The Untold Truth Of Walker Hayes

In another life, Walker Hayes might have sold you your house. That's right, although it's hard to imagine him as anything but a country artist these days, once upon a time he had no interest in a musician's life. He was working as an assistant real estate agent with his dad, Charles Hayes, but the elder Hayes (pictured above) knew something the "You Broke Up With Me" singer didn't. "He called me from the Mobile Yacht Club and said, 'The restaurant waitress says you can play some songs in a corner,'" Walker told AL.com of his father. Although he didn't want to do it, Walker dragged himself to the gig, and loved performing so much that he called his then-fiancée Laney to tell her that there was a change of plans: "Hey, I want to sing," he told her (via Tennessean). "Let's move to Nashville."

Walker and Charles didn't have the easiest relationship, but Walker was able to find a deeper sense of understanding for Charles as he got older and saw parallels between how the two of them had led their lives. When his dad died in 2021, Walker released the song "Briefcase" about their relationship. "I really hope the world gets to hear that song, only because I want fathers to feel an arm around them in some way," the singer told People. "I don't want another son to lose a dad and think, man, was he proud of me?"

For a while, Nashville looked like it was going to work out pretty well for Walker Hayes. First, he landed a publishing deal, followed by a record deal with Mercury, but the label gave up on him, per The Washington Post. Later, Hayes got a deal with Capitol Records in Nashville, and released two songs in the early 2010s, but they didn't do well enough to placate the record execs, and he lost that deal too.

Feeling defeated and needing to provide for his family, Hayes knew he had to do something, so he took a late-night shift at a local Costco in 2015 — an experience which he told Billboard was "humbling." Hayes thought about giving up on his dreams because of the situation he'd found himself in, but he received a much-needed dose of perspective from his daughter Lela instead. When the headliner of his car threatened to cave, he asked Lela for some thumbtacks to help it stay up. While Hayes could only see the negative in this instance, Lela thought the thumbtacks looked like stars. This story inspired Hayes' song "Lela's Stars." On the track, he sets the scene: "It's 3:42 a.m., eyes blood shot / Yawning in my, Honda in a Costco parking lot / Waiting on the door to unlock so I can clock in early / And stock the cooler 'til I swear I need back surgery." But then he looks up at the stars and understands: "The sky ain't fallin', it's just the roof of my car."

Walker Hayes had one publishing deal or another throughout most of his time in Nashville before he found success, but this didn't lead him far until he started working with producer Shane McAnally, according to Billboard. Now, he writes or co-writes the songs he performs, and his fans love the honesty of his songwriting, whether he's singing about his daughter or about a couple-next-door date night. "They don't want me to write a song about a Saturday night unless it's a Saturday night that actually went down," Hayes told the Washington Post. "To me, that makes the music so much better — I think that's standing out."

Songwriting, for Hayes, is also a portal to something fun and light — regardless of what's going on in the world around him. "I don't know about you, but I've always been really positively influenced by joyful people despite their circumstances," Hayes told Forbes. "And that's all I want to be with songwriting and singing." But above all, his songs have to come from the heart — and from experience. "I have to have lived it," he told Tennessean. "A lot of those struggles, a lot of people can relate. I can't tell you how many people come up to me and say, 'Man, I'm there now.' It gives me goosebumps." And that's the Walker Hayes brand: always the most relatable songwriter in the room.

If you're a longtime country fan, "You Broke Up With Me" is probably the song that introduced you to Walker Hayes. But even though on a first read of the lyrics, it seems pretty straightforward what the song is about, it might surprise you to hear that it actually has nothing to do with romantic relationships. "It's honestly about Nashville," Hayes explained to Billboard, adding that while he was signed to a label, important people in country music were fighting for his attention, and that they just abandoned him when he got dropped. "These were friends, and they vanish when nothing's going on," he said. "[It's] the nature of the music business."

As awful as this experience must have been, Hayes sure got a great hit out of it. The artist co-wrote "You Broke Up With Me" with Thomas Archer and Kylie Sackley, and the latter told American Songwriter about what it was like working with the two men on it. "Firstly, they're wonderful human beings, which is the most important for me when I'm sitting in a room bearing my soul as a writer," Sackley told the outlet. "They are both so witty lyrically ... they understand the importance of phrasing and pushing boundaries and all round they just 'get it.'"

Walker Hayes' seventh child tragically died during childbirth, and he didn't know whether his wife Laney would make it through alive either: He just had to sit in the hospital hoping that she would wake up, even though it meant he'd have to tell her that their daughter — whom they had named Oakleigh Klover — had died. "Laney and I have cried a lot, but one thing that makes me the happiest is how much love there has been around us," Hayes told People. "We've had the most remarkable questions answered and advice given from people around our neighborhood and in meet-and-greet lines. People walk up to me and tell me their life, and it's like, geez, thank you for sharing. I don't even know these people."

But Walker and Laney Hayes have also been blessed with six healthy kids, who "are more than enough to me," as their mom told People. As for their dad, he has an admirable philosophy when it comes to raising his kids, and he's not afraid to let them know that he might mess up sometimes, too. For him, that's OK as long as they know he's there for them, however imperfectly. "It's important that your father loves you and that you know it," he tells Fatherly. "I know it's important from being a son. I know my dad loves me. It has helped me to grow into a man. I always want them to know I'm in their corner."

If you didn't know Walker Hayes in his "You Broke Up With Me" era, then you surely know him from "Fancy Like." The song became a huge hit thanks to Hayes' daughter Lela, who helped him put together a TikTok dance for the track, and graciously performed it with him. People everywhere began to recreate the dance, while others (hundreds of thousands of them) simply used the sound for their own videos.

So how did a song about a date night at Applebee's not only make Hayes exponentially more famous than he was, but also land him a crossover song with Kesha? He called her, of course, simple as that. "The first time we talked on the phone, she said, 'My best girlfriend got in a fist fight at Applebee's,'" Hayes told People of Kesha, who already knew the song. "And I was like, 'Kesha, you just sealed the deal. That's it. You're perfect for this.'"

The über-relatable song has sparked something of a phenomenon, and even landed Hayes a "paid partnership" with the neighborhood restaurant chain that apparently includes sharing Instagram posts. But Hayes always keeps it real, and for him, that's the secret to the song's success. People are "surprised that I drive a Nissan and we just live in a neighborhood," he tells Forbes. "They think most artists who do this for a living live in a mansion and drive Lamborghini yachts." Walker Hayes, (country mega-celebrity) guy next door.