MUNITIONS’ Eryn McHugh Knows that Breaking Up is Hard to do-On Mining the Pain of Divorce
MUNITIONS’ Eryn McHugh wants to help others start talking more openly about the pain of divorce by making what many call “Divorcecore” music within the pop landscape. Having gone through a divorce herself, McHugh has firsthand experience of lingering effects and sometimes surprising emotions. Her new single “Mixed Emotions” was written after an unexpected (and oddly banal) interaction with her ex-husband during the pandemic (you know, where everyone reached out to their exes to “check-in?”).
“Mixed Emotions is the new single that’s coming out on November 5th. It was co-written and co-produced with Chase Coy, my producer who has really been my partner in creating the current MUNITIONS sound. The lyrics and storyline are based on a one-off communication with my ex-husband, with who I have not been in touch for the better part of a decade. It was a really random and relatively brief interaction that we had about my brother (who happens to play baseball professionally — Collin McHugh is an MLB pitcher with the Tampa Bay Rays). So it was a quick chat about baseball, then briefly asking about our respective families. In the most mundane, ‘normal, not normal way,’ we talked about his wife and kids, a new baby, just very easy and casual — talking about they’d fared through the pandemic, their Goldendoodle, and random odds and ends. It was very normal but a strange conversation after so many years — the kind that you would have with a stranger or distant neighbor, acquaintance. It had that weird duality of having spent a decade with a person in total, essentially growing up together, married, but now not remembering much (blessedly), not knowing that person anymore, and honestly? You don’t need or have any craving to know the details at this point. So it just struck me, and as I processed it afterward, I happened to be in the studio later that week with (my producer) Chase (Coy), it felt fresh to me, and so we wrote about it — as you do.”
The idea of “Divorcecore” as a genre started with Middle-Aged rockers, pop, and other folks from the 70s into the 80s. Recently Esquire, referenced John Mayer in particular, over 40 and still writing pop breakup and love songs. When I listen to the MUNITIONS catalog, I hear the pain in “Don’t Come Back,” the first song McHugh released during the pandemic; there is a clear theme of disconnection, alienation, and evidence of more than a smattering of breakup experience.
McHugh shares: “I’ve always said — many writers do — that it’s hard for me to write a straight-up, happy love song. I wish I could! The interesting thing is, these days, I’m in a happy, healthy relationship, and yet I keep writing about breakups. Maybe it’s a metaphor for losses in life at-large, not just loss of romantic or erotic love. I think I’m still — as artists do — mining past pain. For artistic sake, but also just still processing stuff. Songwriting is perhaps therapy more than anything. But there’s a lot of good stuff there, so yeah, you might as well, you know, use it (she laughs).”
“And I think in some ways — especially as it relates to divorce and me coming out of a highly-conservative Christian family and church culture — I’m railing against the word divorce itself. ‘God hates divorce.’ We hear that over and over and over again, right? And in some way, while it’s not a direct middle finger to the church to talk about divorce and to be open about it, I do want to normalize it. If I can be a small part of that and normalize what more than 50 percent of people and probably Christians too — I don’t know exactly the data — but normalizing what so many people go through and feel a lot of shame about. I think that would be a positive outcome.”
McHugh, originally from Atlanta and now based in Nashville, is the daughter of a Southern Baptist preacher. She muses on her influences:
“I grew up singing in church, as a preacher’s kid — anybody who grows up in, around the church or with family and ministry is almost pushed onto the stage or pulpit or some family reunion. They didn’t have to push me that hard, quite honestly (ha). Another major influence was my maternal grandmother, who was a relatively prolific recording artist. We called her ‘Meme’ (she passed at age 94 in April 2020) — and she made, I think, probably seven or eight records and always wanted to be a big band singer. We sang a lot. She invented family karaoke and always had her “singing machine” by her side at family gatherings. It had these huge 8-tracks that you’d fumble around with and push into this strange so-called “singing machine.” She was always incredibly instrumental — pun intended — and encouraging to me in terms of musical prowess, singing, and performance. She was a born entertainer. That influence was a very Gospel kind of Christian music tradition, but I’d like to say that my family had good taste in music, and I was equally ‘baptized’ in the Beatles and Motown. And, you know, early kind of doo-wop stuff. My Dad, a pastor, had excellent taste in music, and sadly, I think he felt like he had to abandon a lot of his love for rock and other ‘secular’ music before we were born. That record collection would be amazing to have now. But my Dad always appreciated good music and a great melody. And I think that that stuck with me from a very early age.”
“MUNITIONS” is a collaboration between McHugh and her producer, Chase Coy.
“…the word ‘munition,’ kind of like MUNITIONS, came up, and we were laughing about it because I’m so anti-gun. And so the idea and of the delicious irony of creating a name of a band that had something to do with, you know, violence or something explosive was sort of funny at the moment. And it stuck.”
For Mixed Emotions, McHugh continues to speak to the pseudo-genre “divorcecore” to explain what it is and elaborates on how it relates to her music:
“I think it’s interesting — interesting that it’s so trendy right now. I think about Kacey Musgraves’ new record and how it’s been marketed so specifically as a divorce album. But as I think about that article in Esquire, the Dave Holmes article that we’ve referenced a couple of times, I go, where are the women? It’s all white dudes. Like, it’s all, you know — and I love Don Henley, and I love John (Mayer). (You know, he grew his following at Eddie’s Attic, which has long been my home venue in Decatur, GA. It’s where he came into his own, and it’s been fantastic to watch his career arc).
(cont.) But I think about John Cougar Mellencamp and the other 80s artists that that article references, and they’re all some of my favorite artists. But where are the female voices in that? And again, maybe it’s a bit of normalizing breakups and divorce from a female view — the female gaze on it — because I think the female perspective on breakups and divorce has been seen as bitter and resentful too often. And so, I’d love to see more of a female perspective on divorce or divorcecore. That really does come out as hopeful in the end. And I think Kacey’s record and even Adele’s new single (“Easy on Me”) start to do some of that. And there are other artists, indeed, other female artists, who I love and respect that I think have gotten closer to that. They just haven’t had as much of a megaphone as Mayer or the other folks that are referenced in that article.”
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