Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 2, 1994 TAG: 9404020139
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: B-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By DAVID BAUDER Associated Press Writer
DATELINE: COHOES, N.Y. LENGTH: Medium
Is this the cover girl for Spin and Sassy magazines who, along with her friend Evan Dando of the Lemonheads, is depicted as one of the sex symbols of a new generation of rockers?
Yes, but contradictions are nothing new for this 26-year-old native of the Boston area.
When she sings the self-obsessed "Everybody Loves Me But You" in her little-girl soprano, Hatfield appears as fragile as a wing-damaged bird. But she also named one of her songs for the punk-inspired band Nirvana and can raise an unholy racket as part of a three-piece band.
"Most people have a lot of contradictions in themselves, so I can relate to that," Hatfield said in an interview before the opening show of a late-winter tour.
The daughter of a journalist, Hatfield made big splashes early in her career by saying in print that she was a virgin and declaring that women don't make particularly good guitar players.
Perhaps burned by the reaction, she has learned the art of coyness.
For instance, Hatfield said the most fun part of her job is meeting artists she admires and, even better, hearing them say they like what she does.
Who are these artists?
"I'm not going to name names," she said.
And here's her disconnected reaction to the prospect of impending fame:
"I don't really think about that," she said. "That's for other people to deal with, the people who work behind the scenes. All I do is try to play the music and try to get better. I can't control if I get popular or not, so I don't worry about it."
She professes a slacker-generation mistrust of the media. She said she doesn't even watch television. A Glens Falls, N.Y., newspaper based a column on its writer's grueling - and unsuccessful - effort to land a Hatfield interview.
Of course, this is also the woman who has been profiled in Newsweek, Rolling Stone, Details, Musician, Request, Seventeen, the New Yorker, GQ, Esquire and the Village Voice.
Hatfield led the critically acclaimed Boston band the Blake Babies in the late 1980s before leaving for a solo career. "Become What You Are," released last year under the billing of the Juliana Hatfield Three, is her second album. She now lives in New York City.
Her song "Spin the Bottle" is featured in the soundtrack to the movie "Reality Bites." Again, contradictions: The tale of an encounter with a B-movie actor has all the giddiness of a teen-age slumber party while containing an expletive that MTV had to bleep out.
Hatfield's other best known song, "My Sister," nails the love-hate relationship shared by many siblings.
Another contradiction: Hatfield has no sister.
"So many people tell me, `That song is just like the way I deal with my sister,' " she said. "I don't know how I wrote a song that's so true to so many people when I don't know about that experience. It's weird. I'm really baffled by that song."
Hatfield said she doesn't write about herself, at least not on a conscious level.
"When I'm writing it, I just think of it as art. . . . It really surprised me when people thought the songs were about me. I'm just trying to make good, interesting art. That's all," she said.
by CNB