Hunter Hayes turns up the country charm

MANILA, Philippines - Hunter Hayes sure knows how to turn up the charm, on stage and off it. The STAR caught up with the 22-year-old country music wunderkid when he was in Singapore recently doing a promo blitz for his sophomore album Storyline.

Hunter has been tagged as the “rising golden boy” of country music by the likes of Billboard, and it isn’t hard to understand why. At his Storyline Showcase at The Star Performing Arts Centre, he showed his young fans (and their equally enthusiastic moms) that he’s more than a pretty face but a real talent — a triple threat who sings, writes  songs and plays multi (make that 30!) instruments.

During the presscon, he charmed the regional media with his candor (like an extension of his music’s self-confessional honesty) and his unassuming ways, considering he’s one of country music’s hottest acts aged under 25 (together with Taylor Swift).

Storyline comes three years after his successful self-titled debut, which hit No. 7 on the Billboard 200 and No. 1 on the Top Country Albums; and produced his “breakout” song Wanted that made him the youngest solo male artist to lead the Hot Country Songs chart. He has had four Grammy nominations, including Best New Act.

The follow-up record has so far impressed critics. According to an AP review: “To his credit, Hayes avoids contemporary country clichés: There are no pickup trucks, dirt roads or beer drinking in these songs” and that he is “an inventive country-pop songwriter and performer.”

Invisible, the first single off the album distributed by Warner Music Philippines, is already enjoying heavy rotation and is the tune you always hear on ABS-CBN’s Pinoy Big Brother. The sweet-sounding song is his strong anti-bullying statement.

Hunter said that when he was a kid, he was once treated like an outcast. His music helped him overcome that experience and has now placed him in a “really cool place” wherein he gets to share the stage and spotlight with some of the world’s music bigwigs.

Hunter has also hit the road with a vengeance, recently breaking the world record for most number of live concerts in multiple cities within 24 hours, and pulled it off for a cause — awareness on child hunger.  

The country music cutie, nevertheless, knows well enough that there’s still so much to be done in spreading his music in this part of the world. “I hope I can be part of introducing country music to someone who may have never heard it or have previously thought it was something else. If I can be part of that, then that’s mission accomplished for me.”

Here are excerpts from The STAR’s exclusive interview with Hunter:

On his most unforgettable performance:

“I remember we were on We’re Not Invisible Tour in the US, my first-ever tour of its kind and we did a lot of arenas, and my folks came to the show by bus as the place was about six hours from my hometown (in Louisiana). I had my grandparents there, my folks and some friends from back home. Normally, when that many family and friends are in the audience, I’d get really nervous and have a really crappy show. But that night, it was quite the opposite, it was really special. There was a divine sort of intervention there; it was really memorable for me because they got to see a show of mine for the first time on an arena. It was everything I wanted to put on for them.”

On the best advice he got to navigate showbiz and handle success: 

 “Just to enjoy it. Just slow down and just take it in. I can so easily get caught in it that the more things happen, the more other things I want to happen. It’s easy to accomplish something and just move on to the next thing — you know, just keep going and going. It’s hard for me to just revel in something, you know what I mean? I’m not good at that, it’s kind of uncomfortable for me. So, you do have to enjoy it, sit back and take it in and really process it, carefully, slowly and meaningfully. It’s something I try to live by.”

On how he got started:

 “That’s so tricky, ‘coz I know a lot of people have that light-bulb (moment), when they wake up one morning, ‘Oh my God, this is what I wanna do.’ But for me, it wasn’t that. It was a series of things, and it happened when I was so young, too, when all of this really started — my obsession with music. My parents are not musicians. I’m the first musician in the family. It was quite an interesting thing. I was given a toy instrument, an accordion, when I was two or something and I literally didn’t let go of it.

“Yeah, it’s true (I now play around 30 music instruments) hahaha, but I don’t think about it that way. It’s entirely too intimidating for someone to sit down and say, you know you play 30 instruments, not really! Just weird.”

On his biggest reward for himself:

“I’ve purchased a lot of instruments lately. I ordered a guitar by a Luthier who built a special kind of guitar. In fact, it has such an interesting and unique sound, I can’t play it on stage yet. I also bought an old Wurlitzer electric piano from the 1970s. I’ve gotten a bunch of mandolins, one is dated 1915…I’m about to make a purchase of a 1919 banjo, and there’s one more that I want — an old Martin D-18 guitar, which is some of the most incredibly beautiful instruments, and it has such an iconic sound. Yeah, my (musical instruments) collection is kind of absurd, it’s a bit outrageous. I’m actually going through (the collection) and eyeing things that I don’t really want which I can give to somebody who really wants it.”

On the music he’s obsessed with right now:

“My music is not on my playlist. That would be frightening! Which probably should be, I probably should study it and realize what I did hahaha. So, what’s on my playlist? Everyone on the room can probably answer that right now, because I’m forcing everybody to listen to it, hahaha. I’m actually listening to a musician named Chris Thile who’s been part of a bluegrass band that I’ve always loved. He also did a project called the Punch Brothers, which for the last six months that’s all I’ve been listening to. I’ve become obsessed with his music, he’s just so brilliant, his work is so diverse and record to record, he just becomes a new person.”

On writing love songs and his ideal girl:

“Just someone happy and positive, fun but very thoughtful. I like to have deep conversations. Any given day, I’m goofy and nutty and weird, and the next minute I can start conversations that can last two hours and go deeper than that. Because I like that. So (I like) somebody who’s OK with all that.

“Do I still have time to date? Oh yeah, someone asked me earlier to pick between love and music, but I said, one can’t really exist without the other. Realistically-speaking, they have to build each other. They have to form a circle. It’s like the chicken-and-egg thing, they can’t really live without the other.”

On how he spends his leisure time:

“I like to drive around and listen to music, then collecting vinyl and digging in record stores to look for a specific record is really fun for me. Yeah, for sure, it’s still related to work, and that’s the funny thing. Everybody would go, no, what would you do beyond that, beyond music? And I’m like, you don’t understand! This is not a script, this is real, this is my life. This is all I think about. I know it’s annoying, hahaha. So yeah, it’s still related to music because this isn’t work, this is what I love.”