Feature: Hana Piranha Decodes “I Wanna Leave”
How did you come up with the idea?
A few years ago I had a period where I was having a lot of panic attacks and one evening I thought “Who says the problem is me?! What if it’s just the air on this fucking planet?!” I’ve always been told I’m a bit of an alien and it’s a running joke that I’m just waiting for my spaceship to take me back to my home planet, so these ideas all came together as the lyrics of the chorus. I sent the chorus melody to Jim a cappella and the same evening he sent me back the entire backing track. The original track he sent back was titled “Marmite” as he wasn’t sure whether I would love it or hate it. Obviously, I loved it!
Was there any challenge that you encountered while making "I Wanna Leave?"
The writing for “I Wanna Leave” was really fast and natural but the vocal part provided a few technical challenges for me, the second verse in particular. I worked on the song with my vocal coach for several months before we took it into the studio.
How do you feel "I Wanna Leave" represents your artistic identity?
I have often expressed my feeling of being an alien in this world but I’ve never expressed it so succinctly before this song. “I Wanna Leave” is very much in line with the disassociation and loneliness that has always gone hand-in-hand with my lyrics. I think a side-effect of songs like this is that a lot of people relate to the theme - it brings a lot of lonely people together - which is kind of ironic but also beautiful.
What role do you feel emotions play in your music, and how do you channel them into your performances?
Emotions are everything in my music. I think the way I make music has become a little more refined in every way over the years but the whole purpose of my music was always as an outlet for my emotions. It’s like drawing out poison. I think it’s channelled quite rawly in our performances as every time I perform a song I feel whatever I was feeling at the time that I wrote it. It transports me back to that moment.
How has your music evolved since you started as a singer-songwriter? What have been some key milestones in your artistic journey?
I remember the very first songs I wrote as a teenager - I had a tape recorder and I would just overdub loads of violin lines onto the tape and then sing over them. (I’ll be honest, they were pretty terrible!)
A few years later I joined a covers band with my first boyfriend where we gigged relentlessly. He gave me the courage to arrange stuff, to sing for the first time, and he really helped me (through many baptisms of fire) to be brave about just getting up there and doing it.
When I went to Westminster University in London I formed my first band and started gigging. It was there that I realised writing for a band really wasn’t as difficult as I had previously imagined.
Ten years ago when my guitarist Jim Beck joined Hana Piranha and we started writing together - that was the moment the band finally felt like an actual band. Andrew Lane joining on drums a couple of years later cemented this.
There was a point several years ago, around Lockdown, where I felt pretty uninspired with music, so I took up the harp. This took me on a magical acoustic journey and helped me discover a softer (but no less miserable) side of myself.
Last year my long-term collaborator Mishkin Fitzgerald joined the band on bass. We do everything together and it has been such a huge support having her on board. Now we have three songwriters in the band!
