Hanna Fearns

In the artist's words:

"I recognize every Beatles song from the first chord"

May 2026: The album "Are You Alright?" by singer-songwriter Hanna Fearns is released. Her third. An oeuvre spanning decades, between folk, Americana, indie pop and country. Voice and songwriting from a single source, full of atmosphere and stories. Fearns is a musician "by heart". She kept at it. Independent and charming, always with stylistic openness.

A foundation for "Are You Alright?". The record combines pop melodies with country elements, experimental soundscapes and stories about empathy and comfort in uncertain times. Friends from the Cologne independent scene helped her with this. Fearns had already begun to see the studio as an experimental space: On the EP "If/When", she played many instruments herself and combined Americana with ambient soundscapes - a phase of trial and error that further opened up her sound.

The second solo album "Turn On The Light" (2018) also marked such an expansion. Together with producer Olaf Opal (e.g. The Notwist, Die Sterne), Fearns moved further away from classic country-folk and developed an atmospheric folk-pop sound with psychedelic and cinematic elements.

Her path to becoming a solo artist began years earlier after she moved from Lake Constance to Cologne. Friends in the Rhenish music scene helped her arrive ad hoc. Her first solo album "Sentimental Bones" was released in 2014 with producer Hubl Greiner. The trade press described it as "country-folk-pop, perfectly crafted and yet hitting the heart". One of the most important companions during this time was the American musician Ken Stringfellow (The Posies, Big Star, R.E.M.), who was so impressed by Fearns' songs and stage presence after a joint concert that several joint tours followed.

Before that, Fearns had worked for many years with her band fearns, which evolved from a cover band. Under the name Easy Country, the group initially played classics by Emmylou Harris, Gram Parsons, Hank Williams and Patsy Cline. They soon developed their own songs from these interpretations. The band's sound increasingly moved between Americana, alternative country and indie rock - influenced by artists such as Calexico, Giant Sand and Lucinda Williams, whom Fearns held in high regard.

In 1998, they released their first EP "Language of the Moment", followed by their debut album "Impatient Heart" in 2002. The band toured small clubs in Germany; Fearns still vividly remembers a four-week cross-country tour between Bremen and Hamburg with improvised living room concerts. In 2008, the live album "Fearns Live - Beyond Expectations" documented this phase.

The origins of all this go back much further. Music was a matter of course in her family: her maternal grandmother was an international singer of German art songs, while her Merseyside-born father sang politically influenced workers' and folk songs together.

Fearns learned the piano and picked up the guitar at the age of twelve - inspired by her parents' record cabinet. She had barely mastered her first chords before she was playing songs by Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell and, of course, the Beatles.