When Jordan Victoria moved from Bloomington, Ind., to Nashville in mid-2019, the up-and-coming musician had no idea how the adventure was going to play out. But it seemed like her instinct to bring her knack for insightful and subtly literary lyricism coupled with shape-shifting rock ’n’ roll to Middle Tennessee was right on target.
“Those eight months were so good,” Victoria tells the Scene, calling after a rehearsal. “They really were. I was excited to move here, and then I started playing immediately. I didn’t, like, mean to. I was gonna settle in gradually, but then it all just fell into place. And I’m glad it did, because I had eight good months.”
Victoria, who performs as Heaven Honey, quickly found herself part of an eager, like-minded community ready to help her realize her vision. She wrote with new collaborators and played around town regularly with artists like Thelma and the Sleaze and Josh Halper, broadening her musical circle. Then, as we all know, life changed dramatically. A deadly tornado ripped through Victoria’s new hometown, followed in short order by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
As with most anyone who works in or adjacent to the music world, Victoria’s life was turned upside-down. Once lockdown began in earnest, Victoria had to regroup. Time spent at home — and largely away from music, aside from occasional virtual shows — was difficult and unsettling. But it also gave her space to think about her goals, in particular what kind of artist she wanted to be.
“I’ve been forced to come to terms with — and I feel like everybody has had to in some way — to reckon with the passing of time,” she explains. “And what I want to stand for, what I don’t want to stand for. I’m not unique, and my suffering is the suffering everybody’s going through in all different fields right now. But I’m also grateful, because I don’t think I would have thought about things this deeply.”
You can hear a shift in the Heaven Honey tunes that have come out in recent months. In the spring and summer, Victoria worked with a fellow former Hoosier, Oliver Hopkins of the band Volunteer Department, on a split single. Her side is the quasi-industrial rocker “Relate 2,” and his is the moody and dreamy “Shitten.” They also wrote and recorded a song together, a snarling Yo La Tengo-esque kiss-off called “Cows of Tomorrow.”
The newest Heaven Honey release is a cover of Lucinda Williams’ “Something About What Happens When We Talk.” The song ponders a particularly powerful connection between two people, which Williams explored in a Band-esque musical setting. In Victoria’s version, her voice emerges from a cloud of gentle, plangent guitars as the arrangement builds to a soaring, pop-rock anthem reminiscent of Mitski or Japanese Breakfast. There’s a deliberate searching in Victoria’s vocals — she sounds confident about what she wants to keep ahold of, even as the digital slurring of her vocal makes it feel like some powerful force is trying to wash her away.
Victoria is headed out on a tour with Detroit band Zilched, which includes a stop at Drkmttr on Nov. 6. It’s exciting for her to get back on the road, but the prospect of regularly performing for live audiences after lockdown also feels daunting. She’s trying to regain the momentum she developed in her early months in Nashville, among a scene of fans and musicians who are seeking some sense of normality in live performances while so much still feels uncertain in the broader world.
“There’s a lot of pressure, and kind of a desperate energy that I feel,” Victoria explains. “Pressure I feel to really go for it, and deliver at every show that I’ve been getting asked to play. After not being able to play for so long, it’s overwhelming just to be an artist and to put so much pressure on yourself, which we all do. As a perfectionist, that’s just kind of how it is. But I’m trying to navigate getting back into the swing of things.”
When we spoke, Victoria hadn’t yet played the next gig on her itinerary, an Oct. 30 benefit at Fran’s East Side meant to raise funds to help the beloved dive bar and karaoke room relocate. Since the landlord chose not to renew the lease, bar owner Frances Adams and mononymic karaoke maestro Gowa hope to find a new home for the business, a social hub for Nashville indie musicians and many others. Though Victoria still considers herself a relatively new Nashvillian, Fran’s quickly became one of her most cherished local establishments. She credits the spot as integral to finding a sense of home in her new city.
“That place became so important to me,” she says. “Just singing whenever I wanted, and becoming so close with everybody that works there. That place is a dream come true.”
Victoria sees community as essential to growing herself as an artist and as a professional. At the end of our conversation, she makes a point to ask that the names of collaborators like the aforementioned Zilched and the extended Volunteer Department family make it into this story. She makes it clear that it’s important to be a champion for the folks who welcomed her as a newcomer and helped her weather one of the more difficult periods of her life and career.
While Victoria is not yet ready to roll out a full-length album, she notes that she has new material on the way, which she’ll release in her own time as she regains her footing with playing live. She credits time at home during the pandemic with helping her realize she doesn’t have to achieve everything all at once — she just has to keep working.
“I draw much of my inspiration from moving about the world, and from other people. So, I had a hard time being creative in that way [during lockdown]. But now, after a year of not writing much at all, I feel more motivated. Now I’m ready, more than ever, to really push myself artistically.”
