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Hayley Lynn
2.1k Plays1 year ago
Organically gripping and raw, Hayley Lynn’s sultry timbres extend through the various depths of her vocal range as she is soft-spoken but packs a punch when her lyrical motifs drop.
Lynn's first body of work “Bring on the Flames,” co-created with producer Kyle Devine, was performed to several sold out shows across the Northwest as well as placement in the Netflix Original shows “The Pier” and “Money Heist.” Since then, Lynn’s music has been placed on ABC, the 700 Club, and Big Ten Network, expanding Lynn’s reach to international audiences. In addition to being a hometown favorite, Lynn is back on the road with breakthrough performances at festivals and venues such as Northwest Folklife, Oregon Country Fair, Winningstad Theater, Bloodworks Live Studio, Mississippi Studios, The Old Church Concert Hall, and touring through the U.S and Canada.
Recently, Lynn released her first solo debut album ‘Horizon’. Many of the songs came as a means to heal. The pandemic was especially hard on artists and Lynn’s method of survival was to dive deep into the layers of her life, the feelings that arose and the distractions she used to cope. The result is a velvet voice wrapped in an ocean of sound that is cathartic to lose ourselves in.
https://www.hayleylynnmusic.com/
https://open.spotify.com/artist/3ustZQSFU19uRveWdTUeAd
https://music.apple.com/us/artist/hayley-lynn/1374681637
https://www.tiktok.com/@hayleylynnmusic?lang=en
https://www.instagram.com/hayley_lynn_music/?hl=en
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqIuebsBOUfG6Kk-yeAtwIA
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Transcript
Introduction and Hailey Lynn's New LP
00:00:02
Speaker
You are listening to something rather than nothing. Creator and host, Ken Delante. Editor and producer, Peter Bauer.
00:00:17
Speaker
This is Ken Volante with the Something Rather Than Nothing podcast. We have Hailey Lynn, a musician, artist, somebody that I've seen before in my life. And before talking too much about Hailey, I just want to introduce you to the Art and Philosophy podcast, Something Rather Than Nothing. Great to have you on. Happy to be here. Thank you so much for having me, Ken.
00:00:41
Speaker
Yeah, I've been doing a lot of music on the show recently, and I'm based in the Pacific Northwest. I love the music scene there, and particularly into some of the styles of music you do, you know, singer-songwriter folk. I'm also a big Doom fan, so there's a lot of activity. I love being around in the Pacific Northwest, particularly the Portland area, and I know you've been
00:01:08
Speaker
busy with a new LP release, Horizon in the fall. So whenever there's a release and things are going on, what have
Connecting with Audiences
00:01:19
Speaker
you been up to? What's been going on with your music with that release?
00:01:23
Speaker
Yeah, so that release is my first solo project. I produced it with my wonderful friend James Villa and it's my little baby. It's the baby that's all mine. We wrote the music together and James produced it beautifully. And yeah, now it's the biggest thing about that is getting it to as many years as possible. I went on tour this past summer to kind of promote
00:01:51
Speaker
The album coming out, I went on tour with Blair Borax and Karen Ann throughout the four corners and up through Washington and Southern California and New Mexico and Nevada. And yeah, it's been a ride. I think my favorite thing about playing all these shows and singing these songs is connecting to the audience the way that we do as artists.
Collaborative Process with James Villa
00:02:17
Speaker
whenever a person comes up to me after a show and tells me just how a song meant to them and what it was like for them in their own journey, that's the biggest thing for me is knowing that we made that connection happen and we had that magic moment together. Yeah. In particular, with the live performance too and I've talked to a lot of artists and just how
00:02:46
Speaker
you know, the conveyance of emotion or what fills an area, you know, as a concertgoer or being a participant, you know, there's different vibes of all sorts that kind of emanate from folks. And I always find it fascinating to see, you know, how you, you up there and kind of reflecting back on what's going on.
