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Hannah Wicklund was destined to be a musician. Born to a painter mother and drummer father and brought up in the island resort town of Hilton Head, South Carolina, Wicklund was raised on her father’s classic rock records and started writing her own songs when she was just four.
Years later she headed to Nashville to break into the business, released two albums and racked up touring spots with the likes of Deep Purple and Greta Van Fleet. But behind the scenes it wasn’t smooth sailing. Now, after years of turbulence, she’s back with her new album, War On Women; Calling All Good Men, a powerful, bluesy punch of riff-heavy psych-rock that was made wholly on her own terms.
She formed her first band when she was eight.
Wicklund’s home town of Hilton Head had many opportunities for young musicians. “There was always an oyster roast or a fundraiser or tourist traps around the island to play,” she says. As a small child she started out playing classical music on piano and taking part in competitions. Then she discovered guitar.
“I picked up a guitar at eight, and I started my band [The Steppin’ Stones] six months later,” she recalls. “I quickly realised that playing Beatles songs and singing was where my heart really was. We played private parties, weddings, holidays. By the time I was thirteen I was playing around four shows a week.”
She experienced grief at an early age.
In 2006, when Wicklund was nine, Mark, the drummer from her band The Steppin’ Stones, died in a plane crash that also killed his father and sisters. “It was so heartbreaking,” she says, “almost a whole family gone. I experienced a lot of depression and grief and sadness as a young girl; my songwriting was where I put all those feelings. I feel like Mark has been with me ever since.” Broadway beckoned, but she chose rock instead.
Wicklund also performed in musicals as a child, and even got scouted for Broadway.
“The arts centre in Hilton Head would put on productions where they brought actors in from New York, so we had some high-calibre directors and choreographers that I got to work with,” Wicklund says. “This agent who repped the girl in The Lion King wanted to work with me, and asked if I’d be willing to move my family to New York, and pursue acting on Broadway. I was only nine. It was this massive fork in the road. But ultimately I chose rock’n’roll.”
She faced challenges in the music business.
Wicklund moved to Nashville to break into the industry, but her experience wasn’t a positive one.
“I was being sent out on lots of co-writes with middle-aged men, taking meetings, and all sorts of people were giving me their opinion on what I should do, what I should sound like,” Hannah says.
Later she felt she was “coerced” into signing away her full catalogue, and says she also received a death threat from someone high up in the industry. She ultimately regained control of her music and is now calling the shots and releasing music through her own label, Strawberry Moon. But it was a difficult road to get there.
“The people around me were very dark, and I realised that everything people say about the [music] industry is true. I think it’s important that people know what goes on in the industry as a whole, especially as a woman.”
She also experienced intense scrutiny and judgement online due to her relationship with her now ex-partner Sam Kiszka of Greta Van Fleet, who produced her 2024 album The Prize. “I spent a lot of time defending myself. People wanted to stick all of my accomplishments on being his girlfriend.”
Her new album is about female empowerment.
After breaking away from any management, splitting with Kiszka and returning to South Carolina, Wicklund was firmly in the driver’s seat to create her next album on her own terms. The result is War On Women; Calling All Good Men. It explores her turbulent experiences in the music industry, but ultimately is about empowering women, in music and beyond.
“I’m just grateful to women across the board,” Wicklund says. “I think there’s a lot of room right now for us to be stepping up, and taking back a little bit of control and power that has always rightfully been ours.”
She had some wonderful role models.
“I’ve looked to incredible, powerful, influential women in the last few years to give me inspiration,” Wicklund says, naming Fiona Apple and Joan Jett as particular inspirations on this journey. “I opened for Joan Jett almost two years ago. She was one of the most real, authentic people I have ever met in this industry. She looked me in the eye and said: ‘The men will do anything to keep a woman in rock’n’roll down. They will sabotage you, they will saddle you with debt, they will call you crazy.’ And damn, if she wasn’t right.”
War On Women; Calling All Good Men is out now via Strawberry Moon. Hannah’s Red Gorilla tour begins at the Bug Jar in Rochester, NY, on November 18.
