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The acclaimed producer serves up a dance music haven on his new full-length…
Producer magnate Hayden James is no stranger to a bumping dance floor, the Sydney born-and-bred muso soundtracking them for over a decade now. His affinity for those arenas of groove has taken all the way from World Bars and Candy’s Apartment in Kings Cross to prime billing at the likes of Coachella, EDC, Tomorrowland and more, all while ticking off pretty much every major Aussie festival along the way.
His latest album LIFTED sees the veteran producer double down on his house music roots for a high octane exploration of movement. It’s so well-suited for dance floors you’d expect it to have been written on tour, in between international layovers and tinkered with in festival greenrooms. But, as with many artists over the past couple of years, it’s a project born of lockdowns, a love letter to the festivals, sold out shows and collective experiences we’ve been robbed of the past couple of years. But with the return of live music in full swing and the worst of everything behind us (touch wood), there’s no better time for LIFTED to be out.
We caught up with the globetrotting producer to chat LIFTED, his return to the touring circuit and the responsibility of playing live shows right now. Check it below
Congrats on the album and everything you’ve got going on at the moment! How does it feel to be in album rollout mode, after all the craziness of the past couple of years?
It feels awesome. It’s pretty wild because it’s all starting again. So it’s just about readjusting to that mindset again. Even going to the States for only 10 days to play a bunch of shows after being home for so long.
It’s just a bit of a mindfuck to be honest, but it feels good. And the next show is Coachella which I’m super pumped for.
I saw an Instagram post of yours the other day from Miami where you wrote “I’ve never drank so much tequila in my life.”
That was from Miami Music Week. Imagine every one of your favourite DJs you’ve ever even wanted to go and see, all within a kilometre of each other. There’s 40 parties a night there and you can just bounce between them all. It’s a lot. Whenever you go and say hi to someone they’ll be like, “Shot?” And of course, you’re like “Yeah, sure!”
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You started writing this album in late 2020, when the return of gigs and live music felt really far off. Yet, despite that, there’s a lot of hope and positivity present throughout it. How did you get there, when there wasn’t necessarily a lot of either back then?
Great question. Obviously we knew we would come out of this eventually, and that’s what I was writing about. I’ve got a little studio in my house and I just wanted to envisage playing this stuff to a big crowd one day and that’s where the hope came from.
And regarding the positivity, I’m a pretty positive guy [laughs]. Yeah, I just knew that we’d come back one day and I wanted to put that into a whole album. And I’m really happy I’ve got another album now because I’ve done a lot of singles. We released a bunch of singles in the pandemic that were weird as well, because we couldn’t exactly test them out with crowds. So you don’t know if people are really connecting because you just don’t have those live shows.
And you’re supposed to listen to the album from the first track to the last. It all makes sense as one big story, so it feels really good when you listen to it in one go. There’s even a bunch of album tracks that I wouldn’t necessarily release as singles that I feel are super strong. Like ‘On Your Own’ Elderbrook and Cassian is the third single. We weren’t even going to release that as a single but it just got smashed in the UK. So yeah, it feels really good to see how hungry people are for more music than just your usual single, which is great.
Just on that note of the Cassian and Elderbrook collab, the three of you together sounds like an absolute supergroup. What was it like having all of those creative energies together on one track?
So good, man. I initially wrote that instrumental way back in early 2020 and I had a bunch of people like Boy Matthews on it. That’s what I do. I write a bunch of stuff and send it out to people that I’ve worked with or people that I’d like to work with and just go from there. And with ‘On Your Own’, I sent it to Elderbrook not that long ago, and he came back with exactly what he sings on the final track. And I was like, “Holy shit, this is such a vibe.”
And with Cassian, he and I obviously work together a lot. He helps mix my records and does a bit of production with me as well, but we’ve never released anything together publicly. So I was like, “Let’s do this one together.” I think I’ve even got a video of him coming up with that vocal part while he was just going off the instrumental. Two hours later I was like, “Wow, that’s it.” And from there it took another week to finish and that was it. It was really good. Really quick and great energy.
