Culture
Hemlocke Springs talks about finding songwriting breakthroughs and the new single ‘gloria!’ with WOUB
By: Nicholas Kobe
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ATHENS, Ohio (WOUB) – Hemlocke Springs is the musical brainchild and alter ego of Isimeme “Naomi” Udu, who takes listeners into a world of fantastical whimsy and deep personal reflection. Today, Hemlocke Springs releases her new single, “gloria!,” the latest addition to a body of work that includes her debut album, The Apple Tree Under the Sea, released in February 2026.
Her rise dates back to 2022’s breakout hit “Girlfriend,” which received praise from electronic music pioneer Grimes. The song and subsequent EP helped Hemlocke Springs build a fanbase that has only grown while touring alongside artists like Ashnikko, Chappell Roan and Conan Gray. Hemlocke Springs’ eye-catching visual aesthetic and one-of-a-kind, genre-blending pop have made her a favorite among fans and critics.
Nicholas Kobe: If you had to sum it up in one sentence, how would you describe Hemlocke Springs?
Isimeme “Naomi” Udu: Hemlocke Springs is a music artist from North Carolina. I’m kidding. Hemlocke Springs is like a quirky girl who’s kinda sad, but you wouldn’t know it if you don’t listen to the lyrics. A rocky sentence, but we got there. We got there.
Kobe: Yeah, for sure. The record The Apple Tree Under the Sea is very personal. With a few months of hindsight and a headlining tour under your belt, how are you feeling about the project now?
Udu: Man. I think I definitely go back and I’m like, “I wish I could’ve changed certain things.” But also, for a debut, I feel very content with what I put out. These feelings of “I can do this better and this better” keep me motivated to keep writing music and improving so that the sophomore album, or whatever project comes next, has more direction for what I want and how I want to build songs. But I am very content with what I got. I will find a way. I will get creative with it.
Kobe: What was the most important thing you learned through the process of creating this album?
Udu: I feel like I learned that, for me, everything builds up and then it just explodes. It’s not always in a bad way. Sometimes it feels like it happens with particular songs where I didn’t know where it was going. It would just get stuck in my head, slowly moving, and I don’t know what to do. I got heavily frustrated with myself in a way I’ve never felt before because I’m like, “I don’t know what I want.”
I don’t like the uncertainty that comes with that—the feeling of being uncertain about what I want from a song. But I think I found ways to combat it, which is basically: either take some time and step away, or literally throw everything that I can think of at it and do kind of a process of elimination, like, “There’s this melody I like and this melody I like. I’m gonna put these together, and it’s gonna make a verse.” I really just found out that I can get very frustrated with myself in a very intense way, I think.
Kobe: Was there any particular song that had a particularly big moment of breakthrough, either by throwing everything at the wall or stepping away?
Udu: Yeah, the last song on the album is called “Be the Girl.” It was—excuse my language—a f*cking mess. It was a nine-minute song. We got it down to five minutes, not even because we wanted to get it down; it was just how it naturally occurred. I had this very elaborate intro. A lot of parts of that nine-minute demo were never used. Then it was a matter of the style I was trying to get it to do. I was trying to get it to a different style, but I didn’t know what I was going for. I had a lot of contention, and I ended up canceling a session and just being like, “I need to kind of sit at home and stare at the wall for a minute.”
I met with, like, another songwriter to see if I could get something from them, but none of the parts that we made ended up on the song. So then I returned, and I still was just like, “I don’t really know what to do,” but I felt less pressured at that point ’cause I kinda stepped away, and, like, I wasn’t in the studio I usually was in. So I could have a breathe-in, breathe-out moment. It’s gonna get done; it’s gonna get finished. I had more clarity to be like, let’s start throwing sh*t at the wall. I love the song, and I love how it ended up. But by the end of it, I was like, I can’t work on the album anymore. I think it’s over.
Kobe: Now that the album’s been out and you’ve gotten to play some of it live, what has that experience been like?
Udu: Yeah. My gosh. It’s really cool to see the songs people gravitate toward. I feel like my fans can get passionate, and I love it. There are just particular songs—it’s not that I didn’t think they would hit well, but I was like, I wonder how they’ll feel. One of those songs, “wwwww,” was like, I wonder how people are gonna feel? And it’s so loud, and people were really just like, “Yeah!!!” I love it. I was like, who am I to tell you which songs you should gravitate toward?
It’s a very rewarding experience, and honestly, it just keeps me going in this sense. Not saying that I go into the album being like, “Okay, these are the hits,” but it’s that there are songs that you’re like, “I don’t really know how people are gonna feel,” and then it’s, like, the loudest it is in the venue. It gives me a feeling of like, “You know what? Just keep doing what you’re doing.” That’s just the nature of writing and music and artistry and stuff, and it keeps me from gravitating toward the “I need to make a hit” mindset.
Kobe: Of course. So the new album is, as you’ve mentioned in a previous interview, the “Hemlocke Springs origin story.” What was the most important facet of Hemlocke Springs that you wanted to establish for fans on this album going forward?
