Ward Hayden & The Outliers, photo id (l to r) Handsome Greg Hall, Ward Hayden, Josh Kiggans, and Cody Nilsen
(Scituate, MA) In the long, rich history of country music, life in a small town is a major theme in many of its finest songs. On South Shore, the ninth album from singer, songwriter Ward Hayden and his band The Outliers, they deliver a rich and rewarding new chapter within that tradition and much more on the essential matters of life, love and the world around us.
Due out on May 5 on the band’s own Faster Horses Recordings, South Shore delivers further winning iterations on the band’s “smooth, authentic Honky Tonk, early Rock & Roll vibe that’s incredibly endearing” (Cincinnati City Beat). It’s a collection that brings it all back home to the small coastal town of Scituate. MA, some 30 miles south of Boston, where Ward Hayden hails from and returned to five years ago.
Ahead of the album’s release, the band debuted their music video for the track “(Breaking Up with) My Hometown.”
Hayden notes “We shot the whole video down in Scituate. I really wanted it to capture the elements of the town that made leaving it so bittersweet, but also have a tendency to pull you back like a magnet. The locations were all really sentimental places. What’s wild and mind blowing to me is that the sights around Scituate that have remained meaningful to me throughout my life are now becoming part of my wife and daughter’s life, and I’ve really enjoyed sharing that with both of them tremendously.
“When I left Scituate back in 2008 and began touring more heavily, Rob Loyot, who’d played in a touring band for years, told me that ‘once you get serious and get out on the road you won’t be going to a lot of birthdays or parties or participating in many local events anymore.’ He wanted to give me a heads up about the sacrifices that were involved and necessary with touring, and that you miss a lot of the things that happen back home. And he was right, once I left I’ve rarely been home for fishing tournaments, or parties or get togethers of any kind. But thankfully I’m surrounded by a good support system and people who understand that I’m pursuing something that I’ve felt called to do. Especially when it comes to my wife, who makes it possible for me to continue touring by going the extra mile at home, being there for our daughter while I’m away.”
Last month, the lyric video for another track on South Shore, “Can’t Wake Up,” released. The song is another original that holds deep personal meaning to Hayden who wrote it after having a nightmare that recalled emotions of losing a best friend in a fatal car crash that also forever altered his life, as well as prophesied the start of the war in Ukraine. (See Hayden’s personal note below)
Ward Hayden on writing “Can’t Wake Up”:
“The song came to me in a dream, in a nightmare I literally could not wake up from. It was before the war in Ukraine ever started, Later, seeing the areas that were just leveled by bombs and missiles in the news was crazy. Watching what’s recounted in the song play out in real life in this modern day and age was strange for me. If somebody decides to go to war against somebody else, it just wipes that life that people in the war zone knew right off the face of the earth.
“I wrote the song after my life in my hometown pretty much exploded and burned down into nothing. My best friend passed away in a car crash that caught fire; he and I were both about to go to Law School. In the wake of his passing my perspective on how I wanted to live really changed. I exploded the life I’d known up until that point. I decided to not go to Law School and join my father’s law practice, and instead pursue music as a more serious endeavor. My relationship with my long-term girlfriend of eight years came to an end and then I had a falling out with my other best friend, who had been in Girls Guns and Glory, but didn’t want to be away from home touring (he went on to pursue a career in Marine Biology). I think the stuff happening in my own life crept into my unconscious mind while I was dreaming of things being blown up and burned to the ground.
“It was majorly cathartic to write. In my mind, I relive the memories pretty much every time I hear this song and a lot of emotions come flooding back. For me the only option, once so many things in my hometown fell apart, was to venture out, keep moving forward, and see what else the world had to offer someone looking to start anew.”