00:03:09
Speaker
What was it? You were talking about in this album, you know, using particular words, you know, like this, this my baby, like, your hands are really in this and in your collaboration. How did it feel different for you? And, you know, in this one here, was there something else where it felt, you know, more, more yours or more exactly what you wanted to do? Was that part of what was going on?
00:03:37
Speaker
I think for this album, James and I, we wrote most of the songs together, a handful of them I wrote by myself, but it was a very collaborative process. James Villa is a fantastic producer to work with, as well as a friend.
00:03:58
Speaker
I love that whenever I work with him, we always say the music is the most important part and any way that we can convey the message of that is the best part of making a project like this. And I think the one thing I definitely wanted to do with this album was I wanted to make people dance, I wanted to make them
00:04:21
Speaker
feel. I wanted to make them rock out. And I think we successfully did that with this album. It's a very wonderful collection of all my feelings and all these wonderful moments. And I even have a
00:04:38
Speaker
a song that features Larissa Birdseye, which she was on your show on the track. She was fantastic to work with. She's a wonderful friend of mine. Everything about this album, I just love. There's nothing bad I could really point out when I listen through it. I just love every song
Hailey's Artistic Journey and Education
00:05:01
Speaker
on it. I think that is a real testament to how much love and hard work we put into it.
00:05:07
Speaker
Uh, it's just when I listen back to it, all I have is love for it. So I'm very grateful for that. There's a strong confidence in it too. And I see that with Larissa as well. I mean, it's difficult not to pick up on the confidence in saying,
00:05:26
Speaker
what you want and it's it the as Just so well produced the album in but but also it It's it feels like I don't know if this is the right word and I apologize but like accomplished like these are like these are big like Here's why I'm trying to express and even if it's clumsy. It's um that these are like
00:05:50
Speaker
ready made fantastic song like good sounding and the energy that you're talking about. I was like, Oh, okay. Like, in listening to music, you know, over the last few months, but um, but that was that was something that I just felt and it was like kind of like point to be like, hey, it in my in my head from, you know, my age and stuff. I'm like,
00:06:13
Speaker
that's radio, like that's right on the radio right now, like that type of thing. So, you know, that's really there. Now, I wanted to ask you, I know you've just, in reading a bit about your background, I would refer to you as an artist and you've concentrated on musical art and songwriting recently, but you've done
00:06:37
Speaker
You've done other things and you've done acting and you've had other expressions as an artist. I wanted to ask you one of the questions, ask all guesses. When did you see yourself as an artist? When were you like, this is me, this is my identity or this is how I express myself in the world?
00:06:59
Speaker
Great question. I'd say for me, there have been levels where I've had this realization. And I think the first one was when I was like five. And I was like, I made one distinctive memory that I have is I made puppets. And I was a very visual person at the time. I still am. I still do a lot of visual art for my own.
00:07:26
Speaker
for my own joy and sanity. But I really loved making puppets. I really loved creating. I really loved working with my hands. And so I'd say when I was five, that was when I was just like all in, nothing held me back. And then I think another distinctive moment was when I was eight.
00:07:45
Speaker
And I was musically in my best friend's father's home studio at the time. And he had all this cool equipment. He had a mic. He had a sound booth and everything. And he was like, do you guys want to record something? And he had this track that didn't have any lyrics or music on it. And that was the first time I ever top-lined a song was when I was eight.
00:08:09
Speaker
And we just went for it. And we did a song called Pink Bunnies. Of course, of course. Of course. I still have that cassette tape in my little treasure box that I keep in my room. And that was the moment that I realized I wanted to be a recording artist and musician, even though it wasn't the best voice.
