Hello reader,
How are you today? Ready to finish your week on a good note with some great music?
Today, we’re excited to introduce an emerging artist we think you’ll enjoy quite a bit – Chicago indie-folk singer-songwriter Hannah Frey. According to her bio on Bandcamp, Frey creates “Chicago folk rock for lovers and sweeties.” With many of her songs touching on the ins and outs of relationships with equal measure of wit and potency, it’s easy to see why.
Frey has been writing songs since her middle school years. She grew up in Iowa with a very musical family where all her aunts sang harmonies together, and her parents played music together as a duo and in bands.
After graduating from college in Iowa City in 2017, she decided to start recording her songs and play more shows. In 2019, she released her debut album, White Picket Fence, which included her mother on harmonies and her father on guitar.
“It sparked my interest in forming a band,” she tells SWT.
After moving to Chicago in 2021, she connected with others in the city’s bustling indie-folk and country scene. She realized she could rely on collaborators in the songwriting process.
“The music community I’ve found here is so supportive and fun,” she says.
In 2022, she released a double-sided single titled “Company.”
Earlier this year, she returned with new music. On May 2nd, she released her sophomore album, Lucky Girl. Frey recorded the album with the help of mixing engineer and producer Nathan Roseboom (Wild Daisies, Marvin Stumbles, Risk Watch). Steve Marek (Nnamdi, Luke Titus, Cordoba) also mastered it.
“This iteration of the band played our first show together in May of 2023 (minus Max [Berg], who recently joined),” says Frey. “[Guitarist] Mitch [McAndrew] and I are family friends and first played music together as teenagers. I met [drummer] Jonah [Penningroth] at a jam the first year I moved to Chicago, and [bassist] Josh [Ruebeck] and Max through them. There’s a lot of crossover with band members playing in other bands together. Jonah, Mitch, and I are all from Iowa.”
“The weekend we spent recording the rough tracks felt cosmically aligned. We had such a great time, and the energy felt palpable.”
In SWT’s opinion, the album single “Bad Breaks” is a great place to start listening and perfectly captures that lively atmosphere of their sessions. In the song, Frey battles feelings of anger and disappointment at the pain that is inflicted upon many in the world who want to live their life without fear of persecution. She also embraces the hope that can be found if you keep looking.
“I wrote it after Iowa passed its 6-week abortion law,” she wrote in a post on Instagram. “Feels strange to release music right now, but I’m grateful for art as resistance and this song is unfortunately very relatable right now.”
The song excels thanks to a potent combination of Frey’s vibrant vocals and honest lay-it-all-on-the-line lyrics with sublime playing by the backing musicians, including pedal steel player Max Berg. It’s a fantastic Americana anthem, with a sweeping melody that commands your attention.
If you’re in Chicago, you can catch her at the following June dates:
6/10 – Thalia Hall/Tack Room’s Kicking it Curbside Series
6/18 – Hideout w/ Orillia & Captain Tallen
6/27 – Broken Hearts Bar
You can follow and listen to Hannah at the following links:
- Facebook: @HannahFreyLive
- Instagram: @hannahfreylive
- TikTok: @hannahfreylive
- Bandcamp: hannahfrey.bandcamp.com/
- Spotify: Hannah Frey on Spotify
- YouTube: @hannahfreylive
- Apple Music: music.apple.com/us/artist/hannah-frey/1484161084
Joshua is co-founder of Scummy Water Tower. He’s freelanced for a variety of newspapers, magazines, and websites, including: Rolling Stone, The Boston Globe, Chicago Sun-Times, Guitar World, MTV News, Grammy.com, Chicago Magazine, Milwaukee Magazine, MKE Lifestyle, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, A.V. Club, SPIN, Alternative Press, Under the Radar, Paste, PopMatters, American Songwriter, and Relix. You can email him at josh@scummywatertower.com.
