Sierra Hull spends much of her year traveling from show to show, so she has her pre-concert rituals down to a science.
“Being on tour a lot of times, you have this big chunk of the day that’s slow, it feels slow moving,” the bluegrass musician, 33, exclusively told Us Weekly. “Especially if you’re on a bus, you’re there, you wake up that morning, you’re making your coffee, kind of just easing into the day. And then a lot of times, by the time you hit soundcheck, it … can feel like the gas gets put on and everything’s moving fast all of a sudden.”
In the years since signing her first record contract as a teenager, Hull has learned how to take a moment to breathe before hitting the stage.
“I’ve tried to remind myself of the importance of the calm before going out and trying to just really ground myself,” she explained. “Trying to make sure I’m getting myself ready a little bit earlier.”
This spring and summer, Hull will be touring in support of her new album, A Tip Toe High Wire, which dropped Friday, March 7. She’s been playing some of the album’s songs live for years now, but she’s excited for fans to hear the ways she pushed herself on this album — her first as an independent artist.
“This record, I felt like I was stepping out in this new space but trying to juggle in one hand my roots — my traditional lover of a simple song — and the effectiveness of something that’s very lyric-forward and isn’t overly complex,” Hull told Us. “But also there’s other things on the record that I was trying to search for something that would feel new and interesting for me in this new space that I’m in and not be afraid to explore that.”
A Tip Toe High Wire is out now. Keep reading for more of Hull’s behind-the-scenes secrets of life on the road:
Pre-Show Ritual
Growing up a bluegrass kid, you learn [everything] by doing. You learn by going to the bluegrass jams and somebody saying, “Hey, kid, here’s how you make a G chord.” And you learn to sing harmony by sitting around singing with your granny or something, more than it being this regimented practice lesson. So, nobody ever really taught me warm-ups or anything like that. It’s something I’m trying to incorporate more as I get older and thinking about longevity — finding time to ground myself, quiet myself, do some vocal warm-ups, try to ease into playing so that I can feel really calm and warmed up before the show.
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Ideal Afterparty
The after-hangs are so fun, especially when you have friends in cities that you’re playing. That’s the beautiful thing about being on tour … you have people across the country that you maybe only get to see every once in a blue moon and if they’re in town and can come to the show, [you’re] able to sit around [and hang out]. There’s usually a lot of snacking and drinking and things like that. Not alcoholic drinking always, but just like hanging out, very chill afterparties, lots of laughter. Oftentimes we might still be playing music backstage after the show’s done, so that’s kind of the fun thing. It’s as much our hobby as our job. So sometimes the music keeps going post-show if we’re really feeling it, you know?
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Favorite Song to Play Live
It shifts a lot for me. I always try to put something in the set that we haven’t been doing as much. “Boom” is a really fun one right now to play live. I have a band full of super virtuosic musicians, so there’s hardly anything I could throw at those guys that they can’t play, and so a lot of the music from night to night, you kind of can’t let your guard down. A lot of it’s not just super chill, take a nap in between music — you have to be focused because a lot of the arrangements are complex. … But at the same time, there’s certain songs that you see coming up on the set that feel like a breath of fresh air, and “Boom” always feels that way. There’s something about that one, it flows so easily, there’s a bit of an effortlessness to getting to play and sing that one that almost feels a little bit like I can step outside of it and just be a listener.
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Most Cherished Souvenir
One thing that I started trying to do on my overseas trips is [collect art]. I have some really simple but meaningful little pieces of art that I’ve brought back from places like Italy, for example, or Germany — just being able to pick up little souvenirs and things like that I might have up in my house and go, “Oh, cool, I got that in Paris. I got that in Rome.”
My favorite thing I’ve been doing, which is not one single item, but I bought a Polaroid [camera] last year and I did about a month in Europe for a tour, and I went, “Oh, gosh, I’m going to make a scrapbook for this tour.” But I kept it going, so now I’ve been taking a Polaroid or two almost everywhere I’ve traveled. We so often don’t print photos these days, so this is just like that immediate thing, just for me, that I’ve got this fun scrapbook of my travels and something that I hope to continue throughout this year, too.
