HALEY
(F.K.A. Haley Bonar)
Big Star
2008 | Folk, Rock
— track 9: “Highway 16”
Haley McCallum: As soon as I started seeing live music, I said to myself, “I need to do that. That needs to be a part of my life, in more than a listening sort of way.” I just started doing it. I was a choir nerd and did all of the choirs and the talent shows. I went to lessons for a little bit for guitar and piano and learned some basic chords — I still don’t read music. All my family is based out of Brandon, Manitoba [Canada], so that’s kind of the original hometown, [but] I grew up in Rapid City and spent the bulk of my youth there. There was a surprisingly tight knit community of punk/indie bands when I was growing up, and that community accepted me despite my young age and semi-preppy look [laughs]. My friend Charles Michael Ray was super cool, inviting, supportive, and a feminist. He found out I played and asked me to do shows with him, and offered to record me for free. So he bought a CD burner from Walmart and we used it and he returned it afterwards for a full refund [laughs]. At 15, I started doing open mics at an old venue called The Daily Grind in Rapid City. It was a place for punks, queers, folkies, smokers. I loved it. The first time I did an open mic there they passed the pitcher around and I got like $200. It was a great feeling. The older man who worked there handed it to me and kissed me on the neck, which was gross, and also foreshadowing what the music business can feel like for a young girl. Despite that moment of ick, I felt proud and accepted and wanted to keep doing that even though it was terrifying for me — performing in front of people.
When I first started doing open mics I was so scared. I couldn't even look at people. Even though I was never shy as a kid, I was beet red for a good year. I remember doing a lot of cover songs, and then later being really embarrassed of my earlier stuff and whatever. And I think that you have to do that. You have to go through the puberty stage as a musician [laughs]. I was into Ace of Bass, Wilson Phillips, Mariah Carey, The Cranberries, Nirvana, Radiohead, Green Day, Billie Holiday, Johnny Cash, and anything else that I could buy. When I would write a song at home and finally feel brave enough to play it, I would make my mom turn around or keep doing whatever she was doing. I have never liked being stared at, even when it's for something I find meaningful. My parents, for my graduation gift, paid for a CD to be printed. My first album [2001’s Haley Bryn Bonar], I recorded it at a friend of our family’s. Ken Anderson played in the Hill City Slickers and wanted to get familiar with engineering, so he offered to record me for next to nothing. He was very kind and supportive. I recorded a CD with just a guitar, some piano, and me. I made a thousand copies of it.
[Rapid City] was a great place to grow up, but like most teenagers, I couldn’t wait to get out. Moved to Duluth, Minnesota when I was 18 to go to school. I intended to study English and become a teacher. I’ve always been a writer, I’ve been writing songs, plays, and poems since I was a kid. As an adolescent, I fancied myself a poet, but then I became active in the scene [in Duluth], just playing bars and whatever as much as I possibly could. I took music seriously before I moved there, but it was just so easy to move into that scene and start playing around. People were very accepting. Decided to record a record at Sacred Heart Church up there [2003’s ...the Size of Planets]. [That] record was picked up by Alan Sparhawk of Low, and I ended up dropping out of school to go on tour and open up for them. [My parents] encouraged me to drop out of college and go tour, like, "You need to do this. If that's what you really want to do just put everything you have into it. Don't stop." And it's just never stopped.
The biggest career risk I took was when I was 20-years-old [after releasing ...the Size of Planets] I was offered — twice — a contract by V2 Records. I thought it was so awesome, so glamorous. I flew out to New York, and I thought, "I'm gonna sign this major label, and, you know, sign an 11-record deal with a greatest hits," and all that. And, um, I realized that I would lose a lot of my freedom artistically, and I said, "No." And they came back again and said, "Well, you can do whatever you want." So I recorded a record on just a four-track and an eight-track. So, [2006’s] Lure the Fox was kind of my “fuck you” record. “You want a commercial record? I’m going to slow everything down, detune a whole step, and have three instruments on the whole thing.” That’s kind of like something Alan Sparhawk said to me, “When I started Low, I wanted to create a band that was unlistenable.” So I was like, "Here you go!" And [V2 Records] was like, "No." I said, "Okay then, I guess we're not really meant to work together." And part of that is just because I'm stubborn and I wanted to test the limits. But I guess that label went bankrupt anyways, so [laughs]. But people thought I was really crazy. They were like, "You were offered this thing that everybody wants and you said no." And I'm like, "I know. It's kind of the way I do stuff in my life. I guess." But I've never really regretted it. I wouldn't have made the music that I made in the interim, if I would have signed with them, and sort of given up my own creativity.
