For country music singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Hunter Hayes, complacency is the enemy.
After being nominated for several Grammy Awards, winning a collection of CMAs, and touring the world behind a pair of critically-acclaimed albums — his self-titled album released in 2011 and Storyline released in 2014 — it would be easy for Hayes to rest on his laurels, but he wants more.
“I had to get in the mindset of ‘I’m starting over,’” the 25-year-old said of the two-year process in which he wrote more than 100 songs, making a Nashville studio his personal playground.
And his development as a category-defying artist and musical innovator has flipped convention on its head.
“I’m starting from scratch,” Hayes says with equal parts excitement and nervous anticipation of the mindset behind cooking up some of the bolder material of his career, with a heavy emphasis on band-based arrangements and live drums.
“It’s about who I am and where I’m going,” he says.
Now the talented artist who Billboard magazine has called “the leader of country music’s youth generation,” will be performing at The Paramount on Friday, June 23 at 8 p.m.
To purchase tickets and for more information about the performance, go to www.theparamountny.com.
