A Farewell/Pause to the Performance Career of Haley
Minnesota-based singer-songwriter just announced her “last live performance for a while” and it hit me in a very intense way. I am an agemate of Haley’s and though we are far from close friends our careers have consistently crossed paths for over twenty years. For years I’ve thought of her as one of the great writers in our scene. I’ve probably really spoken to Haley maybe ten times in my life. But the amount of times I feel shoulder to shoulder with Haley in making music, in crafting a life, in pursuing a balance between family duties and music duties are countless. She’s made songs like Kismet Kill, Hometown and Last War that I think are some of the finest music to ever come out of the Twin Cities. She’s lived a beautiful life sharing music with her fans, eschewing much of the social media game (I onetime told her I said something nice about her online and she said “I will never see that ever”), and generally charting her own path. There’s a time where Haley moving to Portland got a fair amount of coverage in the Star Tribune, Vita.mn and City Pages. But we’re in a different era where the end of her performing career doesn’t come with big fanfare. When I heard an announcer mispronounce her name on the radio as “Hallie” I felt compelled to put down just how important Haley and her path are to me.
I remember hearing about Haley from Bill Caperton. He described a young woman signed to Low’s label Chairkickers Union and making waves in Duluth. She had moved to Duluth from her hometown of Rapid City. This was 2003 I bet. And then she starts working with Vickie Gilmer. Vickie is managing my band Heiruspecs at the time as well as her primary bread-winning client Mason Jennings. I’m barely 23 years old, shocked I am in a band that has a manager. Everything is new, everything is amazing. I see a tour poster for Haley (at the time performing as Haley Bonar) that says “Save a horse, ride a cowboy”. I hear her music around then and it’s just simply stunning. It seems patently obvious why Chairkickers would be involved with her. Her writing is pure and intimate. That’s kind of the Low formula but frankly Haley has always gone for the visceral in a more convincing way lyrically than Low has. There’s something sort of just straight forward about Haley. That straight forwardness brings her closer to the visceral than grand imagery or poetic statements can every get you. Her songs are amazing and she performs them well. She will toss off an absolutely amazing line into the third verse of a song where most writers are hiding their third-rate material.
I don’t know the ins and outs but Haley didn’t work with Vickie for long. But Haley seemed to keep on getting the right calls and opportunities. Opening tours, opening sets. Everyone else in the world of music was older and Haley was my age. We weren’t friends, I can’t even remember necessarily “meeting” her during these years, but we were on a lot of bills together. She was friends with Martin Devaney and Joanna James and I was playing music with both of them at the time. We ended up together at a small apartment party on Grand Ave and I learned that Haley is absolutely hilarious. She made one of the funniest jokes I ever heard that night. I still probably think about it once or twice a week.
At this time Haley is the talk of the town in a way that seemed mega significant to me at the time. Shows are full. City Pages is writing about her. She’s opening for bands. The best players in town are playing with her. And her records keep on getting better and better. I feel this kindredness with her at these moments, not cause the same things are happening for my band, but because we are in the same universe, pursuing what I think are the same goals. And every time I hear her music I think, what an amazingly great song. Even if I don’t like the guitar tone, or the drum part, or the mix. . .the song is always bulletproof. Haley signs with Afternoon Records, which at the time seemed like a really big deal. The rumor was that Afternoon footed a 10k bill for big deal guy Tchad Blake to mix her record. I don’t know if it’s true but holy shit that record sounds great. It’s shortly after that that Haley moves to Portland for a time and I was wildly confused. Haley! How could you leave this? People come to your shows! You’re writing amazing songs! Everything must be perfect right?
I saw Haley when she came back from Portland at a great short-lived restaurant in Saint Paul called the Strip Club. I was there with my now wife Rachel and Haley was there with a couple people and a. . .BABY! I didn’t know many people with babies at the time. I didn’t know many musicians with babies. I think I knew no women musicians with babies in my age cohort. I couldn’t imagine it. I couldn’t understand how she could do it. Live the life maybe we’re both still aiming at and having this beautiful child to care for at the same time. I didn’t know how brunch with a kid was supposed to work. I still sort of don’t. We talked as long as you can really talk when someone is holding a baby and everyone is trying to have a brunch.
The records kept on coming and they kept on being amazing. Seemed like a miracle to me given how much the music business is designed to kick everyone who isn’t a single, white 17-25 year old male out of the fame. Some friends of mine joined her band and they seemed to be doing these things that I knew were hard to navigate period, and harder still to navigate while raising a child. I was so impressed. More than impressed I was in utter belief of Haley. She means this. She means this music and she will do what it takes to share it.
Haley came back from Portland quick and I ran into her again at a Duluth show with Gramma’s Boyfriend (her awesome sideproject), P.O.S, Heiruspecs and maybe one other act. This might’ve been the mid 2010s. We talked backstage and she said something that always stuck with me. She said “I heard that Peter (Heiruspecs’ drummer) is working for the city or something?” (Peter was and still is working for Mayor Carter’s office). I confirmed that yes and Haley just said “and here the rest of us are, just still doing the same stupid music stuff.” It stuck with me cause I know, and she knows, the music stuff isn’t stupid. The music stuff is magical. The times I’ve seen her on stage or heard her on record and it’s changed me. And I’m not the only one. When she announced she was taking a break the fans came out of the woodwork to celebrate her and her music. It’s great music. It’s hit me. It’s struck me. That isn’t stupid. But the world thinks it’s stupid if you aren’t famous enough to be widely recognized.
Maybe in 2019 or so Jade from the Current had Haley on for an interview. I do not know exactly what they were talking about. But I was struck by how absolutely real and transparent Haley was. Haley told a story about getting in a bad fender bender on her way to a show at the Walker and what hit me was how much she sounded like a human talking to another human about a little car accident. No artifice. No returning it to talk of her album, no shoehorning in references to her upcoming shows. Just talking. It was so refreshing.
And when I thumbed across Haley saying she was stepping back from playing just a couple weeks ago I couldn’t help but think about how well she has lived her life. The big record never hit for Haley but she has fans, sells records, makes an impact and has given countless people mountains of joy, hours of music to deploy for the hard times. I think it’s easy to wonder what the hell you’re doing if your career is music. I am pretty confident Haley knows she hasn’t done “stupid music stuff” for her professional life. But I just had to type it into existence that Haley is one of the greats from our town, and she decided to press pause on a portion of her career on a random Wednesday in November at the Dakota. And more power to her, but she’s spectacular, I appreciate her and I hope you’ll take some time to listen to her work today.