Pitchfork actually wrote about me for ...the Size of Planets, when I was touring with the band Low. They didn’t review the album, but instead said some incredibly sexist, lewd, and humiliating things about me — none of which had to do with my music. I was 19 at the time and it was like “Oh? This is supposed to be ‘hip’? Fuck them.” So, to be honest with you, I never read the review in Pitchfork for Big Star, because I don’t respect them or tend to give any credit to them for helping my career. I'd rather credit quality journalism like NPR, The Guardian, American Songwriter, Mojo, or Rookie, etc. who wrote about my output in a professional and respectful way that helped to spread the word about my music.
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[Big Star] is definitely way different from the [first] CDs. I expanded sonically by having two electric guitar players that are really atmospheric and create a sort of washed out, beautiful, epic sound. It is such a ethereal sound that it doesn't take away from the story, the lyrics. I work with musicians who know how to do their own thing, so it's easy to let them be creative. We did all the tracks at The Terrarium [in Minneapolis] in July [2007]. And then it was mixed over the winter, Tchad Blake and I did that virtually. [The title, Big Star,] is paying to an homage to fame. The idea of being a star, it's just kind of a funny — those words are funny together, and kind of ambiguous, and tongue-in-cheek. [The album] kind of touches on that in a few of the other songs like "Queen of Everything,” but it's not really the theme, just [the title track “Big Star"] was my favorite song on the record. I just like the way it sounded.
These songs are a lot more personal. And some of them are really old, one of the songs, "Highway 16," I wrote when I was about 16 or 17, and I just hadn't ever put it on a record, and I really liked playing it. I always thought it was a bit too kitschy, like “I'm in high school and I listen to Johnny Cash a lot.” But after a while, I said, “Screw it. I like it.” But I don't know, I love country, and I am still really surprised when people define me as an alt-country artist because I kind of feel like my music is a little bit of everything. I'm not sure how I developed my sound other than just, I keep challenging myself, trying to write better songs, and just always be myself. If I feel like writing a song, sometimes I'll sit down and I'll come up with a melody. Or I'll have an idea for lyrics — I am always writing lines down on random scraps of paper and I'll just kind of tape them into a journal. The song usually writes itself, sort of, and then I'll go back and do a mild editing afterwards. But most of the songs that I've written have taken me twenty or thirty minutes max. I just keep repeating it until I find a progression that I like, the melody that I like, the lyrics — and when I'm bored with it, I'm done. You can't ever plan when you're going to write a song, it just sort of happens, at least in my experience. You can either kick and scream and strive for something that's not realistic, or you can surrender yourself and just be happy with whatever you get. I'm 100% happy with this record.
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I moved out to Portland, Oregon in 2008 because I needed a new space. I thought I would continue to write the same shit if I lived [in the Twin Cities], so I put myself in a vulnerable situation. [2011’s] Golder came out of that. It’s saying goodbye to my early 20s, and growing up, and reflecting on that. In the past, I’ve written and recorded without thinking about what the group of songs meant. With this album, I viewed it more as “These songs go together. How do they go together?” It wasn’t until I went to [Portland] and had time alone with my thoughts that the songs came together. There is also an ache to return, and I came back [to Minnesota] after Golder was recorded.
If you listen to the albums in order [Golder and then 2014’s Last War], you can hear hints of what the next one will be like. Synthy stuff happening, a little shoegazey guitar in the background. [Last War] was raw, and I was feeling that at the time. It was an emotional, crazy time. I was basically a single mom to a one-year-old, and it was terrifying, and the music basically shot out. There wasn’t anything intentional about it. “Heaven’s Made For Two” was a slow song, but [producer Jacob Hanson] said, “let’s speed it up” because there is something about the sad, achey lyrics juxtaposed with the more rocked-up song. That’s what the record is to me.
I took inspiration [for 2016’s Impossible Dream] from reading books. I’m constantly grappling with the fact that everybody thinks that my songs are a diary entry. Everybody says, “What’s wrong with you? What’s going on in your life?” and I’m like, “Why do people think that songwriters are just putting some chords to their journal entries?” When I’m reading fiction, I never think, like, “I wonder if this really happened to this author?” I just go with it and you’re taken to that place. For all you know, it could’ve happened to them [or] it’s completely pulled out of their ass and you’d never know the difference and it doesn’t really matter because it’s fiction.
After the 2016 presidential elections, I felt overwhelmed and very depressed. I didn't even know how to make sense with words about how I was feeling. So I just felt like, “How can I express myself in a way that's real, that's not forced?” And I thought of the abstract artists coming out of the 1950s and early 60s and how it wasn't something you could look at and tell what it was, but you could look at it and feel it. I wanted to do something like that. [So] the real reason why I chose to do a full-length instrumental album [2018’s Pleasureland] is definitely political. It was also a representation of where women are in the world. We're silenced a lot and punished for speaking out. So there are a lot of elements to it, but me sitting down at the piano and composing this music is the only way I stayed sane.
