Hunter Hayes

Wells sits down with Hunter Hayes to find out how an accordion gift from his grandmother led him to a career in country music!

He lets Wells in on how he blends technology and pop influences with classic country styles. And we hear all about what it was like to become the Astronaut on this season of The Masked Singer!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is a Wells Cast with Wells Atoms, an I
Heart radio podcast. This is the Wells Cast. By the way,
this intro sounds like it's like a law and order
Do Do Do Don burn or burn Burn. It's like, Um,
I'm gonna solve the murder or something and I'm gonna

(00:23):
crack the case. Do it again and just listen for
the do do Do Do Do Do Do. This is
the Wells Cast with Wells Atoms, an I Heart radio podcast.
Right baseline, Jackson, your honor, You're out of order. No,
you're out of order. I'm gonna crack the case. Yeah,

(00:47):
Welcome to the Wells Cast. Wells taking out with Um
excited about the day's episode. Man, first I want to
do it just a check in. How's everyone doing, how's
everyone how's everyone living? How you feeling? I know we're
we're living in weird times right now. But you know,
I guess just trying to put a put on a
happy face is that a possibility? I don't know. Look
for the good, I guess I'm like every douche bag

(01:10):
Instagram post. That's like shoot for the shoot for the moon.
If you miss your land amongst the stars. I don't
want to be that guy. But seriously, I know everyone's
going through it. I feel it too, man, good days
and bad days. But today's in a good day. I'
tell you why, because I'm going to have a very
talented person on the Wells Cast. Multi platinum selling recording artists, songwriter,
multi instrumentalist, proficient at more than thirty instruments. I don't

(01:34):
even know there were thirty instruments. I just thought they
were like seven. But okay, also achieved nearly two billion
on demand career streams. That seems like a lot. I'm
no mathetition, but I think I think billions a lot.
I don't know. Long with six gold and platinum certified singles,
including a massive five times multi platinum crossoverhead a song
called Wanted, with an astounding fifty plus award nominations and wins,

(01:58):
including five Grammy nations, those are the good ones. From
what I understand about the music industry, you want Grammys.
Other than that, he was also on a little show
called The Mass Singer, and he has been unmasked and
he's an astronaut and no it's not Elon Musk and
his brand new baby boy whose name is I can't
even pronounce it. It doesn't make sense. You thought that

(02:21):
Gwyneth Paltrow's kid named Apple was weird. No, No, that's normal.
That's a normal name. That's like Frank now in comparison
the lung Musk kid. Anyways, I digress. Coming up on
the Wells cast. Well, he lives in Nashville, so we
have that tie. He's a good friend of mine, and
I think you're really going to enjoy his origin story.

(02:42):
In just a couple of moments. We are going to
have the man, the myth, the legend, Hunter Hayes, let
stick around, plutter Hayes. How are you? Man? Good man?

(03:10):
Can't complain honestly, a lot to be grateful for and
just yeah, taken it one day at the time, how
are you? I mean, you know, we're getting through it.
It's weird because I'm a very social person. I like
to go out and I like to talk and hang
out with people and get drunk and all that kind
of stuff. I can still get drunk, good news. I
can still get drunk, but I just I gotta do
it like on FaceTime and zoom with other people. So yeah,

(03:33):
that awkward zoom quietness. Yeah, I know, I like talking
over people. It's amazing. It's obviously it's a sad situation,
but a lot of good is coming out of it.
Like I've I've talked to my family more than I
ever have talked to my family. You know, that's amazing.
Good for you. Like, there's no getting around it. We've
kind of, I think we've become numb to the fact
that it is a very sad situation and it is

(03:56):
a very difficult situation. I think everybody's just trying to
keep does that have been stay on the upbeat and yeah,
I mean we've made the best of it. I'm kind
of diving into making the album, which honestly I kind
of wanted anyway. So I'm, you know, taking advantage of
the time at home and working from home and uh
and diving in like I wanted to, you know, so well,
I want to congratulate you on your run on the

(04:17):
Mass Singer. Thank you. I appreciate it. I did not
expect to get that far, so I'm very happy. That's
amazing to me. Like I I talked to Brett Michael's
the other day, and I've done like Paul Schaefer and
other actual musicians who are on the show. Everyone's the
same thing, like, I'm amazed I went this far, But
why wouldn't you think you'd go that far? You that's

(04:39):
what you do for a living. Yeah, what you want,
would think, right, But I don't know, I learned a
lot from it. I'll say that I learned a lot
from the process. I think. I don't know. You go
through like rehearsals and you and you get to the
first show day and you realize that number one, you're
under a mask. You're like, you're hidden entirely. So chances
are you know this is are Whatever you think you're

(05:01):
putting into your performance may translate it, you might not.
And I think the first day that you really do
a show is when you realize that there's so much
more to this than meets the eye. No pun intended,
because my mask actually was the first without any eyes
on it, and we talked about that for like two weeks.
But anyway, um, I think you just you start to
realize that there's so much more to it and that

(05:21):
you've really got up your game. I like, I, you know,
the choreography was something I really wanted to do right,
but I really had to do a lot of work
to get to where I got, and it still wasn't like,
you know, where I wanted to be, but it was,
you know, it was enough, I guess, you know. And
and just different things like you know, being on stage
and not being able to connect connect with somebody you
know with your eyes, right, It's like, that's so weird.
But I will never say I got used to it.

