Interview: Abbie Morin (Hammydown; Caroline Rose)

Abbie Morin is excited to talk about their time playing with Caroline Rose, but acknowledges that doing so comes with waves of emotions stemming from the past four-plus years.

“This is my last week officially in the band,” they say. “So I'm having some really big feels about it, for sure.”

The multi-instrumentalist’s penultimate show in the ensemble takes place Saturday, Oct. 8, at The Grey Eagle, after which they’ll embark on some thrilling adventures that have long been in the works.

Edwin Arnaudin: What’s next for you? Are you shifting your focus to [solo project] Hammydown or will it have another name?

Abbie Morin: Yeah, it is Hammydown. Basically, when everything was canceled — March 12, 2020, on my 30th birthday — Caroline and I got really drunk that night in kind of an “end of the world” sort of misery fashion, and Caroline just looked at me and said, “All right, well, time to make your record.”

And we have been pretty much working on it ever since in a bunch of different locations. The first was…Caroline's family owned a cabin on a pond in Maine, and so we set up a studio there for the summer of 2020. We were in each other's quarantine pods and we were completely isolated in this rustic cabin — it didn't even have running water. It did have electricity, though. [laughs]

EA: [laughs] Very important!

AM: And that's when we started making my record, and it's just about done now. It’s been almost two and a half years. It'll probably be three years by the time it's really ready to go. But it's been a really fun process. We've spent so much time on the road and played so many shows together, and it was really nice to sit down together and give me the chance to get down all the things that I've been working on, but truly had not even had a moment to compile into any type of tangible way.

Because I had been playing as Hammydown for a few years before Caroline asked me to join their band. I was working, like, 50 hours a week at a café, and then I would go and play Hammydown shows. I would usually leave on Thursday night, go play a whole weekend, and then roll into work on Sunday morning. So, I was working, like, 90 hours a week.

EA: Damn.

AM: I was so disillusioned and felt like I was hitting a dead end. And that was when the offer came in. Caroline was like, “You know, I think I might have a little momentum here. You should really just join my band.”

And so Hammydown has been on the back burner this whole time, which I think had its own set of…I had to do a little bit of grieving and self-reflection to put it to the side. But I honestly think it was the best thing I could have done. I've learned so very much, and I'm really, really excited for people to hear the record.

I think it’s truly…like, I wrote the songs, but in the production and the realization of everything and the world that all the songs live in, it really does feel like a 50/50 between Caroline and me. So, I think that Caroline's fans are gonna really love it. And, obviously, I bring my own style to it, so it doesn't sound like a Caroline record, but you definitely know that they're there.

And the rest of our band played on it as well. So, our drummer, Riley Geare, played drums on it. We tracked bass and drums in his studio in LA. And Mike Dondero, our bass player for Caroline now, also played bass, so the live band as you see it is who made the Hammydown record, which also just felt really fun to take the same energy and shift it into doing something completely different altogether.

EA: Nice! Now, are these songs that you’ve been stockpiling for a while or did you want to mostly start fresh? Like, did you have a bunch of notes and voice memos and demos to work from?

AM: I would say probably half the songs were already written by the time the pandemic began. It would be a lot of, like, waking up at someone's house that you're crashing in in some random city, and they have a guitar and you go outside with your coffee and strum a little something.

So, I had a lot of…mostly voice memos, some rough demos. But as soon as the pandemic began — especially those first couple weeks, because Caroline was back in Texas for a while. So, those first couple weeks of true isolation…I mean, it was longer than a couple weeks, but before Caroline and I came back together, I was just in my little…[laughs] I call it The Hall-fice, because it's a hallway that my partner and I turned into an office.

EA: [laughs]

AM: And I was there every morning for like eight hours a day, just writing new material. And I felt like I was writing in a really desperate way — just a feeling of uncertainty and having your identity wrapped up so much in something that you do, and then all of a sudden having that be so up in the air. And at the time, I don't even think I realized that it would be almost two years until things came back. I was really more concerned about just the next six months.

So, it's funny to think how freaked out I was, and I didn't even really know how bad it would become. [laughs] But I was just kind of furiously writing and that's kind of where the other half of the album materialized was during those early days of the pandemic. So, I think you can definitely feel that energy coming through, of just fear and frustration.

And the record also…it’s very heavily revolving around my journey with my gender expression and my queerness and gender dysphoria. And it all kind of leads up to the point where I received gender affirming surgery in January. I had top surgery. And so a lot of the songs, too, are me kind of coming to grips with that reality and getting myself ready — kind of those inner battles. So, it's very much like a pandemic, gender dysphoria, growing pain record of our generation, I think. [laughs] I'm hoping. I'm like, “I think this is the queer record that the world kind of needs right now!” At least I like to think so.

