A Quick Chat with Hannah Potter
What are the origins of Hannah Potter as a musical project? Where did it start?
When I started playing music as a teenager it was more of a thing I did that was just for me and my friends and family. I learned chords out of chord books and learned to sing by harmonising along with all of the albums in my fatherβs music collection. My Dad and his friends would take me to play open mics when I was a teenager. I didnβt have grand designs to be a musician, but I realised I liked how it felt to share something vulnerable with a crowd of strangers, and pick up their reactions in turn. Iβm very much a live-performance musician; I find that relationship and connection with the audience very addictive and fulfilling.
After I finished high school, I started meeting older people who were in bands. They were always encouraging me to play proper shows. I became kind of a standard opening act for a lot of the musicians I knew at the time, which was a good way to learn and find my voice. It took me a while to figure out who I was and what road I was going to go down, whether that be softer folk or harder punk or something completely different. I mostly played solo for a long time. I was really hesitant to play with other people because I had no idea what kind of sound I was chasing, and I was very protective of the things I had written. But I did a lot of exploring and figured it out eventually, and I formed a band in the middle of 2024. We recorded a whole album at the end of 2024 over a few weekends.
Tell us a bit about the new single βSnow Dayβ. What does it mean to you?
It means the world to me to have a song out in general - itβs been a very long and misguided road up to this point, so having Snow Day released is huge in itself for me!
Snow Day is about trying to accept the inevitability of loss and change in life, and how hard it can be to appreciate the connections you have when you are closed off to the world, other people and even yourself. Itβs about looking back and wishing you could have something again or do something over but knowing you canβt.
Are there any inspirations you look to beyond music when writing or performing?
Iβm really into storytelling and Iβm really into people. Iβm interested in the different realities people exist in day-to-day. I think Iβm always looking at everyone imagining what itβs like to be them, how I myself could easily be them, how easily they could be me. Iβm inspired by conversations I have with friends as much as Iβm inspired by short stories Iβve been reading or something someone said at work or a film I saw once. All of this influences how I show up as a performer and what I decide to share.
Name the five songs that have informed your song writing more than any others.
Names by Cat Power - itβs the song that, when I heard it at about 13, flipped me from a passive listener of music to someone who wanted to actually play and write music. In Names, Cat Power just fully and truthfully lays it out, and that floored me.
Hard Killing Floor by Skip James - He loved a minor key and a creepy falsetto, which I never meant to work into my own songs, but it happened anyways. Itβs one thing to have an awareness of the context of what life would have been like for a Black man born in America at the turn of the century - itβs another thing to actually viscerally hear it in his voice when he sings this song.
Good Citizens by Cash Savage & The Last Drinks - Their ability as a band to have so much power and punch but still keep things understated is insane.
Between the Bars by Elliot Smith - I always thought this song was a softly-spoken argument he was having with himself. I think the way I play around with intimacy and confrontation in my own songwriting can be drawn directly back to this song.
Confetti by Sarah Mary Chadwick - My favourite thing about Sarah Mary Chadwick is her dedication to authentic expression. Sheβs not trying to sing pretty or make a clever chord change, sheβs trying to express what she really thinks and feels. A total master of lyrics. She destroys me.
What Australian artists are you listening to at the moment?
Iβm always listening to Dirty Three (so I can remember the true meaning of the word βweepβ), but at the moment Iβm spinning Barkaa, Miss Kaninna, Georgia Knight, Uncle Quentin, Our Carlson, Cash Savage & The Last Drinks, Maple Glider, Dianas, BB Sabina, Tom Lyngcoln, Jess Ribeiro. I think Norwood are fantastic. Iβm obsessed with the songwriting of Georgia Spain and Oscar Lush. Iβve been playing Ripple Effect Band a lot recently too.
How do you hope your music might impact listeners?
I hope people feel understood in some way. I think we all walk around in our own little bubbles, wrapped up in our secret, private discourses with ourselves, feeling like weirdos. Itβs nice to hear something thatβs been banging around in your head come out of someone elseβs mouth. Thatβs one of the best parts of any kind of art, and thatβs what Iβm always shooting for if nothing else.