About the Project of the Ethel Cain Universe

This page is a work in progress

Hayden did not set out to make music. She says, "“It kinda started backwards. I wanted to make films, but I didn’t have access to film equipment and couldn’t make them,” she says . “I was like, ‘If I were making a film and I was gonna make a soundtrack for it, what would that soundtrack sound like?’”

Ethel was originally “the unhappy wife of a corrupt Preacher" starring in a two and a half hour long record, before becoming the preacher's daughter we know her as today.

When it comes to Ethel's name, Hayden says, "So Cain is [biblical], but Ethel, I was trying to come up with a name that was very ‘50s old lady. I always describe her as being the lady that sits in the front pew at church every Sunday morning. She looks 100 years old and terrifying, but she’s always there. I just felt like Ethel was such a prim and proper and poised, womanly, matronly, old American name. It felt so stiff and scratchy. That name smells like mothballs and it’s perfect. Cain and Abel was my favorite bible story growing up, so Ethel Cain had a nice ring to it."

In the same interview, Hayden has this to say about the religious imagery of Ethel Cain:
"[With Ethel] I really want to dive fully into this concept of the dichotomy of the stillness of the American South, how nothing moves and nothing changes. It’s all stuck in time and it’s very still and quiet and hazy. It’s really kind of peaceful, but then at the same time it’s very scary. It’s lurking beneath the water. Like all the gators, how they lurk in the water with just their eyes above it and everything else is below the surface. That’s kind of how it all feels down there."

Hayden had this to say in a 2020 interview: :

"I realized my heart was pulled the strongest to my roots, which is the intersection between my experiences in the heavily religious American South and my dreams of the wild and free American West. Ethel Cain is the unhappy wife of a corrupt Preacher, a trope I saw first-hand plenty of times growing up, dreaming of running away and living her life to the fullest. We have many things in common and she’s always been my out. We both just want to be rock stars."

Later in the interview she says, "Ethel is my passion project and it’s where my heart is and will always be the main face of my music and what I want to be remembered for..."

When it comes to the nature of the religious tones in Preacher's Daughter, Hayden says ,"...As I’ve matured and grown as a woman, I think I realized the real shit that lied in the small country churches I grew up in. Growing up in the bible belt is a brutal experience emotionally because a lot of fucked up stuff happens, and no one ever talks about anything. The underbelly of it all is a really ominous and heinous experience. The things I’ve seen and lived through will never leave me, so I really wanted to try and highlight that in my music and art."

When asked about what we can expect in the future, Hayden says, "I’ve really dedicated my life at this point to just creating. I’ll create until I die. I want to create the best American records of my generation, films that stand the test of time, and so much more. I don’t personally want to be famous in any way, but I do want Ethel Cain as a visual and a sound to be remembered as part of a notable time in the history of American art and music and culture. I think my generation is very polarized right now in a very turbulent political and social climate and the art that’s going to come out of it is going to be insane and raw and beautiful. I just want to leave my mark alongside my peers. We’re all out here just trying to survive and make something meaningful in the meantime."

Preacher's Daughter is known for its themes of generational trauma, as are Ethel's other releases. In a 2021 interveiw she states,"...the overarching theme for the debut record I’ve been tirelessly working on, I’m deeply engrossed in the idea of generational trauma and skeletons in closets. “The sins of the father” and all that. It’s where “Daughters of Cain” came from in the first place. The idea that something your great-great-grandfather did 100 years ago can still fuck you up; those deeply rooted issues in your family that never get resolved and are just further inbred into your bloodline with each generation, twisting and turning and contorting until it rips you all apart."

In the same interview, Hayden has this to say about her persepective on the church and Ethel's role in helping her heal from the hurt:

"I think everything is a dichotomy, right down to everyone’s own cliché struggle between good and evil. I grew up in an intensely devout southern Baptist church and it was a less-than-enjoyable experience. It really scarred me in a lot of ways but I’ve always been fascinated by the underbelly of “good” things. The church reminds me of a snake in a way; Promises of beauty at first sight but then you flip it over, see the yellow, and know it 100% has the potential to kill you dead. There’s a dark side to everything. Christianity is totally a cult but as someone fascinated by cults, it’s an endless well of inspiration. Ethel is how I stay on top of it and keep my foot on God’s neck. She’s in control of whatever comes her way and nothing can touch her that she doesn’t want. Maybe I’ll be that someday."

Later in the interview, Hayden has this to say about her feelings toward Preacher's Daughter,"It’s my main passion project. It kind feels like my whole life’s work right now. My entire heart is in it and nowhere else, really." Adding later, "I’m here for art, not money. I just love the company, and as long as you enjoy what I’m putting out, that’s good enough for me."

Hayden says of her relation with Ethel, "With Ethel, I always consider art to be a bit of an exorcism. If there are things that I feel that are a bit heavier than I feel like dealing with on the day-to-day, if I write a song about it and I make it a part of this— I call it “The Ethel Cain Cinematic Universe” — as a joke. If I make it a part of her world, her experience, then after that it’s her experience and it’s not mine. So when I sing it, it’s from her perspective, and it’s no longer personal to me.

It’s nice to have her as a character and not be portraying myself as her. Because when I first started with Ethel I was like, “I’m gonna be Ethel Cain. I’m gonna go by Ethel in interviews. I’m gonna have everybody call me that.” But then I realized that wasn’t sustainable. I think in the age of the internet, you can’t as easily be a character anymore. I love to post online, I love to show my everyday life, so it’s very obvious that I’m not her. I was like, “Let me just establish her as a character.” There’s Ethel Cain the preacher’s wife and then there’s Hayden Anhedönia, the girl behind the curtain who is significantly less dressed up.

When I first started with Ethel, it was kind of ridiculous. I was losing my mind trying to become her. I was like, “I have to be fully dressed up in these stiff dresses and little church heels all the time and put my hair in a bun and have that stiff-as-a-board attitude of a 1950s preacher’s wife.” It got to the point where I would put on a pair of jeans to leave the house and be like, “I’m not doing Ethel justice right now.” It was so ridiculous. That’s when I was like, “You need to make Ethel a very specific thing, but you also need to remember that it’s okay to be Hayden. Don’t lose your sense of humanity trying to become this very stiff woman.” It was freeing to be like, “Ethel is her own person and Hayden is her own person and you need to be able to freely swap between both when the timing is right."