Check Out Hazen James’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Hazen James

Hazen, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
The origin story of Hazen James goes something like this…as a kid growing up in Raleigh I was big into visual arts, especially drawing and even more specifically cartooning. Eventually, I got burned out with art as I didn’t like the idea of being graded on things I created and hit a wall creatively.

I had never really picked up a guitar until I got to Appalachian State in the mid-90’s. For the first time I found myself with a lot of free time and decided to use some of it to learn how to play as I had some friends that could play. Luckily for me, the internet just started (I know that makes me sound like I am from the Paleozoic age or something). But with this new found technological marvel, I could just type in a song that I wanted to learn and someone had already put together the tablature for how to play the song. I gravitated towards songs from my favorite band at the time, R.E.M. and learned as many as I could. I was pretty terrible for the first few years but stuck with it and largely became self taught with the exception of like 6 or 7 lessons.

The thing I liked about music is that I knew absolutely nothing about it. With art, I had formal training and knew technique. With music I was like a child and everything was new and exciting. Twenty years went by with me playing at least an hour or so a day. The guitar was a constant source of stress relief and helped clear my head. During this time, got married, had kids, had a career but always kept playing even though I wasn’t producing material or playing live.

Fast forward to 2020, the plague hit and like everyone else we were all stuck in place. Early days of the pandemic I decided to start recording covers of songs during lunch as a way to stay sane. Each day I’d eat lunch quickly and think of a song I wanted to learn, play and record within an hour or less. I kept doing it day after day like it was exercise. After a while I gathered up some courage and started sending those cover songs to friends that were also musicians. And soon other musicians were sharing music with me. I think during those times everyone was looking for any kind of human connection and music was that connection. All told, I think I recorded roughly 500 covers of songs ranging from Bob Dylan, Dinosaur Jr, Pearl Jam, Bon Iver, Zach Bryan, R.E.M., the Lemonheads and many others.

Learning so many songs really increased my music vocabulary and taught me a lot about song structures and how to record things. At some point one of my friends, Chris Lenker said “Hey, have you ever thought of writing your own stuff?” Truth be told, when I was in college I did write some pretty awful songs but other than that I hadn’t really done it.

My new challenge was to start writing my own songs during lunch breaks. With this project, I wasn’t quite as fast as I was with the covers but the process really energized me. After I’d get a song to a semi-presentable stage, I’d send it to friends to get feedback. This part was super helpful in that they had good ideas but more importantly provided me with support. I needed that to keep going.

After a while, I had 20 or so original songs and dozens of pieces of songs built up. Again it took a friend to ask, “Are you working on an album?” I hadn’t really considered it before but the idea sparked some research. I did some searching around to see how to get music on Spotify. Turns out it isn’t really that hard. You need to have a distributor but once in place, the world is your oyster.

At the beginning of 2024, I started releasing some of these songs one at a time on streaming services. It was exhilarating and sort of nerve-wracking. There was definitely some fear. Did these songs suck? Were people going to laugh at me? I ultimately decided I didn’t care what people thought and put it out there for the world to hear. The response I got was amazing and humbling. It was great to run into someone and they’d mention how they checked out one of my songs and enjoyed it.

Over time, I learned a lot more about recording, so I decided to re-master all the songs I’d released before as a proper album called ‘the struggle is part of the plan’. Just to be sort of ridiculous, along with the re-mastered songs, I also added all the acoustic versions of the songs. The album has undertones fueled by the specter of the pandemic such as isolation, uncertain futures and self-doubt. I am really proud of those tunes and how it came together.

Shortly after that, I worked with my friend, Bobby Haywood, to take his songs and produce his album “Blue” under the band name Someday, Somehow. The trick with that was that he lives in San Diego, so we traded files back and forth and the final product has us together playing music like old times, even though we were never in the same room.