(05:43):
I will never believe that I got used to it
in anyone shape or form. But I think I learned.
I learned a lot about the voice and how the
voice can actually do the connection when you can't actually
look at somebody. Yeah, And it's funny. I think that's
the common denominator that I've found because I've interviewed, you know,
like Victor Oladipo, other people that aren't singers that were
on the show. And for for people who aren't you know,

(06:04):
performers and singers, the mask is a comfort. It's a
blanket for them, right, Like people can't see you, so
you could be anybody, so your ego can be saved.
But for actual singers it's really tough because you're so
used to actually connecting with audience members and your band,
I'm sure, and it's opposite. But I tell you what, man,

(06:25):
the show is so entertaining and so fun to watch.
Are you happy you did it? I'm so happy I
did it. Honestly, I would recommend to anybody. It's fun
to make. And I'm sure you've heard this, but the
crew that works on the show, it's as if it's
their favorite show that they work on. Right, Like my
my internal team, Like I wasn't allowed to talk and
talk to anybody, but like four people, those four people

(06:45):
I have never felt closer to to a crew working
on a TV show because you form this bond, because
they're the only people that you can form a bond with,
and they just have a great attitude. Man, They're just
like because it is, it's supposed to be fun, and
I think everybody keeps at it. Like the days when
I would really get in my head, like I would
have three different people stopped by the trailer just you know,
knock on the door and just come in and just

(07:06):
say just that fun. And I always it used to
drive me. It drove me crazy because I was like,
I'm I'm a I'm a bit of an analytic when
it comes to you know, rehearsing, for a show, and
then once once you get to the show, you have
no control over what happens. You're just like you're on
the you're on the roller coaster ride and you're scrapped in.
I really did enjoy it, and I learned a lot
about myself. I learned a lot about my voice. It

(07:26):
was such a perfect timing too, because you know, I
was I was going out to l a at work
on the album, and it was it was a massive
transitional time for me, and the show kind of helped
me through some of those transitions personally without it feeling
like it was work. Do you have a thought of
who's gonna win? I really want Turtle to win, even
though I was I was sort of competing with him.

(07:48):
I think my yeah, I just like I watched how Hard,
even though like you don't really see anybody else's performance
and you can't really hear anybody else's performance, but watching
it along with the rest of the world once it airs, Um,
I think he's put a lot of work into his craft,
and I'm like, I would easily vote for like three
other people. Um, And I'll be honest, some of the

(08:10):
people that I would have voted for for for for
winning are already gone, which is really surprising. But I
really think Turtle should take take the trophy home. I
would love that. That That would make me feel so happy.
Everyone thinks that the kiddy is my fiance and what's
that like? Because we watched the show and like the

(08:30):
clues do add up. There's a lot of Harry Potter references,
and her dad is on is in the Broadway production
of Harry Potter, and there's like Rose references, which obviously
I was on the batchelort. Like there's a lot of
things that I'm I'm sitting there going we are you
the kiddie? Like did you? Were you going? Like I've
done enough of these interviews like you no, you don't

(08:50):
tell anybody else that would you tell me? And everyone's
too like all the things and I'm like, maybe you are,
Like when did you have time to do this? So
were you between January and March of the ship, Well,
what's the thing? Like she was filming Modern, but she
totally could have been like going to Modern and then
like going over to you know, the other lot and
do it like I would have never know. I've been
like work can't trust anything, You can't at all comes

(09:14):
in that she is the kid hasn't be up man,
I'm like, what really a bit messy? Yeah, I think
you guys should definitely if that comes out. If that
is the case, I think you guys should definitely see
somebody and see the council about that particular issue, because
I think secrets are the secrets could be in trouble.
The funny thing was, obviously I've had to keep you know,
tight lift about it. It It was easy for me because
I had an excuse when I was in l A.
Because I was writing, I was making the record, and

(09:36):
most of the stuff we did for the show was
in the morning, so I was back home and working
and back to normal life for the most part. You know,
before I would have naturally woken up, and so no
one had no one asked any questions, you know what
I mean. But it was the first time that during
the taping of the show, the show starts Eric. So
they were kind of trying to figure out how that
works because obviously we were going home and watching the show,

(09:57):
and I started getting text before before I was even
on the show. I was taping it, but no one
I wasn't like it. It was Miles away from being aired,
and I had so many friends texting me because of Turtle,
because if they're one or two references to me when
they when Turtle was on for the first or second time,
And that alone was really tricky, like trying to navigate,
like I was honestly able to tell them like no,

(10:18):
that's not me, like news, like it's not me. But
then once they once my episode aired, they would text back,
and I just I have a lot of unread text messages. Yeah, well,
I'm excited to have you on the show today. I
don't know if anyone told you kind of the idea
for this show. If not, that's good. That's everything is surprised.
I like it that way. So I'm just kind of

(10:38):
really interested in a bit obsessed with how people got
to where they are. Like I'm really into origin stories.
I think it's really cool. Everyone knows your your story,
probably once you started getting Grammy nominations and having multi
platinum hits and stuff. But I think it's a good
learning tool for a lot of people out there, is
how you got to that place. You know. There's that

(11:00):
kind of like that old adage that to be an
overnight success took a long long time. And I assume
that is like that for you, considering that you started
making like local TV appearances at the age of like four,
which is bonkers to me. So I want to hear
Hunters Hayes's origin story. Where did you come from? And

(11:21):
how the hell did you get here? Yeah, well I
was I was born at a young age. Yeah, I'm
the oldest if I've ever been. I I was born
in Louisiana, South Louisiana. Only child, spoiled only child. But
when I say spoiled me, my parents, like you know,
worked two and three jobs to make ends meet, never
complained about it. You know. We would go to restaurants,
a lot of restaurants in Louisiana, Like there's a they're

(11:43):
they're really like just brilliant heritage appreciation in Louisiana for
the history of Louisia, and and that includes music, food,
and a whole list of things. And I was always
around music. My dad loves music. He's not musician at all,
neither of my mom um. Actually, ironically, I learned how

