Hayes Carll is a Grammy nominated songwriter from Texas, who has appeared on everything from The Tonight Show to Austin City Limits, is championed by The New York Times, Pitchfork and NPR, and has had his songs covered by Kenny Chesney, Lee Ann Womack, Brothers Osborne, Kelly Willis, and the Hard Working Americans. We talk with Hayes about morning routines and self-care on the road, breaking your audience's stereotypes of a former you, journaling, and divesting from outcomes.
Hayes Carll is a Grammy nominated songwriter from Texas, who has appeared on everything from The Tonight Show to Austin City Limits, is championed by The New York Times, Pitchfork and NPR, and has had his songs covered by Kenny Chesney, Lee Ann Womack, Brothers Osborne, Kelly Willis, and the Hard Working Americans. We talk with Hayes about morning routines and self-care on the road, breaking your audience's stereotypes of a former you, journaling, and divesting from outcomes.
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All music written, performed, and produced by Aaron Shafer-Haiss.
122 Hayes Carll
[00:00:00] Hey, and welcome to this week's episode of The Other 22 Hours podcast. I'm your host, Aaron Shafer-Haiss
Michaela: and I'm your other host, Michaela Anne. And we are on episode 122, and this week we're featuring our conversation with Hayes Carll.
Aaron: Yeah, Hayes Carll is a singer songwriter from Texas, kind of in the same lineage as, guy Clark.
Jerry, Jeff Walker Towns, van Zt,those kind of classic Texas troubadours. But as you'll hear, he's,not just that, on the career aspect. Hayes has had his songs covered by, and I need to read this 'cause there's a long list. people such as Kenny Chesney, Leanne Womack, brothers Osborne, Kelly Willis, hardworking Americans, RIPI don't even know if they exist anymore, but what a,cool band by Todd Snyder. He's performed on Austin City Limits, Jules Holland, the Tonight Show. He's [00:01:00] Grammy nominated. And he is,championed by all Americana outfits and songwriter outfits, including New York Times Pitchfork, NP.
Michaela: Yeah, and this conversation was not what I expected, which was really beautiful. the overarching theme was of intentionality in all aspects of our life. How changing your habits changes your lifestyle, which ultimately changes your creative direction and desires, and a lot about life as a journey, a long journey. We all have our own timeline and really getting the intentionality of getting to know yourself.
Aaron: we talk about The drive to have integrity in your art and in your songwriting, and balancing that with like, keeping an ear on your audience because to be honest, when this is our sole career path, we need to make money doing what we do and balancing that desire and that need, which leads me to remind you all that we have a Patreon and that is our way of fulfilling our need to financially support the production of this show.
there are goodies there, typical Patreon, behind the scenes, goodies and advanced notice [00:02:00] of guests. You can have your questions answered by them. You have direct access to us for questions. And you get the, sole fulfilling moral high ground of financially supporting an independent podcast for our community, from our community.
So if that sounds intriguing, there's a link below to that in our show notes.
Michaela: and if you are a visual person, this conversation and all of our past conversations is available on YouTube. Without further ado, here is our conversation with Hayes Carl.
Nice to meet you. I'm Mikayla, and this is Erin.
Hayes: Hi, Mikayla Aaron
Aaron: thanks for taking time to sit down with us today.
Hayes: and my pleasure.
Michaela: And I know we,connected via, BJ Barham. Oh, right. 'cause BJ was one of our very first guests. Mm-hmm. Like before we even launched. Right? Yep. And he right away recommended reaching out to you. And it just took me a couple of years, a couple seasons later to finally reach out to you. So we're, really grateful that you were down to,talk about all this stuff.
So we always kind of like to start with just how are you doing today? And where are you in your,creative life right now.
Hayes: [00:03:00] I am in Nashville, Tennessee at my home here, and I got in late last night after a 41 day run.
Aaron: oh my gosh.
Hayes: So I'm a little wiped out and discombobulated,
Hayes: it was a long stretch. Longest I've had many years. it was good. But yeah, now I'm back here and, just getting settled in, it would be nice to be in the same place for a minute.
Aaron: We're also in Nashville. in our, home studio in the backyard. so I don't tour much anymore, but it was always like the big dip come down after being, especially out for, six weeks or five weeks, wherever you were at.
Do you have things that you do to kind of just get back into the, swing of normal life, or is it just ride it out?
Hayes: Yeah, I don't,
is the short answer to your question. But last night it hit me as I got back. It felt strange to just be back and not acknowledge, what that. Whole experience was like the touring was intense and emotional and, wonderful andit was a lot, a lot of different types of shows [00:04:00] and audiences and formats.
a lot of my past, played a lot of clubs that I came up in,
and lots of friends and family and personal life and trying to figure out a move. I'm moving back to Austin, so I was looking for a house and there was some medical stuff I was having to deal with and it just felt like a real journey, not just going out and playing some shows, it touched on every part of my life in some pretty heavy ways. so I got home last night. I felt like I should have some kind of ceremony or something to acknowledge what I had just gone through instead of just, oh, now I'm back and do whatever I, I do.
