Introducing Get To Know… Hana Vu

The singer’s new EP ‘How Many Times Have You Driven By’ is sleek and sophisticated bedroom pop straight from LA.

Words: Rachel Finn
9th August 2018

Hello and welcome to DIY’s new introducing feature, Get To Know… With two new acts a week, the feature pretty much does what it says on the tin: getting you a little bit closer to the buzziest new acts that have been catching our eye as of late, and working out what makes them tick.

We recently got to know Brighton-based Breathe Panel and new Dirty Hit signing ‘No Rome’.

Next up, we’re with LA’s Hana Vu who, despite having just finished high school, has racked up an impressive list of early career credits: she’s been writing music for the past five years, released a collaboration with Willow Smith, supported Soccer Mommy in her hometown and has just released her first official EP ‘How Many Times Have You Driven By’.

At ten tracks long, the EP is closer to an album, a collection of rich bedroom pop gems with inflections of soulful R&B. We had a chat with Hana about the EP, her influences and what she’s looking forward to throughout the rest of 2018.

Catch up with all our Get To Know… features to date here.

Describe your music to us in the form of a Tinder bio.

5’3.

What’s your earliest musical memory?

Radio Disney.

Who were some artists that inspired you when you were just starting out, and why?

When I first started playing shows I really looked up to some of the bigger DIY artists in the LA DIY scene at the time like The Lovely Bad Things and Together Pangea but also of course idolized the 2012 indie popstars like Grimes and Lana Del Rey.

You’re from LA - how is the scene there at the moment? Are there other artists breaking through at the same time that you take inspiration from?

My friends run a DIY music/art collective here in LA called smashclub and there’s a lot of kids out here going to and playing smashclub in random warehouses and galleries in downtown. This resourcefulness was always the peak of DIY scene. I know a lot of musicians here in LA but my friend Christian Besa Wright has some pretty great stuff out. That mix of resourceful and talented is my favourite.

Your debut EP ‘How Many Times Have You Driven By’ recently came out - can you tell us a little about it? What themes run through it? What inspired you when writing it?

In How Many Times Have You Driven By, there’s a lot of raw teen angst. I wrote it over the course of my junior and senior year of high school. It centers a lot around feelings of isolation and desolation. I tried to be varied in style and sound so some of the songs contrast drastically in terms of genre.

Who is your dream collaborator and why?

It is a THREE WAY TIE between St. Vincent, Florence Welch, and Karen O. I think they are all amazing instrumentalists/composers/vocalists/lyricists/rockstar and working with any one of them would be a dream.

Musically or otherwise, what are you most looking forward to in 2018?

I am very much looking forward to my first tour supporting SALES this fall in the midwest/east coast. I’ve only been to maybe 4 states in my life so I’m excited to see lots of things and makes lots of friends.