar! I love pop, top 40, the hits of the decades, Led Zeppelin (that’s for The Californian). I really like singer-songwriters, like Nick Drake, Elliott Smith, Justin Vernon, Beyonce… I’m relatively new to country, but many current bands that I love are heavily influenced by country music. On tour last year, I listened to a lot of Dolly Parton.
a-Tunes 