00:08:36
Speaker
um that i've heard uh for myself so it's your cassette though it's your cassette yeah it is my cassette that is uh a little history of my my journey and everything so and then i think the final moment that i really realized i wanted to be an artist like i i studied art throughout school i was very very lucky and very fortunate that my family knew that i wanted to be an artist very young and so they they definitely
00:09:02
Speaker
set me up in a way where I went to, and I auditioned to get into ACMA, which is an arts communications magnet academy school in Beaverton, and I got in for music, and it was a really great school for me to kind of do whatever. I studied theater, I studied acting, I studied visual arts, I studied music, I was in choir, and that was like a great school that
00:09:30
Speaker
really brought my artistry to the forefront in every possible way. So I really flourished at that school when I was in high school. And I also went to an arts camp called Willowbrook. I was a camp counselor. I taught acting there and I taught folk dance. And that was another wonderful place that really
00:09:54
Speaker
you know, helped me garner my passion for everything artistic throughout my life. So I had very wonderful parents who knew that I had to do these things in order to feel like a whole human being. So I was very, very fortunate. A lot of people don't have those opportunities like that when they're growing up, and I was very lucky. But the moment that I knew that I wanted to be a musician actually
00:10:21
Speaker
I was in school in Canada. I went to University of Victoria and specifically with music. I mean, I was studying acting and music in my school, but I was working with some really wonderful and talented Canadian artists.
00:10:39
Speaker
When we wrote music together and we collaborated I think the first band that I was a part of was called Spaceman Spiff and we of course We didn't win that we we competed in like Battle of the Bands at UVic and we didn't win at all but it was
00:10:57
Speaker
You know, I think that moment I'm like, OK, I really want to I want to just do this. I want to do this. And then I moved back to Portland and I fully pursued music. I also pursued acting. But I think it got to a point with with some of the things that were kind of happening within my acting.
00:11:14
Speaker
world that I decided, hey, I'm, I think I'm just having more success with music in terms of like, I love being able to control every aspect of my artistry. I think having that control really gives me power. And I was fully able to do that with music. So it's been, it's been that journey ever since then.
Art's Influence on Society and AI
00:11:35
Speaker
So Wow. Yeah. All right. Like, I, uh,
00:11:38
Speaker
It's great to hear. And the point that you pull out is, you know, those around us and your case, your parents and maybe others who would like, this is where you need to be to develop, right? This is part of you. And that's a, whenever I'm talking to anybody about the identity piece about, uh, being an artist, it's some, you know, those who are around us who are important in how they view those things or encourage those or,
00:12:06
Speaker
It all has an impact and it isn't like to blame anybody for anything. I go back to the adage, my teacher said I was smart, so I was. My teacher said I was an artist and I was an artist, that there are these influential people around us on the positive spin that
00:12:30
Speaker
they see what's in you and be like, this is where you need to be. And this is a camp that'll be good use of your time here. And, um, and, uh, well, we reap some of those rewards. So thank you, parents. And thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Haley. Um, no, um, I want to, I want to keep on the conceptual questions a bit. Um, and, and I wanted to ask you about, uh,
00:12:58
Speaker
art itself. And I hear when you've been around different art environments and thinking about art and how you want to create, right? Because I heard you say, you know, with the act and thing, there might've been some constriction there and be like, well, I want to express myself more fully in music. But talking about art and your identity as an artist, what is art in the sense of, you know, what is it that you're creating? What is it that you're striving for?
00:13:28
Speaker
I think that's a great question. I know for a lot of people, art has a very different definition and a different meaning for everybody because, you know, art is subjective. But I think for me, within my own journey, art is an outlet for my real self to shine through.
00:13:47
Speaker
I feel like it's allowed me to cope. It is a wonderful tool to express myself or express another person's journey. When I'm writing music, I am in the mindset of writing for other people right now, and I really enjoy that. So even if it's not necessarily my journey, it's really expressing
00:14:14
Speaker
a moment in time, a story, anybody's story, maybe someone's story about their great grandfather or anything. It's about creating something in a specific moment in time, whatever time you choose.
00:14:32
Speaker
But having that be the most authentic thing that you can create within that moment based off of real feelings and emotions, at least that's how it feels for me. I know it is different for everybody else, but as a songwriter or as a visual artist, right now I'm drawing a couple of portraits of people in my life that I care about and people that they care about.
