The Bobby Bones Show - BONUS EPISODE: Hailey Whitters Interview

Episode Date: May 25, 2022

Bobby talked to singer/songwriter Hailey Whitters about her journey as an artist. They broke down Hailey’s big move to Nashville as a teenager, what it was like having to pay your dues in a ’10 year town,’ artists she looked up to as a kid, advice for other musicians who are on their journey to becoming a big country music star, her new album and much more!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Make every day feel epic in the all-new Hyundai Palisade hybrid. The Palisade hybrid is packed full of features, cutting-edge tech, and up to an EPA estimate at 619 miles of range on select trims and class-leading interior space. Seating configurations for 7-8 passengers,

available H-track all-wheel drive, so you can be ready to go anywhere in style. Learn more about the Hyundai Palisade at HyundaiUSA.com. Call 562-3-1-4. 4603 for complete details. Let's go. On the Bobby Bones show now, Haley Witters.

Would you have a gigantic belt buckle on? I do, and it keeps falling off. So I was going through my closet yesterday, and I found, because I had played the... Eddie, what was it? What was the festival in Wyoming? Cheyenne. Frontier Days. Frontier days.

So we played that, and they gave us a big belt buckle. And it's huge. never, I'm not a big bellbuckle guy. Yeah, yeah. I would like to wear that some. How, like, how many of those do you have and how do you know when you can pull it off? Well, to be honest, I only have this one, which my, like, creative director and I, we like to go vintage shopping. I love it, by the way.

And she just, like, found this in, like, a little $5 bin, and I wear it all the time now. I like wearing it with jeans and stuff. I just feel like it gives me a waste. But, and then the only other one I have is a dollar. Polly Parton belt buckle that a friend of mine gave me. So I only have two. And I don't know. I just wear on with jeans sometimes.

I wish I could pull it off. I don't think I can pull it off with a pair of Razorback basketball shorts. I don't think I can have the belt buckle. That would be so good. Your style is so cool. Thanks. As far as your clothes go, because you have a very modern but traditional type vibe. And I know nothing about style.

So if I'm wrong, stop me. Okay. Where are you finding this stuff? Um, just vintage stores. Yeah, I mean, uh, my friend Harper and I were kind of too, too broke to pay for a stylist. So we'll just like go to, there's about three stores in East Nashville that we kind of just like to hit. And, um, we'll just go dump, like, grab so many things and, um, you know, pile in the trunk. We'll spend like 500 bucks or something on just a bunch of cheap kind of vintage things. And, uh, you know, that'll kind of last me. I'll wear a lot of hand me downs. A lot of her hand-me-downs. Most vintage things, though, well, it's not all. Our hand-me-downs, though, yeah. Yeah, and I came from, like, a big family, so wearing hammy-downs is, like, totally the thing,

where I come from, you know? So, a lot of hammy-downs, some vintage stuff, some thrift stuff. I buy my thrift stuff off an app, so it kind of defeats the purpose. Where do you get it? Well, like, grayled is a great app that I go to and find a bunch of stuff. Yeah. But if, like, if I'm looking for, like, real vintage, but I'm also using an app to get it. I feel like it equals out.

I should just go to the store. Yeah, I mean, Etsy and eBay, too. You know, we'll go buy like a $40 dress or something on Etsy and then, or eBay. And the trick is just having a really good tailor who can just kind of stitch it up and make it feel like fit your body well and stuff, you know? So yeah, I mean, it's pretty funny. I could take you on a deep dive on some of my wardrobe things and you'd be laughing at it. I was talking to Ronnie Dunn from Brooks and Dunn about because I bought an old school Brooks and Dunn shirt. It was from a tour in the 90s.

And I think I spent like 70 bucks for it. And he was like, you know, what's crazy is that when they broke up for a while, they had to decide who was getting the merch, like in the divorce. And Kicks got the merch and he's like, that was the worst part because now you can sell that stuff for like super top dollar because everything old is like expensive because of the demand for vintage stuff, which is crazy. Holy cow. And like the fact that Brooks and Dunn is vintage is so strange to me.

When I was growing up, and I grew up in Arkansas, I'm a little older than you, but I felt like country music represented specifically about where I was from, being from the South. Growing up in the Midwest, did you feel like country music talked about where you were from? Were there a lot of Midwest artists that you said, all right, they're talking about me and where I am right now? I mean, I don't, I didn't really see much of like the Midwest scenery in country music. You know, it's people like Alan Jackson that like when I heard, remember when for the first time. I was too young to even really understand what he was talking about.

but I could just feel that lyric. You know, I think just like the beauty and simplicity and it just felt like he was talking about life, really. I think probably as far as like Midwest goes, I mean, Mellencamp, you know, when I was in high school, I got... John Mellencamp, as this country as anything else, just a little more electric guitar.

