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| HAYLA @ the Great American Music Hall (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
It's been a year and a half since HAYLA stood on the stage at San Francisco's Great American Music Hall, playing her first-ever headline show in the city while introducing West Coast audiences to DUSK, the debut album she'd spent three years crafting. Back then, as she told SFBayAreaConcerts.com in our 2025 interview, she was still finding her footing as a performer, a self-described shy artist just starting to step into the spotlight. A lot has changed since then. She's played to her largest crowds yet alongside Kygo, staged an intimate and emotional free concert at London's St. Pancras Church, and somehow wrote and recorded a whole new album, DARK, in just eight weeks. And where DUSK leaned into her EDM roots, DARK strips things back into something rawer and more personal.
Now HAYLA is heading back to San Francisco, this time headlining the Regency Ballroom this week as part of her current U.S. tour. We caught up with her while she's on the road to talk about how DARK came together so quickly, what it's like performing her most personal songs live night after night, and how that unexpected night at a London church has changed the way she thinks about playing live. Catch the full interview below and be sure to get tickets to her show this coming Thursday at the Regency here.
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| HAYLA @ the Great American Music Hall (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
SFBayAreaConcerts.com: Thanks so much for making the time today while you're on the road! I'd love to start by talking about your new album, DARK, which was released at the end of July. When we spoke last about your debut solo album, DUSK, you mentioned how it was a culmination of work across three years. How did the follow-up come about so quickly afterwards?
HAYLA: Well, I went into the studio for eight weeks to see what would happen and I said to my manager after the eight weeks, I was like, "Oh, I think I'm done." And he said, "What do you mean you think you're done?" I said, "I think I've got a body of work." So this DARK album only took eight weeks because it's a real pinpoint of my life. Apart from two songs that were written a year and a half before, it was an eight-week period in which DARK was written. And I think if I was to have had any pressure applied, I don't think it would have happened that way. But yeah, it was something that I just totally didn't anticipate at all, really.
SFBAC: The sound is quite a departure from the first album, too. It's much less of an EDM sound. This is much more... still melancholic, still kind of... I don't want to say 'dark', but—
HAYLA: Oh, yeah.
SFBAC: But it's raw and honest, right? It comes through. How did that sound come about?
HAYLA: I think it was just when I was getting into those sessions, we were just writing for the love of writing. I remember being in a studio session, one of them... the song "I Don't Believe It Anymore", with one producer and one of the co-writers, and also just, you know, playing around. And I said to them both, "You know, I haven't got any real idea of what I want to do, but do you want to just have a play around?" And we were like de-tuning guitars, playing synths, not writing with any sort of remit. And they said to me afterwards, and I said to them too, we were like, "We can't remember the last time that we just played around and not with any remit in mind." There wasn't any "it needs to be this, it needs to be that, it has to be this tempo, this pitch, register, key", nothing. We just... we were in the session and just writing for the love of creation. And I think I approached every session in that way. It was like the only thing that I thought about, really. I thought a lot about nature and I thought a lot about where in the end I'd like to sing these songs, and I thought about mountainscapes, forests. I thought about by the edge of the sea, and I think it was just more that not thinking about style and genre at all really allowed these songs to just breathe in the space that they needed to breathe in. So, without knowingly kind of writing an album that wasn't EDM-based at all, it ended up being the way that it is just totally naturally.
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| HAYLA @ the Great American Music Hall (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
SFBAC: Are there, again, these songs that you have on both albums... they come across as deeply personal? One question is, would you ever put the album on just to listen to? Would you listen to your own music if you're at home, or relaxing, or in the car?
HAYLA: I don't think I've ever done that. I've listened back to songs in the sense of, well, because when I'm playing them... but I mean, as far as it goes for like being relaxed, with the one that I have listened back to... I haven't listened back to DARK in its entirety. Actually, I probably should. I mean, obviously I played it live and did the St. Pancras show with it, but the one that I do go back to, and that I have gone back to is "Dusk," just the title track from the first album. I've listened to that a few times. And I think that probably the reason why is because it's one that I've never performed live. And I kind of like the fact that because I wrote, recorded, and produced that myself. I think sometimes-sometimes I listen to it and I'm like, "I need to do more of this. I have to do more of this." So I listen to it and I think—I try not to pick it apart, you know, but I—I definitely have listened to that a few times. I'm like, it gives me this elated feeling. So I think maybe because I know that I need to chase that further. So maybe that song is probably going to have a bit of an influence on what I do next. I'd like to be able to say that that would influence my potential production a bit more because I do seem to listen to that more so than any other really, apart from the ones I sing live.
