One of Kate Hudsonâs favorite songs is âRomeo and Julietâ by Dire Straits, a cinematic ode to the longing and devastation that often accompanies romance. She, however, prefers a sunnier interpretation of the lyrics. âItâs what itâs like when you love a song and then that song becomes the soundtrack to your relationship â that newness,â Hudson tells me. âItâs just like, Ugh, I love it. I could hear it over and over and over again.â
Bottle up that amore and youâve got Hudsonâs debut album, the genre-hopping Glorious, which has arrived after several years of collaboration with Linda Perry and fiancĂŠ Danny Fujikawa. A music fanatic even before her breakout Almost Famous role, Hudson had been wanting to write and record an album throughout her acting career; a fear of ridicule, though, kept her from pursuing the dream, and she only got the confidence when the pandemic rearranged her personal priorities. âWhen it happened, I was like, Iâm not waiting any longer,â she now says. âI have to do this.â
The result is the 12-song Glorious, which blends rock, pop, and folk into Hudsonâs sonic Erewhon smoothie. As the lead single âTalk About Loveâ teases, she sings a lot about it â but her writing transcends the simple themes of desire. (A sampling: âLive Foreverâ is about her eldest son growing up, while âLove Ainât Easyâ is destined to inspire a news cycle determining the subjectâs identity.) Because, as Hudson knows, love gets complicated. Thatâs just what life brings. âItâs hard, but itâs the most glorious thing in the world,â she says. âSo thatâs what the album is to me.â
I dove into this thinking you would be doing a more conventional-leaning pop album, given your choice of lead single, but this is a lot more ambitious than I think a lot of people will give you credit for. Who are your Mount Rushmore of influences for the record?
Iâm such a music lover, so my influences are varied and all over the place. I grew up in the â90s, so hip-hop was huge in California and thatâs a love of mine. Iâm a big jazz head. But my influences for the album are largely rock. The decision to make an album was keeping an open slate. I didnât want to have any preconceived concept of what I wanted it to sound like. I figured, Iâm just going to come in and see what happens.
Meeting the music where Iâm at right now is important for me, as well as not repeating any old things Iâve done. I dreamed of being in music. So out of that came a lot of different influences in my life, especially women who Iâve loved: Patty Griffin, Sheryl Crow, Bonnie Raitt, and Cyndi Lauper. I look at some of these songs I wrote for the album and they remind me of different people and different genres. It had to have a through-line once I picked the songs that were going to be included.
What was that unifying factor?
Itâs vocal forward. The sound of the vocals, how we mix the vocals, and the storytelling brought it together and didnât make it feel like it lacked consistency. That was such an interesting thing to go through, because we had so much music. It was hard to pick what made the final cut. There are some songs I had to drop where I was like, This is heartbreaking, but it doesnât fit the story. Iâm a vinyl person and I love sitting down and listening to a whole album. I finally listened to all of Cowboy Carter the other night. I really want to see what the artist is evoking in its entirety. That was really important to me, too.
A fear of rejection kept you from releasing music until now. Why do you think you faced that obstacle in this domain as opposed to acting?
Iâve got really tough skin. I can handle sassy headlines and I can take the noise out of things when it comes to acting, fashion, or whatever else. But when it comes to your own words, your love of art, and putting yourself out there, itâs scary and it hurts. I wasnât ready for that yet. Iâve always said this: If Iâm going to do music, I love it too much to not honor it properly. I donât want to just come in, have a ton of writers, and not treat it with the respect that I see for this modality of art. I have to live in it and do it properly. It just wasnât the time. Frankly, I didnât choose to have the time. I also was involved with men in the music industry, and I think two touring families would be too hard. I donât even know how that would work.
I know you didnât come into the album with any particular intention, but there seems to be a unifying lyrical theme of love â both the bliss of falling into it and the agony of falling out of it. Is there a story that listeners should be following?
One of the reasons I liked the album title, Glorious, is because itâs very reflective. Itâs all of these love stories in my life, including with my children. One song is actually a third-person reflection. I wonât say which song, because then itâll change the song for everybody, but itâs about how one of my partners saw me. I was speaking from his point of view. I wanted to be more of an open channel. Itâs sort of like a life well loved in the good, the bad, and the ugly. Even a one-night stand with somebody is glorious, too.
