We recently chatted with Hailey Verhaalen, an artist whose voice and music stand out from her peers. Her journey from Portland to Nashville led her to learn a few things about the city and the music industry alike.
As a woman in country music, Hailey is pushing for change in the industry. We discussed the lack of a female presence on country radio and at festivals and Hailey shared some of her thoughts on that topic, as well as her experience in Nashville so far.
CE: Tell us about how you decided to make the move to Nashville. How has it been so far?
Hailey: I graduated college in 2015 and I was playing local venues and summer festivals in my hometown of Portland, Oregon. I recorded my second EP in 2016 and after we released that, I was kind of like, “Okay, what’s next?” I got to the point where I felt like it was time to do something bigger than this. I really wanted to be writing more and playing for new faces.
I’ve always been a real big momma’s girl and a homebody, so the thought of moving anywhere outside of Oregon… I never thought I would do it. And then I decided in January of 2016 that I would make the move and later that year, I ended up deciding on October. And moved down, and I’ve been here ever since, just absolutely loving it, writing music every day trying to play out as much as possible and figure out what venues to go to and new places to play to. And just really get here and do what everyone says you have to do- networking and meet the right people and having a positive attitude because there’s a lot that goes on in the music industry that’s very discouraging and as we were talking about with radio and being a female, it’s been really hard to break through that. It’s been a really fun journey to learn a different side of the industry, rather than just staying in my hometown.
CE: What has surprised you most about being in Nashville?
Hailey: I would say it’s how much networking – networking is like the most important thing you could ever do. Sometimes it’s not even about how talented you are, or not about your voice or how well you play guitar, it’s who you know. So I was really shocked that you really do have to get out there and apply yourself a whole lot more than I thought that I was going to have to, not that I didn’t want to do that. I was just shocked at how much it’s about who you know to kind of break through certain scenes.
I was also shocked about how one-sided it is towards the males in the industry. And as we were talking about, you listen to country radio and there’s one girl in the top 40 and everything else is just bro-country. That’s a bit discouraging but it gives you a little bit of hope knowing that there are so many girls out there who want to change that.
CE: Tell us about your songwriting process.
Hailey: It’s different literally every time I write. Sometimes I’ll just be walking around the house cleaning and I’ll be humming something I’ve never heard before that I kind of came up with on the fly. So sometimes I start with the melody and just hum it into my voice memos and think “ok, what kind of song is this? Is this a love song? A sassy song?” So I might want to come at it from that angle, or you know, I’m driving down the road and I see a sign that sparks an idea in my head and I’ll write it down and revisit it later.
Moving to Nashville, it’s such a co-writing town, everybody cowrites. I was really nervous to go into that because it’s such a vulnerable thing to do, you know, knowing that your ideas could be shut down, or you don’t want to sound stupid. Once I started co-writing and really getting into what it’s all about, I’ve really started to enjoy it. It’s like you go into a writers’ room and there’s a puzzle and everybody brings a couple different puzzle pieces and you’re constantly picking these pieces out of the box and trying to figure out where they fit. That’s the best way for me to explain songwriting. There’s a big picture and you just have to figure out how to get it to be that picture. It happens differently every time. For me, anyway.
CE: How do you choose whom you want to write with?
Hailey: When I first moved here and started out, I was playing a bunch of writers’ rounds. I didn’t know anybody, so at the writers’ rounds, I would hand out a bunch of business cards. I would be like, “Man, I really liked her writing style” and after she would get off stage, I would just walk up to whoever that was and say “Hey, I really liked your song, would you like to write sometime.”
Hailey explained that a lot of the connections in Nashville begin with a cowrite, whether it’s the people you hang out with or play with, people in Nashville tend to be very willing to connect and write with one another.
CE: When did you know that you wanted to be a singer for your career, instead of just for fun?
Hailey: After college, I graduated and I had the freedom to choose what I wanted to do and where I wanted to be. When I do music, I don’t feel like I’m working, so that’s how I knew I wanted to do it as a career.
CE:If you could perform a duet with anyone, who would it be and why?
Hailey: Miranda Lambert! I heard one song off of her Kerosene album and just fell in love with it. I just look up to her and her badass persona, she doesn’t care what people think. She’s a great role model for all females in country music.
Hailey is currently playing shows around Nashville and Portland. She’ll be headlining an all-female show in Portland on April 18! More information is available on the Ponderosa website.
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