The Heartways, a new project led by Peaches collaborator and guitarist Saskia Hahn have released a new video for their second single, “By Your Side.” The very personal track at first seems to be a love song addressed to a person but, in reality, it’s an intimate love letter from Hahn to California’s famed Joshua Tree National Park. “I tried to capture the moment of falling in love with this amazing place,” says Hahn. “I’d heard so much about it but never quite understood the deep feelings my “desert family” had for that particular patch of land―until it stole my heart too! I was walking through the desert on an off-day during the “I Feel Cream” world tour with Peaches, we’d just played at Pappy & Harriets the night before, and it suddenly struck me. I realized the desert’s incredible beauty and fell totally in awe with it. It was such a powerful and magical moment that I can never forget and will always be thankful for.”
Hahn first made the rounds in the Berlin music scene where, in the mid-2000’s, her rock/power-pop combo Sweet Machine was hailed for their distinctive style and the stage presence of a wild blonde on the guitar and vocals.
This didn’t go unnoticed by gender-equality and electro-clash icon Peaches, who took Hahn and Sweet Machine on tour for two and a half years as her permanent live band. The adventure was rounded off with a recording session with Hahn’s band at the legendary “Rancho De La Luna” Studio in Joshua Tree, California with the help of guitarist Dave Catching (Mojave Lords, ex-Queens of the Stone Age, Eagles of Death Metal) and engineer Edmund Monsef (Masters of Reality, The Cult, Melissa Auf der Maur).
Back in Berlin, after five years of pure Rock ’n’ Roll, Hahn took time off from music and devoted herself to visual art in the field of mixed media, painting, screen printing and installations. With this, she also went on tour and exhibited her art in Berlin, New York, Sydney, London and Zurich. An inspiring time in which she found a new approach to her love of music.
Kissed by the muse, she decided not only to write her new songs herself, but also to produce them. With her new band “The Heartways,” she released her first single “Maybe” in 2020.
“I couldn’t shoot the video in the desert myself, due to the pandemic,” says Hahn. “But thankfully Dave Catching hooked me up with the video artist and filmmaker Will Stockwell―who contributed breathtaking original footage from Joshua Tree. The Director of Photography and Editor was Robin Thomson, whom I first met as a documentary filmmaker during the “I Feel Cream” world tour with Peaches.”
The Heartways debut album Damaged Goods will be released later in 2021.
