Speaker 1: Music Saved Me.
Speaker 2: As a child, my earliest memories of music was the
Speaker 2: waffle house jukebox. I remember being small enough to reach
Speaker 2: up to my dad's pockets and reach in and try
Speaker 2: to find some change. Now a particular type of music, Nah,
Speaker 2: as a kid, I wasn't just it wasn't one genre.
Speaker 3: It was just basically all music.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Music Saved Me Podcast. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Lynn Hoffman, and on this episode we have a member
Speaker 1: of the country music community who has met life's challenges
Speaker 1: head on, most certainly with the help of the healing
Speaker 1: force of music. Walker Hayes is an American country pop
Speaker 1: singer and songwriter, and he shares his story on Music
Speaker 1: Saved Me. Welcome to the show. Who are you all right?
Speaker 2: Well, I'm Walker Hayes and happy to be here, and
Speaker 2: I'm here to talk about how important the gift of
Speaker 2: music is to me as just an outside source of therapy,
Speaker 2: but also just a therapeutic, creative way to express myself.
Speaker 1: Were you a fan of specific musicians that you connected
Speaker 1: with early on?
Speaker 2: You know, as a child, my earliest memories of music
Speaker 2: were was the waffle house jukebox, and you know, I
Speaker 2: would I remember being you know, small enough to reach
Speaker 2: up to my dad's pockets and reach in and try
Speaker 2: to find some change in the pocket where he kept
Speaker 2: his keys and his quarters, you know in and you
Speaker 2: know i'd beg him for a quarter.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: As particular type of music, No, as a kid, I
Speaker 2: wasn't just it wasn't one genre. It was just basically
Speaker 2: all music. I do remember I used a lot of
Speaker 2: those quarters to play Willie Nelson's on the Road again
Speaker 2: for some reason, that was a that was a favorite
Speaker 2: for me. But early on, uh, I picked up the
Speaker 2: love of music from my father. He was a he
Speaker 2: was a music minister. But it wasn't just it wasn't
Speaker 2: just church music, you know, at our house, it was
Speaker 2: all types of uh you know, music being played and
Speaker 2: you know him singing and in the car you know,
Speaker 2: and things like that.
Speaker 3: So I just I got a I had a well rounded, you.
Speaker 2: Know, musical education at an early age thanks to him.
Speaker 2: But you know, before there was ever a thought of
Speaker 2: I'd love to do this as a as an occupation,
Speaker 2: as a career. First it just was a healthy, healthy
Speaker 2: love of music.
Speaker 3: It was an escape for me as far as I
Speaker 3: can remember.
Speaker 2: I mean, I self realized. It was a self realization
Speaker 2: that I loved music. No one had to no one
Speaker 2: had to say, hey, you need to give music to try.
Speaker 2: You know, it just was in me. My father was
Speaker 2: a retired music minister. He's sold real estate, but that
Speaker 2: was his first job for his first twenty five or
Speaker 2: so years out of college. And so he would we
Speaker 2: would be in line at Cracker Barel paying our bill,
Speaker 2: and he would just bust out in song. And I
Speaker 2: honestly I was like, I don't know this guy.
Speaker 3: I don't know who that is. You know. I was
Speaker 3: so embarrassed, and I was more more of a shy.
Speaker 2: Took me a while, you know, I had stage fright,
Speaker 2: but I would say without a doubt, my my dad
Speaker 2: was the first person to ever hear me and and
Speaker 2: encouraged me to do it, you know outside my bedroom,
Speaker 2: you know, to to sing in front of people. I
Speaker 2: had a music teacher named mister Powell who put me
Speaker 2: in a play that I didn't really want to be in.
Speaker 2: So between him and my dad, they kind of nudged me,
Speaker 2: you know, on the stage. And and and once I
Speaker 2: did the things that they encouraged me to do, I
Speaker 2: just fell in love with it.
Speaker 3: I mean, my dad, I'll never.
Speaker 2: Forget the first gig I ever played a guitar in
Speaker 2: a bar, he called me on his cell phone. It
Speaker 2: was from a place called the Yacht Club and Mobile
Speaker 2: off DP and it's just this little bar on Mobile
Speaker 2: Bay and he called me and said, hey, I asked
Speaker 2: the bar manager, Trudy, if you could play on Friday.
Speaker 3: And I was furious.
Speaker 2: I mean because I honestly, I was twenty something, I
Speaker 2: was about to get married, and.
Speaker 3: I honestly said, I said, Dad, I'll do this.
Speaker 2: Get He had heard me in the living room and
Speaker 2: he was like, you know, it's hard to believe your dad.
Speaker 2: You're like your dad. If your dad says you're good,
Speaker 2: whatever he's supposed to say, I'm good. So yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: not sure I trusted him, but I said, I will
Speaker 2: do this gig if you'll quit doing that, you know,
Speaker 2: quit pushing me out of my comfort zone. And I
Speaker 2: played that gig and that was the that was the thing.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's that's when I called Laney and I said,
Speaker 2: you know, let's get out of Mobile, Let's let's move
Speaker 2: to Nashville. I want to I want to try this,
Speaker 2: you know, for real. So it's all his fault.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Dad. Speaking of you have a song called
Speaker 1: a Briefcase, which is a narrative about life and work
Speaker 1: and regrets. Can you talk a little bit about what
Speaker 1: that song means to you?
