Chattanooga Times Free Press

Country star Hunter Hayes talks ‘new age’ of music

- BY GLENN GAMBOA NEWSDAY (TNS)

Hunter Hayes is ready for the future.

“We’re in a new age,” says the 25-year-old singer-songwriter, calling from Nashville in the midst of the annual publicity whirlwind known as CMA Fest. “We’re not in an age where you work for six months making a 12-song record, and then go out and tour for six months. We kind of do both all the time.”

Hayes, who still holds the record for being the youngest male solo artist to top the country charts after his single, “Wanted,” hit No. 1 in 2012 when he was only 21, says that the relationsh­ip between artists and fans is something that needs to be nurtured more consistent­ly than it was in previous years. Fans want to connect with their favorite artists regularly, on social media, at concerts, and by listening to new music.

“It’s time to embrace releasing music more often,” Hayes says. “It’s time to let the creative process reflect that as well.”

And Hayes is ready to back that up. Though he’s in the middle of a national tour, Hayes says this summer will be filled with new music from him, even before he releases a new album this fall.

“I have 100 songs waiting in the wings,” he says. “They came with me just kind of letting it happen.”

Hayes says that in the last few years, he has maintained a schedule splitting his time pretty evenly between touring and recording. “A lot of it has been recorded in the basement of my house,” he says. “I can take all day on a song, working for hours on, say, a drum sound, getting to sculpt it until it’s right.”

That means Hayes can experiment with all kinds of sounds for his music. Last year, he released three songs that reflected a variety of styles, from the straightfo­rward country rock of the single “Yesterday’s Song” to the gospel-tinged “Amen” and the edgier, blues-influenced “Young Blood.” However, at this point, it’s not clear if any of those songs will be on the new record and that’s just fine with Hayes, who was as thrilled to be part of the recent Malibu Guitar Festival with Carle Place native Steve Vai and Mick Fleetwood, as he was to work with Nashville scene fixture David Davidson’s string quartet on new material. “It’s super-good for my soul,” he says, laughing.

Hayes’ embrace of the future includes a willingnes­s to take the good with the bad. He enjoys playing new music for his fans. “We just play stuff,” he says. “We’ll play a song that we wrote a week before … The way I look at it, nobody can walk on stage and turn off the mic.”

Revealing new material in this age where smartphone­s are always on hand to send the songs straight to YouTube, though, creates its own set of issues. “It’s nerve-wracking because you want to make sure the first impression is a good one,” Hayes says, adding that sometimes he gets scared to read the comments about his songs. “In a way when people put it on YouTube, they’re saying, ‘I support this.’ And when they talk about it, I just feel incredibly uplifted. It makes me feel good. It’s just rad, man.”

Hayes says fan reaction can also make him rethink his feelings about a song. He recently played a new song and saw three different fans upload it to YouTube the next morning. “They voted for the song,” he says. “They gave it a story, as they talked about it, and it rose in its importance to us.”

 ?? PHOTO BY ROBB D. COHEN/INVISION/AP ?? Hunter Hayes opens for Lady Antebellum at Aaron's Amphitheat­re. Hayes holds the record for being the youngest male solo artist to top the country charts after his single, “Wanted,” hit No. 1 in 2012 when he was only 21.
PHOTO BY ROBB D. COHEN/INVISION/AP Hunter Hayes opens for Lady Antebellum at Aaron's Amphitheat­re. Hayes holds the record for being the youngest male solo artist to top the country charts after his single, “Wanted,” hit No. 1 in 2012 when he was only 21.

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