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“Maybe you’ll learn to live on stage”, Waxahatchee singer-songwriter Katie Crutchfield mused on last spring’s album Ivy Tripp. “And maybe American kids will start a craze… I get short of breath because I can’t slow down.” Cutting through an atmospheric record defined by uncertainty and stagnant conflict, those few lines give way to a story that’s closer to her reality: her songs might explore a lack of direction, but her independent recording process and relentless touring schedule are the picture of determination.

Founded in 2010 as a snowed-in lo-fi project at her parents’ home in Alabama, Waxahatchee has grown through three well-received albums that have brought Crutchfield from Birmingham to Philadelphia, confirming her “live on stage” thoughts in front of growing audiences. While preparing to launch her international tour at the Paradise this Friday, she chatted with us about life between tours, songwriting, and navigating smaller scenes.

AP: Is creating music a constant process for you, or do you prefer downtime between the tours?

KC: I take some downtime. I don’t think I could focus enough to write right now when I’m just in between tours. And I think I’ve gotten better about just letting myself really slow down when I’m home. I don’t go out much, I don’t really do much, I just stay home and rest, really, and spend time with people I don’t get to see much because I’m always gone. So, that’s been the theme.

AP: American Weekend and Cerulean Salt contain such confessional lyrics. You’ve said that Ivy Tripp’s songwriting was much more observational than personal. What caused that change in direction?

KC: I don’t know, mostly just a desire to challenge myself and try something different. The first two Waxahatchee records were pretty lyrically similar, in my opinion, so I kind of wanted to try something else. But I’ve been thinking lately that when I start to write another record it’ll probably be like the first two.

AP: A few years back, around the release of Cerulean Salt, you mentioned in an interview that if you ever tried to write happy or angry songs, they wound up feeling cheesy to you. Do you still feel that way?

KC: I don’t think so. I think Ivy Tripp sort of challenges that a little bit in a lot of different ways. I think up until Ivy Tripp a lot of my songs are just kind of heavy, but [with Ivy Tripp] the actual emotion that I’m trying to evoke is vague. That’s actually what I strive for when I write songs anyway. I want to keep the emotion that I’m trying to evoke vague, because I want it to evoke whatever it evokes. I don’t really want to try to write a sad song. I think… you have to put whatever you’re feeling down and then see how it feels. I’ve broadened my horizons a little with some of the lyrics. Possibly that earlier statement was challenged in that way.

AP: Does the knowledge that you’ll be heard by a wider audience have any effect on your writing?

KC: It’s never been a problem really, but it’s almost starting to be a problem now. I’ve always tried to protect the identity of any song subject. I never tried to make it super obvious, even to the people that I’m close to. So people make assumptions based on who I’m close to and who I’m dating or whatever—people make assumptions and they always will, and that’s fine—but I try not to make it super-obvious. I try not to confirm any assumption just out of feeling like that’s not cool of me to do. I think about it, but I don’t think it will stop me from writing the songs that I’m going to write. I think the songs that I’m writing hopefully would be the same even if nobody was going to hear them. I’d like to hope that they wouldn’t change.

AP: What was your experience moving from a small scene in Birmingham to the larger Philly scene?

KC: Well, the Birmingham scene was interesting. I guess it was a slow process when Allison [Crutchfield, of Swearin’] and I were younger, we just happened to get into the punk scene there, and it was really cool. I’m so grateful that it turned out that way, because we always played pop music. We were into and sort of surrounded by punk, but we always played pop music. So we could’ve ended up somewhere else probably, but we ended up in DIY, and we’re really grateful. We started to get into feminism and were really into riot grrl bands like Bikini Kill and Sleater-Kinney, but we didn’t really have a lot of super-feminist allies or people we could really look up to, or learn from in that way in Alabama. When we started to tour, the people who really connected with our band were ones who really involved in that kind of stuff. So that exposed us to… mostly to people who weren’t white men at house shows. That was a new thing for us. Once we started touring like that and meeting all these people all over the country, we just felt like we had to leave. Well, I felt like we did at least. I just really wanted to get out of there and move in a more natural sort of direction of playing music with different kinds of people and meeting different kinds of people. So we ended up moving to New York and following that. And then we all kind of moved to Philly, just because there was a lot of people moving to Philly and it was a lot cheaper than New York, and it seemed like there was just a lot of cool music and cool bands happening at the time, so that’s what brought us here.

AP: You touched on scene inclusivity. What advice would you give to people in smaller communities that want to get involved in music, but might not feel as included in the scene that’s available to them?

KC: I think that just… trying to engage people about that [helps]. If people aren’t cool with that, then it’s not your job to teach them. And I think sometimes how it works for me—and I’m not telling everybody ‘move to a big city’—if it’s not working, start your own band. Your people are there. There are like-minded people. We found like-minded people in Birmingham. The bass player of PS Eliot is still my bass player now, in Waxahatchee. My sister’s playing in my band. There are exceptions, even if the scene seems overwhelming. There are people, and you just kind of have to stick together and make your own thing happen. Just don’t be afraid to make your own thing.

I just think that that stuff felt pretty empowering, because you know, what we did in our band in Birmingham, we sort of operated outside of the scene there a little bit, with PS Eliot. People shit about it, but the internet is actually the way for bands that are touring to meet bands that are like you, or that play music like you, or are like-minded people. We were really fortunate that we met a lot of other bands through the internet and booked our tours around that. It’s a good way to know, “Who’s the band that we’d like to play with or that we’d like to meet that lives in Brooklyn?”, or “Who’s a band that sounds like us?”, or whatever, and that’s how we wound up booking tours. Because of the internet it’s kind of easier to get out of your hometown, even if you aren’t physically [leaving], just to understand what’s happening.

AP: On another note, do you have any other creative outlets besides Waxahatchee at the moment?

KC: It’s all simple stuff. I’m obsessed with thrifting. I think clothes are a really fun creative outlet for me, and they always have been. My sister and I are both totally obsessed with clothes, and we’re always altering our clothes and making wild, crazy outfits all the time. I knit. I write. I feel like it’s kind of strange, when you’re touring at this speed you get kind of like a zombie, and all you can do is eat and sleep and that’s kind of it. And walk around a city without doing anything cool. I try to keep myself occupied and engaged, and I like to read, but sometimes it’s hard to even think about actually making something when I’m touring this much. And when I’m home I just want to sleep. I used to, before I really started to do this all the time I was writing all the time. Any free time I had, I was just working on songs. My schedule with that has just really changed. Things in life are very up and down and very overwhelming. At the moment it’s hard even for me in my downtime to pick up a guitar a lot of the time. Unless, of course—I think that next year I won’t be touring at all, actually, or won’t be touring as much. I feel like I’ll just be writing all the time. So it’s just weird, the pace of everything has really changed.

AP: Do you have any plans toward future projects that you can tell us about?
KC: Everything that we’re doing is pretty much out in the open as of now. I mean, I guess it’s no super-huge shock that next year I’ll probably be working on a new record. I’m sure that I’ll play live still. But my goal is to head for open waters and start writing a record, so I’m really excited about that.