Hailey Blais

Interview by Erica Tello x Photos by Morgan Winston

Haley Blais is a Vancouver-based artist who has been connecting with fans through music and an online community documenting her life on YouTube since 2016. Her 2020 debut album, Below the Salt, chronicles an anthology of feelings through her anthemic songwriting.  From self-acceptance to the first stages of a relationship, Blais covers a series of autobiographical events of her life on the record.

Excited to talk! I saw you perform recently at SXSW and at Baby’s All Right and I was so happy to see your tour in the US! What was your SXSW experience like? Was it your first SXSW?

We had all of our shows in such a concentrated time at SXSW, and then we saw a lot of cool shows too. I love Austin and always enjoy going there. 

How did your music journey begin? When did you begin to play? Were there any artists in particular that made you want to pursue music?

I’ve always been singing. I took classical voice lessons from my childhood until I was 18. That was always kind of with me, but it had a lot of restrictions. I felt like I was doing something wrong if it wasn’t classical music. When I was 18 and coming into my own,  I wanted to try my own thing after that. This is funny. When I was 13, I thought I discovered Bob Dylan. Funnily enough, he inspired me. When I was really trying to write my own stuff after I quit classical, I was really inspired by Andy Shauf. He’s another Toronto-based musician, and I love the way he writes songs. I realized that you can write songs like stories that aren’t real? I was like “great because I don’t have any real life experience yet.”

Below the Salt seems like an autobiographical album, but you’ve also said a “coming of age story that recognizes that there is no real coming of age.” Are there any key events or experiences that impacted the making of the record? 

It’s all inspired by a nuclear family, my parent’s divorce and my brother starting his own family. When one family ends in the marital sense, another one immediately begins. I’m in the middle of being like “what’s happening?” I’m getting older and being in a relationship, I start to think about if I want to start a family too down the line.

How long has the archive of songs for the album been in the works? 

I wrote most of the songs in about three months, one after the other. The rest of the songs were written in a week. It’s conceptual, so it made sense that I spit it out and added a little extra at the end.  They were on the backburner for a year, and then in 2022 we recorded them.  

“Matchmaker” is about the first stages of a relationship. Can you tell me more about that? 

“Matchmaker” is about me kind of flexing that I’m in a loving and stable relationship, and I always feel good and happy in it. I start to second guess myself that it’s too good to be true. You start over analyzing things that are ridiculous. My partner is Jewish, and in their culture if the woman is not Jewish the children in the family are not Jewish in the eyes of God. I’m like that’s going to do it or break it, but I’m being delusional.

The video for the song was directed by your partner too, right?

Yeah, it was made by just the two of us. It was an intimate look inside our relationship. It’s a home video with scenes where we frequent a lot in our life. It’s very personal.

What was it like collaborating with him? 

Oh, we hate it and it’s so hard (laughs). No, I love collaborating with Jake because he has great ideas, and he is super talented. We’re both such control freaks that I think this was the only environment it could work where it’s just us on set yelling at each other. It was really fun. He also shot the video for “Be Your Own Muse” and “Coolest Fucking Bitch In Town.” He directed both of those, and then I directed him for “Survivor’s Guilt” meaning I just told him to dance in one take. I love monetizing our relationship. 

Speaking of “Be Your Own Muse” channels a radical acceptance of yourself and being okay with not feeling the pressure to change. Did any experiences happen that made you want to write the song? 

I wrote it at a time in my life when I was feeling very secure and officially fine at that point. In my early 20’s, I just wrote about being okay and willed it to be.

What things help fuel a creative headspace for your music?

That’s a great question that I’m trying to answer on my own time, because I’ve always struggled to sit down and try to work. Sometimes when I’m walking around, I’ll think of an idea for a song. So maybe I just need to be moving in nature? Let me touch some grass, and then I’ll write a song? I was just talking to a bandmate about it because I don’t think we’ve written a full song in like two years because I’ve been very content and at peace lately. I think a lot of my art came from me being quite tortured, to be frank, and pining for things. I feel really settled right now, but it’s not great for my career.

It’s great for your mental health for sure though. 

Yeah, give me some obstacles that I can’t overcome, and I’ll just write about it and process later.

What do you think inspired your nostalgic sound on Below the Salt?  

The only music that I religiously listen to is anything that would have played at Lilith Fair in the ‘90s. I wanted to emulate a singer/songwriter you were listening to in the back of your mom’s minivan. Twenty years later, you think “how do I know all the words to these songs?" You’d just think “oh yeah this is ingrained in me” so my favorite genre of music is recollection songs. I was trying to emulate that by listening to Sarah Harmer, Sarah McLoughilin, and Sheryl Crow. When you’re a kid, the songs get stuck in your head. When you’re an adult and you look back, you think that it’s so beautiful and inspiring, so I wanted to create something like that.

