Kate Hudson is sitting on a folding chair in a crowded storage closet when suddenly the voice of Kate Hudson comes booming through the wall. The 45-year-old singer and actor is in a Fashion District studio on a recent morning to shoot a music video for “Right on Time,” a recently released bonus track from a new deluxe edition of her 2024 debut album, “Glorious.” (The closet offers some quiet for a chat as the video crew sets up.) A stately ballad that showcases her soaring vocals, “Right on Time” is about Hudson’s movie-star mother, Goldie Hawn, and right now it’s bringing a tear to the eye of the woman who wrote it.
“This song makes me emotional,” Hudson says, tilting her head toward the sound. “It’s my mommy, you know?”
Raised between Los Angeles and Colorado by Hawn and Hawn’s longtime partner, actor Kurt Russell, Hudson broke out in Hollywood with her role as a wise if idealistic groupie named Penny Lane in 2000’s rock-obsessed “Almost Famous.” Since then she’s appeared in rom-coms and action films and whodunits, hawked vodka and activewear and hosted a podcast with her brother (and fellow actor) Oliver; she’s also had high-profile relationships with Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes and Muse frontman Matt Bellamy.
Yet the guitar-heavy “Glorious” provides the first look at a natural musician who dabbled in private for years before finally getting up the courage to cut a record. Hudson — whose biological father, Bill Hudson, scored a string of pop hits in a trio with his brothers in the ’70s — wrote and recorded the LP with the veteran producer Linda Perry and with Hudson’s fiancé, Danny Fujikawa, with whom Hudson shares a 6-year-old daughter. (She also has two older sons.) As she sips bone broth from a wine tumbler, Hudson listens to herself singing about Hawn’s showbiz origin story in the next room: “She drove a hundred miles to Baltimore / In a busted Caddy with holes in the floor.”
Is that lyric true?
Oh, for sure. She used to wrap her feet because she had all these holes in the bottom of the Cadillac — it was her dad’s car — and so she wrapped her feet while she drove to dance class. When she’d get there, she’d have to thaw them out in warm water because they were frozen.
Why’d you want to write about your mother?
It just sort of happened. Linda had to take a phone call, and so she went out and I was working on this thing on the piano. She came back and she’s like, “That’s really good — what are you doing?” I said, “I don’t know, I just started writing it. It feels like my mom.”
People don’t write enough songs about parents. Tons of songs about kids — not as many about parents.
As a daughter, I think we’re supposed to carry on the stories of our parents. And her story is amazing — how wild her stardom was for this little girl who came from a duplex house in Takoma Park, Md. Sometimes I think part of what’s happening in our culture is we’re losing sight of the three-generational household. My grandma — my mom’s mom — she lived with us when I grew up, and there’s something about going in your grandma’s room and hearing her stories and understanding your history. I live seven blocks from my mom now, and she comes over every day.
You get a lot of vivid detail into “Right on Time.”
“Truck stop baby, won’t you dance for me? / These 18-wheelers ain’t nothin’ to see.”
Good lyric.
My mom used to dance at truck stops in Jersey. She would go-go dance in cages. Well, she did a couple. Then she was like, “I don’t think I want to do this — I’m going to New York.”
The song builds to a big climax, but for a while it’s just you and a string arrangement.
When I listen to it, I get lost more in the story than in the production.
That’s the goal for a songwriter, right?
I mean, I get obsessed with production. I went deep into [Jack] Antonoff over Christmas. The way he plays with sound and how it moves back to front — it’s actually incredibly emotional to me. You know what song I didn’t know he did? The Taylor [Swift] and Zayn song [“I Don’t Wanna Live Forever”]. There’s something about the production of that song — the way he plays with pulling it back. I listen to music like a dancer, so it’s how my body responds to it.
Is your daughter a Swiftie?
Hardcore. We went to the Eras tour. She tried so hard to stay up but halfway through she was in my arms. It was late.
I saw the show a few times, including the finale in Vancouver.