00:15:01
Speaker
like those portraits are like a moment in time, they're my own expression of that person and the joy within that person. Or even like within acting, you know, I think acting is a really wonderful summation of just that definition because, you know, when you go see a play, if you go see, you know, a movie,
00:15:24
Speaker
But a play, I think, really captures that perfectly because, you know, you only get to see the cast and whatever kind of mindset they're in at the time, but you get to only experience that moment within the moment that you are experiencing it versus if you were watching a movie, you're watching the same moment that was captured over and over and over again.
00:15:47
Speaker
it has been fine-tuned and it has been fine-tuned to the way that the director or the writer wanted it to be. And I think a song does that too. You could write a song like if you're going through a breakup, which we all go through. You're capturing a feeling that you are experiencing and processing that moment
00:16:08
Speaker
And I think the beautiful thing about music is that you could sing the same song, but because of who you are as a person and because of your mindset or whatever your inner monologue or your inner narrative is, that song is going to change depending on the day, depending on who's going to sing it. If someone's going to sing a cover of your song, they're going to input their own emotions and their own feelings into that, which I think is really beautiful. So yeah, that's at least what my opinion is and how I feel.
00:16:37
Speaker
Yeah, and I love your description. I want to say I had a recent conversation. It was just so interesting. You're talking about a play and also music. I was talking yesterday in an Instagram live with Canara Ely, who's a soprano singer.
00:16:53
Speaker
And she was talking about the various ornamentations. I was asking like, explain that to me, like the things that you add on top for the vocal performance that makes it yours, that expresses your personality, whether you're showy or less showy, and all these kind of nuances. And I said, the way I was trying to analogize it was to just simply say, I was like, I could understand the performance of Hamlet, right? And like, you think about these characters in a play,
00:17:19
Speaker
and the acting performance of like, is Hamlet, you know, is Hamlet just, you know, a lovelorn? Is Hamlet mad? Is Hamlet a prissy aristocrat and this is insufferable? Like which one are you playing? And it was such a fertile like way of talking about it.
Authenticity in Art
00:17:39
Speaker
So when you mention, I was just thinking about that, those individual pieces of, you know, and in live versus recorded,
00:17:47
Speaker
where the artist makes it their own, like their art piece. And I think music, because it's, I don't know, it's like viral nature, music just can spread, you know, the songs can just spread that then people are singing it. And so it's just a really vibrant area and vibrant point that I've become recently fascinated with. So I had to jump in.
00:18:13
Speaker
uh a bit more there what uh i'm sorry were you gonna say something else uh oh no i i was just going to tag on to that being like i i think every good artist whether they are you know if it is a play if it is a song that they did not write you have to really put your own emotions into it in order to to not necessarily sell it i mean yeah sell it but in order for it to be authentic
00:18:39
Speaker
you know i think authenticity is is the most important part of recreating someone else's work um i i think that is the most beautiful thing about art is the authenticity behind it yeah all right uh related question to what is our and anytime you answer you kind of dip into this a bit but what is what is what is the role of art and it's connected this question is i tend to ask a couple questions but
00:19:07
Speaker
You know, what is the role of art, but has it changed, you know, like 2023 and there's these bigger problems and is the role of art what it's been or is there something else going on now there that might be different about the role of art? That's a great question as well. I think.
00:19:30
Speaker
In this moment in time, I'm going to talk about what art feels like to me within this moment in time versus how I believe it should be. In this moment in time, we have AIs, creating and stealing art from visual artists, AIs, creating songs that are not bad. Some of the top songs are created by AIs now.
00:19:58
Speaker
And I think in a lot of ways, I think it is scary as an artist. It's scary when a corporation would rather promote a song that was created unorganically.
00:20:22
Speaker
I think that there are also wonderful things that AI has done. For example, this is something small, but very helpful as a songwriter. When I go onto GarageBand and I'm just hashing out a song, I have the digital drummer that listens to everything that I inputted and creates drum beats based off of that. And it's a great way to make demos. So there are...
