by Chloé Hayat, photos by Kevin Russell Poole
Chloé sat down with E.B. Hinnant for a quick chat on Zoom to talk about his love of acting and songwriting. E.B. was wearing the chunky white sweater to end all chunky white sweaters, while his roommate did some light (read: loud) redecorating in the next room. Despite the noise, Chloé and E.B. talked about the very specific niches he has found both in theatre and music. You are encouraged to put on his debut EP, Body Work by Fripp, in the background as you read the interview! The following has been edited for length and clarity.
Chloé Hayat: I am super happy to talk to you because I know you as an actor, but I’m really excited to hear about all the other things that you're doing. So, tell us about yourself as an artist!
E.B. Hinnant: I am equally an actor and a songwriter. I've been professionally acting for a bit longer than I've been professionally songwriting, but I am equally as invested in both halves of my career path. I, as an actor, really enjoy villains and silly huge maniacal characters, and I also really enjoy sad gay ingenue boys.
Chloé: (Laughs) I've seen you play both beautifully.
E.B.: Thanks! And as a songwriter I really like the lyricism of country and singer/songwriter writers with the sonic textures of electronics, organs, old drum machines, and brass and woodwinds.
Chloé: Wow!
E.B.: That gives you a good idea. Also always southern, always a little dark, and always hopefully a little bit silly.
Chloé: Oh for sure. I feel like there are such interesting things about what you just described about your music that cross over in your acting as well. I’m really interested in how you found your way to both of those art forms. Have you always been interested in songwriting? Tell me the whole story!
E.B.: I was in my first play when I was eleven years old. My mom tried to put me into a bunch of different avenues, I had a year of piano lessons, I did violin, she tried to make me “well-rounded.” [That] has always been her word to describe trying to raise a child. And I was in my first play, Alvin Fernald, Mayor for a Day when I was eleven years old at the Fort Mill Community Playhouse and I ate that shit up. There was famously one performance where one of the minor characters came in [at the beginning of the play], and put us into the second act.
Chloé: Oh my god.
E.B.: And from her fuck-up we had like 20 pages of play left, and I was able to mastermind and rearrange the play so that I could send everybody off to different places so we could get back to the beginning.
Chloé: Oh my god, that's amazing
E.B.: So I think from then on I was like, “okay cool, this is something I’m good at!”
Chloé: Yeah and you can mastermind your way around anything.
E.B.: (laughs) Yeah! I did take a year of piano lessons and then for some reason just stopped. I took those when I was about ten, and then afterwards we just had a piano in the house that was horrifically out of tune, but I would just go sit there for awhile and close the doors and practice French horn, which is what I played for a really long time, which I still have in my room.
Chloé: Woah! That didn't come out in “describe yourself as an artist!”
E.B.: (Laughs) I mean I played it for ten years.
Chloé: (Laughs) You just said that so casually!
E.B.: I played it for ten years but I don't still practice my horn every day. Anyway I would just sit at the piano and write tiny little scraps of music, and I would try to make things harder for myself as I kept writing, so I was also getting better at piano at the same time. That's how I got started as a songwriter, but I didn't officially write something that I thought was good until I was eighteen, and I wrote the first song, [“Orion”] which is on my EP.
Chloé: Wow
E.B.: And then after that I just said, “okay cool, I can write songs that are not bad, so why don't I keep doing that?” Songwriting [and acting] kind of feed each other. They're not entirely connected but they fill in gaps for me where the other fails. As an actor, I don't really get to say my own words; I am a vessel into other people's thoughts and ideas, and I give them life. But as a songwriter it is literally what I'm saying. It is my perspective and it is what I wish to communicate. But because of that, it almost feels like it's less imagination because my songwriting is autobiographical, so I'm just me the whole time.
Chloé: You don't get to be somebody else.
E.B.: Yeah! At least yet. Maybe I'll figure out a way to play characters in my songwriting.
Chloé: You actually shared a song in the [Line-Up] writers group that sounded like it was a fable or a story. Are you heading into that territory?