(12:03):
to play guitar because my mom wanted to play music
with me, so she took lessons, came home, taught me
the chords and she never played again. And that's how
I learned guitar, so props to mom. But I grew
up in this very musical area and a lot of
restaurants had live music every night, and I was I
was obsessed with the way that made me feel, you
know that lift. My grandmother gave me a toy accordion

(12:24):
because apparently when I was like, you know, under two
years old, I was taking things around the house and
making them any instruments, So my grandmother gave me a
toy accordion. I never put it down. My dad had
to buy multiple to fix the one that I would
always carry around. It just kept kind of snowballing with
other instruments. I would get obsessed. And at the same
time I was, we were going out to see these
live bands, and we would see them often enough where

(12:47):
they would see me playing accordion on the side of
the stage. Just one guy asked my dad does he
know any of the songs? And my dad was like, yeah,
he knows this one, that one, and he's he started
learning this one right. And they pulled me up on
stage and I just I love playing music. You know.
It wasn't necessarily attention or fame or any of that stuff.
I just love the feeling of making music, especially with

(13:07):
other people. You know. Fast forward, you know, in middle school,
I started writing songs because that was my outlet. You know,
I didn't really have a whole lot of friends. Music
was kind of my only friend and a lot of
in a lot of times in my life. And that's
when I fell in love with songwriting and storytelling. That's
also when I got my first like pro tools, rig,
my first recording here ig at home. I never came
out of my bedroom after that. I was just like

(13:28):
end up making records. I just I love the fact
that I could and nothing could stop me. And because
we were playing gigs, I had just enough equipment to
to finish songs. Because I didn't really have any other resources,
and that I was going to rent a studio or
pay for a band, I did think there's I couldn't
afford that. So the biggest thing was just like do
it yourself, get get across the finish line and show

(13:50):
the world of the vision that you have. And and
I think that's when I realized that if you hear
something in your head, you can probably make it happen.
By some form or another. That's been my process ever
since I write the hundreds of songs a year. I
believe that I feel like part of my purpose has
always been to take a lot of different things. Take

(14:10):
all of my favorite music, you know, whether it be
country or not. You know, I love country music and
it's always been a part of my my DNA. But
so has like blues, and so has pop music. A
lot of timeless pop music, you know this reference records,
like you know, some of Sam Smith's songs and the
adult stuff, and even Sewan Mindez is why I like
his stuff, It's just timeless. So I've always seen it

(14:32):
as kind of my duty to take in all the
things that I love and then internalized them and then
turn them into my favorite version of those things, and
then also be brave enough to share the kind of
stuff that the others aren't sharing, because someone probably needs
to hear that kind of music. Somebody probably needs to
hear those lyrics. That's been the most rewarding part of

(14:53):
what I do is those vulnerable songs that I don't
I mean, dear God, I didn't think we were ever
gonna be able to put that out. I didn't think
Labe would let me put it out and that's to
this day the most successful song off off of Wild Blue.
So it just kind of reaffirms what I believe is
kind of my purpose and I don't know if you
could call it my strength, but what I love doing.
And I fell in love songwriting in middle school. High school.

(15:15):
We started taking trips to Nashville because that was music city.
It you know, there were everything, not just country but everything.
And I started meeting people and making friends and I
got passed on by like three or four labels, and
then at the last minute, somebody came in and was
and and it went from me having to sell myself
too for the first time, a record executive was selling

(15:36):
himself to me, and I was like, Okay, well this
feels great. And that started kind of the journey of Okay,
now I'm officially an artist. And that happened after I
got that publishing deal, which I still work with Universal
Music Publishing, which I love because I connected with good
people and I think that's been one of the biggest
blessings about being in Nashville is the people that I
get to work with. Um it's a very different atmosphere

(15:59):
and they care about their craft. They care about people
at the end of the day, and I think that's great.
Music comes from people feeling like people and being people.
So going back to where you grew up, you said,
South Louisiana, where exactly a town called Browbridge, Louisiana b
r e a u x Bridge. Yeah, born and raised

(16:19):
in Brobridge. I moved to Lafayette when like we were
in middle allows middle middle school. I don't know what
it is about being an only child. I always feel
the need to say we even though it's just me.
But yeah, moved to Lafayette and then moved to Nashville
when I was sixteen. Were you going to New Orleans
a lot like during those those years as well? Yeah,
we had a lot of We had a lot of
gigs in New World as. We had more gigs in

(16:41):
Texas honestly than we did in Louisiana. We spent a
lot of time in between Texas, Louisiana and Florida. Tons
of like Cajun music festivals because I used to play
a lot of Cajun music growing up. I mean, there's
so many friends of mine that that make a very
very nice little thing doing that right now, Louisiana and
because there's just so such a demand for that kind
of Cajun dance music, you know, the one thing that

(17:01):
I've learned. So I went to school in Mississippi, so
we would go down to New Orleans a lot, in
Baton Rouge a lot, And I had friends from everywhere
in Louisiana, and especially in New Orleans. It's one of
those places where it seems that culture and art kind
of oozes out of everything, Like like everyone's an artist
in Louisiana, and it doesn't even matter what you do,

(17:24):
Like you could be a street artist, school. You know,
there's a chef, you know, you're you're definitely an artist.
You're a barista, you're you're a mixologist, you're a musician.
You know, like everyone, there's just so much culture and
and I don't know if it's that state and that
city in particular, are it's just so old that like
it's just been this melting pot. But every time I
go there, I feel so inspired. And I'm not I'm

