An Interview with Haley Blais
“I’m just living in this space, trying to contribute something so that when I die, I live on,” Haley Blais tells me through our Zoom screen. “...I’m scared of death!” she blurts out soon after, grinning as she does so. This phenomenon of laughing about existential dread summarizes Blais’ music nearly perfectly. The 26-year-old Vancouver-native recently released her debut album, Below the Salt, self-described as a “coming of age story that recognizes that there is no real ‘coming of age.’” A dreamy, nostalgic collection of songs that redefines the definition of a pop ballad, Below the Salt puts a grainy vintage film filter over the indie-alternative genre.
Blais has been playing music since she was eight years old. She was trained classically in music for ten years, then pursued independent music once she graduated from high school. She wrote and recorded her own songs and put them on the internet for years, with popular singles like “Small Foreign Faction” and “Seventeen” being made with Garageband: “In 2016 and 2017 I would literally just record straight into Garageband, I didn’t know what mixing or mastering was. I honestly think I just uploaded them to like, CD Baby, and I was like, This is music!”
Only last year did Blais sign with a local label, Tiny Kingdom, who helped her grow professionally and ultimately led to the release of her first LP, Below the Salt. The inspiration behind the title stems from Blais’ confession that she is a “self-professed salt freak.” She explains: “I was reading a book about salt and they were kind of touching on the history of it, and the relevancy of phrases that we know today, and one of them was ‘below salt’, which is just referring to your regular, every-day average working man. I felt like I identified with that more than like, a queen, for example, because people who could actually afford salt back in that era were rich. And I was like, I’m poor…”
Blais continues, “Below the Salt is more like a compilation album of just like a stamp of the past two years. I didn’t put a lot of like, intricate thought [into it] because I wasn’t really sure what I was doing, you know?” Now, with the tools she’s learned from working on Below the Salt, Blais is already working on her second album. “That’s like an era and I can move on from that, which is kind of where I’m at right now.”
Alongside her music career, Blais has also been making Youtube videos for about eight years. “I like to treat music as my professional job and where I can take myself seriously and freaking girl boss, whereas Youtube is more like something fun to do and use as an outlet for something that maybe my music doesn’t inhabit.” She began making videos a couple years out of high school, searching for community after deciding college wasn’t exactly for her. “It was really fun, I’m glad I’m doing it...I’m surprised that I’m still doing it, and I wonder how much longer I will be,” Blais says. “It’s a hobby, but I do like to treat it as a job...It’s hard. I go through phases where I’m like, I’m going to be posting every week, have a schedule so I can actually treat it as a job and make money from it, but then that kind of ruins it because it’s really just a place where I can have fun.”
Though she prefers to separate the two creative ventures, Blais admits her Youtube channel has garnered her music a much larger following. “It’s like a streamline through. They are so intertwined I don’t think I would have one without the other in terms of support. But in my head, it’s like two different parts of my brain working.”
Prior to the pandemic, Blais had plans to go on tour with fellow Vancouver-natives Peach Pit. Of course, the tour was scrapped due to COVID concerns, but Blais suggests the tour may be rescheduled for 2022. “It’s half up in the air, but I think we’re aiming for early 2022 just to be extra safe, especially since we’re in Canada and crossing the borders.” Interestingly, having so much free-time on her hands allowed Blais to sharpen her songwriting craft even more. “I’ve learned to know what it’s like to sit down and treat writing a song like a job. I used to just rely on whether inspiration struck me or not, but [during quarantine] I really tried to practice like, sitting down with the intention of writing before I had any sort of idea or anything. That really helped me in writing this next album. I never thought treating music like a nine-to-five job was possible, but I like doing it now.”
When it comes to songwriting, Blais says she is a “horrible two chord songwriter.”“It’s a horrible habit, I need to learn more chords.” For Below the Salt, Blais would usually start writing her songs with two different chords that sound nostalgic and yearning, but the distinct dreaminess of the album as a whole, Blais says, is a product of her wonderful producers. The indie duo from Colorado, Tennis, alongside local artist Louise Burns, worked together to drench Blais’ debut in a hazy, sparkly sound reminiscent of 80s pop ballads, drawing heavily upon the influence of Fleetwood Mac. “Without even talking they had that idea, and it worked cohesively,” Blais says.
As she ventures into her second album with a stronger grasp on her songwriting routine, Blais says she’s trying to hone her unique sound into the lyricism and vocal melodies of her songs. In fact, she just finished writing the new album. “It’s leaning towards more folky country, rather than anthemic pop ballads like in Below the Salt. Also with that album I was playing with a lot of like, multi-instrumentals, and with this one I’m trying to make it more stripped back, a little bit more relaxed, and maybe sadder? We’ll see though,” Blais concludes “Shit goes down in the studio. I could think this is the saddest, most intimate soft song I’ve written, but in the studio we turn it around into like, a rock song or something. So, who knows?”
You can listen to Haley Blais on all streaming platforms, or by checking out her website linked here. You can also watch her hilarious videos on Youtube here.
- Mikayla Connolly