There are collaborations, then there are COLLABORATIONS. While many bands and artists have paired up with people they admire to work on a song, Hayley Sales can she’s collaborated with a Hollywood icon; in this case, the incredible Sharon Stone who says Hayley is …a true artist” and someone who “…is gorgeous, pure, true: the real deal.” The song they worked on together is Hayley’s latest single, “Never Before”, and PopWrapped caught up with her to find out exactly how the collaboration came about, the artists she’s most inspired by and how the pandemic has impacted her artistic creativity.

Tell me a little about your latest single “Never Before.” Where did the idea for it come from?

For me, romance has always been an extremely important and inspirational part of who I am and how I express myself. And not just that fall in love type of romance, but romance as a way of life. Music has always been a space where I can access that feeling, whether romance was actually happening in my life…or not. When Sharon and I began writing “Never Before”, we wanted to capture just that…that very special moment in life when you’re so in love time stops and every breath feels like velvet. 

You co-wrote “Never Before” with Sharon Stone, and you’re an actress yourself as well. How did you come together on this project and what would you say each other’s strengths and talents are?

An incredible friend, one of the angels of my life, must have shared my music to Sharon. The next thing I knew, I was walking in front of Canters Deli in LA when the phone rings. I answer, mid-bite into my sandwich, “Hi…It’s Sharon Stone.” I almost tripped into the middle of the road. Next thing I knew, I was at her house writing. It was the first and one of the only co-writes I’ve done to this day. It’s funny…you never know how a co-write will go. Especially considering I’ve always believed that I can’t write a song. It has to write itself. I just stay out of the way.

To be honest, I had no idea how a collaboration would go and gave myself about a 50/50 chance I’d seize up and forget how to play piano. But to this day, writing “Never Before” was one of the most inspiring collaborations I’ve ever been a part of, largely because Sharon has an amazing ability to listen to a melody and pull from its notes the meaning, to find the words that perfectly match the feeling surging from within its core – I’ve never met someone with such an innate ability read into my musicality with such eloquence. She dove into my own vulnerability, my own romantic notions and brought out something entirely new. In some ways, she was so comfortable into her own skin, she helped me settle into mine. I just loved the whole experience of writing “Never Before” with her.

I myself have been writing songs since I was eleven or so. The piano knows more of my secrets than any soul on this planet. I’ve spent many nights letting my tears drip between its keys without being able to pull myself together. Now, I’m not sure if it’s a strength, but I find it next to impossible to tell a lie. I’m terrible at faking anything. I guess the plus of that – or minus, depends who you ask – is that every song I’ve written is written because my heart’s belting out the words and melodies. I’ve always been incredibly ambitious and driven, but I’ve never been able to concoct a song merely to comply with the fades and crazes of the music industry. If it isn’t about the art, I don’t know that success would mean anything anyway…All the musicians and performers I love are unabashedly authentic and uniquely bold in their vulnerability.

In “Never Before” I hear influences from classic jazz romance ballads. What made you choose this particular style?

It might sound strange, but I somehow managed to grow up in the 1940s. Clearly, I didn’t really, but in many ways, I had no idea modern music or life existed until middle school. While other kids were watching The Simpsons, I was watching I Love Lucy or Roman Holiday. When I was five years old, I’d heard a recording of Judy Garland and a fuse inside of me ignited, and my passion for that era exploded. I dug in with every facet of my mind, soul and heart. I let the unabashed romantic melodies of that era saturate my every second. I spent every second of the day rehearsing for theatrical productions, musicals, Shakespeare, practicing Gershwin, writing songs, daydreaming about marrying Gene Kelly…only to find out he was a bit too old for me.

In many, many ways I didn’t fit in; I was an outsider, a misfit for the era, and for a while, I didn’t mind. But then I started to care. I tore down all the classic film posters off my walls and hid the entire library of musical films I’d collected. I tried to be what I considered ‘normal,’ quickly developing a tendency to only feel loved through my talents; not that that was true, but I was so insecure. I dug into my career very intently at a very young age. At some point around the age of sixteen, I moved to LA. A record company exec told me my style of music was irrelevant. That I was too dark, to emotive, too different. That I needed to find an angle if I wanted to be successful. I was shattered and impressionable and incredibly ambitious. I put that entire side of myself, all those heart infused tunes, into the closet and conjured up an entirely different version of myself. I found a good deal of success with the lighter, less dramatic tunes I released with Universal Music and wouldn’t change a thing.