(17:46):
a crap guitar player, but every time I go there,
I'm like, I gotta I gotta write some music. Man,
I can do see d G and you know eat,
so you know, I guess the question is is do
you think that where you came from had a hand
in who you became? For sure? Yeah, Because like the
thing that I connect with when you say all that
is it's a very expressive part of the world. A

(18:09):
lot of a lot of people express how they feel.
There's a lot of feelings and there's a lot of expression,
and I think that's where the sort of the outlets
get found, right through culinary arts, through you know, visual arts,
through music arts, and there's sort of that Like I
think there's sort of a license to because of the
heritage in the history, right, there's so much art and
things that already exists that it's kind of like that

(18:31):
you're kind of not not expected to, but you're there's
always open doors because of the fact that it's been
laid before. Like you've you've seen that your ancestors, your
your parents or grandparents were all very expressive and artistic
in some kind of way, right, not not all not universal, right,
But in reference to what you're saying, I can tell
you musically, what I find consistently, I always have to

(18:52):
hear something that feels like blues and by blues I mean,
one note that just like makes you feel something different
than everything else going on in the in the song.
I love like really heavily syncopated rhythms, like things that
are busy but not sounding busy. They just make they
just keep you moving. I mean, I think I grew
up playing Cajun music and the whole thing was to

(19:12):
keep people dancing. And I think that's still kind of
something that I keep in mind, is like, if you're
not moving to it, you know, there will be people
that will attach to the lyric and there will be
can go just attached to the feeling of the song.
And I think that's what Cajun music taught me a lot,
was that the feeling of the song does a lot
of does more work than you think it does. So
that definitely had a huge huge impact on me. I

(19:32):
come from this radio background, and you know, there were
years where I was having to make the decisions on
what stuff we would put on the air. And you know,
you get pitched on all these songs by all these
record label reps, and and you know, you have these
music meetings. But I love about music, and I think
that not to speak for you, but I think that's
kind of what you're talking about is music has this
like visceral impact on you physically. I remember sitting in

(19:54):
music meetings if a song was a hit, it wasn't like,
oh yeah, you know the chorus comes in at the
seven seconds and it's only two and a half minutes,
and you know, it's it's not like the nuts and
bolts of music business. It was oh man, that I
got goose bumps when I heard the chorus, you know,
like something happened in my body that made me realize
that this was good. I feel like, especially in that

(20:15):
part of the world, every time I go out, and
I might have to do with the fact that I've
had seventeen hurricanes, but I'll be like, oh my god,
like I can feel it's not that it sounds good
or the lyrics are cool, like my body knows it's
really good. Yeah, to say, it is all feeling based.
It all starts from a feeling rather than ideas, which
I think, Yeah, I think that's definitely something that I

(20:36):
might accidentally take for granted, especially when writing, because I
mean there's so many things that I've started lately, like
I've moved away from you know, in the first trip
to Nashville. Writing was very very clinical. Right, It's very
scheduled here. It's it's you meet a ten or eleven
and you're done by three or four and that's it,
like and and it's scheduled months in advance, so it's
not like you it's hard to walk into the room

(20:58):
with a feeling. But I was told by I think
my manager Ansel, when I first started co writing, he
he just told me he was like, always walk in
with an idea. He said, you don't have to write it,
but always have something that you're committed to. Because of
that advice, most of the stuff that's been written that
I've written has come from those things. And so lately
I've kind of been better about like writing by myself

(21:19):
and not because I want all the credit or whatever.
What that does is that starts from the feeling and
that every lyric you know, attached to the route, which
is that feeling. And there's been five songs that I've
finished on this album that I still took into co
writers and said, hey, I feel every part of this
helped me make sure that everybody else does too, right,
And that's been a really fun process. But yes, all

(21:41):
all going back to exactly what you just said. It
is feeling based versus you know, mathematic I've known about
you for a while, You've been on the scene for
a long time. But you're a young dude. What year
did you move to Nashville O eight oh nine? I
think it was technically graduated with my oh nine class,
none of whom I knew or met or ever went

(22:02):
to a class with. So I never walked in my graduation.
I just skipped at all. I was just like, I'm
ready to start working, Like I just want to make music,
like scroll this other stuff. And this is high school
you're talking about. This is high school. Yeah, sorry, I
should have been uh And that's that's not to discourage
anybody from finishing high school. But for me, I just
like I had gotten a publishing deal. Things were starting
to happen in Nashville, and I needed to move to Nashville,

(22:25):
and we were kind of waiting for that. Like when
I say we, me and my parents, it was a
big change, was a big move, especially being an only child,
like that changes everything. And so I kind of waited
until we had something on the table, right, some kind
of job opportunity essentially is what it equates to um
and I was. I was offered, you know, kind of
a monthly thing with a publishing company, and that that

(22:45):
justified it justified me pursuing a dream to parents who
were a hundred supportive but two cautious because this is
not something they have experience with, so you don't want
to just kind of just hope for the best and
then fall flowing your face. Although I did and that
was really good for me, So you know, I think

(23:07):
I'm very grateful for that. But that was oh nine
two yet, So I mean, you're walking around as a
little kid with this acquority and your parents are throwing
you up on stage yet you know some Cajun restaurant.
Was it a foregone conclusion that this is what you
were going to do with your life? And did you
ever get any pushback from your parents for it? I

(23:28):
never did, never got any pushed back. I was always encouraged.
But I think the blessing was that they didn't do music,
so my love for it was seen by them from
an external point of view and not from me. I've
been there, it should not from a comparison point of view.
If anything, this one summer, I remember my dad kind
of pulled me aside and said, you know, we don't

(23:51):
have a whole lot of shows coming up. And he said,
I did that on purpose. You know, you've been playing
for the last ten years of your life. And it
wasn't like I was doing two days a year, right,
we were doing, but that was a lot, you know,
every weekend. The rule was that I couldn't check out
of school on any weekday other than Friday. Um, and
we go play fairs and festivals, and you know, we

