While it is true that everyone has a story, Hayley Sales' experiences are so numerous and compelling that they almost sound fictional. The Vancouver Island-based singer has a history includes being born in the Washington D.C. projects, interviewing the Dalai Lama, traveling the world, accompanying former Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic to the Seattle WTO protests, and self-penning and producing her major label debut album Sunseed. Sounds like a full life? Indeed, it is. Even more incredibly, Hayley Sales has just turned 22.
In a day and age when many singers have their melodies and lyrics manufactured for them, Hayley Sales is the real deal. Her major label debut, Sunseed is entirely her vision, recorded primarily in her family's Glass Wing Studios. Sales wrote the songs, chose the musicians, contributes acoustic guitar, piano and vocals and is the record's sole producer. As a result, Sunseed is no happy accident. In fact, according to Hayley, it was a lifetime in the making. "I was born in a Washington, D.C. ghetto," she explains, "in a Victorian hippie house my mom had lived in since she was a baby. My father had a basement recording studio where everyone from Miles Davis to rap artists were coming in. Those were the first few years of my lifeI was raised with that music, with the beats and the melodies that vibrated the house - they were the soundtrack I danced and sang to."
As life experiences tend to do, they all contribute to Sunseed. The singer/songwriter is not only a composite of her diverse journeys, she is a longtime music fan, and her style is deeply inspired by the performers that she has loved since she was a child. "l remember first hearing Judy Garland when I was six. Something in me loved it right awayI trained myself to sing listening to her! As a kid, I listened to Judy Garland, '40's jazz, reggae and 60's music, until middle school, when I realized 'oh, there's modern music, too!' I've fallen in love deeply with lots of musical styles, and now they are all mixed in together into my own."
You can hear the multi-generational influences merging together throughout Sunseed, ranging from reggae to jazz to rock. "I respect Dave Matthews, Ben Harper and Jack Johnson so much for what they are doing," Sales enthuses, "for making music that is getting airplay while at the same time bringing the heart of music back into the music industry. That is what I hope to do."
'Maturity' is the biggest brass ring aimed for by so many recording artists, yet it is a quality applied to so few. When listening to Sunseed, it is easy to forget that her vocal maturity, her production choices and the songs themselves belie the fact that you are listening to a new artist. Part of the key to her prodigious talent is the fact that no matter where her and her family lived, music was in the foreground of their lives. Her family maintained a full recording studio in each house they lived in, from her birthplace in the DC projects though to their house in Portland to their current home, an organic blueberry farm on Vancouver Island.
Hayley's time in Oregon allowed her the opportunity to attend Portland's Northwest Academy, a performing arts-based secondary school, where she graduated two years ahead of schedule. After finishing school, Sales moved from the hustle and bustle of the city to a rather isolated organic farm on Vancouver Island. The change was shocking, she admits, but integral to her musical evolution. "I was 16 and went from going to school in downtown Portland to being on an island, where it was basically me alone with myself. I initially hid away and worked on my music, focused on spending time in the studio. I didn't have any friends at first, just played piano and guitar all day and night. Music was my only confidante for awhile."
With plenty of time and creativity, her family nurtured her talents by providing Hayley the tools to work in their home studio, but not the teachings. "My father would set me up and say 'go record yourself' but he would never tell me what to do. I was so annoyed by that initially, but he told me 'I will not teach you, you need to find out for yourself.' I totally respect that to this day, because I got to sit in the studio from 8 at night until 8 in the morning, playing around with the drums, the keyboards, the guitars. As a result, on Sunseed, I was able to co-mix, do the recording, the producing, the engineering, having those skills is really an empowering feeling. I made the album exactly the way I wanted to."
Hayley admits that her time on Vancouver Island has also deeply affected the sound and style of her music. "Sitting on a beach and watching the waves, I'll write a completely different song than I would anywhere else. There's a magic to it, I think. Transferring that inspiration not just through my songwriting but also into the studio, I'd have to say that my music sits back and rides the wave more. Since I have become more relaxed, I realize that there's a different way to live life, to take it easy and live in the moment, to try and look past the superficial things and figure out what makes you as an individual tick." Meanwhile, Hayley enjoys the surf on the Vancouver Island's west coast.
The music that Hayley is creating clearly resonates with a wide variety of audiences, whether via winning "Female Vocalist of the Year" at the Vancouver Island Music Awards or gaining standing ovations at Seattle's Northwest Folk Life festival. Sales' performances are inspiring and infectious; her mission to take audiences on a journey that moves from reggae dance party one minute to a meditative, thoughtful state the next. "Music is an exchange of energies, and I love the exchange. It makes me feel good and inspires me to write music that I hope makes other people feel good."