My sister-in-law was there. She’s such a Swiftie that it’s almost uncomfortable [laughs]. But I get it: Taylor’s done something so amazing, which is that she’s never wavered from her conviction. No matter what everyone’s laid on her, she’s just continued to strive forward. And she really is an exceptional writer. Her icon status is so deserved.
After the original edition of “Glorious” came out, you released a cover of “Voices Carry” by Aimee Mann’s ’80s band ’Til Tuesday. Why?
First of all, I love Aimee Mann. But that’s one of those songs where I’ll sit in my house and do karaoke just to warm my voice up, and “Voices Carry” is always one of the songs.
I’d expect somebody a decade older to cover it.
I discovered that song when I was around 10. I had the Fisher-Price turntable with the 45s, and I was listening to all kinds of music. I also had nannies that were young and into music. I had a nanny named Kathy who’d take us to school and never let us listen to the music we wanted to. She was like, “I drive, my music.” So it was all ’70s and ’80s — no ’90s music. But thank God for Kathy. If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t know Bob Dylan, I wouldn’t know Neil Young, I wouldn’t know Led Zeppelin. Actually, no, I’d know Led Zeppelin — Kurt loved Led Zeppelin. But my parents weren’t big music heads. It wasn’t like they had a huge vinyl collection.
Your biological dad is a musician.
But he wasn’t around. And I didn’t realize that my deep connection to music was actually in my blood. My grandfather on my mom’s side was a professional violinist [in Washington D.C.] — he’d play the [White House] correspondents’ dinners and then he’d go play bluegrass in these speakeasies. Really fascinating life. But I didn’t really know that until I was older. So as a kid I’d sit in my room and get weird with music. It was kind of lonely.
You wrote songs on your own long before you hooked up with Linda Perry. What did she draw out of you?
So much. Linda has a great ability — mainly because of her musicianship but also because of how she moves energy — she allows you to kind of open a channel. We wrote 26 songs in two weeks. Eventually, she was like, “I think we need to stop — like, we’re good.”
Kate Hudson made her album “Glorious” with her fiancé, Danny Fujikawa, and the producer-songwriter Linda Perry.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
“Love Ain’t Easy” has a very George Harrison guitar riff, and “The Nineties” sounds a bit like Fleetwood Mac’s “Rhiannon.” Were you anxious about listeners making comparisons or did you embrace those kinds of references?
Neither. If I’d thought about how other people were gonna receive the music, it would’ve stopped me from being as pure as I could with it.
Is that a different approach than the one you take as an actor?
I do the same with acting — I have to. When you’re young, you’re much more mindful of the people watching you. But as you get older, you realize that it’s really more important to think about what you’re putting out versus how it’s being received. I was so afraid to sing in front of people for so long that just letting it out, I feel like my creative life is whole. It’s funny — I’d never experienced a live audience.
Working in TV and film, you mean.
You look out and you’re like, “Wow, strangers!” But I’m not always gonna want to perform. I want to write musicals and write for other people. Same thing with film — I want to be behind the camera. I can’t wait to write a musical and possibly direct it. That to me would be a dream come true.
I would’ve assumed that as a performer, you come to rely on a certain amount of praise.
Not when you grow up with movie stars. You see it differently when you grow up with people admiring your parents. You understand why they admire them, but then you’re like, These are my parents. You realize that validation aspect is not what holds you in your life. When you live for the validation of your art, you’re gonna be absolutely, devastatingly miserable.
That said, you have plenty of musicians in your life. I wondered whose opinion of your music mattered to you.
My ex Matt came over and I played him some music. I could tell he was really proud of me, and that meant a lot. But the opinion that matters the most to me would probably be Danny. He’s got incredible taste in music, and taste to me is everything. Also, weirdly, my brother, even though he’s so annoying. Oliver has a great musical sense. If it was the ’90s, he’d be a great A&R guy.
Have you worked with a vocal coach?
Here and there. I belt — I’ve got big songs — so I’ve had to figure out ways to protect my voice. I always found it really annoying when people are like, [whispers] “I’m on vocal rest.” Now I’m one of those.
