Hailee Steinfeld has given fans plenty of opportunities to appreciate her acting in the last couple of years, from playing iconic poet Emily Dickinson in Apple TV's "Dickinson" to stepping into the Marvel Cinematic Universe as the lead in Disney+ miniseries "Hawkeye." At the same time, fans of Steinfeld as a singer/songwriter have been left eagerly anticipating new music — but that wait is over.
At the end of July, Steinfeld released "Coast," a breezy track inspired by the star's home state of California and featuring a blistering guest verse from fellow Cali native Anderson .Paak. Of course, Steinfeld is no stranger to musical success and killer collaborations: she's put out two EPs (2016's Haiz and 2020's Half Written Story) and worked with artists like Grey and Zedd (2016's "Starving") and Alesso, Florida Georgia Line and watt (2017's "Let Me Go").
This time around, Steinfeld realized she wanted to take more time on her music — hence her two-year musical hiatus. Captivated by love for her home and the music she grew up on, she decided to more deliberately craft a world around her new project. This new universe served as a template that she could fully pour herself into in order to give fans of her music the fullest, most authentic view of herself that she possibly could.
"I feel like I'm entering a new space with my music that I've never been in before," Steinfeld tells GRAMMY.com. "This is really the first time I've been able to build a proper world that I cannot wait for."
Shortly after the release of "Coast," GRAMMY.com spoke with Steinfeld to discuss the origins of the track, crafting an entire aesthetic around her new music, and her favorite parts of artistic creation.
This is your first release in two years. At what point did "Coast" start to form?
"Coast" was actually one of the first records we worked on when I set out to start this project, which was about two years ago, which is so wild to think about. And then obviously, it was the start of the evolution of what the project has turned into.
It's so amazing when you end up where you started. You have this initial idea and vision and excitement around all of that, and then it goes off into all these different territories, and then you bring it back. This is how it all happened with me, we came back to where we started.
It's so exciting to me, just the evolution of this song alone. Getting Anderson .Paak on it honestly right before putting it out. It's been a wild ride.
Talk me through the process of getting Anderson .Paak on the track. What was it like getting to work with him?
Him and I became friends, and I remember sending him this record. He wrote me back so fast that I didn't even think he'd listened to the whole thing [Laughs].
We saw each other a few weeks later, and he brought it up — and sure enough, we found ourselves in the studio together. It occurred to me that I had done this whole project via the internet — with all of us in separate parts of the world — so being in the studio with Andy was really the first time I was in a room with people in years.
Being in the studio with Anderson .Paak felt like why you fall in love with making music in the first place. It was just the most incredible thing to see somebody that I have so much admiration and respect for as an artist bring something that I already felt so connected to and passionate about to a whole different level. It was something I'll never forget.
Over the years you've been able to collaborate with a number of other incredible artists. What's your mindset going into these collaborations?
It's so amazing to watch people in their element — watch their process, watch how they immerse themselves into the work that they're doing. And you're right, I've had the honor and the privilege of working with so many incredible people — [and they're all people who] don't work on whatever it is they're doing unless they believe in it, and unless they care so much about it.
It took me a minute to get over that part with Andy, finding myself in this situation [where] he loved this record enough to want to be a part of it and want to support it beyond just jumping on it. But seeing him, it's incredible. He also did it so fast, and then watching him record it — first of all, he makes it look so easy. To get that entire verse in one breath is like, near impossible. I am trying to master it myself. It's not going so well [Laughs].
He really is just a true artist. And there's always substance — there's always meaning in everything he does, every lyric he writes. I am so lucky that I was able to witness that in the room.
Photo: Katia Temkin
Across your music career you've incorporated a wide array of genres under the pop umbrella — like "Coast," which incorporates groovy '70s vibes. What inspires you when you're writing music?
I feel like I finally got the chance to allow myself to be inspired by the music that I grew up listening to. It's only ever been in the background of my life. I am obsessed with pop music — for as long as I've been making music, my favorite playlists are pop playlists. I was very inspired by that, and I wanted to make records that felt like what I was inspired by [back] then.
All of it was moving so quickly, and it was working in a way that I kept on in that specific direction. And this time around, I was able to go back and dig a little bit deeper into why I love music in the first place — what has influenced me and inspired me to make it. And that [included] artists and groups [whose influence] you wouldn't necessarily hear on music I've done in the past.
At the beginning of the pandemic, I started listening to a ton of old music. It's amazing how there's old music that gave you life, it gave you this energy, it makes you feel so great. I had just finished working on Half Written Story, where I was very clearly going through something. I had a very clear intention with how I was writing and what I wanted to get across, and it was an array of emotions from frustrated and sad and confused and lonely. I had done that within four songs and I was like, "I got that off my chest. I want to make music that feels good — I want to make music that has that groove, that gives you that life and that energy that I get when I listen to the Beach Boys, when I listen to the Eagles."
