Hayden Calnin says "F--- You Collingwood!"

Australian singer and songwriter Hayden Calnin made a comeback in June with a brand new single, “F**k Collingwood.” Between a day at the studio preparing his next EP and the next, he found some time to exchange a few words with me during a Skype call.

After a friendly chat about how life was going, I asked him if anything changed in himself and his music compared to when his last EP Dirt came out. He said, “I wasn’t feeling very inspired to write in the last couple of years… nothing I was writing felt genuine or deserving to be put out. I basically spent the last two years working with other artists […] just to help other people and get with the community. This next EP is very different; it is still pretty experimental and, well, sad… but it is shining a light on a different kind of emotion. [...] It is a little bit more hopeful and it has a lot to do with change rather than being caught in the middle of something.”

Calnin’s music has always been a major part of my life. I will never forget how I felt when I first heard “Coward;” it was as though he had the power to make the simplest song sound ethereal and honest. He believes that an element that every artist should have nowadays is truth. “Truth to themselves. I have watched a lot of musicians I love just tailor their sounds to what’s going on in radio-land, and it always upsets me because I can see that [it’s] not what they wanna do and they are just caving to the industry instead of sticking to what they believe in.” I couldn’t agree more—record labels can put a lot of pressure on an artist, and I believe that the most important aspects of an artist’s career are honesty and authenticity.

Somehow the topic switched to his label, Nettwerk, and I asked if he had some projects that he was looking forward to fulfilling now that he had the means to do so: “No longer being an independent artist is a huge weight off me and my manager’s shoulders, just because we can now focus on what’s best for the art rather than the business. This new music has been ready for like a year but I have not been able to put it out; there’s always gonna be compromises with working with a label, but [Nettwerk have] been the first industry people that I’ve talked with that have felt right and that have got my best interests at heart. I am just excited.” Sometimes having a song ready for a while can be frustrating because the artist just wants to show it to the world but isn’t able to, so hopefully Calnin’s name will be heard a little bit more with the new outreach.

Having a track like “F**k Collingwood” released after the soul-bearing wait post-Dirt was like seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Calnin discussed the meaning of the song: “ It [just] came out one night. I was out, still living in Collingwood at the time. I was in a really bad routine with my life, [and] I knew I needed to get out of the city to get my head back straight. I just found a lot of things slipping in my life, [especially] artistically. […] Once I had finished uni and started doing other things like music I just didn’t need to be there anymore and the only things that were keeping me there were friends and relationships. […] It wasn’t healthy anymore for my head, so I just made the decision to leave and say, ‘Fuck you Collingwood!’”

Every artist has parts of their work that they are really proud of but also parts that they almost regret putting out. I asked Calnin if he conformed to the rest of his colleagues and, after a heavy sigh and a chuckle, he answered, “Any song off the Dirt EP I am really proud of because it was the first bit of writing where I started being more honest in my lyrics and not turning things into analogies. It felt more real lyrically. I was really focused on my friends and where they were at rather than where I was at. If I had to choose a song off that it would probably be ‘Waves’ or ‘Collision.’ It was the first time that I told someone that a song was about them, which is weird.” When I asked about a song he regrets, he said: “A song that I regret… ugh! So many!” We laughed. “There are songs that I would love to have never done, but a lot of them have helped. As much as I might not enjoy them, other people absolutely adore them, so I can’t say I regret it. But I mean… ‘For My Help.’” At this point, I was staring at him wide-eyed because that was one of my favorite songs ever. He noticed how surprised I was and started laughing, and then kept going: “It’s one of those songs… it’s been the one song that has been constantly still kicking about and yes, there’s probably a reason for that and I tried to accept that, but at the same time, I haven’t listened to it in years because it just makes me cringe. […] Originally it was an eight-minute song but I didn’t know a thing about radio or what people’s attention spans were like so I redid this four-minute version. […] As much as I was happy with it at the time, I just didn’t expect it to do what it did! It helped me to continue to do music so I don’t regret it but I think I probably would change it if I could go back in time.”.

After a bit of chitchat about some other songs and their previous versions, such as “Park Beers” and “Coward,” I asked my last question: “Do you think that nowadays it is more important to focus on the lyrics or the actual music?” He shrugged and then said, “I would say the sound. I’ve always personally connected to the feel of music rather than the words, and I think that some songs just don’t need words. On this EP coming out soon, there are two instrumentals because they just kinda spoke for themselves. But the older I [get] and the more music I [hear,] as soon as I hear a song that interests me musically there is no way I’m listening to the words either. It’s a funny one. […] I think it probably depends on where your head is at.”

From almost 40 minutes talking with Hayden, I can say I’ve learnt so much more about him and his musical persona. Hayden Calnin is an artist, and I am not using this word randomly. His music carries so much meaning and emotion that is rarely seen in today’s industry. This only makes me more excited about his full comeback in the music scene. It will be full of smooth autotuned vocals and echoed, emotional guitars. We could not ask for anything better.