Speaker 3: Yeah, what a great Holy cow.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't have known, honestly, how to talk about all
Speaker 2: these great things you're talking about. And unless you mentioned
Speaker 2: that song, that's a great example of what music means
Speaker 2: to me. I wrote that song when my about two
Speaker 2: months before my dad died, we were losing him. He
Speaker 2: had Parkinson's. This was two years ago and two years ago,
Speaker 2: March twenty second, and I was, you know, as a
Speaker 2: son would do as you're you know, kind of seeing
Speaker 2: your hero whither away.
Speaker 3: You know, you begin to start thinking of regrets.
Speaker 2: You know, you think you start thinking, you know, have
Speaker 2: I told my father how I really feel about him?
Speaker 2: You know now and also at my age, you know,
Speaker 2: my dad and I, his relationship is going through a
Speaker 2: lot of phases, as Briefcase describes. You know, as a kid,
Speaker 2: I was not a fan of my father. I felt
Speaker 2: like I competed with his job for him, and you know,
Speaker 2: there were nights where I'd be playing ball games and
Speaker 2: all I could think about at the game was.
Speaker 3: You know, why am my dad here?
Speaker 2: And that frustrated me and so that briefcase, I didn't
Speaker 2: like it, But expressing that emotion it was like a
Speaker 2: priceless therapy session, you know, to sit down and write, Hey, Dad,
Speaker 2: I didn't really get it as a child. As I
Speaker 2: grew older and began to have kids, I began to
Speaker 2: understand what you were juggling all that you were up
Speaker 2: again as a father, and now.
Speaker 3: I appreciate the job you did.
Speaker 2: And and I basically admitted to my father that as
Speaker 2: a child, I didn't want to be like him. But
Speaker 2: now if anyone says that I remind them of my father,
Speaker 2: it is is a proud, proud moment for me. And
Speaker 2: I am honored that they would look at me and
Speaker 2: say that that I resemble him in any way, whether
Speaker 2: it's the way I look, walk, talk, father anything, And
Speaker 2: so yeah, I mean that again that the writing the
Speaker 2: creation of that song walked me through one of the
Speaker 2: most difficult things I ever endured, you know, as a human,
Speaker 2: which is watching my hero basically disintegrate, you know, go
Speaker 2: from the strongest man I knew, to being reminded that
Speaker 2: we were all. We are all human and eventually our
Speaker 2: bodies fail us. And I watched him leave this earth.
Speaker 2: I mean I was sitting by his side, singing a
Speaker 2: hymn on a guitar when he breathed his last breath.
Speaker 2: And I guarantee you my sister was there with me,
Speaker 2: and I'm sure I played briefcase that day, you know,
Speaker 2: just just sitting in his room.
Speaker 3: So when you talk about I don't know how else
Speaker 3: to say.
Speaker 2: Music means a lot to me, you know, or that
Speaker 2: music has been more so the arm of God around
Speaker 2: me and in some of my deepest, darkest times of
Speaker 2: need for peace and hope and comfort in this world.
Speaker 1: Wow, that is so powerful. Thank you for sharing that.
Speaker 1: You know your music deals with love and loss and anger.
Speaker 1: Do you visualize members of your fan base that may
Speaker 1: be going through something in their life?
Speaker 2: I guess I kind of have this out of body
Speaker 2: visualization of somebody listening to the song alone in their car,
Speaker 2: you know, And I really want them to hear the
Speaker 2: song in the beginning, but kind of leave where they're
Speaker 2: not listening to me anymore, They're not imagining me as
Speaker 2: an artist singing it. I would like them to go
Speaker 2: to a place in their own life and almost forget
Speaker 2: they're listening to me and them think of their own
Speaker 2: experiences and they're like, yeah, I try to visualize, you know,
Speaker 2: my fans being moved, you know, to a moment that
Speaker 2: might be kind of a moment where they were injured,
Speaker 2: or you know, make them think of somebody they love,
Speaker 2: or cut through the pleasantries and get to the heart
Speaker 2: of where someone is, you know, when they're just sitting
Speaker 2: on the highway, you know, alone.
Speaker 1: Walker, thank you so much for being an artist that
Speaker 1: is so transparent in your trials and tribulations, and thanks
Speaker 1: for being here on Music Saved Be.
Speaker 3: Thank you. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2: I wish I could say I'm just a nice guy
Speaker 2: and I love to help people, but selfishly it is
Speaker 2: in creating these things.
Speaker 3: It's just very helpful to me, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's that's how I that's how I open up,
Speaker 2: you know, my heart and get get some stuff out
Speaker 2: and and and share.
Speaker 3: So it's very helpful for me. But I appreciate it.