Which I'm not even sure what that
Yeah.
it just seemed weird to not acknowledge it and like have a decompression moment where I just kinda, appreciated what I'd been through and, sort of close the door on that and reset.
but I definitely had that feeling coming home, like The 41 days was significant. A lot of life happened, a lot of career happened, And I felt odd about not properly acknowledging it [00:05:00] or I felt like it should go in some kind of place so I could then let it go.
Michaela: Maybe that's what you're gonna do here.
Hayes: Yeah. Well, I gotta be honest, I've just started press from, uh,my record have anxiety around discussing the, intent as an artist and,breaking down the music and the songwriting.
Because I just don't feel like I'm particularly articulate at it or even know what I'm talking about a lot of the time. And so when I, looked at the schedule and saw. I had a, session. I gotta say I wasn't that excited. And then I, I lookedat what it was and what you guys do, and I thought that sounds a whole lot more fun.
Um, And kind of what I need right now, more than promoting myself. So I'm looking forward to just being able to chop it up and discuss
Aaron: I, I,Mikayla's been on your side of the interview desk hundreds of times, you know, doing that. And it's like, the same talking points and all that and so we, we feel it too.
The first 10 minutes are like, oh, we're just like playing the roles, you know, and then we inevitably come to point and it's like, you. We might touch on the new record, but like,we like to say we're kinda like the anti [00:06:00] album cycle podcast. 'cause it's like, well what about the other time after, all of the celebration, all the talks, and we inevitably see the other people just take a big sigh.
Michaela: It's like, oh, thank God mean one of the reasons we started this podcast is we're trying to like, help each other. Like,it was born out of the pandemic supposedly ended and it was like a slingshot. so many people in our community of musicians were kind of a whisperinghow nice it felt to be home during the pandemic and have this relief and not having fomo I feel like the elephant in the room for a lot of musicians is driven by Not even competition sometimes, but also fear of being left behind, fear of missing out, like wanting to be acknowledged and a part of the community doing that by being in festivals and touring andachieving and building your name. And we don't always acknowledge likehow taxing that can be and how it can pull us away from why we started writing songs in the first place.
So I feel like we just kind of [00:07:00] wanted to start these conversations to bring likethe ones that are likehushed in over dinner, to light, because some people don't have community supports at dinner tables. i'm curious if we can talk a little more about coming off of a 41 day run, tour is so interesting because life is still happening, but it's very hard to sustain all the things you still need to sustain when you have a life that's not just wake up, play a show.
If you're on a bus, go to sleep on the bus and drive and show up the next day or wake up and get in the van. And, it's hard to fit in all the other things that you still have to do to sustain life, like maintain relationships back home with friendships, family make doctor's appointments God forbid, likego to the doctor some point in 41 days or have a therapy appointment, have any alone time exercise, like all of the things that we know.
Maintain our health and wellbeing. you're, 20 plus years into this career, [00:08:00] has that gotten harder, easier, kind of just status quo for you? What's your relationship to that? Especially since you said you just came off of a period of time that felt like it was everything happening all at once.
Hayes: Yeah, in my early days it was just one big adventure and I mean, it was everything. And so, let me get out on the road, let me be in front of people, let me meet people, let me, live this gypsy life. That was my dream. And I was,completely happy doing that. Every bit of it was, exciting to me.
And I had no routines. there was no self care. I didn't know I needed it. I just was having a good time. it's pretty late in the game that I started to recognize that in life and on the road. if I don't have any intention or a plan, I'm gonna end up in the ditch.
my natural inclination is to, not take care of myself if it's to push it in every conceivable way get some kind of high, get some kind of feeling to self-medicate, cope, and push everything away. [00:09:00] 'cause I don't want to think about having to maintain relationships or take care of my body, or take care of my mind and that just be became unsustainable.You know, at a certain point we hopefully grow up a bit and recognize, okay, this isn't really. the first part of life. This was fine for me, but it's not working anymore and I've gotta change something. And, so, the pandemic was helpful to me in the sense of that, that really hammered that home.
there were a lot of positive things that came outta that for me. Connection with the audience. I fell in love with music again, able to be home for the first time in my adult life for extended period of time. And I realized like I'm finding a lot of things that are positive here.
I'm able to take care of myself physically. I'm starting to do some work on my mental health and my spirituality and,and have relationships and know my neighbors and writing in a different way. so then when I went back on the road, it's just been a fair bit of work trying to figure out how to, I just don't want that to all fall apart.
Aaron: Hmm.
Hayes: in the past relationships or any kind of [00:10:00] self-work I was doing, as soon as I got on the road, it it was just disappear. And yeah, I've been trying to find ways it's really tough to not have any routine out there. it's tough for me to have the discipline to, tobuild those habits.
But I have,put in place things that,even on a busy day I can do and at least keep me somewhat tethered to myself. so I don't get swept away out there in the chaos and, insanity of life on the road.
Michaela: Yeah, I feel like it's such an interesting cycle because for those of us who set out to do this in life, and even for those I think, who didn't set out to do this and just admire musicians, there's such a romanticized lore about being on the road and, everyone's favorite movie is almost famous and like all that kind of cliched aspect.