However, in the past handful of years, after a searing set of heartbreaks of failures, I’ve come to realize how unfortunate that advise had been. I’ve now made a promise to myself. Starting with this new record, I would become transparent. I would only sing the songs my heart needed to sing. Only write the music I wanted to hear. I’d be the messy romantic that I am…I’d let myself be as intense and dramatic or as happy and elated as I wanted without a filter. It’s incredibly challenging. I’m so riddled with insecurities. I don’t think I’ll ever think I’m good enough, but in many ways, this album kept me alive. The songs on this kept me going.  “Never Before” is the first of these tunes to be released. It’s terrifying…releasing music that strips you down to your core. Because now if people don’t like it, they don’t like me. There’s no veneer left to hide behind. But I wouldn’t have it any other way again.

Is there a particular theme or concept tied to your music?

Unabashed romance and self-exposure.

Who or what most inspires your song-writing, like with/on “Never Before”? Whose songs and albums would you say most influence the kind of music you make?

I don’t even know where to start – everyone from Nina Simone to Queen. There are so many artists who’ve inspired me for so many reasons…Gershwin, Ray Charles, Prince, Elton John, Nat King Cole, The Doors, Billie Holiday, Judy Garland, Queen, Ben Harper, Pink Floyd, The Velvet Underground, Barbra Streisand, Etta James, Glen Miller, Linda Ronstadt, Bob Marley, Otis Redding, Ella Fitzgerald, Paul McCartney, Al Green, Patsy Cline, Diana Ross. I also simply adore cinematic soundtracks; everyone from Henry Mancini to James Horner I loved the Moulin Rouge soundtrack. Really, anything that makes me feel, takes me out of my own world for a fleeting moment.

You spend a lot of your time in Canada. Who are your favorite Canadian bands/artists?

I remember listening to the radio on the long drive to my arts school in Portland, Oregon. There’d be this artist then that artist. But then the static smoothed and the air waves parted whenever Sarah McLachlan’s songs were played. I loved her; her song-writing, her voice – she was an incredible inspiration to me as a young girl wanting to become a musician. Then of course, K.D Lang, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Feist, Celine Dion – her voice is beyond amazing – and Rufus Wainwright. I’ve got this dream of us singing Judy tunes together someday.  

I know you are a strong mental health advocate. Do you have a particular message that you would like to share with others that are struggling with mental health issues?

I have an on and off again relationship with myself. I’m one of the happiest people you’ll ever meet. I’m also one of the saddest. I’m a roller coaster. But as strange as it sounds, I love every facet of feeling. There’s a romance to the highs and also to the lows. Having said that, this past December the sadness won. I was so broken hearted, depleted, hopeless and disillusioned, there wasn’t a single spark left. I’d lost a record to a label. I’d finished a record but couldn’t release it. There’d just been so many obstacles, I couldn’t push them aside to gain perspective anymore. I was so full of tears I could barely breathe. For an entire day, I couldn’t pick my head up off the kitchen table.

Perhaps it was the massive pause button COVID placed on my dreams or perhaps it was my stolen album haunting me and squeezing all the joy out of my truest love, Art…but the world just felt like a room I didn’t fit in. And I couldn’t seem to rally the romantic optimism into the trenches with me. I’d just reached rock bottom. I realized there were two options; staying stuck in that story or choosing a new one. And I forced myself to choose a new one. I began to mediate, something I’m terrible at being an incredibly A type, hyper-anxious person with an incredible tendency towards a 48 – hour workday. I began to daydream and visualize the person I wanted to be. I spent hours in my mind sitting a grand piano on a stage, looking out into the gorgeous sea of eyes in the audience…and would burst into tears of absolute joy and gratitude. I felt such a sense of inner happiness, the state of dreaming became enough.

At first, I thought the elation was simply a result of the daydreaming, that I was imagining my dreams finally becoming realities. And then I realized, it was deeper than that. The happiness was coming from within. That state of joy wasn’t outside of myself, it was inside. And the more grateful I felt about the smallest of things, the more elated and inspired I would feel in my core. I’m not entirely sure happiness is the right word…our society has such a strange concept about what happiness is…but a grace, a levity, a deep sense of gratitude, started to bubble inside my heart. My entire life changed in three months. I can’t even begin to describe how amazed I am.