So far this year, I’ve released or produced over 50 songs that are now out on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, etc. Pretty wild accomplishment now that I think about it. Another thrill was that I got picked up by WKNC in Raleigh and they play my song “For the Record” every few days on the radio. It is so crazy to hear yourself on the radio for the first time. I wish everyone could experience that feeling just once.

I don’t know what the future holds, I am still writing and releasing songs at a decent place. The next new challenge would be putting together a band and playing live, even though that seems scary as hell. Additionally, I am hoping more college radio stations and Spotify playlists pick up my songs and it just grows organically from there. I’m excited to see where this goes.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The biggest struggle is whether to release something or not. The self-doubt is a powerful force that I constantly have to deal with. I know I am not polished, I’m not the best guitarist, I know I can’t sing but I think I have things to say. Being comfortable with yourself is empowering. Overcoming fear is energizing. I eventually figured, “Why not?” What am I really afraid of here? So getting past that fear has been enormous.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
Let’s get one thing straight, I am not a professional musician. I record music on a laptop in my basement using GarageBand. This is about as low-fi as it gets. I don’t have a real studio or fancy gear. I have no illusions that this project will ever supplant my day job as software product manager. This is purely for fun.

One of the reasons I wanted to put music out there was to de-mystify the perceived barrier to getting onto Spotify. I am not sure I do anything that really sets me apart as an artist yet. I would say I am still trying to find my voice. When I say finding ‘my voice’ I don’t just mean my actual singing voice which is still a work in progress but everything that goes into music like lyrical phrasing, chords, alternate tunings, song structures, instruments, the whole thing. I suppose in a way that does make me sort of unique in that I am constantly trying new styles of playing and singing because I honestly don’t know what my ‘true’ voice is yet.

Of my work so far, I am particularly fond of a few songs. One single I released in late May is called ‘Hebron’ which is about a place up in the mountains of North Carolina near Boone. Hebron always seemed like a spiritual place, at least to me. I tried to reflect some of that in the lyrics. I’d often spend time there hanging with friends and family, meditating and absorbing nature to calm away worries of the day. The song has lines about falling which can be taken a few ways but sorta pokes fun about how the rocks are often slippery and I’ve literally had to catch myself a few times to avoid injury. “Hebron” is about a lot of things but at its core it’s about finding peace with yourself. My favorite line is “And the sun had given up, but I remained”.

Another song I really like is off the album “the struggle is part of the plan” which is “The Art of You” which is about working through writer’s block and the fear of other people thinking your art is terrible. The album title comes from the chorus of the song where sometimes you just have to trust that even though something is hard and you are banging your head against the wall trying to get something to work, it’ll all be fine in the end. It’s all part of the process.

And lastly, I am proud of the song “For the Record” also from the “the struggle…” album. I love its simplicity as it’s basically 3 chords the whole way through with additional sonic layers added each time around. Chris Lenker added this weird baritone guitar to it which takes it in a totally unique direction and gave it some real meat. Lyrically, the song is about what happens when someone dies and you are having to piece together who that person was by the things they left behind. It was the first song I released as well as the first song I ever had that made it to the radio so it will always hold sentimental value.

Risk taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
I personally believe a lot of people are scared to be vulnerable and don’t take chances to show their creative side. You’ve likely heard a million times where folks say they can’t draw, sing, whatever but I honestly think everyone has the capacity to be creative in their own way. It makes me sad that most people don’t even try. Just because you aren’t professional or formerly trained doesn’t mean you can’t create amazing things.

The bigger hurdle is getting over the fear of failure or people rejecting what you’ve put out there. My guess is people would be surprised by how many other people dig what they’re doing. Share your art, your creativity, your soul, your vision. Who cares if people don’t like it. Someone will. I was shocked how many people genuinely liked what I was doing but I went into it thinking ‘this is just for me’.

But once you decide to put it out there, the next time gets easier and so on to the point where you want to keep doing it and even carry that confidence into other parts of your life whether professional or personal.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hazen_james_music/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@hazen_james_music
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/hazenjames
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/4oYpMiKTw6xrLPlCPhj06f