SFBAC: And when you say you're listening to that one in particular, are you listening to the actual vocal performance of the song? Are you listening to the mix of the song, and thinking you would have done this differently or brought this up in the mix differently?
HAYLA: Bit of both. A bit of both. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And also, it's funny because "Dusk" is actually just a section of an entire song. So, when I produced that song, it was a lot longer than it is, and I just loved the last bit. It's a very long song. It's actually like a seven-minute long piece, but I liked the end of it. So, I just chopped it in half and thought, "Oh, that makes sense there." So I listened to it and I'm kind of like, "Oh, I'm happy that I made that decision," but I'm also kind of like, "I don't know why I didn't ever put the whole song out because I could have just done that because it's my album." But it has kind of made me sort of—I'm trying not to be too self-critical, but it has made me think about what I could do better next time and what maybe I could build on next time. And so, in a kind of like, positively critical way, I suppose I listen to it, but yeah, it's hard not to be a critic of my stuff.
SFBAC: Given how personal these songs are to you, are there any that you aren't comfortable performing, or considering you don't really listen to either album much... songs that you just have a hard time listening to because they're too personal?
HAYLA: No. I mean, do you know what? I'm probably performing the two most personal songs on the album on this tour. Yeah, "Dark" and "Easier". I think are the two songs that I... when I first sang them, I did feel very emotional, and sometimes... well, still. I just think that I've got to a point where I'm able to sort of feel the emotion without—I say this now, it probably happens to me next week now, without choking, you know? I think sometimes I've had moments where I'm like, like I feel it a lot. And so I'm... sometimes I have to like, "Okay, get to the next line." It's kind of, you know, I view it in a sort of like, not getting through it, but I try and separate a tiny bit so it doesn't kind of ruin the performance and I have a bit of an emotional moment. But I feel like, yeah, that those two songs... the two most probably devastating songs, I've decided to fully go and put them in this set. So they're in this... they're in mind during this tour set. Which maybe in a way, somehow, is helping me heal a bit. I don't know. Maybe.
SFBAC: So DUSK mainly focused on heartbreak. DARK is more about healing -- while still grieving a bit. Don't take this the wrong way, but do you plan on writing any happy songs?
HAYLA: The thing is, I feel like I've got a happy disposition, but melancholy seems to be my favorite mood. So I, yeah, I think that most of my songs are definitely full of melancholy if not sorrow. I don't know why, I think that maybe I resonate with that so much more when I'm writing. I find it quite hard to write happy songs, and not because I'm not... not because I don't have a... a happy outlook, but... I mean, maybe I don't, I don't know. But... but I think... I think one day, the one thing that I know that I'm going to do for sure is that the next body of work, whenever I write it, I want to write it with glimmers of hope. And I think even if that comes from a melancholy standpoint, I want to write some music that make people feel like all the things that we've been through, there's... there's on the other side of that, there is hope, and there are glimmers of life that will make you feel hopeful. And I think it's important for me as well in my human journey, although I'll be carrying this for the rest of my life—the grief that I'm suffering at the moment, and also, like the heartbreaks I've been through and just generally bits in life, you know, I think that everybody goes through—but I think that whatever I write next, I think there's going to be an infusion of hopefulness. So whether they'll be happy, I don't know, but I'm hoping there'll be an over-kind-of-arcing, in a thematic kind of way, throughout whatever I write. Hopefully, there'll be an overarching thing of, you know, I'm going to be okay and we're all going to be okay, you know, I hope.
SFBAC: Well, 'HOPE' would be a good four-letter album name.
HAYLA: Yeah. I've got an album title already... you could probably work it out. My theme for the album titles, by the way, is my favorite times to listen to music. Dusk is one of my favorite times to listen to music. Dark is one of my favorite times to listen to music. And there may be another time of day that is also a favorite... So there... that's the theme of the album title.
SFBAC: When realistically would you like to put out another album? Are you writing or recording anything now?