But it is really fun and it is so easy to fall into like, drink every night, stay up late, roll outta bed, eat fast food, and you think you're cool 'cause you're running on adrenaline then it can all [00:11:00] catch up with you maybe years down the line. it's so much work. To care for ourselves, which seems counterintuitive.
I think that's one of the biggest things that my brain has had to overcome. This feeling of like, if this stuff was so helpful for me, wouldn't it be easier?
Hayes: Right?
Michaela: But it is not. It's like exhausting. And then add kids into the mix and, parents, if you have to help out your parents or any other family members.
And I've really learned how necessary it is to actually maintain, once I've likedetoxed from the. fallen in the ditch, like you said, and to maintain, just like life of caring for doing what I need to do. I'm like, oh, I can't,drink, I have to exercise.
And then I'll have a time of like, I miss that. I'm gonna, I'm gonna have some drinks tonight, and then the next day I'm like, oh, this is like impossible for me to get through what I need to get through.
Hayes: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I had that on this, tour uh, my kind of just basics on the road and, at home, but I found they can translate to the road without [00:12:00] too much effort is just every morning, meditation, journaling, prayer, gratitude, just like a 30 minute, 40 minute kind of set of things that I do that at least I can start my day after a certain point.
sometimes things are outta your control, but if I can just set my day with some clarity and intention and settling, I always call my mind,like a snow globe. if it's shaken up, I'm pretty worthless and I'm just acting on instinct rather than with any clarity. so that just gives me a chance to settle the snow globe and at least map out some things that I want to accomplish.
And,that doesn't always follow through to the end of the day, like, at least I started my day with 40 minutes of that rather than getting on the news or, going into something unhealthy for me, mentally or physically. and then I've got a yoga mat that I travel with.
I figured that's an easy way to, whether you're in a hotel room so it's like if I can just get some little bit of exercise and some mental work, okay that's, my,my bare minimum. But to your point about drinking, likethat used to be a, big part of every night for me.
Aaron: [00:13:00] Mm-hmm.
Hayes: And at a certain point I,kind of crashed.
Like I realized I was burning the,candle at both ends and, just physically and mentally, I,I was doing too much and not.paying enough attention to,to taking care of myself and that, ended badly. So I adjusted my behaviors and,habits on the road to where I,wasn't, doing that.
But like on this tour I,still go out and had some nights off and good friends and good music and go out and socialize. And there wastwo nights where I, got into the booze a bit and I had,a great time. really fun. but then the next day I woke up and I was like, man.
Everything felt like it went out the window. Likeall this work I was doing andmaintenance I was doing, and now I have a wasted day 'cause I'm outta drinking shape and, I'm dragging ass and I'm foggy and I don't want to do my exercise. And,yeah, I guess I'm a still a work inprogress, it was a reminder of, I guess it's the challenge of it.
'cause I,I do enjoy hanging out and socializing and having a few drinks, but [00:14:00] I don't,know that, anything more than a few works for me anymore.
Aaron: Yeah, I hear that. For me, it's always beenbalancing between like, how awful I feel the next day. Whether it's hung over in a classical sense or just like slow, everything's way harder, kind of getting off my rhythm and just being scattered and, weighing that against how much fun I have, and some, sometimes the fun weighs out and I'm like, cool.
And it's brought me to a place that like, I rarely drink it these days 'cause most of the time it's like, well I,can still go out and have fun and then I'll have tomorrow too. But, trying to keep it in the intentionality rather than just the routine, especially likewhen you're on tour on a long run like that, to me it was always like a downward staircase.
I was like, yeah. And I'd be having celebratory drinks and it's like, awesome. And the next day it's like, well, I'll have a drink, like atsoundcheck to kind of get up to level and then we'll be cool and then it's celebratory. 'cause the show was fun. And then like every day it's the high is just one step lower.
And by the end of the tour it's like I'm just getting dragged through the mud every day.
Like, you
Hayes: I'm always trying to like track my own behaviors in an attempt to change
Aaron: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Hayes: And so I made a little [00:15:00] chart on this tour, and it's like every day I write, here's my meditation and exercise, you know, do I get it? But also tracked how many drinks I had.
it was interesting because I don't binge drink anymore. And,certainly, not with any regularity and,I don't drink at home, certainly not by myself, really. And,I'm just not a big drinker anymore. But out on the road, I,was looking every day I'd be like, okay, there's,one, there's three, there's two, there's five, there's six.
And it would be days where I was like,consciously. Drinking or sitting down and having a good time, it just kinda in there. so having a visual representation
Michaela: Mm-hmm.
Hayes: what I was actually doing was kind of eye-opening because it just falls into habit, like you said. one of the beautiful things about this job, but certainly early on it's likeyou can do whatever you want.
You're Peter Pan out here and,there's nobody saying, oh, that's not acceptable to,drink this or do that. so you kinda have to monitor youryourself. We get a free pass as musicians with a lot of society of,nobody's judging it or it's even encouraged,
Aaron: Well,
Michaela: yeah.