So I donât think thereâs any narrative that feels like itâs from the beginning, middle, and end. I find, as a public figure, people have this expectation that youâre either political or you need to be an activist. Throughout my life, if thereâs anything I want to talk about, or give, or share, itâs about connection and love, because I think itâs the hardest and most important thing. We get caught up in so much pain. We all feel it, we all have it, and then we forget how to open our hearts. I believe thatâs the only way we can heal or change anything. Thatâs why I, quite literally, talk about love on âTalk About Love.â Itâs a simple narrative, but it was really like, Thatâs what we should be talking about. Why is it so hard to let people, in the purest form, know what it is to love and feel loved? If we did, the world would be a completely different place. Thatâs what I like to talk about. Thatâs my activism.
How vulnerable were you willing to go with your writing and deviating from what people may perceive about you? Thereâs a warmth that connects these songs, but then your lyrics sometimes sneak up with a good punch, like on âNot Easy to Knowâ: âIâm not easy to know, I circle aloneâ and âStop trying to save me, Iâm trying to change me.â
I love that youâre telling me that. âNot Easy to Knowâ is the most intimate on the album, because itâs me sharing that part of myself. If Iâm sharing my life through music, âNot Easy To Knowâ is really like, Iâm doing my best. Relationships are hard and everyone says theyâre supposed to be easy. And Iâm like, Well, theyâre not for me. They never have been. I donât know if itâs the world Iâm in. I donât know if itâs my familial makeup. Yes, there are moments where it feels great, but, God, it gets to those places in intimacy where it gets hard. And I fight for it. I love that song because thatâs me fighting for the relationship. Stay with me. Iâm in it for us.Â
Iâm an open book. Iâve always been pretty open. I donât feel like thereâs anything off limits except having a public therapy session. I wouldnât do that. I think itâs important to share these things and connect on relatable things. You can have very different lives from other people, but there are so many relatable themes everyone has, especially motherhood. You could come from completely different walks of life, but be able to relate to that feeling of when your children leave home. Thatâs what compelled me to write âLive Forever.â But unless itâs very obvious, I donât think itâs good to give everybody what all of the songs are about, because then it takes it away from their own experience.
The last line on the album is sort of a rallying cry: âCarry on, touch the light.â What does that light look like for you at this point in your life?
Itâs what this process was like for me. Itâs reaching for the things that move you and bring light into your life. Itâs an upward motion. Itâs like the light is up there and in your dream. Itâs what heals us. It could be considered a sort of religious thing, but I think of it more as an energy. When you can touch the light, you become one in it. That imagery for me is when we heal through things and move through things â youâve got to just keep walking toward the light. I remember when I wrote that final song, there was no structure to it. But I realized it was an important song and I was like, I canât mess this up. For me, that translates to building the live experience musically and incorporating some of my heroes into these things.
What other ambitions do you have for your music career besides touring?
My intention isnât just to be a recording artist and a performer. I love writing. My hope is that people invite me into their circles and I can work with them. I would love to write for other artists and then bring it into film, television, and musicals. Itâs been a dream of mine to write a musical. I have an idea and itâs not a typical one. I would love to perform on Broadway. I definitely want to make more albums. I have so much to give. Iâve been sitting on this album and writing it for so long, and now that itâs here Iâm like, I canât wait to get back in the studio and write some more.
How are you anticipating the response to the album? Do you think youâll be graded on a different scale as an actor turned singer-songwriter?
Yes, but I donât want to think about it. I donât want to read about it. Itâs different because Iâm so known for what Iâve done in my life as an actor. I know the critical side of it is different. I really hope itâs received with the same warmth that I put into it, but itâs going to be what itâs going to be. I also have to say thereâs been so much encouragement. Iâve only felt positive energy around this album. People have been so kind to me. Even my friends who are in the music industry have been wonderful. I donât take that lightly. So when it comes to whatâs going to happen, I donât know. But I feel very cozy right now with how people have been responding.
Your verified artist pages still have âCinema Italianoâ listed among your newer work. Would you consider doing the public service of luring Daniel Day-Lewis out of retirement with a remix?
DDL! Thatâs his insider nickname. God, wouldnât that be great? Heâs the best and so lovely. What an amazing thing to be able to say I have worked with Daniel Day-Lewis. But I donât think thereâs any chance of luring him out, even for music. Heâs a man of his word.