Winter Forever: The Album Interview
Baby Jane tells Hot Cue all about her new sophomore album, plus exclusives about her songwriting process, mythology, and fanbase: The Coven.
Author’s Note: Interspersed throughout this article are quotes from the novel & film, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, the inspiration for our interviewee’s artist name.
Recommended Watch: My brother showed me Be Kind Rewind, a YouTube channel covering old Hollywood, with a great video covering the legendary, less-than-credible “feud” between the film’s stars, Joan Crawford and Bette Davis.
Icy blonde hair leaps across the stage. Once contained by a medieval-looking torture device, Baby Jane breaks free to erupt with the crowd. Eerie witch house intros combust into hardstyle techno, backed with ethereal pop and haunting lyrics of devotion, desperation, and self-destruction.
In her first headline tour for her freshman album, A Grave Marked Strange, the paranormal performer signs foreheads and sweatshirts before sold out shows. She commands over a million Spotify listeners and festival stages alongside Zedd, Skrillex, and HorsegiirL, while refusing to sign to a label who might compromise her vision.
Electronic popstar, DJ, head of a coven: Baby Jane puts you in a trance. Celebrate the release of her highly anticipated second album, Winter Forever, and transcend into her divine realm with Hot Cue Mag.
If you dare.
First Impressions of Baby Jane
“I don't want to talk about it! Every time I think about something nice, you remind me of bad things. I only want to talk about the nice things.”
-Baby Jane Hudson, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
Gentle Calabasas vocal fry greets me on the video call, her oversized black tee and dark eyes popping against the white, modern interior behind her. She makes friendly small talk. She needs to buy groceries; she chats about her routine since coming home from traveling. The vibe is very sunny California, seemingly in stark contrast to the artistic persona.
Baby Jane, the artist, is a rave from the Black Sea coast. She comes with her own mythological world. It’s easy to get lost in, even when I listen intently.
She seems to lose herself in it, too. “I’m working on a set for this weekend, so I haven’t left my house since Thursday.” Today is Monday.
The Sophomore Album: Winter Forever
“A missing lover, a severed hand, but a body never discovered…
An heiress and a bloodied gown…”
-What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
Baby Jane’s first studio album, A Grave Marked Strange, was described as a “campy gothic rave odyssey” and “equal parts nightclub exorcism and theatrical monologue.”
Winter Forever is a little more hardcore. While her debut welcomed the listener into a morbid wonderland, Winter Forever embodies it. The album is a collaborative effort with War Tourism, coproducer of her first album. Lyrically, though,Winter Forever is featureless; Baby Jane’s personal experience.
Thirteen tracks spin her story over glitching 8-bit beats. Cool Russian intertwines with breathy English. Her longing, gentle inflection melts into hushed echoes. Legends of death and abandonment build melodic hooks in hard bounce. Baby Jane writes doomed romance, the call of the void, and joyless desire, all for the club. She casts lyrics:
Joy is a stranger to my soul
Missing something I don't know how to hold
The things I love
So I chase the roughSee, I think of you in тишина
And stare at your картина
Feel blue just like Malvina- Baby Jane, “Malvina”
Gentle gasps ripple from each line. Synth cuts them short like a weapon, sharp and sweeping. One minute you’re in a Eurodance fantasy; next, in a witch house trance.
Welcome to Baby Jane’s world of ethereal hardstyle. It’s winter 4ever.
Baby Jane’s Sonic Sphere
“Yes, she's emotionally disturbed. She's unbalanced!”
-Blanche Hudson
Somehow, this icy aesthetic exterior comes from a Cali girl. Baby Jane is native to LA’s underground, a space defined largely by pure techno. While that intensity infuses throughout her personality & musical style, Jane’s bread and butter is fusing disparate sounds for unsuspecting crowds. “I play trance, hardstyle, dark pop, everything. I’m taking a lot of genre-risks that no one else takes.”
She was compared early in her career to Lana Del Rey. Perhaps a curious comparison from a strict genre perspective. I see it as: both artists submerge listeners into a cinematic universe, sharing stories that are epic, tragic, and romantic. Both also possess an enticing personality: relatable and profound.
If Lana ever plays a spirit haunting Berghain, their style might align too.
What Drives Baby Jane?
“You can never lose your talent, he used to tell me.
You can lose everything else, but you can’t lose your talent.”
-Baby Jane Hudson, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
Her songmaking is a satisfying struggle. “You’re pushing and pushing and pushing, until you reach divine intervention.” From Bach to Bob Dylan to Kanye, artists across time have described their work this way: requiring a great deal of labor and also as a gift from a high power. I wonder if, by describing artistic talent as god-given gift, we detract from the work ethic required to create.