Udu: Yeah, I think a lot of people were talking about that too. It’s like, “You talk a lot about your religious upbringing,” and I was just like, “Yeah, I feel like it makes sense for me.” I’m Nigerian, and I feel like the Nigerian culture I experienced was surrounded by the church. I think that’s just how I grew up. When I actively went to church, I didn’t really know how I was feeling, but I wrote songs during that time. Some of those songs on the album were kind of like journal entries I made during that time. I was just like, “You know, like, I kind of get why I am the person that I am today.”
Like, I understand I gravitate more toward more colorful things. I get described as weird and quirky a lot and stuff like that. Maybe a little bit more on, like, the free-feeling side, but I do think that that was birthed from a place where I felt really repressed. I think it’s important to be like, “How did I get here?”
I do think that religion—or rather, how I felt when I was actively participating in it unconsciously—played into just the artistry and how I act and what I wear and stuff. So that was just something that I thought would be good to touch on because I think that there are people like me out there too. You have to go through that period of repression to really kinda, like, rip it off. I don’t want to be disrespectful, if that makes sense. I think that everybody can do them and stuff like that. I’m just speaking from my own experience.
Kobe: Considering how personal this is, what was it like bearing that publicly?
Udu: Yeah. It’s weird. I forget until the album is released, and I’m like, “Yeah…you are listening to that…” But, I mean, if somebody can relate to it, or even if it’s just an interesting story to kinda, like, partake in, period, you know? I love it, but in the process, I try to think about what I want and what I’m going through. I try to focus more on me than I do on the audience. The audience is almost like a little bit of an afterthought in that way.
I think in that way people can relate to it more because I’m not like, this verse has to apply to everybody and stuff like that. I’m like, no, like, this is my experience of what I’ve gone through, and I think in that way it’s almost more relatable in a sense.
Kobe: So I’m interviewing you ahead of a bunch of tour dates, but specifically All Things Go in D.C. You’ve been doing a good bit of festivals this year. How has the festival season been treating you, and what’s something you particularly like about festival sets?
Udu: Honestly, these festival sets haven’t treated me great. Actually, it’s interesting because my Bonnaroo was canceled because of the rain. Then Gov Ball, we performed at 11 a.m. I was doing a set—it was still for Gov Ball, but it was like an off-site set [at Baby’s All Right on June 6]. I got off stage, and immediately my agents were waiting for me, and they’re like, “Hey, we need to discuss something with you.”
It rained and stormed that day. Some of the sets are going to tomorrow. Either you perform at this time, or you don’t perform at all, and you have twenty minutes to decide. And I’m like, well, I’ll wake up early. So I performed really early in the morning. Still a very cool turnout, but I was a little bit frazzled for the set.
That being said, I do generally enjoy just watching everybody. I like seeing other artists as well because I am also a fangirl. It was just so cool to be like, I’m on the billing, and look, they’re also on the billing too. So we have to plan out how, after the set, we go freshen up, and we’re going straight to their sets, and it’s just so cool.
Kobe: Recently, you’ve been posting some teasers titled “gloria!.” What more can you actually tell us about?
Udu: I’m dead. My gosh. So what I always say is, “I am contractually obligated to give one more song.” It was for this to fit in The Apple Tree Under the Sea world. I could have added it to the album, but at the time I was kind of like, we have a good thing going. I don’t wanna mess with the tracklist, so I’ll release something after. So I went between three songs.
“gloria!” was one of them. What I found is that I’m good at ideating, but not really following through, which is a skill I am working on. But I had the idea, but I had no clue where it was going, and then, all of a sudden, I knew where I was going. It got finished, and I think it’s just a really good bow.
Initially, there were, I guess, movie people, entertainment people; they’re asking for, like, songs from literally everybody. Just like, “We’re looking for songs during poignant action scenes or, like, end-credit scenes” and stuff. I know that I’m not gonna get picked. Not even in an “I have low confidence in myself” way, but I just don’t think this is going to happen. But I’m gonna try anyway, because why not?
And so the song still feels “end-credity” for me. But it really is for me; kind of like a pat on the back for making the song. I feel like I was just, like, bogged down by life. It’s the familiar battle of life, and I think the song was, like, something that I could use as a reminder to tell myself, you’re gonna go through many battles. This isn’t going to be an uncommon occurrence. But you’ve done this before. Do your thing. You are living proof that you can do this. Get your sword and keep fighting, girl. That’s what I wanted to tell myself. That’s what the song emulates. And it still goes with kind of the medieval fantasticalness of it all, which I thoroughly enjoy.
Kobe: My last question is: where does the world of Hemlocke Springs go next? What are you looking at in terms of where you want to take all of this in the future?
Udu: Totally. I feel like I used a lot of what I’m gonna describe as “flowery” language. I think for me it’ll be interesting to get more explicit. I can’t really define what that means, just because I have to allow it, or I don’t wanna put a definition yet. I kinda wanna create. I can see where my head is at and where my head is at right now. We went a little story-wise and stuff like that. Let’s get explicit, but I can’t be certain. I say this, and then maybe the next product comes out, and it’s just like Shakespeare. You never know for sure.