Hunter Hayes

Must be time for Martin Stories, the official podcast of Martin Guitar.

I'm Jimmy Leslie, your host, and today we have a fabulous storyteller who is in the prime of his career, Hunter Hayes.

Now, Hunter Hayes is originally from Louisiana, and the Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter made a name for himself in Nashville pretty much straight away when he moved up there.

He started combining his traditional roots with a pop rock influence to create a contemporary country sound.

His eponymous debut album released in 2011 certified double platinum on the strength of hits such as I Want Crazy, and he wound up winning the 2012 New Artist of the Year award at the CMAs.

And he recently collaborated with Martin top artwork specialist Robert Goetzel to create this really cool top with a mountain nature scene that reflects his new album, Evergreen.

It's full of all kinds of cool riffs and sonic tapestries.

We're going to unravel it all here today with Hunter Hayes.

On the debut album, they had a hand in 10 out of 11 songs, and all three of them co-wrote eight of the songs.

They've also written for other artists, including Luke Bryan, Miranda Lambert, Hunter Hayes, and Darius Rucker.

Hillary co-wrote Sarah Evans' song A Little Bit Stronger, which went to number one.

I'm going to talk about Charles for a couple minutes.

But the next metal, these were two people I wasn't crazy about with their blind auditions, but I was liking Evan's voice a lot more this time.

He kind of was giving me Hunter Hayes vibes, and I like Hunter Hayes' voice a lot.

Luke's tone, it's just like piercing, like not in a bad way, but it really cuts through.

It's really...

What'd you sing?

I sang Wanted by Hunter Hayes.

Singing "One of a Hundred Hates" for like 45 seconds.

[laughs]

Yeah, yeah.

So much of your writing is for you and for your voice, but you do have a catalog of, of music that you've written with and for other artists, like the Dear God song, Hunter Hayes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Am I the only one that finds that weird to propose at work? You know, I proposed at a really cool country concert because that's what my wife and I really loved at the time.

And we would do together, listen to country music, Hunter Hayes, Carrie Underwood.

Yeah, actually, I tried really hard to reach out to the different like the venue and the like the the bands to see if they would either a let me come up on stage, be like put up some sort of, you know, you know, on the big screen, like, you know, my wife's name and then, you know, will you marry me or on the venue thing outside, whatever that thing is called, where, you know, it's like the the marquee.

And they didn't.

... where it's more so, um...

Well, actually, actually John did pick the battle, the battle song Wanted by Hunter Hayes.

Um, but I didn't get to the point where, um, it was more so...

I, I didn't really, I don't r- really know what happens after that.

Cause if we're crazy We gotta be crazy I know that we're crazy So let's be crazy Yeah

Two tracks from Hunter Hayes' album, Hunter Hayes.

In 2013, I Want Crazy, that is, and ahead of that, It Was Wanted.

And we kicked away with Blake White, and I mentioned he was supporting at the moment.