Girdwood's Ava Earl Releases New Album, Helps Power Northwestern U. Running Team

By Soren Wuerth

TN Editor

In fourth grade at Girdwood Elementary, Ava Earl had to write a self-reflection on her school performance: "What are you good at? What are your weaknesses?"

Assessing her strengths wouldn't be hard, she was an exemplary student, star runner and already showed a proclivity in music. 

But there was one thing she scolded herself on, something that could cause her teachers' "mild frustration", and something, as it would turn out, for which women are typically chided for more than men.

Talking--being--too much.

That accusation became the title of Earl's latest album, her fourth, released Sept. 15.

The question, "What am I bad at?" was always the same, my entire time. "I talk too much. I distract people. I'm too loud," said Earl, who'll be 21 in January. 

And the 'How can I work on that?' would be, 'I'm going to be quieter'. I can't believe since fourth grade I've been trying to be quiet. Everyone should know by now that's not going to happen."

[As middle school teacher, I can attest to routine and unconscious gender-based discrimination. Just the day before our interview, two young women were called out of a meeting and told to sit on a hard tile floor. The reason? Talking. Too much.] 

Earl, a Girdwood local, is hoping to help bring her Northwestern squad to the national championships for the second year in a row after a 20 year drought. She is also writing music like crazy while working on a political science major with twin minors in critical theory and creative nonfiction.

Meanwhile, Earl's new album, poppy and up-tempo, is quickly winning accolades across the music review spectrum.

"Dreamy soundscapes evoke the icy expanse of her home state, with crisp acoustics.

Lyrically poetic, she elevates familiar emotions to stirring heights," wrote Podcart. A "sound soft and refined," Music for Misfits raved. Her songwriting is "as enthralling as ever," says Steven Ward of Grimy Goods.

Acclaim has settled on three early-release singles, the title track, "Too Much", "Jealous of Her", and "Ears Bleed" about becoming deaf in her right ear following a race in Anchorage's pressurized "Dome".

A highly-ranked track and cross-country running star at Northwestern University, where she's a junior, Earl has the third fastest mile time of any Alaskan women runner. She competes nearly year-round, fall cross-country, winter indoor track, and outdoor track in the spring.

And she's only getting faster. Later this fall, with her team poised to return to the NCAA Championship finals, she's again ready to crush it.

The Turnagain News caught up with Ava making a bagel sandwich between a cross-country running meeting and studying in Northwestern's University Library. 

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

How do you balance your time given the demands of music, running, and academia?

I do really well on a schedule. When I have nothing to do, I kind of do nothing. I'm very much all or nothing. It's part of how I'm wired. It's not easy to do, or attempt to do, stuff at a high level, but having a schedule is beneficial to my mental and physical well-being. Music and running at their best are stress releasers. At their worst they're stress inducing, but at least one of them will be helping me calm down. It's not always feeling like go, go, go. I have this flow to my routine.

How about this question:  Your spirit animal?

Butterfly. It's our team motif. Butterflies are fragile, yet beautiful. Monarchs do this crazy migration every year. That stuff blows my mind. They're kind of badass in an undervalued way.

How is running going for you now?

I had two lackluster races. I had Covid a few weeks ago ...

Covid? Is that still a thing?

It was a mild strain. I felt totally fine, but it definitely took me out a bit in a way I wasn't expecting. Our team is on the cusp of being able to compete against really good teams. Though it's not a given that we'll make it to Nationals again, we definitely want to do better than last year. I had an absolute shit race at Nationals. I was so mentally gone. It was cold and I didn't have the fight in me.

There was a photo once of you in the newspaper and you were smiling. Are you still enjoying running as much?

In high school I struggled with race anxiety and I thought it was a thing of the past. That's frustrating. But I also remind myself that I'm running way faster and competing at a way higher level than I ever was. (She got an all-region award freshmen year and is now one of her team's top runners.)

I still love what I do even when it's hard.

How much time do spend a week training for races?

I cross train a couple times, six hours of running, lift is an hour, so that's 11, yoga's an hour, that's 12, team meetings, four hours a week, so somewhere around 20.

Our coach says running is lifestyle sport so training bleeds into other aspects. Every time I'm eating or getting ready for bed, I'm thinking, "Am I maximizing this?" There's other things, too. Like getting into an ice bath. It's not like you're getting a workout, but it's still really important. 

What are your long-term running goals?

When I'm done with college I want to focus more on music than running. I don't want to squander [collegiate running] by not giving 100 percent. I might try to do a marathon for fun some day, but I'm a short-distance girl at heart. I'll get good in college then be a trail runner for the rest of my life. 

Let's turn to music. Your new album ("Too Much") is out. That must be exciting. You had great reviews. Is this album an evolution of your music, a departure, or something else?

Taylor Swift and Maggie Rogers went from folksy, country roots to pop and I don't want it to feel like pop is the destination for my music. I think of it as evolution, because it's all the same in a way. It felt natural. The way I was writing was lending itself to more of those poppier sounds and a little more rock.

My writing is place-centric, which is a product of growing up in a memorable and  remarkable place. Even if it's not completely obvious, I use a lot of landmark visuals in my music that ties it to specific scenery. 

Has your writing process changed as you've gotten older?

It's more hectic. I used to write in one song notebook, write all the chords out. And now I just write it on my notes app on my computer so I can just get my thoughts out faster and then I'll record it on my Iphone and verbally say the chords and explain how to play it if it's confusing. I've burned myself before where if I forget to do that, then I'm totally screwed and I don't know how to play the song.

