To the casual observer, Sydney-born electronic producer, songwriter and DJ Hayden James may look like something of an overnight success: his second album, Lifted, was released only last April, yet he’s already made significant headway overseas and clocked up close to a billion streams of his music.
Like most “overnight successes”, James’ current good fortune, which includes playing his first show at Coachella in the US not long after Lifted’s release, was preceded by decades of mastering his craft. It all began when he bought his very first set of turntables – with help from mum and dad – at the age of 16.
Hayden James plays in front of a packed crowd Coachella this year.Credit:Pat Stevenson
“I worked at the local chicken shop and at the Sydney Olympics as a barista and I earned enough cash to buy one turntable, and my parents bought the other one – that was the deal,” says the 37-year-old.
After working on his DJing chops at local 21st birthdays and the occasional wedding, James began writing his own music around the age of 23 while studying at UTS.
“I didn’t release any of my own music until 2013, so it was quite an amount of time I spent DJing and figuring out what style of music I wanted to write before I started releasing music, which, I think, was a good thing – I didn’t just jump into it,” he says.
Biding his time has clearly paid dividends, with James going on to release a string of platinum singles (Numb, Just Friends, Better Together) that caught not only the attention of music fans but some big names.
“In 2016, my then manager got an email saying, ‘We love Hayden’s stuff, we’d like to fly him to Santa Barbara to write some records with Katy [Perry]’,” says James.
“We thought it was a joke and didn’t respond, but we got another email a week later, looked up the person who sent it and realised it was actually legit.”
The result was two weeks of writing with Perry for up to 15 “gruelling” hours a day, with one of the tracks from those sessions, Deja Vu, making it onto Perry’s 2017 album Witness.
The Australian DJ’s music has been streamed almost a billion times. Credit:Cybele Malinwoski
“She’s an incredible songwriter, and it was really cool to see another side of a huge pop star like that, just in the studio writing,” says James. “It was a great experience.”
Now James is back in Australia, touring after playing a string of international shows in places like Ibiza, and looking to give local fans a live taste of Lifted.
As the album’s title suggests, it’s a collection of uplifting party tunes designed to be best experienced on a packed dance floor, despite the fact the music was written in solitude during the 2020 lockdowns.
“It was definitely hard not to be able to go to a club and try something out and be like, ‘Oh, that was a huge flop’ or ‘That’s the right direction’,” he says. “I had to remind myself I’d already written all these records, I knew how to do it and that it was okay to trust myself.”
While he may not have much time to pause and reflect on his considerable achievements – there’s a move to Los Angeles with his wife and two young children next month, plus another batch of US shows on the horizon – the question must be asked: what’s it feel like to know your music has been streamed close to a billion times?
“That’s insane, isn’t it? I honestly can’t compute it, it’s such a vast amount,” he says with no small amount of awe.
“The thing I love that makes the most impact is getting messages from people on social media platforms about how I’ve helped them in some way with my music, in terms of having a positive impact on their mood or state of mind.
“I’m just lucky that the music that I’ve written connects. Honestly, I still feel like, ‘I wonder what I’m going to do when I grow up … is this it? Maybe this is it. I think I can keep going here’.”
Hayden James plays Sydney’s Hordern Pavilion on Saturday, September 3
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