So, Hayes is the first to admit it caught him off guard when listeners responded so passionately to the personal music he was writing. He’d long had it drilled into his head that there existed finite rules that comprised a successful country song.
“No one was saying, ‘Your song has to go on this radio station.’ They just said, ‘Go, do what you love and love doing it every day.” “That was like somebody telling you to write for no other reason than to just write,” he says alluding to the freedom to pen attention-getting songs like “Shut Up Kenny,” his ode to songs like Kenny Chesney’s on the radio that can immediately snap you back into those memories. “As an artist that was so freeing,” he says of the flexibility from his label, the recently revamped Monument Records, to be his own man. Nothing thrills him more than having no rules and no restriction on his creativity. Hayes knows only he can sing, or yes, sometimes rap his songs. His music - from the unflinching and honest “Beer in the Fridge,” to the spare and tender love song “Beautiful,” to “Craig,” boom.’s gripping album closer that documents a friend who came to his family’s aid in a time of need - is entirely Hayes’ own, even if it’s not always pretty. “I can only write something if I truly feel it.”Īnd if the Mobile, Alabama native has learned anything over more than a decade spent in Nashville, it’s that he can only be himself. “But, that’s what my heroes did,” he says referencing the Willie’s and Waylon’s and Merle’s of the world. and last year’s two break-out 8 Tracks releases. Like, ‘Wow, he’s really putting out there,’” Hayes says of the raw songwriting that characterizes boom. It’s the stories of a man who realized the songs he couldn’t help but write - about family, struggle, vices and the sacrifices we make for a dream - were his and his alone. Conversational, honest and real in song, Hayes’ forthcoming debut album is the voice of a grinder laying it bare. And, now, he has audiences flocking to him in a major way. He’s an original in a town all-too-often rife with mimicry and compromise. And he’s not complaining.Ī confessional, no-nonsense singer-songwriter, and one whose voice and perspective brims with relatability, Hayes is a tried-and-true Nashville standout.
Lately, though, Hayes has had occasion to bust out the word often. That rowdy performance at CMA Fest –the one that had the crowd singing every word of his music back to him? boom. He links up for a national tour with Thomas Rhett. A new radio station adds his buzzing single, “You Broke Up With Me.” boom. It’s a celebratory sort of thing, he’ll tell you. “It just felt right,” the breakout country singer says of the title for his highly-anticipated new album.
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