EA: Definitely! That’s exciting. And in terms of going out and sharing these songs, do you have a band lined up or is that step still a few months away?

AM: I was kind of waiting the final shoe to drop on on this Caroline stuff. I definitely have my short list of folks that I want to audition and I have my list of places. I'm gonna send this thing around and just see what kind of…like, I gotta think about like the business end of things now, which, you know, is never very fun. But I am really excited about figuring out who's gonna be in the band and what's that gonna look like.

I would really love my band to be…I think we'll be New England-based, just for ease of travel, because I live in Vermont. So, I have some ideas. Everyone's so busy lately, so [laughs] it's been hard to even keep my own head straight on about it. I've been to four weddings this month. I just got back from Europe. Everything just kind of descended into sheer chaos. [laughs]

Caroline Rose (Photo by Cara Robbins)

EA: That makes sense! Well, you touched on a lot of this already, but what other plans/goals/hopes/dreams do you have for Hammydown?

AM: Something that I want to take with me about my time in Caroline's band is that when you’re in a queer band and you're open about your experience and you are sharing that with the world, wherever you go and you've set up all your stuff, you've created a queer space just by being there and selling the tickets and inviting people to come.

Even in a place…like, right now, we're in Alabama. I think a lot of people might…or in the South in general, a lot of people might be like, "Oh, how is that for you?" And I personally love it because when you're in a space, especially where people need it the most, you're like, "OK, we're here. We're creating space for people to exist.”

And even in the internet/Instagram sphere of being super honest and open, I think it just opens up so many doorways for people. And that's something I really want to continue to do as Hammydown is to keep these conversations open and keep trailblazing forward for nonbinary and trans folks. And not letting my own fear of being too much or foisting my gender identity or my shirtless body or whatever type of thing that I'm like, "Is this too much?"

I kind of go back to the queer artists who blazed that trail for me however many years ago, and I feel like the torch is in my hands now and I feel compelled to do it. So, that's definitely a goal of mine is to just continue to carve out that space and to have the conversations and to keep them going, you know?

EA: I do! And I’m glad you mentioned all that because I really appreciate your honesty and boldness in posting on Instagram after your top surgery. I think it helped make me a better ally because I don’t know anyone who’s had gender affirming surgery, so to see your pictures, it gave me a better understanding of what’s involved — so, I’m very thankful to you for doing that.

AM: Thank you for saying that! That's really what I want, because when the mystery is taken away and people just see what it is and what it means for people and how those people might be feeling and all the nuance of it, I think it just makes it so much easier for people to not feel alone.

And through my own process, I reached out to so many trans and queer people for support. And now I have my own little waterfall of people coming to me for that support — and that's really what queer sibling-hood is all about. It's been so helpful to me and I just really love fostering the community. And for what a dumpster fire the internet really can be, it's also the reason why people like me get to be heard now, so it's been a really beautiful experience, for the most part.

EA: That’s great to hear. And you’ve mentioned on Instagram being able to finally take full breaths on stage.

AM: Yeah.

EA: What other benefits have you’ve seen post-surgery while performing and touring in general?

AM: Just being so much more present in my body and feeling so much more confidence. I used to never like to like see a picture of myself. When the whole band would be like, "Oh, this photographer came [to our show]. Look how great we all look!” All I could see was my chest and feeling unhappy with it. And I think also, I would be lying if I said that there wasn't something to being perceived. I wish I didn't live in a world where I had to think about that, but I think it does help me to feel like I'm being perceived more accurately by other people.

When I was thinking about whether I wanted to have the surgery or not, I was kind of like, "If I lived in a world where no one ever looked at me, would I still want this?" And my therapist was like, "You know, Abbie, you don't live in that world and you never will." [laughs] "You have to do anything that you can to make yourself feel seen the way you want to be seen." And that was a really, really powerful thing to have to accept, I think.

But also just the realities of wearing a [chest] binder on tour. It's hugging the sweatiest part of your body and after wearing it for one show, I would be completely drenched in sweat. I had rashes all over my body. I could never do laundry enough — my suitcase would be filled with these things. I would be like, "All right, should I bring a sweater or should I bring my seven binders?" So, just even that reality — I just feel fresher and breezier. I am enjoying hot weather for the first time in my entire life. [laughs]

EA: Yes!