E.B.: Yes! I am actively trying to write things that are not autobiographical pieces. I really like what a lot of country songwriters do, which is tell stories, and a lot of times they tell stories that are just them playing a character. I really enjoy that and I'm trying to infuse that into what I’m doing as well.
Chloé: That's so awesome! What a cool challenge to set for yourself. Okay so what's your biggest artistic achievement in and out of theatre?
E.B.: Oh god, in theatre was the play that I did in 2019, at Boise Contemporary Theatre. I did Samuel D. Hunter’s Clarkston.
Chloé: Oh yeah hell yeah! Oh my god, that’s like my favorite play!
E.B.: Me too! It’s just a beautiful queer play with a character that I really aligned with and also really challenged me, which is like a perfect marriage of things. And it was at a venue that was beautiful and perfectly made for the play, it was in a beautiful place, everybody that was working on it was just so fucking good at what they do, and I had a wonderful wonderful time doing that play. I miss it all the time! Outside of being an actor, releasing my record [Body Work] is a huge artistic achievement for me.
Chloé: And you've gotten some amazing feedback and reviews! That's so exciting!
E.B.: Yeah! Which I've been outrageously grateful for. I kept lowering the stakes for myself on this project being like, “if it’s just out, if I'm able to get these drum beats and these synth parts lined up, and if I'm able to sound okay as a singer, and just get it out in the world, then it will be fine.” And as it kept progressing, I was like, “okay maybe if 100 people listen to it, if 500 people listen to it,” you know, I've kept raising the stakes for myself, which has been exciting!
Chloé: That's so great. Congratulations again on that!
E.B.: Thanks!
Chloé: Who is an artist that inspires you that we would be surprised to learn about?
E.B.: That you would not be surprised to learn about is: Dolly Parton.
Chloé: That’s not surprising!
E.B.: That you would be surprised to learn about is: three of my favorite actors are Sam Rockwell, Donna Murphy, and Condola Rashād. Sam Rockwell is just... I love him! He’s just so exciting and I just really like what he does. Donna Murphy is, I think, one of the most under-appreciated actors around. She's so warm and physically alive and phenomenal in what she does. Condola Rashād has the most captivating eyes of any person in the whole world.
Chloé: I was gonna say! Her eyes!
E.B.: And she's able to just stand and be so commanding. She’s able to do so much with stillness. It astounds me! So those are some exciting ones to me.
Chloé: Those are good answers! I mean, Dolly Parton is obviously a great answer, but not surprising after everything you've just said.
E.B.: Yeah, I also yell about that woman all the time. I love Dolly Parton.
Chloé: What have you learned or changed about how you perform during this pandemic?
E.B.: I have learned so much more about how much I love to use my body, and how much I've not been able to really do that through Zoom theatre. My body is oftentimes my access point into a character– that’s why clothing means so much to me. The actual physical feeling of costumes and getting to physically move in a space, that's my “in” and I don't really have this in Zoom theatre. As a songwriter, I have really wanted to be able to play some live shows with releasing a record. Originally, I thought I was going to rent a little van and do a tour, so I haven't been able to do that, but I have been able to amass a couple of socially distant shows, outdoor shows before it got too cold. I had a really great time doing those; I'm really proud of them. One in Prospect Park, one in my friend Charles’ backyard with like (laughs) five people. But it was a small backyard!
Chloé: That's still awesome!
E.B.: It's been nice to be able to get tested and perform some shows.
Chloé: Okay, so what is next for you?
E.B.: I’m working on a full-length album; it's coming slowly. And I am constantly doing Zoom theatre.
Chloé: Oh good!
E.B.: Yeah! And cassettes of my record are coming, which is really exciting, and I'm working on another music video.
Chloé: That's so exciting you're doing so much! That's so impressive.
E.B.: Thanks, I like to stay busy!
Chloé: I get that.
E.B.: Yeah, downtime is dangerous.
Chloé: I’m just so happy that we got to chat, I learned so much about you in the last 15 minutes. Thank you so much for sharing!
E.B.: Totally totally!