(24:11):
get in the truck and haul the trailer. And when
I was in high school, i'd go by myself, pull
the trailer, go pick the band up and um. But
this one year, I think I was thirteen fourteen, he said,
I want to make sure that you you still enjoy this.
And and at the end of this sort of like
let's call it six months half a year of not playing,
If this is still what would you what you want
to do, then I'm all for it. But I want

(24:34):
to make sure that you know that and you don't
feel like you have to do it because you've been
doing it. And that was the worst six months of
my life. And I wrote so much, I've built more.
It's honestly, it's like I feel right now in Quarantine.
I finished d I y Home Improven process, I finished
building my little studio in my guest bedroom, and I

(24:55):
finished an album. That first show back, I was so
excited and so amped up, I couldn't sleep eepen. I
ended up getting sick and having to skip the show,
and that crushed me because then I had to wait
like two more months and it was just torture. But
that told me a lot. It told me a lot
about the fact that I love the why I love
playing live music, and it taught me a lot about

(25:15):
where I go to express and to feel whole again.
It has always been music. Good on your parents for that.
In the beginning, you were talking about like that you
weren't cool. You were like kind of hiding out in
your room with your pro tools rig and working on
your own stuff. But you're in high school, piecing out
on Fridays to go, you know, play some big gig
when you were in high school? Are you cool? Like

(25:37):
I imagine I would lose out to every like rock
star when I was in high school, you know, like
my girlfriend wuld have been like, I'm gonna date the
rock star guy. Was there a turning point where you
became like kind of cool. No, because there's a giant
disparity between rock star and a guy plays Cajun music
dance covers. I mean, there's a giant And also I
think I I don't know why, I've never really examined this,

(25:59):
but for some reason, I didn't want anybody at my
school to really know what I did, you know what
I mean. I don't know if it was because I
had a bad experience at like my first school, because
I definitely did, and I left for that reason when
I got to my new school and last say, a
new school, like I started middle school at a new
like I went from a Catholic school, which that was
an experience to a nondenominational Christian academy, which was a

(26:20):
whole other experience. And I'm talking and like I said,
my parents worked two and three jobs, so it's not
like we're we're it was it was a culture shock
for me. It was a really interesting experience because once
I got to that school, I kind of didn't want
anybody to know what I did anything about that, And
it almost worked out that way. I ended up I
think I ended up running sound for some of the
chapel like events, and I was like, I really want

(26:42):
to play music, so I might as well, like find
a way to play music while I'm here. So yeah,
it was the opposite. And I I definitely like attached
to and related more to people who were just like
nerdy and creative like my group. Like there was no
one alike in our group. We none of us had
the same hobbies, which made it the interesting. We wanted
to hang out. But I mean my best friend Christopher,

(27:03):
we would write scripts together and we would make, you know,
independent movies. Say hello, my dog Cole behind me. We
would make like independent movies and he was a great
actor and like he would do skits and stuff. We
were a weird group and that was but I loved
that group. You know you're talking about you're kind of
doing all this like cage and cover stuff, you know,
doing a little bit of research something something like you
can play over thirty instruments, which I didn't even know

(27:25):
there can were over thirty instruments. So that's amazing. But
I imagine that if you're that musically talent or diverse
with your musical ability, and you are an amazing singer,
there had to be a moment we had to decide
kind of which lane you wanted to go in. You
could be a pop star, you could be a country singer,
you could be a vocal singer. For all I I know,

(27:46):
why did you choose country? Because at the time, and
I have to be really careful how I say this,
but at the time when I moved to Nashville, I
knew what kind of weird my music was going to be,
and I knew what kind of different I wanted to be,
and I knew what I could ring to my music
based on the things that I loved and the things
that I had studied in the parts of my craft
that I had should have honed in at that time

(28:07):
and in that context. At that time, remember two nine,
I saw a place for me because country was so diverse.
There were so many things going on. You had Taylor Swift,
you had Rascal Flats, you had Key Here, and you
had Brad Paisley. You had so many diverse sounds in
country music and so many different kinds of storytellers that

(28:28):
I saw that there was a place for somebody who
wanted to make the kind of records that I knew
that were like my strength. At that point, my weirdness
was an advantage. I felt like, because I could carve
out a new place for myself for a while that
went well. You know, I got to be that sort
of weird kid. I got to play my sort of
blues guitar licks and and make you know, a record

(28:49):
that I'm still really proud of with Dan Huff. My
debut record is something I that's kind of the that's
that's the bar. Everything should feel that pure. I don't
think there was anything on that first record that felt
like was trying to be anything other than what exactly
what it was. And I was really proud of that.
And I thought that there's no way to plan, you know,
ten fifty years, you know, in the future. I just

(29:10):
knew that I wanted to make music for the next
fifty years, sixty years, um, So I needed to start
in in a place where where I could be purely
myself and I could be embraced as me. My narrative
had to start there. You know. If I started by
just cutting a song that we knew it was going
to be a hit and producing it the way that
everybody else is producing there is like that only lasts
for so long, so I think I just I knew

(29:31):
that longevity would start with honesty. So I mean, you
toured with Taylor Swift like back in two thousand and eleven,
and I imagine that a lot of people in country
looked till their swift And I don't even know the
algorithm that she was able to to kind of put down.
You know, she's at this point bound by no genre,
which is amazing but a very very terrifying thing to

(29:53):
do as any musician, because the one thing that you
hear a lot when a bander and artist goes in
a different direction is I missed the old X, Y
and Z and I like the first records. I guess
my question is do you want to pivot? Because obviously
you can, would you ever, or do you kind of
like like what you've created in this moment and continue
like down that path. The really interesting thing that I