Hayes: be part of your character
Aaron: I love that, image of being Peter Pan out there. I mean, and it,is totally that, [00:16:00] and hit the nail on the head saying it'salmost encouraged, especially early on. I'm sure you've played these gigs they don't get any, you rider,but you show up and there's definitely a,refrigerator full of PBR.
You know, it's like, we don't have food for you, but as much cheap beer as you want. Go for it. You're like, okay. Yeah.
Michaela: Alcohol is always free, at every show. So so easy to fawn that habit. But I love how you,have that kind of visual tracking for yourself and like you said, nobody's checking our behavior.
When you've done enough years of touring, and participate in stuff that like,wouldn't be allowed at any other job
Hayes: Mm-hmm. Yeah. While you're working.
Michaela: yeah. Yeah.And I'm always like, there's no HR department, so as a woman, there's no like protections against sexual harassment. you're navigating all that stuff with an immature brain.
Also, when most of us are starting out in our twenties, And then not to say the arrested development that happens when, that's the environment you're in, might stay in that way, you know, through your forties, fifties, whatever. there's no safeguards [00:17:00] to kind of help us learn the societal or cultural benefits of kind of treating ourselves and each other well on the road.
And we're all trying to like, figure it out individually while also trying to survive to build this dream that we all have of, okay, this thing made me uncomfortable, or maybe I shouldn't have done that or whatever, but I'm not gonna change it or say anything about it because I wanna stay on this tour, or I wanna keep doing these tours and this is the way that I need to, build my business.
Not to mention then the subconscious of, I'm curious, from the outside looking in, you're, you're part of this kind of, tradition of Texas singer songwriters that, again, this is like an outside view, but like in Guy Clark and Towns Van Sant, are you conscious of that tradition and the vibe around that ever coming into influence you as well?
Hayes: Yeah, certainly, those were guys that aspired to be among many others. But there was a part of it that I [00:18:00] romanticized and idealized the wild behavior as well. I thought that was part of the deal when I was young and I would buy the books about All the Texas guys and,singer songwriters in general.
And, so many of them, you know, I'm thinking about Jerry, Jeff Walker or Ray Wiley before he got sober or just so many folks the alcohol and the drugs and the bad behavior was part of the deal. And it was like something that to me I romanticized it and then I, was drawn to it, on stage or off.
But then when you get out there and,I felt like I was playing a part 'cause it was like, I'm the drunk, gypsy singer songwriter. That's gonna be my lane. That's my thing, that's what I do. And,the alcohol fuels the poetry and,the lifestyle fuels the songs and that all went part and parcel.
that's dangerous. Place to be because you can't separate it and you think you have to have, drugs or alcohol or promiscuity or just bad behavior or unhealthy behavior to be an artist, or that gets tied in with your identity and that can lead you down a dark road. I went through a period where I [00:19:00] just quit drinking for years and really tried to get a handle on that and make sure that I knew what my intention was and that I could perform without,that, and that I didn't have to be that. And, my wife at the time she was out in the crowd and, she heard somebody say, I miss drunk haze.
Aaron: Yeah.
Hayes: there was this,expectation of, I mean, it's horrifying for me to think about now, but like our shows used to consist of, 15 people would hand drinks to the stage and I would drink 'em
while I'm performing. And it was nothing, it was part of the deal. Let's see how many shot glasses we can litter the stage with by the end of the night and be blacked out.
that just seems typical and, normal. But I'm glad I'm past that it's not part of the thing anymore, but it definitely required, some awareness around it and some intentionality to say, okay, I'm,gonna see if I can do thisjob. The thing that I'm passionate about without having to be this character that I'm not [00:20:00] anymore, I don't want to just ruin my life or disconnect just to make other people's expectations, of me being the good time guy,
feel valid.
So, That was a life change and a bit of creative change just to,to say, all right, let me, see if I can do this without the training wheels or without the kind of assumed identity that I had created around who I am or what my job is.
Aaron: Yeah. I'm so glad that you,touch on that and kind of brought the audience expectation into it because I really do think there's. This whole stereotype of, the drunk artist, I think is such a, stereotype and normalization that was not intentionally created.
And we've touched on this a bunch in the show, but to me it's likethis confluence of human nature in the sense that like,we see artists on stage and, beyond the music and all thatthere's this representation we have as,people on stage of like,this ideal, you know, like, oh, likelook at this person.
He's up there singing to all these people, and man, he's getting drunk and he's partying. Like,man, I wish I could do that with my life, but instead I'm entering data in a laptop, in a cubicle next to Pam, who I don't even like, the audience is like, yeah, [00:21:00] like I'm living through you, likeyou are this person.
This is how you need to be. And then there's that subconscious kind of human. Desire I think is likethe same thing that fuels people's obsession with nascar, where they're just watching it to likesee a crash. They love to see people crash and struggle if you ask anybody, like,no, I don't wanna see somebodyfail, but like,there's this, obsession with failing crime, drama, all of that.
I think there's this weird human nature thing from the audience towards the artist that you know, is a hard thing to separate yourself from when you're coming up and you're idealizing these people like, all over the map, whether it's, Keith Richards or,a Gram Parsons, you know, it's like,
Michaela: oh, well.
