Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Hunter Hayes chooses words carefully, like he’s picking delicate, rare flowers.
He’s speaking to The Tennessean inside a century-old castle in Franklin once owned by a mafioso and gambler. Over the past 40 years, however, that venue, now known as Castle Recording Studios, has become synonymous with being a space where hundreds of recording artists have elevated the expectations of Music City’s world-renowned and pop-culture-redefining studio magic.
Hayes has also been performing since he was able to eat solid food and working in Nashville since he was old enough to drive. Thus, how the nuance and refinement of Castle’s aesthetics impact the art he, now age 33, is attempting to evolve via his latest EP “Lost and Found,” out Nov. 15, and another to follow called “Evergreen” isn’t lost on him.
“It’s like a box of Legos: First, you build the object that’s pictured on the box, then, you break it all apart and, with a wider creative lens, imagine everything else you can make,” says the performer, who has spent the better part of 2024 bittersweetly maturing past being defined by soulful pop or radio-ready mainstream country as his most significant inspirations.