Having said that, I’ve had a phobia of spinning things ever since I nearly fell out of a roller coaster at seven. I can’t see a spinning sign without losing it. Or blinking lights on parking meters. I’ve even cancelled shows because of curtains swinging…I even hide the clock on my I-phone because I can’t stand the spinning hands that don’t stop. I’m terrified of things I can’t stop. I found my grandmother dead when I was five. Till the age of eleven, I made my mom sleep in the same room as me, terrified of losing her. I suffer from anxiety, stress, insecurities galore, depression, eating disorders…I’ve never thought I was good enough. When I look in the mirror, I can’t see myself. I see what I’m not. I see all the places I’m wrong – all the places, the edges don’t line up. All the imperfections I can’t nudge into perfection. The freckles on the canvas confiscate my vision leaving a menagerie of doubt. I believed this was the only lens I owned – till now.

I’ve been seeing that I can see in a different way. I can see the way my lips curve up when I smile. The way my nose scrunches ever so slightly when I laugh. The way my hips flow from my waist with elegance…and while it isn’t easy, while I still see the slight slant of my nose, the dent in my forehead from a music box, the freckles arrayed like constellations, I can love the small things. My heart beating. My lungs swinging. My fingers playing the keys…I wish more than anything…I wish I could go back years, recollect all the tears, and wash the painful perspective from my eye and even more so from yours. I’d do anything to help you avoid the darkness I owned. The eating disorder that took away the thing I love most…my voice. For a year. I’d do anything to have you realize you’re beautiful! Being alive is gorgeous. Just being alive. In your body. With all your flaws, all your fears, all your hopes and all the pain. You’re alive. Stunning. Elegant. You. Don’t let the filters of social media, of Hollywood, of your own mind filter out the truth of just how unique you are. I hope my music can be there with you through the darkest moments because it’s definitely been the only thing that’s kept me alive. I hope that my story can help you feel less alone with yours.  

With live shows and other events being at a standstill, how have you kept yourself mentally, physically and emotionally healthy during the pandemic period?  How might you say the pandemic perhaps impacted your artistic creativity?

Like the whole world, Covid turned every last corner of my life upside down. I had just finished my album ‘Ricochet’ that March – we got the masters back on March 8^th. For two years, I’d been recording in some quasi-state of self-imposed quarantine, producing, editing etc., the eighteen-tune album. And that was on the coattails of losing my third record ‘The Misadventures’ to UMG when an unfortunate staff turnover occurred. My life had been on pause for over six years. I was beyond ready to hit the road and make up for lost ground. Covid was the last thing I had planned. I found myself back on my parents’ organic blueberry farm on Vancouver Island in Canada. Thought it would only be a month or so. Well…I’m still here.  For the first couple months, I lost it. I became incredibly depressed, anxious I was losing more time, getting old. Started to feel as though my life was a near comical clump of misadventures. And the harder I tried, the further I fell behind.

I sat down at the piano late one night without any real reason. It’s just a place that grounds me. I hadn’t written a song since I was dropped. Something about losing your art makes you not want to create more. But as I sat there in quarantine, there was a certain stillness I hadn’t felt in years. I began to write a new tune about just how lost I felt which wound up being called ‘Let Me Fall Apart.”

                  Let the tears fall in love

                  Let today be enough

                  Let it be

                  Let me fall apart

And then it kept happening. I kept writing songs. It was keeping me alive, keeping some sense of purpose in my frozen life. I decided to pull together every penny and head back into the recording studio on the blueberry farm. I wound up recording ten more songs over the past year. I now realize that my album wouldn’t have been complete before so maybe the forced solitude was a blessing in disguise for me. Don’t get me wrong…I’m so over it. And so ready to be on stage. And so ready to not be afraid to go to the grocery store. And to not have this stress rash on my face…seriously, it’s been there a year. But all in all, 2020 wound up being an incredibly important year of self-introspection for me. It forced me to slow down and find a sense of contentment on my own, something I’m terrible at.  I even pulled out my sketching pad again. I haven’t done that in year; I never let myself take the time. 

Finally, have you started looking to which single you’ll release next? What’s on the to-do/bucket list for the coming months? Any upcoming live performances? 

Earlier in the year, we finished up ‘Ricochet’, the first record I’ll legally be allowed to release in years. Over the next year, we will be rolling out the tunes one at a time and hoping that a couple people out there are moved to listen. I believe the next release will come in July, and I can’t wait. Honestly, I’m just so excited to be able to release music I can’t contain myself. After years of being silenced, I’ve somehow managed to wrangle that sea witch into giving me back my voice and I feel elated. Can’t wait to get back on stage. Hopefully there will be touring, but we shall see how the year unfolds! Otherwise, I’ll be busy with a couple incredibly exciting acting projects I can’t talk about yet, but they’re dreams coming true. 

Check out the video for “Never Before” below and for more information on Hayley Sales, visit her website, give her page a like on Facebook or follow her on Twitter and Instagram.