And I think for audiences they sometimes, if you're a fan of somebody and you're not in the profession of music. I think people can genuinely forget that their favorite musician is a whole person who has a life and they're out there, you know, they're once a month like going to a show and having a great time, and they're looking at you on stage and that's feeding their good time.
But the [00:22:00] consequences of like, they're doing it once a month, maybe they're doing it more, but like, you're out there doing that night after night after night and like, what does that mean? Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Aaron: It's a night out to them.
Michaela: Yeah. And I'm curious, you said, you know, as a creative change of two parts one, making that change and knowing that it was going to present differently on stage and what that might mean for your audience if you were gonna lose people, game people if you thought about that and grappled with it, and two, how that also changed your, creativity in your writing.
Hayes: Yeah. I think the need for change, came first. it,was apparent to me that I was not gonna be able to have the life I wanted, the relationship I wanted, they just didn't work together that lifestyle and who I wanted to be. And then when I made the change and was able to work, on who I wanted to be, the art changed with it to some degree.
'cause I was writing with a different intention and it was less to say, would this be a fun song to drink to, and not that all my stuff was that but there was definitely elements of [00:23:00] I'm writing to get an excited, wild reaction outta people at times. And the way I presented stuff and the way I behaved.
I was trying to loosen everybody up and,all get us to this euphoric place where we can all have this shared, uh.Joyous drunken moment oftentimes. when I stopped doing that, and focused more on what I was actually thinking or feeling rather than what they were or what they expected, the music just got more introspective.
And then when I present that, I present it in a different way. 'cause I,was going for a different thing. and that was scary. You know, change is scary. I think particularly I never expected to have a career. You know, the fact that anybody wanted to hear my songs was a huge surprise to me early on and took years to have a career.
And so I always held onto it really tightly and probably had a lot of insecurity around whether I belonged and alcohol was a way of helping me drown that out. but, sitting with it and, trying to move beyond just as an artist and a [00:24:00] person to, again, have some intention about, what you're doing just became much more important to me.
and I did lose audience, 'cause it was not the ride a lot of people signed up for, you know,
Aaron: Mm-hmm.
Hayes: and that's weird when you work so hard to make fans. And then I got into that trap of well, let me keep 'em, no matter, giving 'em what they want. And ultimately I think that's actually a way to reduce your fans.
'cause no matter how much they like it, at a certain point people grow up and if you're not, evolving, then Either your audience is, you're stuck with a,very unevolved audience, or they grow up and leave you behind because you're no longer something that's interesting to them as, as they move on.
So, yeah, it felt like a shift and like a lot of people just weren't into it. And that was, tricky, but I was much happier on the whole and much less reliant on their reaction which felt good. I needed to have some solidity in myself and say, okay, here's what I'm doing.
I'm gonna create this. Here's my intention and I'm gonna share it with the world. And I hope they like it, but if they don't, that's okay. 'cause I, like it and I'm connected with it and I know what I'm trying to do. [00:25:00] And, if it doesn't work, it'll be a matter of. Whether I did my job well enough, but it won't be a matter of I was trying to be something I'm not, or hanging onto something that wasn't where I was at anymore.
Aaron: Yeah, I think kind of touching on, at least in my like that,what makes music special to me. You know, it's like your songs when you were drinking more, when you were the party band, I guess whatever, first thing that came out.
you're writing those with intention in alignment with who you are and where you are. So if you're moving,evolving, progressing, whatever,changing as a person and you're still writing for this past thing, that likesubconscious intention behind it, I think can be felt, things start to like a caricature of what once was, that's not, you know, in my interpretation, that's not what is resonating with peoplethat are fans of, songwriters like yourself, or BJ to bring up American Aquarium again what, resonates is that? realness, you know, and that vulnerability. Like owning I'm here, this is where it's at. Come on in.
Hayes: yeah.
Michaela: but I think it also is, the fact of life that It [00:26:00] might be more popular to just write drinking songs I can think of pop country acts that are, well past what I would consider like appropriate drinking, partying times that are like regurgitating the same, song about getting drunk and like they're in their fifties and, it's probably a top 40 hit.
So the reality is there might be a bigger market to recycle that same old stuff, but what I think these conversations get at and what, like we talk about with each other on this path is like ultimately we each have to decide for ourselves what matters more to us. Do we wanna kind of cater to, the market or what we think it's gonna get us, or do we have to.
Align with what our creative intentions are, whatever those consequences are, and really is that the way that we're gonna feel most fulfilled versus chasing outside success that we think is gonna fulfill us. But we learn time and time and time again from a hundred plus of these conversations that we've had with, [00:27:00] people who are quadruple platinum selling artists, tons of Grammy nominations.
Like nothing actually ever fills that hole from the outside. It's what we do internally.
Hayes: that alignment is key. I didn't want to have that disconnect between my life and my art and my career. and some people never have that, you know, some people from an early age that they're not concerned with the outside world. They're following their own thing.
And,it took me some time to get comfortable with letting go of,the outside world's expectations as much and being more interested and protective of my own. at a certain point, I I remember looking around and thinking, I've got a pretty good career.