00:20:49
Speaker
Tools nowadays that we didn't have previously everything was organic previously and we had organic people who had real emotions and feelings and Only those people could really recreate those things when you were tracking a song And the same thing about a visual artist like there were there There are visual artists that can only do what they do and they do it really well but I think that
00:21:18
Speaker
In today's culture, in today's world, we are slowly devaluing art, because I think art is really valuable. It has gotten me through so much within my own life, within my own mental health journey, that we really have to understand the value that music, art, theater, any kind of format that art
00:21:45
Speaker
is devoured. We really need to understand the value that it has, and I think that we've been slowly devaluing it.
00:21:55
Speaker
Now, the way that I think art should be, and I think that good art, and I'm probably saying this because I had all my teachers tell me this when I was growing up, but it makes sense and I'm going to repeat it because it makes sense to me that art should be a mirror.
00:22:17
Speaker
of what is happening within the world within your own worlds and you know it's and I think a mirror is a very personal thing I think you know in the term of history when we say art should be like a mirror up to society but when you look into a mirror it's a really personal experience because you could look at another person in a mirror you could look at yourself in the mirror
00:22:40
Speaker
you could really see the details within yourself. And that is when you visually see who you are, at least a part of who you are. I think that, you know, mirrors can also be deceiving and they can also hide who you are. So when you say that art should be a mirror, I think that good art
00:23:01
Speaker
shows the internal side of what the mirror has to show you. It shows you the reality, it shows you the facts of something, but it also shows you the beautiful things as well. The flaws, the fine lines, the laugh lines, the eyes to yourself or to somebody else. And I think
00:23:30
Speaker
art to me, whenever or good art to me, when I connect to something, it really shows a part of who I really am. Or it really shows a part of what I'm sad to see or what I'm happy to see within the world or within myself.
Digital vs. Tangible Art
00:23:45
Speaker
So that's what I ideally would want art to be. And that is up for interpretation. Art is subjective. So
00:23:55
Speaker
Well, I want to, you know, in yours very personal, I want to ask you about two opposing trends and I'm going to base it off what you were saying about AI technology. I see two things, two tendencies happen, which I think are fundamentally opposed, which are a reaction. And I think the context is this.
00:24:16
Speaker
some of the effects of the pandemic, some of the move towards digital, maybe ephemeral culture, maybe fast moving and disappearing. But I see folks behave in a way recently where I see them with a harder drive towards the tangible physical art object. Maybe a popular example of this is like,
00:24:40
Speaker
Taylor Swift's LPs outselling CDs and like LPs are becoming a thing. And you see research and like VHS, like I want to see, yeah, VHS is not the best, but I want the thing in this format. I want to play. So like I'm around folks and I see a tendency towards the grappling for the things. On the other side, it seems we read reports and there's a reality to a massive,
00:25:07
Speaker
Like rich people buying fake real estate in the metaverse and fake, you know, like that there's an investment of real money in a quasi world, whether it's the art, the NFTs that are in that world or who you are, have as a virtual neighbor.
