Hunter Hayes

About Hunter Hayes

Hunter Hayes was born in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana in 1991, and unlike most artists who claim they've been doing this since childhood, he actually has the receipts. He was performing Cajun music before he hit double digits and appeared on national television multiple times as a kid, including Nickelodeon and the Rosie O'Donnell Show. By his teens, he'd already released independent albums and was playing pretty much every instrument he could get his hands on.

He moved to Nashville while still in high school, got a publishing deal, and started doing the songwriter thing. But Atlantic Records saw something else in him and signed him as an artist in 2010. His self-titled major label debut came out in 2011, and "Wanted" became the kind of country radio hit that follows you around for years. It went five times platinum, which in the streaming era seems almost quaint to mention, but this was right at the tail end of when that still happened regularly.

The thing about Hayes is that he produces his own stuff and plays practically everything on his records. On that first album, he had credits on nearly every instrument listed. Some people found this impressive. Others found it a bit much. His brand of country pop was radio-friendly in that early 2010s way, clean and polished, appealing to the crowd that made Taylor Swift a phenomenon but wanted to stay in the country lane.

His second album, "Storyline," dropped in 2014 and included "Invisible," which he performed at the Grammys. He was nominated for three Grammys total across his career but didn't win any, which pretty much everyone expected given how those things tend to go. "Storyline" debuted at number one on the country charts but showed diminishing commercial returns compared to the debut.

After that, things got complicated. He released "The 21 Project" in 2015 as this experimental idea where he put out a new song every week for a while. It was ambitious in concept but didn't exactly set the world on fire. His third proper studio album, "Wild Blue," came in two parts in 2019 and 2020, and by then he'd moved to an independent label situation with Warner.

These days Hayes is still making music and touring, though he's not the radio fixture he was a decade ago. He's built a loyal fanbase that appreciates the multi-instrumentalist thing and his earnest approach to pop-country. He's also gotten into advocacy work around mental health and anti-bullying, which connects back to "Invisible." Whether he's plotting some major comeback or comfortable in his current lane is hard to say, but he's consistently working, which is more than a lot of artists from that era can claim.

Hayes runs tight, efficient sets where the guitar work actually gets room to breathe. Crowds are usually mixed in age and come ready to sing along to the hits. He keeps things moving without feeling rushed, and there's a modest professionalism to it all—nothing flashy, just a solid night of country-pop songs that work.

Known for Wanted, Somebody's Heartbreak, I Want Crazy, Invisible, We're Not Crazy

See Hunter Hayes Live