Things are going well. For the most part. and I had friends who would probably happily trade careers with me. But they seem to be having a lot more fun than I was having.
and that bothered me. I was like, okay, well, if I accomplished this and this and this at what point am I gonna feel contentment?
Am I gonna feel secure in what I'm doing instead of always feeling needy or, [00:28:00] comparing myself what is the audience size? How many records you sell or,what people's perception of you is? And, uh,I thought, there is no finish line and there is no marker to where you go, oh, now I feel good about myself.
So that marker or that,Goal, I think is reached in the day to day and the relationship with yourself. And it's wonderful to have it validated by an audience.
Aaron: Mm-hmm.
Hayes: But I needed my starting point not to be that validation from them. I needed it to be feeling okay with myself and then that validation from the audience.
But however it comes, if it's two people or 2 million people, I feel like that's earned. Or,at least, I'm gonna butcher the expression, but it's like I would rather be, hated for what I am, than love for what I'm not, or something to that effect. and that's kind of how I felt at a certain point, musically.
It's like, yeah, I can do these certain things and maybe that will keep a certain audience, but that's not where I'm at. It's not who I am right now. And so even if it's a hit, it's gonna feel very hollow and ultimately leave me [00:29:00] dissatisfied. Where. If I'm truly loving what I'm doing and doing it with intention and, then if nobody shows up, I still, feel good about myself and can sleep at night and not have that inner struggle between public and personal and art and career and,
Michaela: have you had to put that into practice yet? Of like feeling like you see like a moment of like, okay, I'm doing something that I feel more aligned with and haven't seen the results. I know like you have a record coming out I was told is like more introspective and stuff just for context, we had a guest who is a friend of ours.
I won't name them by name, but People might be able to find it, who was about to put a record out and was like, I feel like I'm owning everything for the first time. I don't even care what the response is because I love this. And I was like, oh, I'm so curious to talk to you in a year.
Because I kind of went through that with my last record that was a couple years ago where I was like, I feel so round, round,rooted and grounded.
Hayes: Recruited and
Michaela: [00:30:00] That outside response doesn't even matter. But I for sure got caught up in the outside, and public response and what happened or didn't happen. And our guest, after they put their record out a few months later, texted me and was like, oh boy. this is a daily struggle. No matter if like one day I feel like, yeah, I don't care.
This is what I'm doing. That poll can still happen. It's like a. Lifelong challenge of being like, wait, no, let me reground.
Hayes: yeah. And I don't mean to minimize reality that we gotta make a living and, that how people respond to it is not important. It is. I've been fortunate to be able to build up a career to where I feel some level of safety or, or acceptance from my audience that they want to see me try something new or just follow my heart wherever that goes, whatever it is.
And so I feel really, fortunate in that way. And then as far as, you know, I used to write my records and it was like, it had such a massive effect on my life. If it didn't do well. I didn't do [00:31:00] well, you know, my kid wasn't gonna do well. you know, there's such a financial piece to that that I was way more concerned with how people responded to it.
And also just as an insecure guy who didn't ever, never expected to be there, was looking for all the positive feedback I could get. 'cause I needed that validation. I needed encouragement, I needed to feel like I wasn't an imposter. but I don't know, either just through time or experience, I reached a point where I felt a little more secure about where I was, my ability to make a living.
And it freed me up to,think more just about what was interesting to me than, the outcome. And that's been such a game changer for me, is to be able to.just write. And you know, there's stuffI still think about. Is this a good song? Is this
And I still envision people's responses sometimes, but the actual crafting of it, I've gotten to a much better place to where I'm,writing for myself and then having done that, it feels, just less invested in the outcome. Cause that mission of creating it [00:32:00] in a connected way is so satisfying and I'm proud of myself, that means more to me than if Rolling Stone or whoever said, oh, this is a five star record.
I said, well,that doesn't mean anything. At the end of the day, what means something to me is, did I have an intention? Was I true to myself? did I work hard at, at. Reaching that. Did I push myself, am I growing,
Aaron: Mm-hmm.
Hayes: am I interesting to myself or am I just falling back on trick I've learned or, thinking about other people's response to it.
there's just a different set of metrics that I look at now. and that has made me a lot freer and a lot happier as a creative person because there's a, joy in that process when I, can put away anybody else's opinion about it.
Aaron: sounds like you're metrics have shifted into things that are within your control.
Hayes: Yeah, that's a good way to
Aaron: all that response is outside of your control. And that's, you know, with artists I work with, I try toimpress that same thing. You know, I ask them, like, before we start working, I'm like, what,will make this record successful?
And inevitably it's like, oh, I want it to be on these playlists. I want it to do [00:33:00] this, blah, blah. I'm like, awesome. I understand. we need to make a living on this. We need to, continue to grow careers. I get that. But like, let's make the record that you want to make and drill into that and, you know,keep it within our circle of influence.
'my favorite way I've heard it said is like. The building is the work, build it, and then growth is completely out of our control. And that's,the response to the building that we've done. But I wanted to kind of tie back to what you're saying, kind of like your morning routine is with Journaling and then your note on likekeeping data on, drinks or whatever it is. Is this a practice that came before this paradigm shift? Were you kind of writing and journaling and reflecting, on self before you kind of made the shift towards being more intentional in, your present self?
or did that shift happen and then journaling came on as a practice after that?
