I was doing a lot of the creative [stuff], like the album artwork at the same time, and I had this idea and it kind of coincided with the title. I’m going to have an exclamation, like I really just want it to be a known thing. Like, “Hey new generation, old generation, whoever, take a listen to this stuff.” I put a lot of hard work into it, it’s organic and raw, and has a lot of elements that I’ve grown up with, as well as being very modern and fresh. I just want people to give it a listen.
We don’t usually hear about singers coming off of Idol having a lot of creative control initially, but it seems like you have taken your project by the reins. How did you approach making this record with your recording team?
Starting off with tour, I knew in my heart that for me to be all over this project, which is the biggest thing of my life, having an album, being given this opportunity, I didn’t want to waste it or let it slip beneath me to do other written material. I wanted to be completely hands on with the process, and it went really well. I’m lucky to say that they let me wait until after the tour, and as soon as I got off tour and moved to L.A. and hopped right into the writing process. I flew all over the city and did a lot of speed dating for about three months and wrote the whole album – wrote about 30 songs in that period of time. It went really smooth.
When you’re starting to brainstorm a new song, do you usually start with the lyrics or the melody?
First and foremost, I like to fill out what I’m going to be talking about. I like telling stories. I think words are just as important as the melody, but they need to make sense and they need to have substance to them. They need depth.
Melodically, melodies always come very, very easy to me. Words do as well, I’ve been writing poetry since I was really young, but at the same time when you’re co-writing, the lyrics really need to come from both ends. Melody-wise, my melodies pretty much stuck through with all the material, because it just comes to me really quickly. I probably owe that to The Beatles and a lot of the great musical geniuses that I grew up listening to.
Article comments
1 - Gil King
Very informative and interesting interview. Thank You...
I see Haley hitting it big in her young career based on who she is and how she'd driven to share all of that phenominal talent and soul.