Van Etten was born in Belleville, New Jersey, the middle child of five.[2] She lived in Nutley, New Jersey, then moved to Clinton, New Jersey as a pre-teen. She attended North Hunterdon High School, at which she participated in the chorus and performed in stage musicals.[3][4][5][6]
Later, she moved to Murfreesboro, Tennessee to attend Middle Tennessee State University and studied recording, but dropped out after a year. She ended up working at the Red Rose, a coffee and record shop and music venue in Murfreesboro for about five years. She fell into an abusive relationship with a rock musician who discouraged her from writing songs. After five years, she left in the middle of the night with whatever she could carry.[7]
She lived in Brooklyn, New York for a number of years, in the neighborhood of Ditmas Park.[7]
Van Etten self-released handmade CDs until 2009, when her debut studio recording was released.[8][9] Before her studio debut, she worked at Astor Wines and as a publicist at Ba Da Bing Records.[10]
Van Etten's debut, Because I Was in Love, was released on May 26, 2009, on Language of Stone, and was manufactured and distributed by Drag City. Because I Was in Love was produced by Greg Weeks at Hexham Head studio in Philadelphia.[8]
On September 21, 2010, Van Etten released her second album, epic, on Ba Da Bing Records. With no set band at the time, Van Etten called on friends Jeffrey Kish, Dave Hartley, Jessica Larrabee, and Andy LaPlant of She Keeps Bees, Cat Martino, Meg Baird, Jim Callan, and Brian Christinzio. The first song recorded for the album was "Love More", recorded in December 2009 by producer Brian McTear for Weathervane Music's Shaking Through documentary video series. The remainder of the album was produced by Brian McTear with engineer Amy Morrissey in May 2010 at Miner Street Recordings in Philadelphia. NPR described it as possessing "a fuller sound compared to the super-spare arrangements on her first two self-produced albums, but epic still feels incredibly intimate, with lots of room to breathe and unfold."[11]
After the release of Are We There, Van Etten took some time away from music.[16] She pursued acting, had a child, and applied to Brooklyn College to study psychology and mental health counseling.[17][2] Van Etten composed the score for the film Strange Weather, working on the music in a practice space she shared with Michael Cera. In between working on the music for the film she recorded dozens of demos for new songs, which would form the basis for her next album.[2]
In 2018, Van Etten released a new track, "Comeback Kid", and announced her next album Remind Me Tomorrow, released on January 18, 2019.[18]Remind Me Tomorrow was a departure from Van Etten's previous guitar-focused work, featuring more synthesizers, drums, and experimental sounds.[2][17]
In 2019, Van Etten moved with her son and partner to Los Angeles, California. She stated her desire with the move was to settle down and diversify her career to be less reliant on traveling tours.[19] The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 scuttled those plans, and during the resulting lockdowns Van Etten wrote songs that focused on her new life as well as the wider political landscape and "collective trauma" people were experiencing.[19]
Van Etten played bass and sang harmony as the three surviving members of Fountains of Wayne performed in a televised benefit with various New Jersey-affiliated musicians to raise funds for COVID-19 relief in April 2020. She filled the role left vacant by the COVID-19-related death of Adam Schlesinger a few weeks earlier. She and the other three members of the band played simultaneously from remote locations. The band played the song "Hackensack" from the album Welcome Interstate Managers.[20]
In October 2020, Van Etten made a song titled "Let Go" for the documentary, Feels Good Man, directed by Arthur Jones about Matt Furie, the creator of Pepe the Frog.[22]
On November 16, 2020, Van Etten released two covers of traditional holiday songs, "Silent Night" and "Blue Christmas".[23]
On May 20, 2021, Van Etten released a single with Angel Olsen, "Like I Used To," which was produced by John Congleton. Olsen and Van Etten appear in the music video with their hair styled in similar shag haircuts.[24]
Van Etten cites Ani DiFranco as a key influence, saying, "She was the first musician I had ever heard whose songs were super confessional. She could really play guitar... That was my first experience with non-pop female musicians. She made me want to start playing more."[27]
Van Etten possesses a contralto vocal range, which Caleb Caldwell of Slant described as "husky".[28] NPR described her vocals as raspy, elegant and luminous,[29] while Consequence called it "earthy".[30] Van Etten's music is characterized by a heavy use of harmonies.[7]Pitchfork described her songs as having "echoes of folk tradition."[8]NPR Music asserts: "Her songs are heartfelt without being overly earnest; her poetry is plainspoken but not overt, and her elegant voice is wrapped in enough rasp and sorrow to keep from sounding too pure or confident."[11] With "Comeback Kid" and Remind Me Tomorrow, Van Etten introduced electronic sounds into her music.[31] She has said, "I listen to a lot of OMD... I'm into a lot of the new post-punk electronic stuff."[27]
Since 2016, Van Etten has appeared in both seasons of the Netflix drama The OA as Rachel, a fellow abductee along with Prairie in Dr. Percy's basement lab/terrarium.[2] Rachel and the other captives are subjected to after-life experiments while conspiring over a period of years to possibly escape, and at one point, Rachel sings a song of remembrance. Van Etten also appeared in episode six of the 2017 Twin Peaks series on Showtime.[32]
Van Etten made her feature film debut with a supporting role in the 2020 film Never Rarely Sometimes Always directed by Eliza Hittman, for which she also wrote and performed the original track 'Staring at a Mountain'.[33]
Van Etten also appeared in the 2021 film How It Ends as Jet. The film featured two new songs by Van Etten, "How Much I Loved You" and "Till We Meet Again".[34]
Van Etten had her first child, a son, in 2017 with her romantic partner Zeke Hutchins. Hutchins used to be her drummer and then became her manager. After living in New York City for 15 years, she moved with her family to Los Angeles in September 2019.[2][35]
^Kaplan, Ilana. "Sharon Van Etten Is Right There", Interview (magazine), May 27, 2014. Accessed June 29, 2018. "Sharon Van Etten: Oh, nice! I can't let go of it. I was born in Belleville. Then I grew up in Nutley and in the sixth grade we moved to Clinton."