Hayes: I think the shift happened later. The meditation and journaling and praying and spiritual work and intentionality is a fairly recent development in my life in the last few years. you know, you just, hit a point where things felt hollow and [00:34:00] I was having the same conversations with myself year after year, and the same anxieties, and the same frustrations and the same stresses.
And I,again, I look at other people and say, well, you're not. with that or, you seem to be content and like,why is this so hard for me? nothing changes if nothing changes. And so I started trying to, make some changes. for me, the,biggest thing was just stealing my mind and actually connecting because I,can live off in space, just spiraling out and that's a comfortable place for me, just numbing out in every conceivable way. But ultimately, it leaves me the next morning like a bender.
the aftermath was no longer enjoyable or worth,whatever high I was getting from. Other stuff. there's this thing called Monk Manual, which is just a little daily planner. you fill out your day and your intention and your gratitude list and everything.
But at the end of the night there'sanother section where you sort of recap your day and they ask you a few questions like, what are your highlights? I was at my best when you [00:35:00] fill it in. And then I felt unrest or unease when, and you fill that in. much to my surprise, every night at the end of the night,was sort of forcing myself to meditate and,every night I would think about what was my high other day and,I'm like, well, I think I felt my best when I was meditating.
I didn't want to meditate. I was begrudgingly doing it just. Try something. But after a couple weeks I said, apparently I enjoy this because every night that's the highlight of my day, you know, regardless of what other external things are happening. And so it just became clear to me that,that time with myself, that time to center and reset and work through some things, the journaling component.
Yeah, I used to not be able to focus long enough to journal 'em, I would just like Bart Simpson on the chalkboard, just write a mantra, breathe, breathe. I write hundreds of times, just something for the tactile exercise of sitting somewhere and writing pen to paper, but my mind couldn't put together a sentence
Mm-hmm. and then slowly day I started to open up a little bit more and started exploring ideas, and then I [00:36:00] was like, I'm struggling with this, so let's turn over the rocks, let's examine it. And I started to be able to do that. And then it got to be an even richer practice for me. And so it's still my mind and do a little personal work and have a little more clarity. And again, you know, 10 minutes later it could all be gone.
But at least for that, 30 minutes, those 10 minutes, whatever, it was where I needed to be. And I felt in touch with myself and it kept me grounded in a way that I always struggled my whole life to be. And so it just sort of built out of thinking, this is something I'm supposed to do. Let me try it.
Aaron: I don't enjoy it. I can't sit still for this long. But then by reflecting every night at the end of the night, I would say actually I do enjoy it. Apparently it is really doing me some good. and that helped me turn it into a more consistent habit. Yeah, I had love that, a reallysimilar experience with that. I'm not, writing in the morning consistently now, but I have. For years and at various stages. And, a few months ago I went back and found like one of the firstnotebooks I had when I started doing this. the way I was writing, you know, it was a very[00:37:00] short, very broken, and it was very like,victim mentality is like,I was kind of angry.
It was like, oh, this is happening, and oh man, this is happening. And then like, you skip ahead a hundred pages and it's much more like and like, oh, well there's this, and asking questions like, well, why do I do this? it definitely likebecame addictive to me, that feeling, that openness.
I'm like, yeah, I wanna look, I want to take out this magnifying glass and be like, what's over here?
Hayes: Yeah, it's so hard. 'cause with TV and social media and just life, the speed of it all it's just constant dopamine hits and I think it short circuits our brain to where we can't have a complete thought. And as a songwriter, or just a human in general, like that's not helpful if you can only think in five second bursts.
so that's been a really fun thing for me to discover is the idea of settling yourself down to where you can have a complete thought and then you can actually explore it and then, hey, what do you know, this is actually really fun and enriching. And yeah, should turn on the TV checking out in whatever way feels good in the moment, but it's just a sugar high and it [00:38:00] wears off and there's a bit of a hangover or a loss in that.
but getting to know yourself and spending time with yourself and enjoying your own company and starting to understand what you think and feel, again, for a lot of people, you know, that may just be commonplace and they, known that from the start. I'm not one of those people almost 50 and I'm just figuring out how to be with myself.
But it is what it is. It's the schedule I'm on. And, uh, I'm grateful that it, not 70,
I just listened to Richard Rohrs, falling Upward.
It's a book about the second half of life, not chronologically. 'cause some people get there much younger and some people never get there.
But the idea, is just your needs change and your understanding of life changes. At a certain point and you are able to adapt from what everybody expects or what you told yourself you're supposed to do to, actually finding out what you really are about and what you really need.
makes me feel good just to be a part of this human experience and, we're all going at our own time and our own way with our own struggles. But to be able to just get off the [00:39:00] hamster wheel for a minute and assess, what direction I'm at. and what value does this have to me?it feels so much safer and,in a good way. Not in a numbing out way, but just like,I'm grounding, I know where I'm at, the world spinning out doesn. have to make me spin out.
