Haley Heynderickx im Interview

Frühlingspoesie zum Winteranfang

29. November 2018 / Verity Eaden / Foto: M94.5

Für Haley endet gerade ein wahnsinnig aufregendes Jahr ihrer noch sehr jungen Karriere. Im März hat sie ihr Debütalbum I Need To Start A Garden veröffentlicht und tourt seitdem ziemlich eifrig durch die Weltgeschichte. Trotz ihres plötzlichen Erfolgs bleibt Haley dieselbe sanfte und poetische Persönlichkeit, die man sich von ihren Songs erwartet. Sie fühlt immer noch die unveränderte Verbundenheit zu der Musikszene in ihrer Heimatstadt Portland und weiß wie wichtig es ist mit Leuten zusammen zuarbeiten, die einem am nächsten sind. Haley zeigt uns bereits in ihren Songs eine einzigartige Perspektive auf die Welt. In diesem Interview geht es zudem darum, was für sie sowohl privat als auch musikalisch eine wichtige Rolle spielt.

You have a lovely and uniqe outlook on life that comes through in your music. Did you always have this creative outlook on life or is it something that has developed recently?

I just journal a lot and I enjoy the tiny details. A lot of the artists I like accentuate a lot on tiny details, like Hayao Miyazaki and his films. I think the world is very over stimulating. There’s so much junk around, we have so much media, we are constantly being sold things everywhere we walk. For me, getting to close off as much of that as an illusion as possible, and finding tiny details that feel very real, is important. Like, finding a baby Praying Mantus oh my drummer Philip’s jacket at a tiny rest stop. It’s moments like that that I remember, rather than walking through these huge cities and seeing so many shops trying to sell you the same thing across the world. It’s outstanding.

Your debut album I Need To Start A Garden came out in March. There is obviously a very prominent theme of nature throughout the record. Do you think our connection to nature is particularly important?

Yes, and I think it’s dwindling. I think it’s dying. I can only speak for myself obviously but I know a lot of us, when we are brought up in more rural towns, there’s this dream to get to the city and find yourself. But now, seeing and meeting more and more young people I have been seeing that almost moral decay, where we’re not seeing the outside enough. We are addicted to screens, we have a high rate of depression amongst our age and I think we are becoming disconnected. My garden actually died because I’ve been on tour non-stop since March, which is the irony of the tour. But I feel like something inside me is spiritually growing and I’ve been taking breaks to be in nature within that. I think I’m still learning from that title.

You are signed to the independent record label Mama Bird Recording Co. Do you think working with an independent label is more beneficial for an artist than a more commercial one?

Oh, hell yeah. It depends on your moral system, how you persue music and what you want out of it. For me, I just wanted to work with people I love, people I can look in the eye and say „I trust you“ and see what we can make together. It would kind of break my heart to just have an email relationship with someone. Just emailing someone that I hope is changing my life and I’m hoping I change theirs, it just seems insincere. But yeah, I get to work with people from my hometown that I love and support. Working with the people you love, I think in any circumstance, is always the way to go if that’s an option.