Q&A: Blissful Ignorance in “Zip” With Hayes Warner
“JUST LET ME CREATE MY REALITY AND IGNORE WHAT’S GOING ON.” - Rising star Hayes Warner has managed to make ignorance into a danceable beat that will make you forget all of your problems with her new single “ZIP”, which talks about not wanting to face the truth about a relationship and choosing naive happiness instead. With a pop-punk sound with synths, this song truly makes you want to jump around your room while caring more about your happiness than focusing on your problems.
The Luna Collective had a chance to talk with Hayes as she opened up about her new single, how much this song means to her as an artist and how the fashion of the music video represents this brand-new era for her.
LUNA: You graduated from Northwestern University’s musical theatre program, this is so interesting! My first question to you is how has your education in musical theatre influenced your songwriting and performance style?
HAYES: Musical theater really helped with the storytelling aspect. I did a lot of script writing and a lot of analyzing scripts and what makes a good play, a good play and a good musical, a good musical, and having good arcs. I love writing meaningful impactful storytelling lyrics. It really helped kick off my obsession with lyricism and writing a story in my songs. It also helped with my stage presence. When I'm writing songs, I'm always thinking about how they're going to translate to a live performance.
LUNA: I love that you focus a lot of your lyrics, lyricism for me is really important. Focusing more on your upcoming single “ZIP”. It has a mix of pop punk but at the same time, I could hear some synths. And the chorus of the song is bold with lyrics such as “I don’t want to know / I don’t want to talk / Cause I think I know / And I’d rather not / Zip your fucking lips” What inspired the catchy yet aggressive nature of the chorus of this song?
HAYES: I feel a lot of times it is often advised against as bad advice, for example, when I went to a therapist for a while, they would say “Talk through your feelings, address the truth, be honest”. I realized that there are so many points in my life where I just would rather live in blissful ignorance, I just don't want to know. So it kind of just rolled off our tongue. We were playing around with chords, “I don't want to talk/ because I think I know / but I'd rather not”. It just felt like it explained how I feel about confronting the truth sometimes even if it's not the healthiest way of dealing with things.
LUNA: Focusing more on the sound of the song, as I previously, mentioned it has this danceable mix of pop-rock and a heavy guitar that is very distinguishing from the rest of the instruments of the song, how do you think the blend of these genres enhance the message of this song?
HAYES: The danciness and the playfulness of it teases around the idea of blissful ignorance, to essentially dance around the truth. I wanted it to be upbeat and fun. I wanted the chords, especially the sounds of the guitar, and the synths to have some darkness to it because there is some depth and darkness to not wanting to know the truth and not wanting to acknowledge your problems. In a lot of my songs on this upcoming EP, there's just a level of darkness to it because you can deal with your emotions however you want to deal with them. At the end of the day, there is gonna be that lingering truth and lingering consequences of whatever happened that you're ignoring. The danciness contradicts the actual darkness of the truth.
LUNA: This song is definitely super danceable, when I was listening to it all I wanted to do was just jump around and dance around. I got sent the visuals early and it is giving cool girl. We see you running around a metro station and singing on a motorcycle. What inspired the concept behind the music video and how does it compliment the song’s themes?
HAYES: Yeah, so kind of just building on this world of the song and this EP. I love this idea of living in my own delusional reality. And so I loved that contradiction of New York and the seriousness of New York, everyone's going to work and on the subway, doing their thing; and there I am, posing and not taking myself too seriously, playing with the people, waving at the people that are going to work, etc. I just love that contradiction of the silliness with serious reality. I think the same thing with the motorcycle and me getting a tattoo, I'm not acknowledging the long-term consequences of decisions.
LUNA: Can you describe more of the creative process behind the song? What was going on behind the scenes when you were making this song?
HAYES: I was in the process of crafting, and putting together my EP. The throughline with all of these songs is I was at a time in my life where I was going to therapy for the first time and I was trying to kind of deal with things in a healthy way. With the EP I was acknowledging the fact that oftentimes we deal with emotions with a quick solution, ignoring the consequences. For example in a recent relationship I had a feeling I was getting cheated on and instead of dealing I just sort of said, You know what? I'd rather not know. Let's not talk about it. I don't want to deal with that right now. I want to just live my life and have a happy day and for things to be easy. Every song is from a different angle but with this sort of perspective.
LUNA: Kind of the same question, what was the creative process behind the music video?
HAYES: It was really on the go. We weren't thinking too much about it. I knew the energy that I wanted. I wanted it to be in New York City because it's where I grew up, and where I live, and I feel like a lot of that energy in the city is very serious and reality-centric. But we didn't have a straight-through line. It was on a VHS camera. Our amazing videographer, Isabelle filmed the whole thing, and what came together was people's reactions to what I was doing, crazy different moves I was doing in weird places. It was really fun, but we didn’t go in with a strict narrative.
LUNA: I truly was amazed by how fun the music video was, but talking more about you as an artist and like about lyrics, all of your songs have very catchy choruses. My question is, how do you think lyricism improves the quality of his song?
HAYES: For me, what connects me to a song, especially what connects me to an artist, is when I feel like we've gone through a similar experience, or we're dealing with similar things. All my favourite songs have some sort of lyric element to them that makes me feel like I can connect with what the artist went through.
LUNA: Yes! I agree. Lyrics are extremely important for me as a listener. I love when artists put out songs that I can relate to. I get a feeling of wanting more, I want to listen to this artist more. Talking more about your outfit in the music video and fashion and stuff like that, your style seems to blend a lot with your music. How important is fashion to your overall artistic expression?
HAYES: It's really important! It's also important to explore and play around. I've been all over the place with my fashion the past few years, but I finally feel like I'm finding something that speaks to the music but also who I am. The perfect spot is when you feel comfortable in the clothes and it’s an accurate representation of you.
LUNA: I agree that fashion is very important when it comes to artistic expression, and I think your music perfectly blends with how you demonstrate yourself. My last question is, Looking into the future, what is next for you? What are some goals for music and your career for the next few years?
HAYES: I am going to continuously release music but I also want to play more shows! One of my dream places to play is Mexico City so I guess that could also be a goal for the upcoming year.
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