How has it been touring with Georgia Harmer and Katie Tupper? I felt like I witnessed a special bond between you three. I loved the bill at Baby’s All Right seeing a spectrum of artists who cross between genres yet all have very unique and enthralling stage presence.  

It’s been great. They’re both so talented and so inspiring. I think I have age blindness because I think everyone is 29. Even though they are a little younger than me, I am just so in awe of their energy and talent. It’s really refreshing seeing people a little younger than you doing the same thing as you. I feel like there’s going to be great things coming from them, and I really loved being on the road with them.

Are you on tour right now? 

I’m back in Toronto now and then going home tomorrow until we go back on the West Coast tour in July.  I got the tour bug back! I wasn’t always a huge tour fan for a while because I’m a homebody and miss the familiarity of my routine. Ever since SXSW and the tour in the UK, I’m like “let’s get back on the road!”

I saw your project, Babe Corner, is also going on tour soon too. Can you tell me more about that project? 

It’s going to be a fun, long tour. I pretty much lied and said I could play bass so Lindsay would let me in. Everyday I forget I can play bass, but I only know Babe Corner songs. It’s really refreshing being in a project where it’s not your blood, sweat and tears. It’s more like I’m here having fun. It’s Lindsay’s passion project, and I love being part of it. It’s very collaborative, loving and nice to take a back seat and feel like a band member. I never knew what it was like to just be a band member.

After seeing you perform at Baby’s All Right in New York, I was captivated by your on stage banter and storytelling. Where do you think you got that skillset? 

I have this delusion that everyone coming to a show is there to suss me out as who I am as a person. Like whether I’m funny and personable, rather than my songs that I’m supposed to be playing. It’s so not true, because everyone is there to hear the music. I don’t have to have a monologue and juggle. 

It seems so natural to you and your personality shines on stage. You’re doing something right for sure. 

Coolest Fucking Bitch is a perfect scream-into-your-pillow song to me.  I love seeing the crowd interaction during the live performance. What does that song mean to you and how does it feel to have people connect with it like that? 

It feels so great. It’s my favorite part of the night gauging how loud the crowd can get at the end and really goes for it. That song means a lot to me. It’s my favorite song off the album or one of my favorites. It encapsulates the themes of the story I’m trying to tell and how I was feeling when I was writing it specifically and who I was as a person. If I was to show you one song that captures the album. I’d say it’s “Coolest Fucking Bitch in Town.” I’m really proud of it. 

Survivor’s Guilt is an upbeat tune, but with some melancholic lyrics. How did you decide to pair these lyrics with the contrasting mood of the song? 

I originally wrote it as a slow piano ballad. I really leaned into the sadness, but my producer, Dave, thought it could be a little faster. He sent me a demo and it’s what you hear now. I felt like I was so wrong, and it felt right when he honed into this energy. I loved the sunniness of a Sheryl Crow song that it has. It feels like a beachy, summery vibe talking about how my dog died.

Besides music, what occupies your time? What else do you love to do?

I’m kind of a perfume head and a bit of a fragrance freak. It’s a new hobby and an expensive one.  My favorite sense is smell. Since smell is so intense, I try to write a song that makes you feel like smelling a memory makes you feel. That’s what I love about perfume is that the smell can transport you to a time. Like smelling the roses from my aunt Shelly’s house on the beach when I was 4. I think that music aligns pretty well with also setting a scene of a place and time.

What’s your favorite scent? Any scents you’d recommend?

Go onto fragrantica.com and type in the chords like bright, zesty, vanilla, sweet gourmand or spicy, dark. Right now, I’m into scents that smell like a memory. I’m into the smell of rain on the pavement. One of my favorite perfumes I own smells like a musty life jacket, and it’s my favorite perfume ever.  When you spray perfume on yourself or different things, it smells different because of the pH of your skin. To me, it smells sweet, salty and marine, and I like it. If you don’t like it, then I don’t really care (laughs).  I’m on fragrance Tik Tok and I get all of my recommendations from there.

What made you want to start vlogging on YouTube? Have you done any vlogs about perfume?

I’m still learning about fragrances and kind of want to keep it to myself. I think I love vlogging for the creative process, and I can have creative control. I reflect back on that everyone wants to hear me talk and what I have to say which is delusional maybe. I thought it could be a fun place to put music. I can be a director, writer, editor, and the star of the show.  I like being a jack of all trades and that it’s my space.

Anything else you want to share with readers and listeners?

We are working on releasing new songs for my album coming out this September. We’ll be on the West Coast in July. I’m stoked to be booked and busy, movin’ and groovin, and singin’ and… wingin’.

Besides perfume, anything else you’re loving lately and want to recommend?

I recommend listening to the New Lemon twigs album. My TV recommendation is “The Other Two.” I’ve also been drinking more Red Bulls than I should, which may be a non-recommendation.  That’s my life right now.