(30:15):
think the last few years have have been for me
to figure out, and what a beautiful moment it was
to sort of clear the trees and see the sunshine
and realized that I don't have to pivot. I've done
exactly what I do for a long time. And it's
fine too, because like when I was in l A
when we were working on when we were starting recording
for Red Sky, I got drunk one night and played
like an album that I made when I was fifteen,

(30:36):
that album actually that I've made alone when I was
alone for a long traded time. And it's funny how
like sort of it has country elements, it has blues elements,
it has all rock elements, and it has pop elements.
So it's like it was interesting to hear fifteen year
old me kind of informing twenty eight year old me
of like the things I still can love. With that said,
I realized that luckily musically, like there's no pivoting needed

(31:01):
the music that I make when I'm unfiltered, which you know,
this past year has kind of been a process of
undoing those filters and undoing the things that like, oh,
are they gonna like you know they meaning like the business, right,
are they going to accept me for this? Or all right,
am I gonna have to like shift the way that
this sounds. I'm gonna have to paint a different color
for them to accept it. It was really interesting that
when I did the things that I just wanted to

(31:22):
do and needed to do, on the wild blue side
of things, Dear God, Wild Blue still one good reason,
and those are the songs that fans connected with now
on the other side of like the writing and creative,
the part that no one else gets to hear. Yet,
I'm finding that the stuff I'm making sounds a lot
like the stuff I made when I was fifteen, except
hopefully it's it's more refined versions of all that. So

(31:46):
I think, if anything, I'm just doing what I love
to do, which is infusing all these different sounds, and
some of it sounds like one genre, some of it
sounds like another. At the end of the day, if
none of it sounds like it's trying to be any
of those things that I've done, exact of what I
is set out to do. As long as it just
feels I hate to keep using honest, But as long
as you hear my music and you're like, oh, you

(32:08):
must really like X y Z, then that's that's a dream.
That's that's amazing. You mentioned Dear God a little bit
earlier in the episode, and it was a song that
you thought that would never probably see the light of day,
just because of the essence of the thing. In the
context of the genre. I wonder, because I'm always interested.

(32:29):
I wonder if you got pushed back from the industry
being like, you can't do this. My favorite text that
I got was I don't know what the hell this is,
but I like it. And they didn't text it to me.
It was someone that said that to someone I work with,
and they were brave enough to tell me, because I honestly,
most of the time, I don't read reviews and I
don't um because no one gets your why like your

(32:49):
fans do, you know, And as long as the fans
get it, that's all that matters. I was actually really
surprised though. Dear God was a massive turning point because
as we spoke, I really didn't think that. I really
did not think that they'd let me put it out,
And much to my surprise, that was my and our

(33:10):
guys uh favorite song that I had written for the album,
and I was like, how how on earth is this
the one you're gonna love? But he loved it, and
he took it around to everybody at the label and
he was like, this is amazing, and I mean, you know,
one or two people say, you know, repeat that and
it tends to work. That's amazing, how people will will listen.

(33:32):
I think at that point though, it had shifted from
we need to find the single that's going to work
in this particular lane or do this thing, and it
was more of like, Okay, this project has more to say.
How do we tell the world that with the first song?
How do we release how how does the first song
set the stage for the rest of the album. I

(33:52):
think Dear God did that. It was a bit of
a shocker, And I also wanted to make sure that
the world didn't think that the whole album was gonna
be like this really introspective, like depressing thing. It was
just going to be honest, right. So with all that said,
I think that was the shocker was that people at
the label, We're actually really excited about it because for
some reason they connected with it in their own way. Um.

(34:13):
And again that was another like total God moment where
I was just like, Okay, I hear you, I see
you working, and I'm going to keep working. I wanted
to ask you, like, what are some of your formulas
of things that you do that you attribute to your success.
And I don't even I don't even mean like success
in like it hits. I mean, just like being a

(34:34):
successful person just in general. Well, my dad spent a
lot of time in the military, so there's a bit
of a discipline thing on certain ends. If you ask
the people around me, they would probably tell you that
I'm not discipline at all. Musically, though I am when
it comes to my work and my craft. And also
I think something I got from my dad was if
there's no one around to do it, do it yourself.

(34:54):
And that's still my approach now. Like we we we
take this concert series, this lab concert, this thing that
we were supposed to take on the road. We take
the series and put it up on YouTube so that
the fans could at least see parts of the show.
I couldn't find a mixed engineer quick enough, so I
ended up mixing the whole thing myself. I'm not a
mixed engineer, but I've just spent every waking minute lost

(35:15):
less sleep and a lot of sanity. When it comes
to like the album making, the music making, I think, honestly,
I have found I have found the parts of what
I do that I love the most, and I use
those things to keep me going through the parts of
what I do that I don't love. The most um.
I know that, you know, on a day where I
have to make a lot of like business calls, and

(35:36):
I'm the shittiest business person in the face the planet,
because at the end of the day, I have one
objective and that's to make more music. I know that
at the end of a long day of making those things,
I have something to look forward to, and that is
starting with a glass of scotch, going back into that
room and opening a song that I haven't looked at
and probably like a month, because that's going to re
energize me. And by tomorrow morning, I'll have something that
I have done that I was excited about, and I

(35:57):
will share it with my team, and even if they
don't give to ship, it's I'm still excited about it.
I'm going to keep working on it. It's like my
little vacation from from the other parts of what I
do that are that are slightly more challenging. I think
that's if I have a formula, that's it. It's fine
the things that you really love And not to sound
like Brandy, but like part of like this whole chapter

