7 minute read
Spotify Smasher
Musician Zach Hurd is back in Maine, by way of Brooklyn, L. A., and a hit on Spotify (“Safe”) with 18 million plays.
Your music is so breezy. I’ve just listened to “Changing,” “I Wonder,” and “Like a Bird.”It could be the best pop music ever created by a Mainer.
Thank you!
What part of Maine do you come from?
I was born in Brunswick and raised in Bath, on Hyde Street. My parents taught at the Hyde School, and I went there. I played soccer, basketball, and lacrosse. I didn’t have a band yet, but the whole school does performing arts. I did a senior thesis project with two classmates where we wrote some songs, recorded in a local studio, and did a show at the end of the year.
Your background on fan sites for Bay Ledges appears as “Maine/NYC/LA.” How do you reconcile these divergent cultural forces in your music?
I kind of tried not tomove to New York. I played in New England cafes and other venues up here. Then in the mid-2000s I decided, “I need to do this.” My best friend from Bath’s older brother was living in Brooklyn. He wasn’t into music. He had a corporate job. But he said, “I have this spare room with a mattress on the floor.” So I made the leap and went to open mikes every night. You try to just get experience performing so you can book a club on the Lower East Side or in Brooklyn.
Meanwhile, I was working at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in human resources. I knew all the security guards and engineers but also the curator. One year in Brooklyn turned to seven. By then I’d made some EPs and worked with a producer. I have to laugh. My orig-
BY COLIN W. SARGENT
inal plan was: “I’ll give myself one year in New York, get a record deal, and then I’ll move away from New York.” But it was like, “I’m playing in a bunch of clubs around here, I’ve got some recordings—now what?”
Then my dad passed away. He was killed in a car accident in Bath in 2013. No one else was injured. We’re not totally sure what happened. He probably had a heart attack while driving and ended up hitting a tree. Killed on impact. That played into my deciding to move from New York.
That must have changed everything.
He was a huge supporter of my music from the beginning—to an annoying degree. He’d want to play the stuff all the time. All right, dad—chill!
I moved back to Phippsburg, where our family had a house. I played some open mikes in Portland and tried to meet people. But I was struggling, pretty depressed in 2014. And both my sisters were in L.A. They said, “Come out, book a ticket, stay with us! Bounce between our two places— see what you think!”
A gutsy move?
I’d hit a wall as an independent artist. There’s no real road map. Some things work, some don’t. While in Maine, I opened up the Ableton software a friend had given me in New York. I already had some recording knowledge after working fifteen years in studios, but this was just for fun. I’d only do it for the music, not monetize it. Best of all, I refused to worry about it.
The Bay Ledges thing started then. My grandparents had some land that slopes down to the bay in Phippsburg. There really is a Bay Ledges there!
I started putting one of my songs up on Soundcloud under the name Bay Ledges. For free. Over time it started to get some traction. One of my friends ran a Monthly Mix. “Can I use some of your songs?” Yes.
In 2016 I put my song “Safe” on Spotify. The next morning, a friend said, “Your song is on Fresh Finds.” Then when “Safe” got put on New Music Friday, it exploded and hit No. 3 on the Global Top 100. Labels like Columbia, Capitol, and Warner
Brothers approached me. It happened just in time. I was thinking, I love this Bay Ledges thing, but I can’t do it as a full-time job.
I ended up getting a record deal with SCurve Records. They were the one label at the time that actually offered me money. Now it was, “Hey, you don’t have to get another job!” Having that financial support from a label was exciting. I made an EP and did a national tour. My sister Georgia was in the band on backup vocals on a couple of the first tours. I worked with them up until the beginning of COVID in 2020. Then I parted ways with the label.
What are the metrics of other songs of yours on Spotify?
“Straight Jacket” has twelve million plays. “Like a Bird” has two million.
Please describe your house in Brunswick.
It’s white, very small, with three bedrooms, built in the 1800s. We’re renting. It’s close to the Androscoggin River. My fiancée— she’s from L.A.—and I moved back to Maine in January 2021. We actually moved to Portland for nine months, working for a friend, the fine furniture maker Kyle Kidwell. I met him in Brooklyn. He’s a super talented guitar player who played in a couple bands. He’d always loved carpentry and design, and he built his own shop here. I’d left my label, was working on recordings, told him I was coming back to Maine, and he said, “Hey man, if you moved here, I would totally hire you.”
During that time I was approached by, and signed with, Nettwerk Music Group of Vancouver. They also have offices in L.A. and New York. It’s been great so far. I knew I couldn’t juggle music with working in the shop.
What was your Portland experience like?
We packed up a pod in L.A. in November
and by February still hadn’t found a place. We thought it was going to be so easy. We bounced around with month-long rentals—it was like being on this continuous road trip, but staying in Portland. We stayed with Kyle a couple months, in the Rosemont area.
What instrument do you compose with?
I start by writing on guitar. Then I’ll switch over to the computer.
What sounds are you descended from? Sometimes the breezy commentary reminds me of the Talking Heads.
I love the quirkiness of their approach. I really got into hip hop in junior high and high school. Producers who were sampling. Wu-Tang Clan. I don’t sample records, but I sample myself and my friends.
Your music is very visual. Which of your songs would make the best soundtrack for a movie that hasn’t been imagined yet?
I love that you think of it that way. I drew as a kid but kind of stopped when I was learning guitar. I like “Up” as a love song. It would be good in a film.
What painting would you pair with your work? I was thinking Alex Katz.
Mark Rothko.
What’s the “inward eye” in your Bay Ledges logo? That’s a cloud with an eye. I have a song called “Cloud Vision” that speaks to a psychedelic experience I had a few years ago.
Who is your audience?
Oh man, I don’t really know. Spotify earlier on seemed like it was a younger fan base, but I don’t think that’s necessarily true anymore. My grandfather is ninety-four, and he asked me to set up Spotify the other day. Everybody’s on Spotify now.
Is there a Maine sound?
I feel like a bit of an imposter, because I haven’t been in the Maine scene until literally this year. COVID was going on, so I wasn’t able to see much music in person. But I worked with some talented kids from Portland who did the music video for “Changing.” I found them on Spotify, then went down a rabbit hole on YouTube watching their videos. It’s exciting to see young talent so present in Maine. These kids are local. They’re eighteen and they’re doing everything.
What would you say to a critic who called your music avocado spread?
[Pause] That’s fair.
What’s strange about returning to Maine?
It’s the place I grew up in. I never thought I’d live here as an adult. You smell the smell of fall, and there are all these memories of youth soccer, going out in the woods and building forts with friends. Then coming back from so far away with all these different memories, I see this through a different lens. But there’s so much to explore, not just in a landscape way. Having a new awareness of this place you know and don’t know. n
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