Give Hemlocke Springs all ur luv  

Opening up the interview, I was very curious to know where Hemlocke Springs got her unique name. To my surprise, Hemlocke jokingly replied, “It was a random name generator which I just kept pressing and pressing until I found something that stuck with me.” She also revealed that the ‘e’ at the end of her first name was added by her personally, due to pop superstar Lorde adding an ‘e’ to the end of her name. Her real name is Isimeme Naomi Udu; however, Hemlocke isn’t the only artist to use a name generator to come up with their name. Post Malone and Childish Gambino join her in that category. Hemlocke also explained how she will sometimes change the spellings of her song titles just for fun. Like in her 2023 hit, “enknee1” which is just simply pronounced like “anyone.”

Hemlocke made her first song titled “gimme all ur luv” on her computer as a “stress reliever.” Prior to “gimme all ur luv,” she had released demos on Soundcloud which she took down quickly after due to uncertainty that they would ever become anything. During quarantine, Hemlocke downloaded TikTok as a platform to share snippets of her demos. During the release of the demos, people had begged her to release the track on streaming platforms to which she caved and dropped her first single, “gimme all ur luv.” A spectacular track to begin a new chapter in Hemlocke's life. 

As I mentioned before, “girlfriend” was the track that introduced me to Hemlocke Springs. Listening to it for the first time was through the comedic music video. The video oozes personality and makes the viewer laugh as they follow the love story between Hemlocke and seemingly a stuffed dinosaur. I wondered how important visuals were to Hemlocke. She told me, “In the beginning, they were not important to me, however I give full credit to my director Ana Perlta Chong who is behind all my videos and as time went on I really wanted everything to connect and build my own world.” Even though she is new to the industry, Hemlocke is already showing off her bold creativity through her music videos.

With the mention of live shows, I acknowledged how Hemlocke will headline her own mini tour coming this fall. Playing shows in big cities across the country such as Chicago, New Jersey, Los Angeles, and more. However, next month she is opening for indie girl band MUNA at her biggest venue yet: The Greek Theatre in California. Hemlocke expresses her gratitude by saying, “It was surreal when they asked me because I was listening to them before I was even into making music.” As Hemlocke continues to play more and more shows, she strives to improve her stage skills every time. Hemlocke revealed that when she played at Lollapalooza this past summer she caught a glimpse of a fan singing back the entire song word for word. Hemlocke said, “It nearly knocked me off my feet and I almost forgot the whole song. It was crazy.” Hopefully, one day in the future, Hemlocke decides to stop somewhere in Ohio on her next tour.

Gearing up to the release of her EP, “going, going…GONE!” Hemlocke shared the cover on her Instagram. We both agreed how pivotal cover art is to music in general and how it serves as the primary visual for the music the artist has created. I fell in love with the cover art for her EP instantly and wanted to hear how Hemlocke created it. She told me, “How I feel right now feels like I am in this dreamland and I am going towards somewhere I am not really familiar with. I am a girl in my bedroom right now, but I am also working towards bigger sounds and ideas.” We all enter Hemlocke’s dreamland on September 29th, when she shares her first project with the world. Consequently, I had to ask Hemlocke if the debut album was in the works. To which she replied enthusiastically saying, “Yes! Hopefully sometime next year.” That's all I needed to hear. New Hemlocke Springs music is always on the horizon.