Preacher’s son, small town kid, soldier and teacher, Bryan Hayes is now a full-time touring musician. It’s been a long-time coming, but for this Americana artist, it was worth the wait. In May, Hayes released Father Down The Line, his first full studio album since 2006. This collection of twelve tracks (11 originals and one cover) was produced, engineered and mixed by Nashville-based, Grammy Award winner and frequent Guy Clark collaborator, Andy Hunt. The songs reflect Hayes’ love of great Texas songwriters like Townes Van Zandt and Robert Earl Keen, as well as his own twangy, soulful Southern roots in rural Tennessee.
Although Hayes released his first record in 2004, his musical path hasn’t always been a straight one. “I was a late bloomer into music. I really didn’t start playing until I was in college, for whatever reason. I’d always been a music fan, but somewhere along the way in college, a guy next door to me introduced me to those Texas songwriters. The first time I heard Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt, and some of those folks, I immediately went home and brought back my dad’s old guitar and started songwriting,” Hayes recalled.
There was also a slight detour when Hayes voluntarily enlisted in the military in 2007. He was eventually deployed to Iraq. Landing back home in 2010, Hayes “picked up the guitar and was out pounding the ground again.”
So, what made a full-time schoolteacher, husband and part-time, regionally touring musician (about 100 shows a year) decide to join up? “First of all, I’m a preacher’s kid,” Hayes stated by way of explanation. “My dad’s a preacher at a small town church in Brownsville (TN), so I’ve grown up with a real strong faith. On top of that, I come from a very military family. My mom’s dad was a World War II hero; my uncle served in the Tennessee National Guard. There in Brownsville, there were an awful lot of veterans and military families, so I grew up with a strong value for God, country, and family. That’s not unlike many small towns around here.”
After his time in the service, Hayes returned to teaching and playing, loading up on weekends and school holidays to hit the road solo or with his band The Retrievers. In 2014, Hayes played 170 shows. Balancing his music with his day job became a real challenge. “I think I ended up taking about 15 or 16 days without pay last year. I couldn’t do both anymore, so we jumped into the music thing full time. This year we’re on pace to do right at 200 shows, and for me, that’s a good balance.”
Hayes uses any free time to continue work at his recording studio in Moscow, TN, where he now lives. “That gives me enough time at home where I can still take on projects in the Memphis area from a producer or engineer standpoint,” he explained.
For someone who’d always produced, engineered and mixed his own releases, working with Andy Hunt on the latest album was an adjustment, but one Hayes was happy to make. “I can’t overstate the importance of working with Andy,” Hayes said. “This was the first time we’d every worked with an outside producer…It was nice to get that fresh set of ears and that fresh set of ideas.”
While Hayes writes songs about small town, every day life with intimacy and grace, he’s found that his music goes over just as well in big urban settings as it does on the back roads of Tennessee, Oklahoma and Texas. “Even though people might be from LA, they probably don’t live in downtown LA,” he explained. “They live out in this little community. Just like we do in our small town, you get wrapped up in that little community. You’re more involved there, and that’s where your life is. I think everybody relates to some smaller slice of life that’s scaled down. Their own little world where they feel comfortable with their family, their friends and their little environment. To them, that’s their small town, USA.”