(36:17):
and part of Red Skies messaging is feeding your fire.
And I think that's what we've kind of started as
like our hashtag. The thing that I want the fans
to sort of run with me on is spreading that
because I think we all have that fire. Um, it's
important to feed it. It's important to do the things
that just energize you and the things that you look
forward to. You know, I want to talk about some
of these projects, and you mentioned both in that answer,

(36:39):
So tell me a little bit more about in the Lab. Yeah.
In the Lab is like ten years in the making.
On my first radio tour, you know, those guys that
that you know you were in that world, like you
you see fire to twenty new artists every week coming
through with a single that they really want you to
play on every rotation, And it was kind of like,
how do we set ourselves apart? I love singing, but

(37:01):
I'm not like a perfect, perfectionist singer by a long shot.
I'm an emotional singer, and and I was worried that
just an acoustic performance wasn't going to communicate my passion
for music. Like an idiot, I made a suggestion because
I had an idea, and it was another one of
those do it yourself ideas, And I said, guys, why
don't we bring like a mini studio on the road

(37:21):
and I can make the song in front of them.
And of course business ears just popped up and everybody's
really excited about it. And by the time another week
it rolled around and they were like, Okay, we're really
excited about this idea. I actually stopped at mid since
I was like, yeah, I want to talk to you
about that. I've thought about that, and I don't know
if I like it, and because it sounds like a
bit of a dog and pony show, and I don't
want it to feel that way. I do not want

(37:42):
it to feel like showing off. It's got to feel
like comfortable. That just started in another two weeks of
rehearsals for me at home, and I had to find
a way to make it personal and and I kind
of did. But essentially what we were doing was a
very fancy version of looping, and I wasn't very famili
were living at the time. And after seeing Ed Sharon

(38:02):
shows like, okay, well, technology is clearly advanced a good bit.
I mean, there were loot propetals for years, but um,
the way that I wanted to do it was was
a bit more complex and required technology to make advances. Anyway,
fast forward ten years and now that I've put you
to sleep, you could wake up now. I wanted to
do a tour in my off season. I knew that
there would be there's always a time in the year

(38:22):
where I wish we were on the road, but with
something different pitched to my sort of team, I was like,
what if we take this thing that we've been building
for because we've been building this thing for five years
and we never took it on the road. And it's
the lab, it's alive Ableton build and it allows me
to to loop and do like fancy arrangements because Ableton
so like in depth. So I actually have three Ableton

(38:46):
texts just working with me on the software side of
things to to program it. There's one that's actually like
a licensed professor like teachers. Ableton works with the company.
So so it was quite an extensive build and it
required a lot of people in a lot of man hours.
So we finally got it built. We were finally like, Okay,
well I think we can actually take this on the
road and it's not just like a show about look

(39:07):
at me looping things. It's actually fun now, which was
the biggest battle and I think the biggest challenge at
the end of the show. I want you to feel
like you sat in my living room while I was
working on a song, you know, but you had fun.
It wasn't a tutorial, you know what I mean. It
wasn't and it wasn't a show off. Look at me
playing instruments. It's honestly, anyone can make music if you
just want to. And it was a really fun show

(39:28):
to put together. And uh, I don't know if the
world will ever say it, but I loved it, and
I think, honestly, it's great that we got to sort
of build it, film it, and watch it back because honestly,
I had notes watching even though I mixed every episode,
I watched the edit like we we were all quarantined
in this house working on the post production of it,
because I'm a nerd and I love that part of
it as well. Even after that, watching it live with everybody,

(39:51):
I felt, I feel like I felt what they felt,
and I already made notes and I already totally rearranged
the whole show. But I'm really excited to get on
the road. You're It's funny how much of a perfectionist
you are. I've never talked to Brian May forever not
he's a guitar player for Queen and he's an astrophysicist.
Like he's like the biggest, the smartest dude ever. And
not to say that you're an astrophysicist, May, I don't know,

(40:13):
but like when you when I'm talking to you, the
passion you have for such nerdy stuff is so cool
and I love it, man, I do, because you can
see how much you're just into it. Not to drive
the point home of this show, but like, you don't
get to your level or you know, Queen's lover or
whatever by accidentally being good at you You get to

(40:34):
that level by being really really good at your craft
and working on it. You know, that's a big misconception
with celebrity in general, is that like people just get lucky,
and sure it happens every once in a while, but
there's no longevity, and that the people that are there
forever are there for a reason. There was a brilliant
quote that a friend of mine she always reminds me of,

(40:55):
and the first time she told me, I just could
not figure out what the hell she was saying. But
she said, turn your weaknesses into your strength, and one
of my weaknesses is my my nerdy self, and I
feel like I've just tried to apply that in particular
advice and embrace it, you know. So in the Lab,
where can people launch that? That's on my YouTube channel.
We ended up putting like we had two shows planned

(41:17):
for this year, not two shows like two concerts, but
two kinds of shows. One was my normal full band show,
which has changed significantly, and one was the Lab. There's
three episodes of the Lab because it's in three segments.
And then there was one full band show that we did.
We called it hashtag Rescheduled, and that's kind of like
my version of what the show would have been if
we had taken it on the road. Right then, Um

(41:39):
so yeah, that's all on YouTube, and then honestly, we're
loading a bunch of stuff on YouTube now. We've we
made so much stuff over the past like six months
that we're kind of like, well, there's no better time
than now to put up videos online. So yeah, we're
kind of trying to keep a steady flow. Yeah, that
YouTube money is good money, man, trust me. I don't
know yet, but it's coming. Wild Blue, I feel like