00:25:27
Speaker
There's also that massive maybe money tendency. I see two like very opposite things going on Do you do you think that's like do you think there's some relevance in like what like what I was saying? Or is that at play and where you're saying like the AI and it's digital Oh, of course. Yeah. Yeah, I completely agree with you. I think there's two opposing forces
00:25:50
Speaker
Not necessarily battling it out, but necessarily coming to the forefront people want tangible things people want nostalgia and You know that the beautiful thing about a vinyl LP is that Every time you listen to it It's gonna sound a little bit different because that that means that like it's it's it's been played
00:26:14
Speaker
one, two, three, a million times and it's going to sound different because that's just how it's created. It's created to age. It's created to have scratches in it and then skip. That's one of the beautiful things about a vinyl
00:26:34
Speaker
LP. And as somebody who loves that kind of nostalgia, I am that kind of person that I want something tangible. I feel that when I have something tangible, it has that sense of nostalgia that is comforting to me. So I definitely see that in my friends. I see it in online. I see these things and I completely love and agree that something tangible
00:27:03
Speaker
is more meaningful than something that you would listen to maybe like or stream on a platform. I think the accessibility of streaming sites makes it so music is more accessible to the world. But I think an actual tangible object has meaning behind it. And then you have these
00:27:29
Speaker
These wonderful folks who live in a virtual reality, who live with their minds through the internet. And I think that any way that we kind of divide ourselves from anything that is organic or anything that is real is another step away from being a human. I don't mean to say that in a way that takes away the comfort that these
00:27:57
Speaker
these digital worlds give to people because I think in some ways, thinking about my friend, they play video games online with their friends that live in Canada. And it's one of the best ways that they can connect and talk and connect. And I think that's also fantastic that they can connect that way. To be able to have ways that we can talk to people
00:28:20
Speaker
Oh, absolutely halfway around the world. I think is is great but I think you know investing Like a million dollars or or like five million dollars or whatever amount of money into a world. That's not real You know, I I think that that could have been money that could have helped a lot of people I think that could have been money that could have actually benefited the communities around us and you know, it's I think that
00:28:53
Speaker
Within within these two different worlds. We definitely see the classes and the separation between that so yeah Yeah It's like the rich are either gone off to space or the Metaverse like they're there. They're making their plans for space of the metaverse or both. Yeah But there's even this one show I forget what it's called but
00:29:18
Speaker
Oh, sorry, but I forget what this shows called but it's basically about like this world that is like a digital world where if you pass away, you know, if you're not alive anymore, you can have your digital soul live in this digital world and anything can happen you can explain it's gonna do it's like I'd be I'd be starting out and be like that thing's gonna misbehave in the future and
00:29:42
Speaker
It's going to have my name attached to it, and I want to check and see if it's behaving properly. It's horrible. Sounds like a nightmare. Maybe I'm unsettled with myself, but I imagine a lot of people would have that. Yeah, it sounds like. I mean, it is an episode of Black Mirror, basically. They have episodes of that. Oh, of course. Of course. For some reason, I knew once you mentioned someone, I was like, I think this is getting right at Black Mirror. What's going on with that?
The Story Behind 'Danny DeVito'
00:30:09
Speaker
which is a fascinating discussion unto itself. Hailey, we gotta cut to a song because like every time I'm gonna use a song and I'm talking to an artist, we end up talking and it's not like, you know, the conversation isn't vital and profound, but I do realize all the time that we're making people wait for a song. So we got the song Danny DeVito, which in general, I think,
00:30:37
Speaker
America's favorite or somewhere up here, but tell us a little bit about it and we'll play it for folks. Oh my gosh. I love this song. It brings me joy. When I wrote this song, I wrote this song originally back in 2019 and I was going through it. My parents were getting divorced and you think when you're older, you can handle something like that.
00:31:01
Speaker
It really shook me and one of the things that I did to cope with that is I literally binge watched every Danny DeVito movie and show I could think of and that literally brought me life again. So I needed to write a song, not necessarily about him, but I just wanted to write a song. I honor you, you got me through the thick of it and now I want to write a song that if anybody needs a good pick me up, if anybody needs anything,
00:31:31
Speaker
um they think of you and so love it yeah that's so cool we're gonna play danny devito if i ever do a song haley and this what does it say about me it's gonna be peewee herman so knowing lies peewee herman but it definitely sounds separate or be vaudeville or something hey everybody we got uh danny devito um by haley lynn uh check it out here we go
00:32:06
Speaker
Rockin' tuxedos, down in Oswego where we go And us, I don't ever give you another glance, but here we are Hey, you twisted in the backseat of my car So let's downy-dove it all
00:32:41
Speaker
That's until we-
00:33:55
Speaker
We are turning right to Park Road
00:34:49
Speaker
Danny DeVito. Yeah. Love that. Well, my last name's Volante. I'm required to adore Danny DeVito. Right? Forget about it. Hey.