Totally. But now if he came out with Pink Houses or even Jack and Diane, that would be country music. Totally. So he represented the, okay, okay. So John Mellon, anybody else can, when I say Iowa, specifically, are there any artists from Iowa that you're like, dang, they really kind of, you know, they represent us well? So I didn't know of Emily West until I moved here.

But Emily West, she grew up an hour north of where I was. You know, I don't know if I had really an example or someone to aspire to kind of be like that was also Midwestern that I was seeing or hearing on the radio. but I just really loved a lot of the females that were happening. Tricia, the chicks, Martina, Faith, you know, a lot of that music. Do you remember the day you moved in Nashville, the day? You packed up? I don't know. I don't know if I remember packing up.

I remember crossing the Tennessee state line. How old were you? 17. So who's in the car with you? Mom, dad, probably some of my siblings, and I think my high school boyfriend was with me. if you're 17 driving to Nashville, like what are you thinking? Are you going, I can't wait to go, get there, let them see this great artist I am? Or is it like get there? Hopefully I'm, I don't know. What's the mindset of a 17 year old moving to Nashville to make it a music? I just was so excited. I could not wait to get here. I was just, you know, I thought I was going to be noticed so quickly and like be discovered and be the next big thing. And, and, I just imagined, you know, I came down here when I was like 15 and I like walked down Broadway and just seeing all the people busking on the street and stuff.

I'd never seen anything like that. So I was pretty much like, I'm going to get ready to do that. You know, I'm going to go down Broadway. So you knew for a couple years before the movie. Like in your heart, you had it for a couple years. In my heart, I was there. Like, I was coming down. And so I was really excited, really anxious, really excited.

Maybe probably, I don't know if I don't remember being scared, but I mean, I was the first in my family to move nine hours away. I might have been a little bit just like nervous about that, but I was so hungry to be here and just like a fire. I was so excited to be here. So what do you do? You get here. Like I'm just the first two weeks you're here. Yeah. Like what does a new artist do when they moved to town? So when I moved to town, literally I think it was within a day or two, I walked down to Broadway. And I just like walked into something. And I just like walked into some of the bars, you know, I didn't have a car, so I was just walking. And I...

Did you get in a bar? You're 17. How'd you get in the bar? Yeah, but during the day, you could. You could? Yeah, so I, like, walk into Tootseys and the house band's playing. It's probably like 2 p.m., you know? And I'm just sitting there, and, like, Greg Humphrey was the bass player. And he looked like Albert Einstein. He's, like, sitting there playing bass in the band.

And, like, they take a break, and I follow him outside. And I was just like, hey, I'm Haley Witters. Probably something dumb, like, I'm going to be in country music. music someday. And I was like, how do I get a gig here? You know, I grew up on the chick. So long time gone, that verse about like singing on Broadway, living from a tip jar, sleeping in your car. That's what I thought like you had to do to make it here. And so he says, come back on Sunday. We'll audition you. And I came back and, you know, was one of a few people in the audition line or whatever. And you just jump up. And I think I sang suds in the bucket or something. And he said,

cool, come down tomorrow, you can work a shift. And so then after that, I just started playing on Broadway. You know, I'd play at Ripies across the street, play out at the airport. What's a shift, by the way? Is it two hours for hours? Yeah. What do you have to know? It's kind of crazy because they know everything. But what do you, they say to come back tomorrow. Yeah. But how do you prepare to come back tomorrow if you... Well, I'd grown up like singing at bars in my hometown and stuff like that. So, you know, when I was in my hometown, I'm playing three-hour gigs, me and my guitar. So I knew like a bunch of just country covers, you know? And so, and they know a bunch of that stuff too.

So you're jumping up and, you know, you're like, do they know Suds in the bucket? Do they know wide open spaces or, you know, a Loretta song, whatever? And they know it. And then you just jump up and sing a few songs. How long until, because you're doing that, which is very exciting, I'm sure, the first year, six months. But when do you start to go, all right, I'm playing these gigs,

but I'm here, I actually moved here to be my own artist. And while I'm playing these gigs, which I think is, I mean, I think everybody needs to play these. long shifts for a long time because it makes you stronger physically, mentally. It's such a big part of the growth of being an artist. But how long until you're like, all right, I really got to dial in on what I am doing with my voice. And not your singing voice, but like your internal voice. When did that start to be a priority? Well, also kind of when I moved here, I started realizing how much Nashville is just a songwriter town. And when I moved here, you had to be a songwriter

to be an artist. You know, it's kind of these days I feel like you don't necessarily have to, but that's how I thought that was like a stepping stone to becoming an artist. So also, as I'm kind of playing those Broadway gigs, I'm looking in, you know, MySpace to see, like, what the Nashville songwriting venues are. And there was a little place, I think it was called, like, The Crescent was a songwriting little kind of dive hole in the wall, had songwriters in. I booked a show there. I booked a show at White's Creek, Richards, Cafe. and that was kind of like my first full band show, you know, family come down. That's the one I kind of thought I was going to get like discovered in, you know.