It's a wide and eclectic group of musicians, artists, and songs that I realized that inspired me so much growing up, but I was able to pull all of that into "Coast" and into the records to come.
All of that music feels so alive because it was made live in the studio. How did you capture that same feeling on "Coast"?
It's funny, because I recorded the majority of this at my house in Malibu. I moved all of my guest room furniture into my brother's house — and thank you to my brother who is still housing that furniture [Laughs] — so that I could build this little makeshift studio.
Malibu is a place that I spent most of my summers as a kid,and it's in my backyard [now]. To go there whenever and as much as I can, and to feel that energy was incredible.
But when it came to actually having to record — and not have trash trucks and gardeners in the background of my self-cut vocals — I re-recorded some of the records at EastWest in the same room that [the Beach Boys'] Pet Sounds was recorded in. You're in there and all you can think about is where they sat, where they stood, and what they were thinking in that moment. It was so alive and the feeling is so there.I really felt like a lot of that came through with this, and with everything to come.
You've said that your acting and music careers inform each other. As you've been writing this very personal music, you've also been acting in Dickinson and Hawkeye. How have those parts of your career continued to interact?
As I've gotten older, I've just become more self-aware, or aware of opening myself up to being inspired by more than what I originally thought I could be inspired by. I've had so many full-circle moments where my acting career and what I've learned through it all — and through the characters that I've played, more specifically, and through the writing that I've been lucky enough to take on as a character — has definitely influenced me as an artist. And in more than one way.
In the writing, 100 percent. I've said this before — after years of playing a very fearless, fearlessly known poet, I went back into the studio and felt this sense of "nobody has to see any of this if I don't want them to, but that shouldn't stop me, so therefore it shouldn't be stopped in writing everything and more." And the exciting part is, at the end of the day, it's all coming out. There isn't really anything that's being held back.
Speaking of playing some of these roles for years — as we talked about earlier, "Coast" is your first music in a long time. How much of that break was planned, as opposed to your life and career naturally taking you in another direction?
It was a little bit of all of it. Obviously, life took us all for kind of a ride these last few years. That definitely played a part in taking a step back for myself mentally, first and foremost. And I'm grateful that I was able to use that time in a way I was able to stay inspired and motivated to create. It wasn't easy.
I'm still so blown away by what I was able to accomplish, that we — I should say, the team that I worked on the record with — were able to get this done having never been in a room together.
[When] I put out Half Written Story, it was part one of two. And I basically had two not completed, but it was close. I say it was close, but [the songs] needed time. They needed more time than I had been giving. So I made the decision to move on from that and move into this bigger project. I got out of my system what I felt I really needed to with part one, and I was ready to move on from it. [This next project has a] much bigger picture and something I'm even more excited about.
Taking that approach sounds like it allows you to really view these things as time capsules of sorts, to capture who you were and what you were feeling in these moments.
Totally. I've always felt that way about my acting career. Although they're not direct insight into my exact life at that moment, I feel like everything I've done has represented that time in my life and something that I was going through — to have related enough to take it on and be able to immerse myself fully into everything that I've done.
I'm happy that my music is that way as well. I mean, it's so personal. And it definitely is extremely representative of who I am and who I was at that time. That's the exciting part about being an artist, and evolving, and having an incredible family of fans that are growing with me. I feel like I'm entering a new space with my music that I've never been in before, and I'm incredibly excited about it.
Something that's noticeable about your releases is that you build an entire aesthetic around them. With "Coast," there's a lot of blue on your Instagram posts — a lot of coastal, beachy clothing and scenery. What goes into building that aesthetic?
This is actually one of my favorite parts. When I decided that Half Written Story was wrapped up after part one and I was going into this new world, everything was [still] so up in the air, as far as the reality of getting in a room with people. So I figured in the meantime, let me build up this world visually and then we can go from there.
The whole record started with the visual side of things, and then we went into ideas and concepts and titles. I'd already had an idea of what I wanted this all to look like, and I knew that would very clearly influence the sound in a way that I could articulate easier than any other way.
I've got floor to ceiling boards just covered — the amount of things I've printed and cut and pasted and pinned and all of that, it's years worth now. Your girl loves a mood board [Laughs].
I was able to create this whole universe, which I've never been able to do with my music. In a way, with the music working so well simultaneously to my acting, I've had these singles that have come out over time. This is really the first time I've been able to build a proper world that I cannot wait for. Everybody's getting a little taste of it with "Coast," but there's so much more where that came from.