Hayden is an experimental pop musician living in Brooklyn. They combine atmospheric guitar sounds with simple synth textures and indie pop melodies while maintaining their roots to emo music.
Making their bedroom music with lo-fi equipment, Hayden writes about boredom, anxiety, imaginary friends, and their relationship with the internet age.
I caught up with Hayden to talk about their early musical experiences, how they started playing music and the making of their new record “chardonnay”.
CMM-What was the first music that really made an impact on you as a kid and what artists or bands did you enjoy the most?
Hayden-It’s 2008 in Longmont Colorado, and I’m the only one in my class who takes a 45 minute walk home alone after school. I get back after a full day of repressing my angst and plug my guitar in as loud as possible to play every Green Day song imaginable.
I knew no one would be home until late- my parents were at work- so I could sing it, I could yell it and pretend I was Billy Joe Armstrong singing songs to thousands of people. I knew I had this window of time just for me to suck at teaching myself guitar on youtube and release whatever was festering in the pit of agony that lies deep within me.
CMM-How did you start writing songs and developing your own sound?
Hayden-Living in Denver in 2017, I started getting really into cold wave music. After hearing Solid Space’s ‘Space Museum’ for the first time I immediately rummaged through- our house at the time’s-collective and cumulated piles of gear looking for a drum machine. I loved how simply catchy and linear their songs were, and so I’d assemble a bunch of worn out pianos and drum parts into our kitchen to record my own shoegazy version of that style of music.
Moving to New York in 2018 and going to shows, experiencing the sonic magic that is Brooklyn, I started experimenting with electronic music only to feel like I was trying to be something I’m not.
Thankfully in this uncertain digital age of mine, my listening to Xiu Xiu gave me a clear topic for my writing. Anxiety. I wanted to write skin scratching music like they did. Now I have something to connect to, but how will it sound?
Well, Have A Nice Life came back into the scene and I remembered my roots in emo music, and found ways to ground the synthesized sounds and the emotional influences I had into something more authentic and melancholy (again the pit of agony).
CMM-You recently released an E.P. called “chardonnay”. What was the writing and recording process like and were there any particular pieces of gear you used to get the sound you were looking for?
Hayden-The process of writing and recording Chardonnay was fun and extremely refreshing. My discouraging and dare I say, failed experiment with making digital music became a firm reminder of how much I loved and missed my guitar. Sitting with the voice recorder on my phone and playing in my natural state, writing about the first thing in front of me.
My Rd6 Behringer analog drum machine was something I had only plugged into my 4-track Tascam tape recorder for demos or scratch tracks, mainly used as a metronome. Eventually, hand to face I finally admitted I preferred the sound of my ‘demos’ over whatever the hell I was trying to do digitally in Ableton, which made plugging my Rd6 into some guitar pedals my greatest asset. Scrapping the several digital renditions of ‘Sandbox’ and ‘Pigeons’ I absolutely hated
CMM-If you could do a score for any film director, who would it be and what would the film be about?
Hayden-I’d score a prelude to the Wes Craven’s ‘Scream’ movies. A movie about Maureen Prescott instead of the infinite modern additions to the saga. Musically I’d make more noisy/ambient extensions of the iconic Nick Cave songs featured in the original films.
CMM-Anything coming up?
Hayden-I’ve got a full length album in the works. I have so many past releases I consider ‘short stories’ with only 8 or so songs, and I feel like I can finally infuse my true sound into the record I’ve always dreamed of.
I’ve also been writing about other underground artists on Substack. I release an article about a different musician every week and would love to find other enthusiasts to geek out with.