(42:00):
part one was very It was was introspective and kind
of about your growth as a human as an artist
and continent to everything in life. I suppose, what can
we expect for a ship ton of attitude? Yeah? Yeah,
because it's kind of like, it's kind of like wild Blue.
The best way for me to explain Wild Blue is
like planning for a road trip. I love taking these

(42:20):
personal trips by myself. I get an airbnb somewhere, I
plan like five or six days, rent a car, and
I like put pins on the map, but I don't
really make plans. And I feel like wild Blue was
me putting pins on the map and me saying, these
are places I haven't been before, you know, madness, dear God.
Wild Blue the song still, honestly, there were so many
things that I had not been able to do on

(42:41):
an album and show the world. Red Sky is me
getting in the car and going on the road trip.
Like it's it's that feeling when you're five miles from
home and you're like, oh, I forgot to pack, you know,
and you just you go and you have like a
general idea of where you're going, but the whole idea
is just not to planet. And I think Red Sky

(43:01):
just has this very sort of like expressive like screaming,
you know, singing random things to this guy out the
roof of a convertible, right, or these really introspective moments. Still,
there's like an internal and an external version of the
album to that kind of has this duality to it,
but it's about the actual physical moving on. Um. Yeah,

(43:23):
and there's a there's just a ton of attitude on it. Well,
I'm excited for it. I'm running out of time with you.
Before I let you go. You want to do a
rapid Fire question and answer session, Bring it all right,
Rapid Fire with Hunter Hayes. Number one? What is your
coffee order? I'll be myself and running through buildings, plan

(43:44):
favorite pizza topping that running favorite book? Wind, Sand and
Stars is what started this whole wild blue thing? Is
it nonfiction? When Santa Stars is nonfiction? It's the same
guy who wrote a little the Little Prints. Okay, yeah,
it's really inspired. You should check it out. I need
recommendations is guess what got a lot of time in
my hands right now? Who is your biggest mentor? I've
got a few. Dan Huff was one of them. And

(44:06):
this sounds like I'm dropping a name, and I know
this rapid fire. I'm gonna make this quick. Elton John
Elton kind of came into my life after I did
attribute for him and we kind of accidentally became buds.
He's just a big supporter like he I think has
been through a lot right and knows that artists needs
support other artists to support them and sort of help
them through parts that they haven't experienced themselves. And he

(44:29):
is that. I can email him right now, he will
call me within thirty seconds. That's how responsive he is,
and that's how like it's not me, he does it
for a lot of people. He's just that that kind
of guy. That's awesome. Yeah. Who was your first kiss?
Oh god, I'll never say her name, but it was
a high school sweetheart. What was your first car? Chevy suburban?
And last? Who would you call to get you out

(44:50):
of jail? My manager give me a jail right? Oh yeah, yeah.
I did instructure though. I was like, I think my
some days I feel like my image is too clean.
So I told her, I was like, if I go
to jail for something reasonable, um, and I haven't like
hurt anybody, Like if it's for certain reasons. Make sure
people know, make sure that like you know, I'm I

(45:14):
don't look sixteen, you know, make me like a tough
guy like rebel. Yeah. Man, thank you so much for
Vina Wells cast. Your story is crazy. It's bonkers. I've
seen you perform. I love your music. I'm excited for
this new record. Everyone go check out everything that Hunters doing.
Where can people find you if they're unfamiliar with your work?
Wherever you want to, We've got We're on Instagram as

(45:37):
just me Hunter Hayes h g Y Yes, same for Twitter.
All the music is everywhere, Pandora, Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube.
Obviously we've got a whole bunch of stuff happening on YouTube.
I would honestly tell everybody to go to YouTube right
now because I'm kind of like finding ways to bring
people into this new album without formally releasing parts of

(45:57):
the album, and YouTube and Instagram are kind of going
to be my ways of doing that for the next
couple of months, which I'm really excited about. Hunter, thanks
so much man for taking the time. I really do
appreciate it. And be safe out there. Man, thanks you
to say to everybody listening to appreciate you guys. See man,
all right, cheers buddy. I hope I didn't offend him
by being like, you're such a nerd. I can tell
that you're such a nerve. But here's my thing, Like,

(46:19):
I want to drive the point home of there's this
weird stigma I guess in the country or just everywhere,
that being nerdy is a negative. And if I've learned anything,
like the things that separated me at a young age,
the things that you know made me not part of
the status quo, are the things that made me successful
personally successful. I decided to do this one thing like

(46:41):
no one was doing, which was radio, and everyone thought
it was crazy, and I got super nerdy. I edit
all this stuff you're talking about pro through this, dude.
I know how to work bro through so well. I'm
nerdy about music, you know. I collect vinyl, I research it.
It's so easy to make fun of people for whatever
their thing is, but generally it's those things are the
things that make you successful. And if if the whole

(47:02):
point of this show is to showcase how the hell
you get to be successful, I think that's a very
very important one is to find out whatever your nerd
is and get really really nerdy into it. For the
most part, like I said on the show, you don't
accidentally become successful. It's not an accident, all right, unless
you're born into a royal family. Everyone's gonna work for it.

(47:23):
Hunter new from two years old that he was going
to be doing this, and he got super cool. Anyways,
thanks so much guys for listening to the Welds Cast.
This is a fun episode. That guy is so talent,
thirty instruments, you know, insane to be safe out there.
If you can, please like and review the show. It
helps drive us up in the weird iTunes algorithm. I

(47:45):
don't know. I'm told that that's what I don't know.
I'm done. Um, I'm gonna go make a drink. I'm
gonna make a scotch because gonna do that, all right.
See you guys. Subscribe to Wealth Cast on I Heart Radio,
apple Pie Podcasts, or anywhere you get your podcasts. It's
the Internet, ma