And I booked that show and played there. And then, ironically enough, 10 years later, I'm walking in those doors asking him for a job, waiting tables. But I think I knew pretty early on that in order to start getting my artist thing going, I was going to have to be writing songs. So I was going out to shows, riders nights, networking, trying to meet as many riders as possible, and playing as many shows as I could.

The Bobby Bone Show is proud to be supported by Grand Canyon University, an affordable, private, nonprofit Christian University based in beautiful Phoenix, Arizona. They say higher education is outdated, irrelevant. Well, GCU doesn't settle for the status quo. They shatter it. At GCU, academically rigorous, industry-driven programs are built to move at the speed of relevance with practical skills, career readiness, and opportunity for every learner. GCU believes education shouldn't be a privilege, but an affordable path forward for all. Grounded in Christian

truth, GCU works to empower the next generation to lead with integrity, serve with purpose, and help transform their communities, building a future that matters. GCU is purpose-driven education. Take action. Find your purpose at GCU, private, Christian, affordable, nonprofit. Visit gc u.edu to learn more. You know, you've chronicled even through music, you know, the idea of a 10-year town in Nashville being a 10-year town. I think with most creatives, myself included, I'm extremely hard on myself when things don't work.

Yeah. I assume that, because I'm just putting me in your place, that through those years, when you're just getting like little bites. Yeah. And then disappointment. Yeah. Okay, there's a slightly bigger bite. Did you ever go, man, I don't know if this is for me.

Yeah, I think I had blinders on for like the first 10 years. But then it's like that adage. Everyone always says Nashville's a 10-year town. And I was looking at my life when I hit your 10 and I was seeing friends back home. You know, they're on baby two, baby three, buying the house, buying the boat. Like seemed to have so many milestones to show. And I felt like I wasn't at all where I wanted to be yet. And that's when I really started questioning it and thinking about hanging it up and moving back home.

And, you know, it's kind of when I got my last little wind where, you know, I thought, let's make one more record. Is that the conversation? We're going to make one more record. That was a conversation. Like, this is the last one. I'm going to put everything I have into it. I've tried to be country radio. I've tried to be Nashville.

It's not me. I'm going to make one more record and put it. everything that I have into it, all of Haley Witter's DNA. So if I end up, if this doesn't work and I end up leaving, I can at least feel like I did my best and I put everything I had into it. And it just wasn't in the cards. And so that's when I made my record, the dream. And, you know, that's ironically the record that finally got this town to pay attention to me. Isn't that wild? that it was like, because again, I just, I'm projecting a bit because I've experienced this as well, and it's like you try to fit every mold that you think people want to be fitted to.

Yeah. You're like, I'm doing it exactly like, I'm supposed to do it, and still it's not happening. And you're like, screw it. I'm just going to be me. Let it all hang out. And it's like, oh, wow. Yeah. Like, I should have done that's like eight years ago.

I know. That's what I think. That's what I think. I know. I know. So you make this album. And then what was kind of the breakthrough where you go, all right, I got a little traction. holy crap, I may not have to go home.

Yeah, well, so I dropped 10-year town. I didn't have a label. I didn't even have a publicist. I didn't have management. And a bunch of artists started posting about it, just re-sharing it. Marin shared it, Carly, Brothers Osborne, and

that got the attention of a lot of the town buzz in. So then, you know, I had a lot of meetings, stuff like that. And I think it was probably like a few weeks after I dropped 10-year-town that I got a call from Marron Morris to go on her girl the world tour. And that was kind of like, that allowed me to hang up the apron strings, go on the road. And everything just kind of started like spiraling from

there. In a good way. Yeah. In a good way. Yeah. And so I think that's why like, you know, I think Marin really changed everything for me, you know. She got a lot of people to start paying attention to me and to see me. I felt like I'd been here 10 years. Everyone kind of knew who I was. I felt a little like washed up, you know, and I think she like made people see me in kind of a different light. So what is inspiring you right this second because you're, again, a new level in your career. You know, you're still trying to grow, creatively push yourself. Like what's doing it right now for you? Well, I just put out a record.

