Little Hag

Bold vocalist and lyricist, Avery Mandeville, is about to take 2019 and completely shed her personal name from her stage alias, Little Hag. After about 10 years of open mics, gigs and two full EP’s under her given name, Mandeville is deciding to go in a different direction, which includes embracing this new alter-ego.

Photography by: Savanna Eosso

“For awhile I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I’m now realizing just having a level of separation between my human name and my artist name is something that is valuable to me and important to me,” states the 24 year old of Lincroft, New Jersey.

The switch may seem to have come out of nowhere for listeners. Afterall, under her personal name, Mandeville has released plenty of music; including her 2017 EP, Salty, and her newest EP, Happy Birthday, Jane Avery in 2018. Her previous music has also received publicity through news outlets such as Atwood Magazine and The Aquarian. However, the switch about to occur stems from more of a personal desire.

“I think performing as Avery Mandeville for such a long time, for almost 10 years now, there’s been a lot of instances where people think they know me or people assume things about me as an individual because of the connection...It’s more of a serious artist thing for me to be able to separate those elements,” says Mandeville.

It’s true that listeners often find connections embedded within Mandeville’s music. As an artist, she takes pride in her ability to write relatable lyrics. She says, “I love to think about and find little, relatable moments that aren’t necessarily profound at all or intense. I write about heavy subjects a lot of the time like sexual assaults and dick pics and heartbreak and things like that; but what I enjoy the most is resonating with somebody in the little things, because it’s the little things in songwriting that move me.”

She continues, “Whenever I can find a little moment of something that somebody relates to like ‘I’m recklessly texting in the left lane’. It’s not the most memorable thing in the world, but people relate to it. I like to capture those moments whenever I can.”

During the process of her rebranding, she has revisited her love for her own lyricism. “In January of 2019, I took a step back from playing shows all the time to focus more on actively trying to write,” she says. Mandeville explains previously, her music tended to be written quicker with less editing. This includes some of her favorite tracks. “(the song) Say Avery, that’s still my favorite. That was like a sit down and write it in maybe a half hour kind of song,” Mandeville says.

As she continues her music career, Mandeville wants to begin taking more time on each track to expand each song’s capability. “Just the process of reworking songs, changing lyrics, going back and moving stuff around and adding new parts; that was something I never did before, so I think the new songs that I’ve been writing are much more nuanced and interesting in their form itself,” she states.

Photography by: Savanna Eosso

Although newer tracks have not been released yet, we know for sure Little Hag is working towards performing and writing for her own, personal joy. She states,“For a long time I got caught up in trying to be successful… this past year I’ve completely re-evaluated that and realized all I can do is write music that I love and try to reach people. I can’t control if it’s going to take off or who’s going to like it or not like it. I can’t control how many Instagram followers I’m going to have. I can only try to make art that feels good to me. Putting that first for the first time has been really rewarding.”

2019 and beyond is designated for the artist listeners previously knew as Avery Mandeville to transform into Little Hag. With a greater focus on producing and editing music and lyrics, she is reaching for a newly found version of success.

Little Hag states, “Success is not attainable via any specific means. There’s no handbook, there’s no step-by-step to get there. All that I have the power to control is the music itself. So that’s what I’m doing now.”