00:35:05
Speaker
You can dance too, Haley. I need to add that in your art too. I do. I do. I, you know, I grew up with, I grew up with a dancing family. My sister majored in dance in school and then turned out to be working corporate for Adidas. So heck yeah. Boss, boss sister. My Adidas.
00:35:24
Speaker
Why Adidas? I don't know. But yeah, she choreographed the Danny DeVito dance in that music video, as well as she was also one of the dancers in my Do For You music video, and she choreographed the dance for all my friends as well. So she
00:35:46
Speaker
She gets to live her dance degree through my work, which brings me a lot of joy. I love working with my sister. I love that connection. Yeah. I think dancing is a great activity. You can't get enough time to do it, although there's a New Year's Eve show with diggable planets.
00:36:10
Speaker
in Karma Rivera at the Crystal Ballroom in Portland. So I was like, that was a good way to bring in the year. I feel like the jazz funk hip hop. So yeah, so with you, yeah, and your videos are cool too. So I mean, hearing a little bit more about working with your sister and bringing in the whole performance, like I said, it's like,
00:36:34
Speaker
They're ready. So yeah, I, um, uh, I really liked that. Um, okay.
Philosophical Discussions on Existence
00:36:42
Speaker
The big conceptual question and you got into it a little bit there and it's like, um, basically the nature of the universe or like why God exists or why we create or any of those things. Why is there something rather than nothing? Haley Lynn, I think you're like bumping up against it with all your other answers.
00:36:58
Speaker
Yeah, I think there has to be something. I think there has to be something. If we're talking about God, if we're talking about the big old question, I think
00:37:12
Speaker
I mean, I don't know if I'm going to be pretty open and honest. I'm agnostic. I don't know. I got a big old question mark above my head. I think that there has to be something. Just because of the nature of what art is, I think also the nature of humans as a species. I think we've created so much that I feel like there has to be something.
00:37:41
Speaker
You know? Because if there's nothing, then why are we existing? Yeah. I don't know. It's like, I mean, in philosophy, it's like, it might seem strange, but I think it comes down as something like this, the study of thingness, how things be, like,
00:38:05
Speaker
and what they are. I love the question and the context of creativity and human creativity. The big question myself, I'm agnostic. I don't know. Not too smart to know. Not smart enough to know it all. There's a certain human humbleness into it.
00:38:27
Speaker
A lot of times folks who are agnostic to, at least for me, I kind of walk around politically as an atheist because I don't necessarily need to engage in that question all the time. And people say, well, you do a whole podcast with the question something rather than nothing, so you're inviting your own trouble. Understood, understood. But no, it's like politically sometimes it's like, you know,
00:38:51
Speaker
I don't necessarily want to get into that whole positioning. I'm a doubter. My spirituality is.
00:38:58
Speaker
combination of things and me I'm me you know so yeah I am on the same boat as you I think that you know like I I definitely believe and believe I definitely believe in in freedom for anybody to you know to do what they must as long as it doesn't hurt anybody you know I'm all I'm all for that but you know like I I'm just in this boat where you know I
00:39:26
Speaker
like we can we can create so many things we can manifest things into existence and you know that's that's the one thing i love about like you know this idea that you can if you and if you can imagine it and if you can dream and you can invent it you know that's how we got electricity that's how we had all these innovations in terms of health in terms of science and everything like that and art you know i think art is
00:39:51
Speaker
a direct tide, if you can visually or if you can hear it, you know, you can manifest it and you can create it.
Themes of Isolation in 'Not There'
00:39:59
Speaker
Yeah. And I think like the old. Oh, sorry. No, no, I'm sorry to jump in, but I think there's something about the idiosyncrasy or or where pieces of art stick out or certain things that stick out that that that lead to that, like where they're noticeable. They they inflect a certain change of thinking. There's a disruption.
00:40:19
Speaker
of things. I feel that sometimes. Yeah, I agree. All right. Hailey, where do we find all your stuff, all your music? Where does everybody find it? In the videos, folks, like I said, she can dance.