That was really exciting to get to do. and I've learned kind of throughout this whole experience just focusing on like what is inspiring you, what stories, what songs, what writers, and focusing on that rather than looking around at what everyone else is doing. So making that record again was just like such a soul-filling experience for me and reminding me kind of why I'm here and what I'm doing. A lot of the like girls are inspiring me, you know? I feel like a lot of the girls in the format are just making a big, splash again. I mean, Lainey Wilson, we're going to be on the John Party tour together this summer. And we had our first weekend out last weekend. And I'm just loving what she's doing. And, you know,

she brought me out. We got to have this really fun kind of girl moment on stage and rally the crowd and get the crowd all excited. And so I don't know, there's a lot of cool music being made, I think, right now that's inspiring me in the format. So what advice, let's say there's a 17, 18 year old girl moving to town today. She drives up and she's going to walk into one of these bars and go, all right, I'd like to start playing. Like, what is the advice that you give her as she starts the journey? I would say this town will find every reason to tell you no. Find the reason that makes you want to stay here and chase that and follow that and keep going. I think you're a pretty good one to listen to.

Oh. Yeah. Congratulations. I mean, it's just, you know, everywhere you look. I mean, I feel like I see Haley Witters everywhere now. Really? Holy cow. That's good. You act like you're surprised.

I am kind of surprised. No, no. Okay, so let's talk about the record, by the way. Like the record and the full body of work and why you made this record and what it, like, what it stands for. I think the, like, the mustard seed of this record was kind of starting around the same time. I was actually writing for the last record, you know? I was having those thoughts, those feelings about, you know, my friends back home.

And I was very homesick and nostalgic for that way of life, the way that I grew up, the way that I was raised. And so I was writing a lot of songs that were seeming to take place back there. And we went in, we cut some songs like December 2019 after I'd wrap the Marin Tour. And, you know, it felt like a project. And we had six songs. We were like, let's just do six more, finish it out. that's a record. But the record very much takes place back in the Midwest where I'm from, the people, the place that raised me. I know I would not be here today without them. Those are

the people that supported me, that encouraged me, that pushed me to keep going when I wanted to give up, you know, when I was tired and thinking I should come home. Those are the people that taught me how to work hard, how to hang on, how to persevere. And so I have a lot of like fond memories looking back kind of growing up there and I wanted to shed a little light on that and really kind of showcase the Midwest a little more. And, you know, a lot of the scenery is Midwestern, because that's my perspective. That's the lens I had to look through. But I think, you know, the thing about country music is it's everywhere. You know, it's not just the South. And so I hope when people listen to this, you know, the scenery might be a little different, but I hope it reminds them

of home and the people and the place that raised them and hopefully they have some good memories of that. The album is raised. It's excellent. Thank you. You're also still,

you're doing Heartland Tour shows still? Yeah. And then you're also out with John and Lainey. Yeah. And I'll mention this. You were nominated for Grammy like a songwriter.

Yeah. Which is crazy. Yeah. That was an absolute crazy. Not crazy because it's not true or not deserving, but just anybody that I feel like I know that it's not for Grammy.

I'm like, that's crazy. That's a Grammy. I know. That's crazy. I know. We're a little country bumpkins sitting in the crowd watching Billy Elish just totally kill it. It was, I mean, we were just, it was crazy. Yeah.

Well, I hope you guys spend some time with Haley and her music. I'm a big fan and, you know, keep on, keeping on. I think you're an inspiration to folks who are just trying to make it. It doesn't have to be a music. Yeah. It does. It doesn't. Somebody trying to figure out being a parent.

Somebody figuring out, tried to be, you know, your story is just that of, And you said it again what you'd recommend to somebody. Figure out what you love about it. Like what did it and hold on to that. And don't let people take you away from that. Yeah. Don't let people take you. That's great.

Okay, there she has. Haley Witters. You guys check out Rays. And if she's coming by, your town, go see her because she is an excellent performer. Haley, great to talk to you. Great to talk to you. Thanks for having me, Bobby. The Bobby Bones Show.

Bobby Bones. All right. If you have ever dealt with a traditional home security company, you know the drill. Expensive monthly fees. contracts that lock you in for years and waiting around for a technician to set everything up. It's a lot. Well, now they're SimplySafe. They have completely changed the game.

SimplySafe has no long-term contracts, no hidden fees, no being trapped. They earn your business by actually keeping you safe, not by locking you in. Setting up is so easy. You customize your system at SimplySafe.com. It ships to your door in a few days. And with the app guided setup, you can have everything installed in arm. in under an hour. No technician needed. And it's not just a camera. It's a full ecosystem of sensors, cameras for inside and outside, and 24-7 professional monitoring. If there's ever a break-in,

a fire, or a flood, SimplySafe's agents are on it immediately. They were also named America's best customer service by Newsweek, which honestly tracks. Right now, you can get 50% off your new system by visiting Simplysafe.com slash bones. That's half off at SimplySafe.com. There's no safe like simply safe. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.