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This album is full of collabs which is clearly a huge strength of yours. In doing those collabs, have you taken away any realisations or revelations about music and songwriting?
Great question. Sometimes I get sent ideas from vocalists or other producers, and if it’s over halfway done I’ll be like, “I don’t want to jump on this because it didn’t come from me and it doesn’t feel like me.” You know what I mean? So, I either need to be there at the beginning of the idea or very close to the beginning. So if someone sends me just a vocal without any instrumental, that’s also really cool because that’s how ‘Something About You’ and ‘Just A Lover’ came about. I just chopped up stuff started making them my own, while singing my own stuff on it as well.
So it’s a bit of everything. But I definitely learned a lot this time around, especially as we wrote a lot of the record on Zoom. I had a couple opportunities later on in the project where I could be with people and write in person, which was incredible because you just connect straight away. But over Zoom, you just get used to it. Everyone’s had to of course but I’m looking forward to not having to do sessions like that again [laughs].
You start the tracklisting with ‘Lights Go Down’ which is a really funk and bass-driven track. Listening to it I instantly got an image of literal lights going down at a show before you kick things off. Was that on the mood board for the track?
That was probably the quickest one to write because it felt so natural. I was with Dylan in the studio, who’s one of the SIDEPIECE guys in LA. And we both had a bunch of ideas. So Boo Seeka is singing on that one and I’m singing on the chorus. I wasn’t trying to recreate what he was doing, but it was real ‘Just Friends’ vibes. We drew from east coast Australia and west coast America. Just real beachy, chill, fun and not too aggressive. It felt really nice and it came together in two hours.
Just on the note of ‘Between Us’, it was a smash record and it was so long in the making. After coming off a huge success like that, how did you reorient yourself for LIFTED?
It was just about thinking about what I wanted to hear from the crowd perspective and trying to balance that with what the next stage for me is. For me, it like after the world tour of Between Us in 2019. I really loved it and I love that record, but I wanted more energy from my side of the show. So I wrote to that and that’s why the album’s called LIFTED, I just wanted more energy. And when you listen to the record, you immediately notice how far the BPM has risen for the tracks. LIFTED is definitely more of a dance record and there are no ‘Numb’ moments on there.
Another difference is the playing of the live show itself. I’ve spent the last three months on the live show and I’m still finalizing it. I’m playing it really differently this year. I’m actually able to play the album and the whole live show differently every night. So if you came and saw me one night and then the next, it’d be a completely different show, which I find not only great for people coming to see me, but also for me. Touring’s a lot and it can be hard at times, you’re away from family and it costs a lot of money. So, I just wanted the most out of it for me so I’d feel energized on the stage, which you feel when you’re in the crowd.
Just on that note of energy in Sydney, Flight Facilities mentioned in our chat recently that the energy they’ve been feeling on the streets and at gigs as of late is unlike they’ve ever felt before. Do you feel the same?
Big time! You know what really is exciting to me is that there are kids at these festivals or that’ll be at your own show that have never been out to a gig before. Like think about it, they might’ve been 16 or just about to turn 18 when the pandemic hit. No one’s gone to any shows for two years.
And so, the idea that someone coming to see you might be going to their very first gig or it might be their first in years… that energy and attitude is just totally palpable. So yeah, it feels really good in Sydney and Melbourne. And obviously we’ve announced the Aussie tour, so I’m pumped to play big shows in Australia for the first time in ages. I’ve played a bunch of festivals here and there, but it just feels so good man. It’s going to be great.
That’s an interesting point you raise about it maybe being someone’s first gig. Is there a sense of responsibility that goes with that, in indoctrinating someone into live music in a sense?