I worked on [a new album called] Hunca Munca at home during the pandemic. It was a place for me to exercise my stress, anxiety, sadness for what was happening in the world at large and also in the Twin Cities with the murder of George Floyd and everything that ensued. When I started working with an engineer to mix it, however, I realized that I wasn't completely happy with some of the tracks, and wanted to revisit after some time. At this point in my career, I am okay with stopping when I need to, and taking whatever time I need. I can grind when necessary, and work really hard when I am inspired. But when I'm not, it feels pointless to keep returning to something that I need to ruminate on, or let go of, in order to reach a new place of understanding with what I want it to be. In the meantime, I have been really loving painting. I've been selling a lot of my artwork, which feels amazing. I was working a day job until recently, working at a pottery painting place, but it was for minimum wage and a 20-minute drive each way, eventually it stopped making much sense. It's better to focus on my work. I just found out two songs from my second album, ...the Size of Planets, will be used in the upcoming feature film The Infernal Machine, starring Guy Pierce. I'm pretty excited about that.
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I wanted to deconstruct my own involvement in patriarchal structures and part of that, to me, was embracing my mother’s family name. I just didn’t think that it made sense for me to change my last name out loud and expect people to call me Haley McCallum. I thought that it would be easier for people to call me just HALEY. It took away from my art and my time, and I wanted to take the power back from that.
I am raising my child, Ash, who is trans. He's so incredibly inspiring and wonderful. And a way better artist than me! I was pretty private about my queerness for a long time. I came out when I was a teenager, but the idea of my sexuality was dismissed by my family, which caused me to hide my identity for a very long time [and go back] into the closet for another 15 years. Now, I’m just so beyond that and I just feel so honored. [Twin Cities Pride] was one of the events for me where I went out and said to myself, “Oh my, this is fine! This is great! Embrace this. This is a powerful thing.” I feel like I’m in the right place in my life where I’m excited about that and don’t have any fear around it. It really ate away at me for a very long time and I had to work hard to climb out of that. I feel so much happier and so much freer. We are constantly defined by our gender roles. You don’t have to tolerate that. Break through it with your power, and do whatever the fuck you want. Be whoever the fuck you want.
HALEY’S ESSENTIAL SOUTH DAKOTA ALBUMS
Shawn Colvin — A Few Small Repairs (1996)
SOURCES
Abney, Barb. “Haley Bonar Performs in the Current Studios.” The Current, Minnesota Public Radio, 12 June 2008, https://www.thecurrent.org/feature/2008/06/12/haley-bonar-performs-in-the-current-studios.
Broker, Eric. “Haley: No More Fear.” Twin Cities Pride Magazine, 10 Aug. 2020, https://tcpridemag.com/haley-no-more-fear/.
Gihring, Tim. “Rock-a-Bye Baby.” Minnesota Monthly, 25 Apr. 2019, https://www.minnesotamonthly.com/lifestyle/rock-a-bye-baby/.
“GRAMMYs @ Lollapalooza 2011 with Haley Bonar | GRAMMYs.” YouTube, Recording Academy / GRAMMYs, 29 Aug. 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maQQpPU9Sbo.
“Haley Bonar Interview | Cock and Bull TV - YouTube.” YouTube, Cock and Bull TV, 9 Apr. 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjQzuRRJRNg.
“Haley Bonar - YouTube.” YouTube, Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, 25 July 2007, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhTiIbkMdcw.
Lim, Katrina. “Haley Bonar Returns to Hometown Rapid City to Sing at Dahl Arts Center.” Black Hills Fox, 29 Nov. 2016, https://www.blackhillsfox.com/content/news/Haley-Bonar-returns-to-hometown-Rapid-City-to-sing-at-Dahl-Arts-Center-403694316.html.
McCallum, Haley. Haley McCallum interview, 21 Feb 2022. Email.
Olson, Julia. “Haley Bonar: Impossible Dream, Potholes & Female Empowerment.” KXSU Seattle, 21 Nov. 2016, https://kxsuseattle.wordpress.com/2016/11/21/haley-bonar-impossible-dream-potholes-female-empowerment/.
Prabhu, Suraj. “Haley Explains the Political Decision to Make Forthcoming LP 'Pleasureland' a Fully Instrumental Album.” MEAWW, 10 Oct. 2018, https://meaww.com/haley-upcoming-album-pleasureland-exclusive-interview.
Riemenschneider, Chris. “Music: Haley Bonar -- Darling One.” Star Tribune, Star Tribune, 5 June 2008, https://www.startribune.com/music-haley-bonar-darling-one/19566689/.
Salmon, Ben. “Haley Bonar Tackles Universal Messages on Impossible Dream.” Westword, 30 Nov. 2016, https://www.westword.com/music/haley-bonar-tackles-universal-messages-on-impossible-dream-8547671.
Werner, Chad. “The Beginnings Of The Last War: Our Interview With Musician Haley Bonar.” Newswhistle, 5 Mar. 2015, https://newswhistle.com/the-beginnings-of-the-last-war-newswhistles-interview-with-musician-haley-bonar/.