[Laughing] I'm not musically gifted enough to like.., like my boyfriend and I were trying to figure out how to play Mountain Song on the guitar last night because I literally don't know how. I wrote it on piano and when we recorded it, I didn't play the guitars. So I actually have no idea how to play [on guitar] my most popular song. Which is crazy.

But I hear, relationally, different shifts in my own music and can usually figure out what I was doing.

Has your worldview changed, musically, since going to college?

I've probably gotten a little more cynical. But that makes sense especially since I'm studying political science, like "our world's so messed up. What are we going to do?" 

But I'd also say that, in this kind of ridiculous way, my music has always been "pining-centric". It's always full of longing, for a person, or it can also be for a feeling. I don't want to base my music on pining, but it's been central to my music since I started writing and continues to be.

It's hard for me to find inspiration without that, and it's potentially problematic [laughing]. So that's definitely been a through line.

Do you play live during cross-country running season?

I try to set up a couple shows on campus. My friends will come to those ... and their friends. So, it's not a huge thing. 

Is there a theme you want your music to convey? 

The thing I think about every time I make an album, and I don't know who said it first, me or my mom [Shannon], the importance of making albums for me, obviously getting the music heard, but also to document who I am musically and spiritually at a point in time. I think that's kind of a self-centered way to look at it. But it's interesting to think about my albums like journal entries in a way. And that's how this album ["Too Much"] comes across. It's pretty vulnerable, I think. There's a lot happening but it's centered on this pivotal point in my life:  being away from home and becoming an adult. Everything I record is a statement of this is me, right now.

I struggle a lot with being too loud or being too much or too much energy or too much whatever. I think that that's something that's not unique just to me, but it's especially for me, because I have ADHD, I'm an extrovert, I literally cannot get myself to shut up. I've tried at different points in my life [laughing]. It does not work.

And music is a great venue for that because people will pay to hear me talk and sing and tell stories. I really found something that works for me.

As women, we're not supposed to be loud. We're not supposed to take up space. 

But here are certain ways we are allowed to take up space, like being a musician. 

In my day-to-day life, men can get away with so much that women can't in terms of what they say and what they do. We see that all over. All the time. And you see that especially in positions of power.

There are a couple sounds in the album, like Better Than, where it's like, I've been given advice, "You should do this when you sing," and, actually I've been doing this for, like, 10 years. Maybe I don't care about your opinion. And that should be normalized.

Olivia Rodrigo's song, "all-american bitch", is all about this. People's analysis is that you're supposed to be so humble and you're supposed to be so grateful for all the success, as if you probably had a lot of people help you, but your earned. 

Our coach is a woman and we're an all-women's team. We don't have a men's team [at Northwestern], so going back to running, (our coach) tells us this all the time, 'I would be so happy the day I come into the locker room and have to tell you guys to stop being so cocky. I want you all to walk around like you own the place. Not in a jerk way, but like, I deserve to be here. I'm good at what I do.' So, I'm trying to embody that.

We should be allowed to be loud and proud of ourselves and have that not being a threat.

At schools where I've worked, they target girls for talking and boys get away with it. It's bizarre. 

This is something I had to talk with my therapist about. It really shook me up. My mom sent me self-reflections from fourth grade and it was like, What am I good at? What do I need to work on? How am I going to achieve that? 

And my "what am I good at" would change. Once it was PE which is funny because I don't remember loving PE. Another time it was asking questions. 

But "What am I bad at?" was always the same, my entire time. "I talk too much. I distract people. I'm too loud." 

And the "How can I work on that?" would be, "I'm going to be quieter". I can't believe since fourth grade I've been trying to be quiet. Everyone should know by now that's not going to happen.

You lost hearing in your right ear two and half years ago. My sister grew up with single-ear hearing, and said she's adjusted--she even reads lips, now--but says when she's sleeping and sleeps with her deaf ear in the pillow, she says she feels more vulnerable.

I have the opposite experience to where I struggle to fall asleep if I have my hearing ear open and if I hear any sound, like the AC sound, I get distracted. 

I also feel like I've adjusted. I literally can't remember what my habits were like. I am always on everyone's right side. It's normal for me to switch sides when I'm having a conversation. It's a nuisance at worst. Just like a pain the ass. 

I also want people to know that I'm not ignoring them if I don't respond to them. I just didn't hear them. I hear bass notes totally fine. Hearing's a spectrum. I call myself deaf, but technically I'm hard of hearing. 

It's obvious that you're crushing it musically. Is the hearing loss a road bump, is that a way to characterize it?

I don't want to downplay. It more than sucked. It was traumatic. I had to have a lot of therapy and soul searching to get to a place where I feel okay about it. It's just another thing about who I am now. It's just ... just annoying.

What do you miss most from Girdwood? What events and routines?

 I miss the mountains and woods. Proximity to nature is different, here, even though we're right on the lake [Lake Michigan].

 I miss driving into Anchorage, because that's when I would listen to a lot of music and I don't have the same kind of time to that. Those were the days.

What's on you playlist right now?

 I just saw Medium Build in Chicago. I'm going to see Chappell Roan's concert in a few days. Was listening to a new age jazz pop group [TNews did not get this band name verified, but heard "La Say"] and the new Olivia Rodrigo album.