00:40:44
Speaker
You can find me on really every social media platform. You can find me on Facebook. You can find me on tech talk. You can find me on Instagram. You can find me on YouTube. A lot of my
00:40:55
Speaker
A lot of my videos are on YouTube. But yeah, just spell my name correctly. It's H-A-Y-L-E-Y-L-N-L-Y-N-N. And then slip in music somewhere and you'll find me. I'll pop up somewhere. I'll be one of the first things that pops up. So yeah, just make sure you spell it correctly because there are a lot of haley ones out there. That was a very popular name in the 90s.
00:41:25
Speaker
just make sure you spell it right but yeah absolutely and um just so you know folks uh who have a track uh going out from this episode uh not there haley you want to mention a couple things about the yeah their track that takes us out
00:41:41
Speaker
Yeah, so I love this song. This song is like my emo song that fills the void inside myself every time I listen to it. Or whenever I have a void that needs filling, I listen to this song. And I know it kind of sounds conceited listening to your own music, but I really like this song. I love the way it turned out.
00:42:02
Speaker
yeah um but this song to me it changes depending on the day and i think that's the one thing i love about this song is that whatever kind of mind state i'm in i the the meaning of this song changes for me and you know when i was writing it it's a
00:42:19
Speaker
It could be about not feeling present within your body, not feeling connected to anybody, feeling isolated or not wanting to be connected to anybody. Or it could be not feeling connected in any kind of relationship you're in, whether it's a friendship or a partnership or with your family. It's basically a song that encaptures not feeling present in the world that you are in.
00:42:47
Speaker
And, you know, the feelings that kind of come with that, you know, it's the feeling of isolation, like the second verse. Well, it's like I'm not an ocean or a river you can cross. My water's muddy and the waves are sharp. The tides are deep and nothing's living there. A shallow beach where no one should come near and I'll be there.
00:43:13
Speaker
And that's, you know, that's kind of where I was when I wrote that song. Yeah. Yeah. At least in the mindset. And, you know, then the bridge just like it's so easy to leave here. It is so easy. Sometimes it's easy. Sometimes it's really it's really hard. But, you know, you can make those connections. You can reach out. It's just a matter of reaching out. And, you know, for anybody who is struggling in any way, you know, this song, I hope makes you not feel alone in whatever you're going through.
00:43:42
Speaker
Yeah, there's a lot of space there and I really appreciate appreciate you saying this and I save it like in the context of We're recording in January and I talked to folks like I wanted like with with with our and recognizing some Like I don't know whether the difficult patches or times I mean some people might experience with some like some some grayness or the rain or after the end of the year and
00:44:08
Speaker
But one of the things I look and said to recognize that those are some of the major dynamics that I experience cyclically in the world, but at the same time to try to, with art, make myself less lonely during those experiences, but also in creating things, if I have any doubts, at least for this month,
00:44:31
Speaker
The things tend to be difficult. I just charge ahead. I'm just like, don't exist in doubt. Just charge ahead and you'll think about it differently later. So there's something about connecting with the feeling of being in, in, in that spot and knowing you can be there for a bit, but also like you said, to be like, yeah, I've been there before, but what I can say is you can exist here. And the main thing, it's not permanent, right? It's like.
00:44:59
Speaker
Like I'm I'm here. It's a scary place and it could be a deeply scary place, but it's like. It's not a permanent residence, I think so. Woo, right? Hailey, it's it's been it's been a great pleasure to talk to you and also, you know, connecting the show to other artists, Blair Borax, who I saw you play live with.
00:45:28
Speaker
Larissa Birdseye, wonderful singer and collaborator with you. Matt Brewster, who works and plays with Larissa and other bands. Just an incredible way to connect folks.
00:46:26
Speaker
For all that you can stand on My fate a week And made to run away The promises I keep
00:47:05
Speaker
I'm not there, there I'm not there I'm not there, there I'm not an ocean
00:48:09
Speaker
I'll be
00:49:10
Speaker
This is something rather than nothing.