Hailey Knox

From the moment Hailey Knox purchased her first guitar from Walmart, she knew she was destined to perform. She had no concrete plan outlined, and stage fright plagued her for some time. But through it all, there was a constant, indescribable pull toward music that simply couldn’t be ignored.

Now, at 19-years-old, Hailey can look back on that early-recognized instinct with pride. She was right. With two releases under her belt, including the most recent Hardwired Mixtape, the artist is gearing up to take the industry by storm, trusty guitar by her side.

When taking into consideration Hailey’s childhood in upstate New York, her passion for the arts doesn’t come as a surprise. At only 7-yearsold, her father began teaching her how to play guitar.

“Music was just always in the house,” she says. “I found a love for music through him playing.”

Along with her sister, Hailey performed at open mics in local coffee shops, each gig allowing her to feel more relaxed in front of an audience.

“I get very nervous before I get on stage, still to this day. I don’t know if it’s nerves or anxiety. I’m sure it’s all the feelings combined,” she says. “It kind of helped me with my stage presence and getting up there in front of an audience. Even if I didn’t feel confident, you have to just say, ‘I’m up here and I’m putting on a show today.’”

Eventually, Hailey began testing the songwriting waters. Admittedly inspired by Justin Bieber, she penned her first song “Sugar Plum” on the ukulele while sitting on her front porch. But by the time she went inside, Hailey blanked, the melody crafted in her head forgotten.

“From this day, I always think about that moment and try to voice memo everything that I come up with so that I have it stored in my phone,” Hailey explains. “Voice memo is the best. You capture everything, and a lot of my songs come from just rolling a voice memo for a while and jamming. And then you go back and listen and pick it apart and figure out if this could be a verse.”

Hailey spent most of middle and high school honing her craft. In her junior year, her efforts were put to the test when she was granted the opportunity to travel to New York City to meet with professional producers.

“Every Friday, I would take the train into the city and I worked on my first EP, A Little Awkward, which is cool that school let me do that. So I would get on that train, usually with Mom,” Hailey says. “For us, the city was this scary place at first because we’re from upstate where it’s kind of quiet.”

Over time, both mother and daughter grew comfortable with the idea of Hailey traveling to the Big Apple alone. She was on the brink of making her lifelong dreams come true, and there was no stopping her. A Little Awkward helped Hailey build a following on YouTube, where she performed acoustic versions of her songs and took cover requests. But she refused to stop there.

On November 16, Hardwired Mixtape was released, introducing to the world 11 alternative/indie/pop/ soul songs that are deeply personal to Hailey. A particular favorite is the title track “Hardwired, ,which began as one of many voice memos on her phone.

“I wasn’t sure if it was anything,” Hailey says, reflecting on how she asked her friend Maggie to listen.

“Obviously, the closer you are, the more friends you become with a person, the more real the song is going to be if you sit down and write because you understand each other’s lives. So she helped me craft that song, which is probably the most vulnerable song I’ve ever written. It feels like a journal entry, I always say. Those verses talk about my insecurities and things that I go through.”

According to Hailey, most of the tracks heard on Hardwired Mixtape were created in the early morning hours, usually from the comfort of a hotel room floor.

“A lot of these songs really came from the most unexpected times. I’m more creative in the nighttime,” she says. “As soon as 3 a.m. hits.”

For Hailey, it’s a thrill to look back on how far she’s come in such a short amount of time. Most recently, she took the stage at Austin City Limits Music Festival, her largest gig to date. Prior to this experience, which took place in October, Hailey had landed several opening slots with Charlie Puth, R5 and Us the Duo. Never did she have an hour-long set all for herself.

“It was my first big festival. I don’t attend many festivals and just being there was like, holy cow,” Hailey says. “It was really fun having my band members up there and us just going for it. It was so cool seeing somebody front row singing lyrics of mine back.”

Though Hailey doesn’t have a Hardwired Mixtape tour planned just yet, 2019 will see her working on new music, both produced and acoustic.

“I love when you’re able to take a song, no matter what the production’s like, and just sit and sing it on an acoustic guitar,” she says. “I think it’s so cool when you’re able to pull somebody in from a lyric and melody.”

Words by SAMANTHA BAMBINO | Photos by CATHERINE POWELL