Absolutely. That’s why I spend so much time on the live show. It’s not only about what you hear, but what you see as well. I’ve been working with a lot of people that I’ve worked with previously, but also new people, just in terms of the production and and how we bring LIFTED to the stage.
Obviously there are budgets and stuff to consider, but I don’t really consider those [laughs[. I just look at everything. My business managers are always like, “You idiot” [laughs]. But yeah, it’s a good pressure. I feel really honured and excited to bring a show to people that might be their very first.
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You link up with Xavier Dunn on ‘Down On Me’, who’s a bit of a dark horse and silent hero in the Aussie music scene. What was it like collaborating with him? I see a lot of parallels between you two.
He’s such a legend. We actually got to write together in person for that one in between lockdowns. It was when we had like a month where we were like “so are we back to normal?” And then of course it was like “no, we’re not” [laughs].
So, there were two times where we actually got to hang out and write in the studio together. And we probably wrote six or seven songs, but that one was always the one for me. It’s very performative too. And I love Xavier’s vocal as well. As you said, it feels like me too. So that’s really good.
I’m really excited. I wrote maybe 35 – 40 tracks for this album and just chose the nine that I wanted. And that was the last one that I chose literally 24 hours before I turned it in. And I was like, “No, that’s the one.”
You end the album with ‘I Won’t Let You Down’ which is obviously a track about a loss you recently suffered. It’s a very fitting way to ground an album so full of highs. Was it always going to be the closer?
So that one was one of the last songs I wrote on the record. I wrote it when I was in quarantine. I did a bunch of shows in October and then I came back to Australia. And yeah, I lost a really good friend and I came back into quarantine in Sydney by myself and I was just full of emotion, so it came out really quickly.
And I wrote it with a friend in Melbourne who I really connected with on it, so it feels really organic and natural. And then I got Jem Cooke on it too whose vocal really soars and is just totally beautiful. So I feel like it’s a really positive record, even though it came from a sadder and darker time.
As you said, everything on this record is very purposefully placed in terms of the track listing. How did you go about ordering the songs and what was that throughline you were trying to achieve, whether it be a narrative or overarching theme?
It’s super important to figure out how you want people to digest a record. It is honestly about making three or four different tracklistings and then going for a long drive. And it’s also about asking yourself “What feels natural?” Because at the end of the day, it’s about what’s in my gut. I obviously listen to people and I’ve got people that I trust and love, but at the end of the day I need to be happy with it.
Like with ‘Lights Go Down’, for example, I felt like it was such a strong record and was going to be a great streaming record. So it was naturally a good one to start with and it gets quite energetic really quickly. And then we get a bit darker with ‘Free’ featuring Boo Seeka, and then we build it back up with ‘LIFTED’ with Tudor, and then we end with ‘I Won’t Let You Down’ with Jem Cooke. So yeah, it feels like a nice progression to me.
How does the LIFTED the album and the new live show that you’re creating for it both rank in the evolution of Hayden James?
As we said before, it’s a fresh vibe for me, coming from Between Us, especially how that record was written compared to how this one was. And in terms of the live show and touring, I toured the world for six months for Between Us and just in terms of how I felt when I finished that tour… you just get to a point where you’re like, “What do I want?”
Obviously the most important thing is delivering and having something amazing for the crowd, but you’ve also got to feel really great while you’re up there, and I think that aspect is very infectious. The first show that I’ll be playing with the album is Coachella, so I’m going to be really nervous. But I think there’s going to be really big energy as well for me on stage.
Lastly, if there was one word to describe the album as a whole, what would it be? Besides ‘LIFTED’ of course.
‘Lifted’ is the word for sure. I don’t want to say emotive, but I am that guy. I’ve always written about love and relationships and just my own personal situations. There’s definitely more than one word to sum it up, but I suppose it’s more about coming out of that lockdown period. It just feels natural to be lifted, to be more emotive, and free.
Hayden James’ new album LIFTED is out now. You can buy/stream it here.
