Hayley Sales Delivers Raw and Soulful Narrative with “Lifeguard”
On today’s artist spotlight we are featuring Hayley Sales, an American/Canadian award-winning and internationally acclaimed singer-songwriter, actress, and producer. Her music has been acclaimed by the likes of Billboard, Variety, The Mirror and more. Her acting credits include numerous network TV shows, most recently Supergirl, Girlfriends Guide to Divorce, The Good Doctor, Cedar Cove and Heartbeat.
Sales’ single “Lifeguard” is a raw and soulful indie pop song about personal devastation and being backstabbed. The narrative of “Lifeguard” describes a period of time in Hayley’s life where the only light she could see was kidnapped by the shards of her very shattered heart.
It is a painfully true story of how the spreading of a rumor cost her her boyfriend of many years, her home, friends, as well as her reputation. We also learn more about the accompanying music video in our chat with Sales.
Your song “Lifeguard” was written from the perspective of devastation where you felt like you could barely breathe. How has the process of putting together “Lifeguard” helped you navigate what you had gone through?
The song itself was written a day after the rumor exploded. I wrote it with two very dear songwriter friends, ESCQ with whom I had a songwriting session scheduled. As badly as I wanted to back out of it, the idea of sitting alone was more terrifying. I pulled up to their small studio apartment in Echo Park, barely able to breathe through the shock. My Dad called. I don’t think I’d stopped crying for twenty-four hours and could barely think straight. Somehow my dad managed to talk me into getting out of the car and walking the block or so to the studio. Love those guys so much. I told them what had happened. We wrote the song in a couple hours, recording the main vocal and all the harmonies into a tiny mic they had squished next to the refrigerator. I never did wind up replacing that vocal. There was something I couldn’t replicate when I tried again. There wasn’t any veneer…I was so raw. The experience that sparked Lifeguard into existence was almost comical; it was so unbelievable. A chapter out of a Shakespearian tragedy. Instead of going all the way into the darkness, we made sure to infuse it with the levity of the absurd.
In many ways, my words and my music are my way of getting through life. By writing a song about an experience, I more thoroughly understand it… It takes all the shattered puzzle pieces of our feelings and emotions, and whether as the artist or the listener, makes it into something beautiful. I’ve always gone to my piano when I’m lost. Somehow it grounds me. I’ve always gone to music when I’m broken. It doesn’t make the pain go away, but it gives me purpose and solace in expression. You know?
When we began producing the song, we didn’t have the piano part. It had been written around chords. One night, in the wee small hours of the morning, I was up awake and couldn’t sleep. I threw on my sweatpants and stumbled to my upright piano across the room. I wanted the piano to feel the way I felt. The intensity, the cinematic nature of the breakdown, the romance, the moment underwater when you don’t know if you can pull yourself up. The piano part came to me after months of beating my head against the wall. And as I wrote it, I cried in a cathartic way. I looked back at my life, at the close to humorous comedy of errors over the past few years. All at once, I realized, those incidents that felt so absolutely devastating and hopeless had opened the doors to the most unforeseeable blessings. I couldn’t believe how grateful I was.
What do you hope listeners will be able to take away from the messaging of the song?
As time has gone by, however, the gorgeous aftermath of the tragic experience continues to amaze me. I didn’t just turn a page. I switched novels entirely. Within months, I came to all sorts of revelations about myself, about my art, my life - I literally stepped into a whole new world. As painful as the experience was, I wouldn’t go back and change anything. I guess I’m saying all this because I want any of you out there who feel beneath the waves to know…It’s going to be okay. Don’t give up. Even if you lose everything, you’ll find something even more beautiful once the waves settle. Let time be your lifeguard. The break will come.
Do you have a favorite lyric or section in the song?
That’s a tough one. I love the chorus. It’s simple. It’s exactly what I felt.
“Let’s float away and wake up in a better place
I’m tired of trying to take a breath beneath the waves
The more I try to get to you the further you are
Dive into me like a lifeguard”
I also love the third and fourth verse. The lightness of the words. It’s the only form of retribution I need:
“You look good in a swimsuit
But boy, start using your head
She’s got nothing but drama
She’s a piranha
Dragging you in”
Share with us the concept about the music video for “Lifeguard”.
Dove Shore, the director, and I wanted to convey the sense of betrayal in an artistic way. The sense of everyone around you having two faces. Everyone around you turning away when you need them most…The poisonous way a rumor can isolate someone at the worst time possible. Dove brought the idea of the masks juxtaposed with the underwater shots…the romanticness of the water and then the eeriness of the masks, the graffiti in downtown LA, the fires burning in an abandoned parking lot…Dove is an incredible photographer, so what he brought to the visuals surpassed my wildest dreams. I guess to keep it simple, we wanted to tell the story of what happened in a raw, cinematic, and vulnerable way.
Funny story about the underwater shots. We were doing the music video by calling in lots of favors as the budget wasn’t blush. It just so happened to be a rainy, cold December day in Los Angeles. That morning, the guy letting us use the pool mentioned that the heater was broken. I kind of brushed it off. I’d be fine. I’d surfed in colder weather than this. Oh, how wrong I was. The pool was about 50 degrees. The director and Greg Browning, our underwater cinematographer, dove in with their wetsuits. I couldn’t fit one under my dress without it showing. Headfirst, I jumped into the water in action. The cold sucked the air out of my lungs. I came up for air. We repeated that for close to two hours. By the end I couldn’t feel my hands and we had to tie weights around my waist so I wouldn’t bop up for air during the kiss. I wound up having hypothermia! But it was worth it. The shots looked gorgeous. And the story is hilarious. And I learned a lesson. Don’t swiång in 50-degree water without a wetsuit.
How much involvement did you have with the shoot, and was there anything stylistically that you felt needed to be expressed visually?
A lot! And I’m so grateful for that. Often, when you do a music video for a major, you don’t have any say. I didn’t when I was younger with Universal. This time, Dove and I were able to hon in on exactly the atmosphere we wanted. We wanted it to be a short film. To have a vibe of something gritty and raw you may have seen in the 70s. To match the story that we were telling. We didn’t do my hair. I wasn’t wearing much makeup. We let me look real, not perfect. And as much as that scared me, I’m glad we did. People need real now more than ever. I know I do. I’m incredibly grateful for this video. For being able to work with Dove on crafting the haunting visuals and the story. He made something impossible possible. Producing my own short film was an incredibly empowering feeling as well. Hopefully it’s just the first of many.
Special thanks to Hayley for the chat and Chantal Reeder for coordinating this interview! Check out Hayley’s single, “Lifeguard” out now.