Juliana Hatfield Might Be In Love: Animal Prints

By the time Juliana Hatfield had reached her mid-20s, she’d become the poster girl for ’90s indie rock. She was looked upon as the thinking person’s alternative to the riot-grrrl phenomenon, and the future seemed rosy. Hatfield had formed revered combo the Blake Babies, launched a red-hot solo career, played bass on the breakthrough Lemonheads album and gained national attention when she told Interview magazine she was still a virgin and wasn’t too worried about it. The backlash from those without much of an attention span was inevitable. In the ensuing years, Hatfield has honed her art and produced a wealth of stirring, self-confident albums. Peace & Love, out next week on her Ye Olde label, is an utterly sincere revelation that proves well worth the wait. Hatfield will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our exclusive excerpt from her 2008 memoir and our brand new Q&A with her.

Hatfield: I have a lot of animal-printed stuff. Mostly I am drawn to a leopard/cheetah-type of pattern in various shades of tan/brown/black/gold/cream; wild-animal-fur colors. I have an animal-print car-seat cover, an animal-print jacket, animal-print gloves, two animal-print bags (one cotton, one fake fur), an animal-print suitcase, an animal-print winter hat, a pair of animal-print shoes, two animal-print dresses, and I am seriously considering purchasing an animal-print lampshade that I’ve got my eye on. You have to be careful not to wear more than one animal-printed thing at once. Otherwise you might look ridiculous. Sometimes I ask myself, “Why? Why all this fake fur in my life?” I think I might be trying in some way to get in touch with my inner wild-animal, which is, sadly, kind of repressed most of the time.