Lucky for us, she loves the challenge. “I find purpose in the struggle. Really it’s letting go of ego: creating brings me love and joy. You have to let go where you don’t care what people will think.”
Reception of her work has no influence on her intention to create, and she’s her own harshest critic. “I had this Requiem For a Dream remix I was toying with, but scrapped because it felt cringe. I have to work through a lot of silly ideas to get to the good stuff.”
How Does Baby Jane Handle the Pressure?
“Sometimes you thought you had a thing — but then part of it — or all of it— always got away. Life itself could not be possessed, really, not even a minute of it.”
-What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
Songs that have entranced Baby Jane recently include “As The Rush Comes” by Motorcycle, JES, and Gabriel & Dresden, “worry” by LONOWN and riserayss, and "Rock With You” by Janet Jackson. Interestingly, she pulls several artists who’ve had very on-and-off relationships with music that fruited extensive, successful careers.
Baby Jane herself toyed with giving up her career altogether many times. “Some people like staying in a place where they’re down. They like what that story does for them. They like victimization without taking responsibility to change. I’ve been like that before.”
Just before “Cemetery Date” blew up in 2024, she was in that negative headspace. “I was feeling like everything was definitely going to go wrong. I had to float that shit down the meadow, even though […] I was working just as hard as I am now. Now, I feel so much love and gratitude.”
Baby Jane and Her Fans: The Creator and Her Coven
“You mean, all this time we could've been friends?”
-Baby Jane Hudson, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
“Floating shit down the meadow” isn’t an Urban Dictionary phrase you missed. In conversation, Baby Jane slips in and out of the depths of her artistic mythology, a world named the Divine Meadow.
What is the Divine Meadow? Visually, “it’s a green grassy cliff, with a river that runs from below to behind you and beyond you.” I ask her if anywhere she’s visited in the real world has reminded her of it.
“No. When I tour, I always explore with locals who take me to amazing places. But nothing has been like [The Divine Meadow] for me. It’s a meditation practice. A place to channel your intention. It connects you to everything. You can send anything you want to leave behind down the river, and send forward what you want to materialize for the future.”
This mystical world reflects the artistic connection she feels with her audience. She is unafraid they’ll follow where her vision leads her.
In an industry where privacy is an infamous concern, Baby Jane curates uniquely inclusive boundaries with her fanbase. She talks with them on burner accounts and regularly on her Discord. The scold’s bridle (affectionately called “the lobotomizer”) she wears was gifted to her by a fan, to whom she sent her head measurements.
Baby Jane says she is “always humbled” by affection for her work and “connecting with a crowd comes naturally.” Crowd reactions at her first live shows gave her insight into how different sounds evoke instantaneous, disparate reactions in people. She blends this new skill into Winter Forever.
What’s Next for Baby Jane
“You can never lose your talent…
You can lose everything else, but, you can’t lose your talent.”
-Baby Jane Hudson, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
I ask Jane if she knew Eternal Embrace would take off as it did, and if she has any predictions for Winter Forever. The hyperpop-style vocal effects in the former are more unique in her discography, but the pained lyrics and electronic bounce are fully Baby Jane.
“I had a suspicion [Eternal Embrace] would be popular! I wasn’t surprised.” With her fan connection, she feels confident to make predictions. “Off of Winter Forever, I think ‘Starry Eyed’ is gonna be really popular. My favorite is ‘Clear My Mind.’ It lacks structure, which I like in a song. It puts you in a trance.”
Always creating means fans don’t have to worry that another album is in the works. “I already have ideas for the next album, which is how I know this one is done. I’m ready to be in it, like when your birthday passes, but you already feel older….”
If you follow her on socials, her anticipation is evident; she’s already posting snippets of new songs. Work never ends when creating is who you are. “I am a spiritual being. Creating is my natural state. My soul has a voice, and it will always create. Create or die!”
More is yet to come for this universe. Join Baby Jane inside Winter Forever.
“Turn up the volume, dear. We’re missing the picture.”
-Mrs. Bates, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
How do I join The Coven?
Check out the crowd at her Houston’s AMPED set: jumping wildly, imploring the concert hall roof to rain.
Take the “Which Archetype Are You” quiz, the initiation to joining her fanbase.
Chat with Baby Jane & fellow Coven members on Instagram, TikTok, and Discord.
Listen to Winter Forever on all platforms, digital and physical!
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