Aug 16, 2002—Juliana Hatfield is looking to start over, get back in the music scene with a splash.

Not that the indie-rock chanteuse — whose charming, almost squeaky voice reveals a rare vulnerability and honesty over seemingly incongruous songs full of high volume, distortion and insinuating hooks — was ever completely gone. She was just slightly under the radar screen.

But she's hoping her current and upcoming projects will change all that.

Hatfield, 34, is currently in the midst of an 18-city, 18-show tour that makes an Albuquerque stop next week. She says she's newly rejuvenated after last year's reunion tour with her first jangle-pop trio the Blake Babies, college-radio darlings during the mid- to late ’80s.

Ostensibly on the road to promote Gold Stars 1992-2002: The Juliana Hatfield Collection (Zoë Records), she is also debuting new material from her new trio and current stage band, Some Girls — drummer Freda Love from Blake Babies and newcomer Heidi Gluck on bass.

Gold Stars is not quite a greatest-hits album, since Hatfield never had a single that made the pop charts. But she did make waves in alternative rock at a "time when girls with guitars were all the rage" in the mid-’90s with the singles "My Sister," "Spin the Bottle" and "Universal Heartbeat" with the memorable lyric: "A heart that hurts is a heart that works."

The disc runs 20 songs and includes two covers: "Every Breath You Take" by the Police and "Only Love Can Break Your Heart" by Neil Young.

In its July 13 edition, Billboard magazine called her Police cover a "fresh take, . . . novel enough to shed some new light on this old friend. . . . The song has an old-school punk-girl texture with a mean enough guitar signature to loosen teeth."

Playboy.com said her collection is "a retrospective that balances beauty and bitching."

Hatfield, who says she's been "playing forever, as long as I can remember," is calling from her Boston-area home. She is soft-spoken, to the point of almost being shy, as she gives thoughtful, measured responses. She has been doing several interviews a day since the release of Gold Stars. This is her fourth one on this day.

Tribune: Are you on tour now?

Hatfield: I'll be leaving August 1. The first leg is 18 shows in 18 cities. Maybe we'll do more in September.

Tribune: Who's in your touring band these days?

Hatfield: I'm touring with Some Girls, my new band. It's Freda on drums and Heidi Gluck on bass. We made an album, so this is a way of introducing the band.

Tribune: Are you playing just stuff from your solo career, off Gold Stars? What's the set list like, or does it change nightly?

Hatfield: On this tour, we'll be mixing it up: doing Some Girls stuff, stuff off each album, covers, new stuff. The set list…I'm not sure just yet; I feel like maybe we'll be figuring it out as we go along.

Tribune: Are you all rehearsing now?

Hatfield: We'll start rehearsing at the end of the month (July).

Tribune: That doesn't seem like a lot of time.

Hatfield: We'll do three days of rehearsals, max; the minimal time to rehearse is the best. I like to be on my toes and feel a little scared.

Also, I'm really lazy, so I'd rather be under-rehearsed than over-rehearsed. I hate to go to shows that are overproduced to the point of being boring for the performer, as well as the audience. I like to walk the edge.

I have a real short attention span, so I leave the details to fend for themselves. I like bands that convey a sense of danger, of going to the edge of falling apart.

Tribune: You've played Albuquerque before. What are your memories of this place?

Hatfield: I haven't been to Albuquerque in five years or more. It must've been the mid-’90s. I don't remember the name of the place we played, but the kitchen made some great macaroni and cheese.

Tribune: Gold Stars includes four new songs. Are they Some Girls' songs or did you write them for this album?

Hatfield: Those were taken from a pool of about 15 new songs. I chose them from a repertoire of new experiments in the studio. I'm constantly writing, constantly recording.

Tribune: Will the other songs you didn't include be Some Girls songs, on the new album?

Hatfield: The songs for Some Girls were written for that project, for that group, with Freda.

Tribune: When you write songs, do you collaborate with other people?

Hatfield: I write by myself, generally. But it's fun to work with someone else, sometimes.

Tribune: What's the new album called?

Hatfield: Some Girls Feel It.

Tribune: How did the Blake Babies reunion go?

Hatfield: It went well. I thought we made a good record. (Hatfield, Love and John Strohm recorded God Bless the Blake Babies before last year's reunion.) And it was a fun tour; I got to get reacquainted with Freda, and that led to Some Girls.

Tribune: Would you do it again?

Hatfield: Blake Babies is over, finished, fini.

Tribune: How'd the reunion come about?

Hatfield: It was Freda's idea for a Blake Babies reunion. She called to see if I was interested in writing some songs together. It worked out well.

Tribune: How did you go about choosing the songs for Gold Stars?

Hatfield: I wanted to make sure there was something from each album. I chose the single, or hit, from each, then songs I liked. I kept asking myself: "Do I like it?" I wanted a wide range of songs that showed my split personality.

Tribune: How do you go about choosing songs to cover?

Hatfield: I try not to put a lot of thought into it. It's like a split-second thing; if it's a great song, I like to record it.

I like songs that are open to interpretation. A good song will work in many different ways and stand on its own. It should be able to be played with a band or solo, on an acoustic or an electric guitar.

Tribune: I noticed that on this tour you're playing a couple of solo dates.

Hatfield: Playing alone is a good thing; it allows me to get back in touch with my songs. I like that stripped down approach; it keeps me fresh.

Tribune: What covers are you planning for this tour?

Hatfield: I'd like to keep that a secret, see if people recognize the songs.

Tribune: How did you feel when your record label (at the time, Atlantic) refused to release your fourth album God's Foot?

Hatfield: That was a real traumatic experience for me, a real shock. I had to reassess my whole life, my aspirations. In the end, though, it gave me more faith in what I was doing.

Tribune: Would you consider your songwriting confessional or autobiographical?

Hatfield: Alanis (Morissette) is confessional: All she's doing is singing her diary entries.

I put more craft in my songs; I'm not being totally obvious. I put art and poetry into them. I don't just open my diary and sing my entries.

I try to make my stuff interesting and universal and open to personal interpretation.

Tribune: Who would you say influenced you as an artist?

Hatfield: Neil Young in my guitar playing; I just love his approach. I feel songwriting was always in me. Also, ’70s AM radio is a big part of me.

Tribune: Who would you say you've influenced?

Hatfield: As for me being an influence, I don't hear myself in anyone else.

Tribune: Hasn't anybody ever come up to you and said: "I started a band because of you"?

Hatfield: Yeah, I've heard that before, both from women and men. My fans seem to be both — women and men — and from all ages, though I do tend to get more fan mail from guys, men.

—Paul Maldonado Jr.
Reprinted from the Albuquerque Tribune