Walker Hayes
David McClister
More than seven years after Walker Hayes first appeared on the Hot Country Songs chart, he finds himself at the gate of the promised land.
His original deal with Capitol put him on the same label with Luke Bryan, Keith Urban and Lady Antebellum, but two singles petered out in the 40s, and he wound up in a creative wilderness. In a story that has been told numerous times in 2017, he ended up stocking shelves at Costco and struggling to transport his family in a car that didn’t have enough seat belts to accommodate all six kids.
As bad as things seemed at their lowest, they’re looking pretty good this December. His debut album, boom., hit the marketplace on Dec. 8, released by Sony’s newly reactivated Monument imprint at a time when Hayes is enjoying his first top 20 single with “You Broke Up With Me,” which was inspired by life as a music-industry castaway.
“My friends and my team talk to me about it like I should be more excited, and the truth is I’m so excited I don’t even know what to do with myself,” he says between sound check and meet-and-greet duties before an album-release party at Jack White‘s Third Man Records in Nashville. “I lie in bed at night thinking to myself [that] you can go in any store that sells records, and I might have a record sitting there with 10 of my personal diary entries basically put to music.”
That “diary entries” comment is key. The difference between the 2010 Walker Hayes and the 2017 model is a 180-degree flip. His two Capitol singles, “Pants” and “Why Wait for Summer,” hinted at the uniquely breathy part of his voice and the intense word play that he was capable of, but the performances show an artist who was focused on giving the marketplace and its gatekeepers what he thought they wanted instead of simply serving them the best of what he had to offer.
“I wasn’t going to write the stuff that I’m writing now without getting to a really dark place and almost giving up on the dream,” he reflects. “When I was at Capitol — and this was not Capitol’s fault — I was aiming, you know. I would listen to country radio and go, ‘What version of me does radio want?’ ” Now when I’m writing a song — for instance, ‘Craig’ — I’m not thinking of radio or a genre or anything. I’m thinking, ‘I want to say thank you to Craig.'”
“Craig,” the final cut on boom., documents a real-life story about a fellow church member who gave Hayes and his family a new vehicle with enough seat belts to handle the whole crew. Contrasted with those earlier Capitol recordings, “Craig” — with its personal, soul-bearing storyline; rolling rhymes; and Macklemore-like cadence — nicely summarizes the evolution that occurred during those seven wilderness years.
To backtrack a bit, Hayes had boldly walked away from the stability of his father’s real-estate business in Mobile, Ala., to pursue music. When the Capitol deal fell through, he was forced to listen to his inner voice in a way that had not been required in the safety of his hometown. He began documenting the emotions that came along with those voices, and he found a connection between those words and the changing sounds of the culture around him. Macklemore broke through in rap and pop, while Sam Hunt had his first hits in country during Hayes’ down years, and Hayes identified with their sonic style and the way they revealed their inner journey. It emboldened him to — as he suggests in “Halloween” — pull away the mask.
“I’ve actually come to the conclusion that I love things now that are kind of uncomfortable to sing about,” says Hayes. “Things that you might be embarrassed to tell a group about yourself — honestly, that’s probably what the majority of the group is experiencing are those things that you keep quiet in your heart.”
Hunt’s producer, Shane McAnally (Midland, Old Dominion), saw the strides Hayes was making and signed him to a publishing deal and, later, to Monument. McAnally acknowledged at the Third Man event that Hayes’ music is “an unlikely thing to get onboard with.” But, he added, while presenting Hayes his first gold record, “the stories he tells have to be heard.”
Even before the Monument contract, Hayes started building an audience with two 8Tracks EPs, and McAnally rerecorded some of the songs on those albums, which created anxiety for Hayes. He expected McAnally would demand some artistic concessions so the material would fit better into the mainstream, but was happily surprised to discover that the alterations were more about the music and its heart than about competing with Bryan and Urban.
“His ears add only things that add to the emotion,” says Hayes. “He’s not frivolous with his instrumentation. He doesn’t say bigger is better. He actually says less is more because the less [instruments] you have, the more each instrument matters.”
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Hayes’ rebound adheres nicely to a rags-to-riches template that often resonates with the American public. It stung when industry acquaintances stopped calling after he lost his deal. Neither his family nor his in-laws goaded him, though he could feel their concerns as his situation grew increasingly desperate. And his wife, Laney — whom he calls “a badass mom and a badder-ass wife” in boom.‘s liner notes — stayed optimistic even when the money dried up and the alcohol was flowing.
“Looking back, I think it was worse than I really even knew,” she says. “It wasn’t a lack of him communicating, but I think I just didn’t realize the depths of the trench that we were in.”
Things definitely look better now, though not entirely different. “You Broke Up With Me,” his music-industry kiss-off, is No. 14 on Hot Country Songs, a vast improvement over the years when he stalled in the 40s. On the other hand, boom. arrived the same day as Bryan’s latest album, What Makes You Country. It’s ironic that Hayes’ debut shares a street date with his former label’s top dog; tellingly, Hayes is more amused than annoyed by any Capitol shadow.
“Everybody that goes to buy his album, I hope half of them will see mine and buy it while they’re out,” deadpans Hayes. “That would be incredible.”