HAYLA: No. I'm not writing at the moment, but as soon as I finish this tour, I'm going to have a little bit of a sort of rest and think about, you know, where and when I want to get back into the studio. But I think realistically it won't be next year. It's probably going to be... I think it'll probably be like, in a similar kind of way, nearly a two-year cycle. So maybe 2028 potentially? And I'm hoping that I'll have... I hope that I'll have some music to release next year, at least some singles. There's nothing at the moment, but I do have like two choruses written in my phone. So I have an idea of... I already know my album title for the next album. I already know the concept. I already know the stage design. I've kind of come up with that already. And I've also come up with like the costumes and also kind of fashion. So I know about it, but I haven't written about it yet. So, I'm kind of in that zone of... and I think that DARK is definitely going to infuse whatever I do, but I think that I'll probably be heading back into a sort of EDM crossing kind of body of work for sure because I realize the dance floor gives us so much and takes away so much, you know?
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| HAYLA @ the Great American Music Hall (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
SFBAC: You're wrapping up the US tour in just a couple of weeks. Do you have a European tour planned?
HAYLA: No. Do you know? I would love to. There are quite a few people who are from like, more of a European side of the world, and I have had a few messages from people saying, you know, "would you ever come over?" So, I'm hoping that that would help influence potential shows over there because I would love to. And I do live in the United Kingdom, so it would be handy.
SFBAC: I was fascinated with your recent live concert from St. Pancras Church. First of all, it sounded great. I wish I could have been there just to hear you perform live in the church. I love music in cathedrals. How did it come about? And do you envision doing more of those?
HAYLA: So, the St. Pancras show was actually just initially we were going to do it as a content piece. So, we weren't going to invite an audience, and it was something that we have been toying with, sort of longer-form content. And, you know, obviously after this album it was kind of like, how do we show this album off? Because obviously we know it's not an EDM-leaning album. It's quite different. And we spoke with my label, and we just basically said, 'How about we do... like we put it online as a long-form piece of content so the album could also be a visual representation as well as an audible thing, you know?' So we genuinely were not going to invite an audience. It was going to be just... We basically went into St. Pancras, by the way, they do put on loads of different live performances from so many different genres and styles of music. So it's actually kind of a venue as well.
And when we went in, obviously we understood why, because the... the loftiness of the ceilings and the stone walls, the acoustics in there are incredible. So when we walked in there, we went on a site visit, and immediately we were like, 'I think it has to be here because it just... the setting of it just felt incredible, and the sound of it was amazing.' And I think when we went in, there was a cellist and a grand piano player just practicing for their show that they had that evening. And so we walked in and there was live music happening already in there whilst they were just rehearsing, and we were like, "This is like something we have to do... something here." So they already had a grand piano in there as well. So that was amazing for us to be able to use. We had a string quartet, and we were going to film it as a long-form piece of content just for YouTube so people could listen to it at home all around the world. But we decided last minute to make it a free gig, so it's completely free. I put it out online. I said to everybody, "There's no pressure. Turn up if you like, whatever you'd like to do." And I had, like, some people there like family and friends that I hadn't seen for... for like a while, you know? And there was 250 people who turned up. We did the performance of the show, I talked to people afterwards, and... and it was something that, like, I would absolutely love to take around. I would love to... we actually toyed with, and I'm still toying with, the idea of hopefully maybe doing it over this side of the world at some point.
I would love to, because I... I just think that the way that... it's not like a complete reimagining of the tracks, but I think that the life that's breathed into them with a space like that because of the... and I think more in a kind of like... in a completely non-religious way. It was just the... the acoustics of the space and— and what that kind of elevation of sound did to the music. I just think that I would love to be able to recreate something like that. And I think even if it wasn't necessarily like a cathedral or church, but if it was a space that would just have the... the acoustics like that. It's something that I will be seriously considering. If I can make it work, I really want to make it work. So, I'm thinking about it because it's probably one of my most favorite performances I've ever done. And I've done quite a few in my time, you know? I thoroughly enjoyed it. And it was quite an emotional night because there were family members there that obviously have been through this same loss that I've been through. And I was singing these songs for the first time to them. That was... that was difficult but beautiful at the same time.
SFBAC: We'd love to see it happen! Grace Cathedral here in SF would make for a great location, but we're obviously a little biased!
Thanks again for making the time today and we can't wait for your show at the Regency Ballroom this Thursday. Tickets are still available here at the time of this posting. Best of luck on the rest of the tour and hope to see you back in San Francisco soon!
