Name 3 Songs: You just concluded a bunch of tour dates in the U.S., and you have a few more in Canada and England. All of this is in support of your album, The Prize, which you released earlier this year. What’s it like bringing this album to life on stage?

Hannah Wicklund: I’d say it’s been an extremely full circle experience finally being able to perform this record live. And ultimately, I feel like a little girl on stage at the same time as feeling like the most empowered woman version of myself. And I’ve just found this really beautiful balance in my life with my relationship with womanhood and femininity and kind of finding my footing inside the rock and roll sphere after realizing just how dampened I think I felt by a lot of my experiences growing up playing music. 

So yeah, I’d say that it’s been a totally different experience than any other touring that I’ve done in my life. It’s been really eye-opening and it’s by far the most connected I’ve ever felt to the people receiving my music. 

This is really interesting what you’re saying about feeling more in your femininity than like you ever have before. What was that journey getting to this point?

A very rocky road. Especially when I started touring really heavily, which is when I graduated high school at 16 and pretty much hit the road from that point on. And I’ve done most of my career quite on my own, as far as I’ve self-managed, I’m currently self-managing. I’ve only just now gotten the luxury of a tour manager. 

So for many, many years, I was representing myself from the beginning of the day to the end of the night and playing the show. I just found myself leaning into my masculine more and more as I started touring. I think a lot of times just to feel respected inside of a music venue. And I found that if you kind of toughen up and you like kind of act like one of the guys and you’re careful not to be too cutesy so that it’s not taken that you’re flirting, just like all of these little delicate maneuvers that you start doing as a woman to kind of fit into a space better. 

And COVID was ultimately the first time I ever had a break from touring or from performing. And inside of that space, I was able to just, for the first time, not be on stage and really get to know myself. And my artwork became really important to me again. And my artwork is very feminine. I just draw lots of animals and butterflies and flowers and mandalas, and I really love beautiful things. And then my whole persona with rock and roll was always kind of, you know, doing band photos. You’re, you don’t usually choose the one of you smiling, you know, it’s a little more of the brooding rock and roll thing. 

I think this record just kind of exposed my deepest truest feelings of being like a little girl that loved dancing in the color pink andI loved princesses and a good fairy tale just like the rest of us, you know. So it was an interesting path finding the balance between the guitar girl and the lady.