My Interview with Cassidy Haley
Posted by sparkleshack | Filed under interview,fleafm,cassidy haley,
A few weeks back i got the chance to interview LA musician, Cassidy Haley to talk about music, inspiration and his career. So i present to you the long awaited transcript!
Cassidy Haley is a musician with his own record label. He is one of the faces behind the popular fashion brand ‘Skingraft’, is a storyteller and an artist. We asked if there was anything else he had not yet accomplished….
C: There’s so much i wanna do. Im definitely focusing in on just the music right now but in the long run I wanna direct films, I wanna do photography and i definitely wanna write films. There’s just a lot more in the future that i wanna do, but the music right now is the number one thing. Once i can really achieve the success that I want with that, then I’ll be able to really expand and explore a lot of other ideas and dreams.
Cassidy’s first album ‘The Fool’ was released just over a year ago and he is now working on his second album which is entitled “The Lovers”. We asked about the transition from “The Fool” to “The Lovers” and how the two albums were different…
C: “The Fool” was really about me growing up and it was about finding myself and about discovering what i wanted to do in life and figuring out how to break free from the constraints that society puts up. Everybody in this society kind of gets born into this physiological reality that you have to break through from if you want to really evolve and become your own person, so that’s really what that album’s about.
“The Lovers” is about taking that person i’ve become and bringing it to someone else - the past few years through all my struggles, successes and love. It’s about how the idea of love is not just the relationship but the love of the world or the community. Both of these albums are based on tarot cards and that’s been a big influence in my life over the years. “The Lovers” card is my personal favorite. It talks about how sexual love is the lowest form of love and the highest form of love is compassion, where you just find a love for everyone and everything in the world. So i think that’s what i’m aiming for with this next album.
To fuel his second album, Cassidy launched a Kickstarter with an initial goal of $7,000 which was reached within 24 hours and is now aiming for the second goal of $10,000.
C: We didn’t even get started with the campaign and we already reached our first goal! It’s very exciting and now we’re going to be reconfiguring the campaign to really focus on just maximizing the campaign. Because of course, the more money i raise the more i can put into this album and promotions. It’s definitely just getting started but it’s such a relief to know that now no matter what happens - because with Kickstarter, if you don’t reach your first goal, you don’t get anything - So now at least we know that it’s definitely going to happen. We’ve reached our first goal and now we can just keep pushing it further and further and further. Its so awesome because these people that are around the US are gathering together to try and get the reward where i come out and do a show in their hometown. It’s just so cool to see people coming together.
I wish i could offer that for New Zealand! But unfortunately it’s a little too far.
If the campaign reaches it’s third goal of $15000, Cassidy promises to do a Truth Or Dare Ustream.
C: I figured if i can raise $15000 i am pretty much willing to do anything on the stream. It’s dangerous but you know, i like danger.
- Note: Since completing this interview the Kickstarter project has wrapped up and raised a total of $16,610.
Cassidy is well known for his unique and artistic music videos, his latest being “This Time”. We asked him about the inspiration behind that video.
C: That music video was really about the analogy of love. Lovers can be brutal, you know, and im sure everybody can relate to how battered someone can feel with that emotional tension that comes from loving somebody so much. Love is so strongly related to hate that in a instant it can just turn. So I just wanted to show this relationship kind of playing out on screen in the context of a physical fight. I think that the two men together is a really unique way that i can show that - I mean, obviously if it was between a man and a woman, it would be a little odd. I just wanted to show this real homoerotic, very strong, masculine, lover’s quarrel, but even more than a quarrel, the setting and the story behind it that i came up with the director, we’re in this alternate reality and it’s kind of a fight club for lovers. It was set out in this club so it wasn’t seen as a negative but more as a claiming of self. I wanted to show that with a homoerotic twist.
The video also features Skingraft fashion.
C. That is really a testament to the stylist, my friend Caitlyn, who did an awesome job. There’s such a good team on that music video. I’m just so thankful that i have such amazing people in my life that are willing to just help out and pull together to do something like that.
The concept for the “This Time” video was similar to an onstage performance Cassidy once did at a life show.
C. Most of my songs i can’t help but think about a complete vision. When i’m writing a song, im envisioning the music video and the format and the story and how it all fits together. So that concept had been in my mind pretty much since writing the song a year and a half ago.
Cassidy’s latest single from his new album is entitled “Champagne Or Suicide”. Will there be a music video for this?
C. Im working on something. I’m not going to be able to do a music video to the extent that i did for “This Time” because that just required a lot of time and budget. But i am putting together something that i think people are going to be quite happy with, that’s going to be quite different. So im not going to say too much about it. But expect something for Champagne or Suicide.
Over the last few months, Cassidy formed a boy band with Dan Holguin & Sir Earl. We asked how that came together.
C. I have many different sides to myself. I have my rock band ‘Cassidy Haley & The Sunshine Rebels’ and that’s been a lot of fun and it’s really fulfilled one side of me. But there’s just this other part of me that’s always wanted to do a real pop, choreographed number and has always wanted to go in that kind of direction. So it actually started because i had a show booked at San Diego Pride and my bass player couldn’t come - and although i’ve done a lot of shows alone, i just wasn’t very excited about doing another one alone. I was really happy with the band and i wanted to do a show that was dynamic and fun. I had some friends that were also doing some solo performances and i thought maybe we could all do something together. So that’s really how it started, and it just ended up being so much fun. I just love it. And they’re really good friends of mine so we just have a blast working on choreography. In a way it’s kind of like a solo artist support group because we sit around and talk about what its like to be releasing our own music and we talk about what it’s like being in relationships when people are dating a musician, and it’s a lot of fun. It’s my fun side project.
