When Sharon Van Etten performs with her band in Salt Lake City on May 13 at Metro Music Hall, it’ll be one of 14 shows she’s set to play during the month. When we connected with her via Zoom recently, she was at home and readying for that long stretch, and she admitted that even though she hasn’t toured this intensely in years, she has a lot of reasons to enjoy returning to the road.
Van Etten loves playing with her band, for one. Touring and playing live allows her to connect and reconnect with the songs they’ve created viscerally. The chance to see firsthand how those at their shows react to the music every night they play? That’s another high point.
After a few scattered warmup shows on the East Coast and a couple of weeks playing in the UK, this is the first time the band has toured regularly behind 2025’s Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory, released in February on Jagjaguwar. Van Etten said she can’t wait to roll back into Utah, as she recalls how beautiful the state is and how kindly she’s been treated.
“I love connecting with people in different cities,” she says. “After everything we’ve been through in the past five-plus years, connection is everything.”
The new album feels gauzy and ethereal, never straying far from the topics of mortality, parenthood, and love. And even though some songs feel darker thematically, they enjoy playing them as much as they enjoy each other. Van Etten says a natural chemistry has surfaced over their past several years, a stronger connection built a deepened friendship.
One local radio deejay recently quipped that Van Etten was in her “goth phase” with the new release, and she’s fast to agree with that, but only with a short explanation.
“I feel like I’m always in a goth phase, but not everyone can tell. Many of the influences for this record are bands I have listened to since I was a kid and into my 20s. As I’ve learned how to have a band, I can now showcase my influences differently, but I always felt them at my core,” she says. “The Cure and Portishead and Siouxsie & The Banshees and Joy Division were bands I grew up listening to. Hopefully, what I am recording now is more of an homage to the sounds that shaped me, not just as an artist, but as a music fan.”
The members of the band making up the rest of The Attachment Theory include Devra Hoff (bass guitar, backing vocals), Teeny Lieberson (keyboards, guitar, backing vocals), and Jorge Balbi (drums). Van Etten feels like she and her band have reached their next creative stage, the inevitable progression of their relationship, and getting to explore that together is compelling.
“Whenever you get to know anybody in a certain way, especially creatively, you get to this point where it’s time to take the next step, a make-or-break commitment. In a way, writing together means we trust each other. We want to explore that, but we also have to be vulnerable. You have to throw paint at the wall and know you might make mistakes anyway. We could let our guard down and open ourselves up to trying things we wouldn’t normally or naturally try otherwise.”
And a lot of that should be evident when they play together. That closeness she and the rest of her band share has allowed them to create their own semblance of a community, and that’s highly important. It allows for added strength in difficult times, and Van Etten is keenly aware of that as a mother. Her overall view is that being attached to a community can and does carry us forward.
“Being a parent and aging and having aging parents, under the umbrella of what’s happening in the world, I feel now more than ever, we have to embrace each other and redefine our community. Even as the times can feel so dark, the community and being a good neighbor will help us get through right now,” Van Etten says. “As a mother, I have to be vigilant against the horrors and try to be positive because what’s my alternative? Be a good role model. See what you can salvage with the things you actually can control.”
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