Caroline Rose at Hopscotch 2019 (Photo by Edwin Arnaudin)

AM: So, yeah, the benefits are abound, and I have yet to see even a single thing that has come out of it that's been negative for me. Except, well, I wouldn't say it's negative, but maybe you'll enjoy this anecdote. My first tour back, post-op…I basically had 10 pounds of flesh removed from the top of my body, so my center of gravity had completely changed. And so the first tour back, I was super clumsy and we were playing a show, I believe in Milwaukee, and I fell over on stage [laughs] in the middle of a song.

EA: [laughs]

AM: We had come out for an encore and we were playing "Cry," and I leaned forward while I was playing and I went to shift my weight back and I just completely lost my balance, fell over my amp, just flat onto my back. But the band didn't notice because I just kept playing on the ground. [laughs] So that was kind of a rock and roll thing that happened. I think the crowd was like…I think they honestly loved it.

I'm definitely the clumsiest member of the band, [laughs] and I'm always getting lost. I'm the one — I'm always falling over or getting locked out or can't find the bathroom.

EA: [laughs] That sounds like my life. There’s rarely a straight line from Point A to Point B — something unusual always happens…but life’s more exciting that way.

AM: I think so, too. [laughs] And if you can take one on the chin and laugh about it…I mean, I love when people can laugh at me for doing something stupid. I'm happy to be the clown of the band.

EA: Well, kind of bringing it all together, when you look back at these past few years, what are some of your favorite memories from being in Caroline’s band?

AM: There are so many. Caroline truly is my best friend in the entire world, and we have had so many good times on the road and so many hard times and so many beautiful things happen. We've met so many amazing people who will be our friends for life.

But I think one of the fondest memories would have to be when we went to Europe for the very first time. It was my first time ever even leaving [North America]. And man, we were really grinding then, too. [laughs] We just had less personnel and less help and we were really scrappy. We were all so determined, even though we were so tired. Caroline and I walked to to go see Notre Dame at like three in the morning. We had one night in Paris, and we went on this walk by the canal after the show. We just went really hard in the best possible way — we were walking, like, 12 miles a day. We wanted to see everything. We were so hungry.

It was a lot of smaller rooms and smaller festivals. We played this festival in Switzerland where we all did drugs [laughs] and it was like this amazing party. And in Spain as well. The festival was in this old defunct bullfighting ring, and I was the first one home that night and I got home at 8:30 in the morning. [laughs] We're all too old for that now, but that first tour, it just felt so amazing. It felt like literally my absolute dream coming true.

EA: Nice!

AM: And speaking of that, we opened up for Liz Phair in Prospect Park. Liz Phair is the reason I started playing guitar when I was a kid. And when I was 15 years old, my literal goal was, “One day, maybe I'll open up for Liz Phair.”

EA: Oh wow!

AM: Like, you just can't really conceive of how it's gonna feel when such a specific and lofty goal that you had as a child comes true 17 years later. That type of thing is just…it's impossible to describe how it feels. But, yeah, we're a very wholesome and kindred band. I know I just told you all about our partying escapades, but we just love to…

EA: Oh, I know. I follow y’all on Instagram. [laughs]

AM: [laugh] Yeah! You know. It's not a secret. [laughs] But it kind of depends. We kind of are like that even if we have had nothing to consume. Truly, the laughs never stop unless we're all completely asleep. It's either silence or we're on — there's really no in between.

EA: Like a light switch.

AM: Yeah. So, it's a really bittersweet feeling [leaving the band]. But I think Hammydown will definitely be opening up for Caroline in the future. I think it just makes sense. I'm the member of the band that really cares about food. I would say I'm the captain of food and fun, so the band has definitely expressed that I shall be sorely, sorely missed for more reasons than one. But I think it'll be the perfect little monkey bar over and it'll be a nice way to stay connected with Caroline’s fans. And I hope they'll be my fans, too.

EA: I think they will, for sure. And I hope it works out for you to tour with them.

AM: Yeah, it seems like it's gonna happen. We've just gotta kind of zero in on it. I might do it solo. It's still very, very blurry. I think we're just trying to get through this next couple weeks. Caroline is finishing their record. I'm finishing my record, which I think it's poetic that we pretty much made them and wrote them side by side, and the records are about the same period of time. In fact, we both have a song that's about the same night. [laughs]

We were both having very different nights, I will say that. But it feels really poetic to have made this record with my best friend and watch them make their record kind of in the same space. And now they're gonna come out together as siblings, which just feels perfect to me.

IF YOU GO

Who: Caroline Rose with Tōth
When: Saturday, Oct. 8, 9 p.m.
Where: The Grey Eagle, 185 Clingman Ave., thegreyeagle.com
Tickets: $20

(Photo by Julie Goldstone)