Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory performed ‘Southern Life (What It Must Be Like)’ on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon this week – see the footage below.
The song is taken from the recently formed group’s self-titled debut album, which was released on Friday (February 7) via Jagjaguwar. The band comprises singer-songwriter Van Etten alongside drummer Jorge Balbi, bassist Devra Hoff and keyboardist Teeny Lieberson.
The live performance went down on Thursday (February 6) and saw the band embrace the psych-fuelled heady rock energy of the album version. Watch their appearance here:
‘Southern Life (What It Must Be Like)’ was one of the album’s early singles and has been described by Van Etten as being about “trying to understand people with very different perspectives and backgrounds, while also trying to be compassionate towards our past, present, and future selves.”
“After days of rehearsing the songs from the album and how to execute them live, I was getting tired of hearing myself. I didn’t want to over rehearse the songs to death. And so, for the first time ever, I asked if the band just wanted to “jam,” play without it having to be something, to clear our heads.”
The performance comes just weeks ahead of the group’s UK and European tour, which kicks off in Oslo on February 28 and will see them take in dates in London’s Royal Albert Hall, Manchester’s Albert Hall and Glasgow’s Barrowland Ballroom. See here for the full list of dates and here for any remaining tickets.
Van Etten recently spoke to NME about the night in 2022 when she asked her backing band to jam during rehearsals, which ultimately led to the formation of her new full-band moniker. She explained that there was something about the alchemy of that moment that left her felling “very seen, heard, inspired”.
“That made me want to push myself,” she added. “It sounds silly on the surface, but I’d never felt that way before.”
Van Etten released her sixth and latest solo album, ‘We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong’, in May 2022. In 2023, she shared ‘Quiet Eyes’ from the Past Lives soundtrack and the Courtney Barnett co-written single ‘Close To You’.