Aaron: Yeah. That's all
Michaela: really beautiful. It makes me think of, there's a memoirist and writer UD, who's married to John Batiste, the musician, and uh, she just released a new book I think called Creative Alchemy. And it's all these prompts from different writers and it's all kind of about journaling.
And she says in there, to be in conversation with yourself is to be in conversation with the world. And that really stuck out to me, and I've thought about that a lot because I think what you're getting at of like really investigating and examining ourselves, maybe some people are just naturally more attuned to themselves, but we don't live in a world that encourages that and nurtures that.
And it really is fascinating when we [00:40:00] do spend that time to, get to know and then learn things about ourselves. Like, oh wait, I guess I do like this other thing. Mm-hmm. And And in the scheme of this whole conversation with music, when this career path is one that's so easy to look at everybody else, continually checking in with yourself and being like, wait, what is it that holds value to me?
where are the spaces I wanna be in? Like, I'll be really honest, I was feeling super anxious before we sat down for this conversation with you about all of this stuff. And now I feel so at ease just listening to you talk and sharing about this stuff of like, we all just got a center with ourselves.
We're all on different timelines, different paths. Like just thank you, thank you for, sharing some really, vulnerable, intimate, practices and things you've been learning about yourself.
Hayes: thank you for that and, I enjoy talking about it. sometimes I feel silly. It's like I'm late in life and I'm just discovering what feel like probably some basic to a lot of people. But again, it's just, where I'm at. So rather than be [00:41:00] ashamed about it or,worry about how it hits people, I, find if I can just connect with myself and,be open about that, that feels like the most natural and healthy place for me to be.
And I,feel positive about that. I love that y'all are having these conversations. it's still important. I love that, like mental health and,sobriety and things are something that,people are talking about.
And it is part of the story, and it's an important part because show B is showbiz andlife and the politics and everything there,so much that's performative there that's ultimately hollow. And if you base your life on that, which a lot of us do or aspire to, and we think if we just get this or that, that will feel content I wish it hadn't taken so long for me to start on the journey of recognizing that,that's not where it's at ultimately.
But I'm grateful that, at least I. Starting and trying and, it's really quite exciting to feel like, I thought there was some big mystery or thing I had to do and, I'm like, no, it's [00:42:00] actually juststarts right here with yourself and get a handle on that and everything else will be a whole lot easier.
Aaron: For sure. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's a,great kind of tie into how we like to wrap up the conversations. One final question, and it's a choose your own adventure kind of thing, basically. So, it's either something that somebody's told you along the way, that resonates with you and is kind of constantly in the back of your head, or conversely, what you would tell 18-year-old you when you're first kind of launching into this as a career.
Hayes: You know, something that somebody told me that has stood out. To me for a long time and was really helpful in my transition to changing my perspective was, uh, Ray Wiley Hubbard has a, quote that he says all the time. He says the days I keep my gratitude higher than my expectations.
Those are good days.
Aaron: Mm
Hayes: And I starts to, that sounded cool. And, at a certain point it just kept coming into my head and I'm like, why do I keep thinking about this quote? and it hit me that I had appreciated it for how it sounded, but had not actually applied it. And then I sat down [00:43:00] and would just apply it for 20 seconds and I go, oh yeah.
the powers within me to determine my perception. And that perception is everything. My attitude is everything. It's not, so much the result or the response. It's how am I viewing this? Am I viewing it with gratitude or am I viewing it with expectation and entitlement? am I viewing this with curiosity or am I viewing this with judgment?
And those shifts are everything.
so as far as a quote or a piece of advice, that's something that has stood out with me for a long time.
Aaron: I love that. that's one of those ones, at least for me, like the more you think about it, the more you're like, yeah. Right. Like you were saying, it's just like there are layers to it.
Hayes: Yeah, it feels like a t-shirt slogan or something, but yeah, it's like eat, pray, love or whatever, When youactually apply it, which is really quite easy to do, you can do it in five seconds to just take some situation and say, you know what? I'm grateful more than I'm gonna be, expecting or entitled the situation, and I can be that I have legs that I'm breathing, that I havefriends, that I'm here to talk to you.
it, it can just [00:44:00] shift the perspective in a really helpful way.
Michaela: I mean, there's so much science that proves gratitude practice really does make an impact on our lives. Besides the anecdotal of like, oh yeah, I feel better when I do that on a daily basis. I can examine the same exact day and point out all the ways that it's not great. Or I could be like, elated about how incredible this is that I get to wake up and have coffee and like have a roof over my head and, you know, all of that stuff.
So,
Hayes: Yeah.
you got your baby right
Michaela: Yeah. Yeah,
Aaron: exactly.
Exactly. And he slept. Yeah. And he made it through. Man Hayes, thanks for taking the time to sit with us. and for being open and vulnerable. It was a really great conversation today.
Michaela: Yeah,
Hayes: thank you guys. I, I enjoyed it and I appreciate what y'all are doing.
Aaron: thank you. Thanks.
Michaela: Best of luck with
Aaron: the move and new record and everything.
Hayes: Thank you guys. Have a good.
Aaron: See ya. [00:45:00]