Cassidy is very present online and keeps in touch with his fans through Twitter and Facebook as well as through regular ustreams. We asked how Social Media had influenced his career.
C. It’s pretty much been my entire career. Nothing that i’ve done would’ve been possible without it. I’m starting to develop a local following but really, with someone like me who has a really unique presentation and a unique style, i’ve only been able to flourish because i can reach out to the whole world. It’s just been amazing all these people who support what i’m doing and listen to the music.
We received a lot of fan questions for Cassidy and although we didn’t have the time to ask them all, we picked some of our personal favorites.
Q. What inspires you?
C: It’s going to sound really cheesy but what inspires me is making a difference, and i know thats the Miss Universe answer how they’re like ‘i wanna save the world’, but i actually just recently did an awesome transformational workshop where i really wanted to have a breakthrough in my performances on stage, and i realized that if i’m in my head and im thinking about myself then im thinking, ‘Am I going to do okay? Are people going to like me? Am I going to look stupid?’ all the time, and if I’m thinking like that then im not having fun and nobody else is having fun either, and if I realized i have to kind of turn that around and just really focus on ‘how am I pleasing people, are people being touched by what i’m doing, are people being inspired, are people getting something out of this?’ - that just allows me to be more free on stage and in my performances and really in general. Because it’s not about me, it’s about what i’m doing for others. The most important thing is getting this world back on track, having people feel something. There is so much that’s wrong in the world and to just be that bit that makes it a little more right, that’s what inspires me.
Q. Which artists and bands in the music industry today do you look up to?
C: Right now, Bjork. She’s always been an inspiration for me - from the late 90s, she was kind of the first artist that was actually incorporating the culture that i felt that i was a part of at the time, into proper music. As a musician, even at that time, i was trying to figure out how I could take these really hard electronic sounds and mix it with my folk singer background. Even back then, she just blew me away with what she was doing. But now, what she’s doing with her new album and what she’s creating - that’s the future. One of her producers said she was like the new Talkies, you know when movies started talking, they called them the talkies and it was this crazy revolution. What she’s doing with her new album is definitely on par with that. So i just cannot wait until i can jump on that band wagon and just create these insane beautiful applications that take the music and turn it into an entire experience.
Q. A lot of artists find it easier to write when they are in a darker mindset, ‘when do you find it easiest to write songs as far as your mood?’
C. Well songwriting for me has always been like a therapy. That’s how it started and for the past however long i’ve been writing music, that’s pretty much what it’s been. It’s not so much easier as it is more effective. When i’m going through something, that’s how i deal with it. But as I move forward in my life, as I really start to settle into this career, I’ve actually been starting to write more with that idea of ‘what am I contributing?’ It’s more about how a song might touch someone. So it’s a little bit of a more refined process. It’s not just me throwing my emotions onto a page - which is not bad, but im starting to think more about ‘let me create a song that’s going to say this or that’. So it’s definitely changing over time.
Q. You’ve accomplished so much over your career, which accomplishment are you the most proud of?
C. Really just having the guts to embrace a career in music, because that was such a hard decision and I remember thinking back when i was with SkinGraft and thinking ‘should I do this, should I take this leap, should I really go for it and do music, and whats going to happen and how am I going to make a living?’ and all of that, and I had a choice to just jump over the cliff and do it or just stick to my life in fashion. I’m grateful that I went ahead and did that. That’s the biggest thing i’ve done so far - after that it was just riding the roller coaster.
Q. Which song, whether it be off “The Fool” or one we haven’t heard yet from “The Lovers” is your favorite song to sing, and which is the most meaningful to you?
C. Every new song I write is the most meaningful…until I write another one. I think “Fly” for me - because that was the song I actually wrote when I made that decision to pursue music. So I think that one forever will really be the one.
Q. If you had the chance to have dinner with any 3 people dead or alive, who would they be?
C. I hate those kind of questions! I think the Dalai Lama, that would be pretty cool. Jesus, that would be awesome and maybe some king….some random king from the middle ages.
Q. If you were trapped in a room with a group of 5yr olds and they had all been trained by Jackie Chan and there was 50 of them. How many do you think you could take on?
C. *laughs* I don’t know if I could do that! I’d just let them beat me up probably. I don’t know. I mean, i could probably run away from them all. I would just start running in circles to wear them out.
Q. Do you have any plans to come to New Zealand?
C. I would love too! I’ve been to Australia a few times when I did some shows out there and I love Australia, and New Zealand is not far from there at all. So I would love to make it out there. Right now everything I’m doing is local. Last year I did some shows around the country and I went to Australia and I went to Canada, and I just realized it’s time to really buckle down and get my band together and really focus locally. But of course, all I wanna do is be on the road. I would love to be on a world tour. That’s the biggest part of my dream - to travel.
To my fans, thank you so much for your support. I’m still blown away that I even have fans in New Zealand, so the fact that you guys exist is just really really cool. So thank you, and I definitely can’t wait to come out there and do a show in New Zealand and do a world tour.
Definitely check out my new single ‘champagne or suicide’, i’m very proud of it. It’s the climax of my little home studio mission that i’ve been working on for the past year.
Cassidy’s new single “Champagne Or Suicide” is now on itunes, and you can check out his official website here.
You can check out Cassidy with his recently formed band here.
A big thankyou to Cassidy for the interview - and a big apology for the delay it has taken to get this up. We hope to have the audio available soon.
