Cassidy Haley releases The Lovers

After three long years and an even longer spiritual and emotional journey, Cassidy Haley has finally released his album, The Lovers.  As one of the original inspirations for this blog, it was only made sense to reconnect with him and allow him to tell more of his and this record's story.

So let me start with a question that is the result of getting to finally talk to and get to know Dream Rockwell.  She mentioned that she had reconnected with you in the Fall of 2012.  At that time you had just completed a spiritual seclusion.  What triggered it and what was the result?  How much of the experience is responsible for the completion of The Lovers and are there songs on the album that came out of it?

It was triggered by a deep healing that took place when I began my relationship with the love of my life, Jillian Ann. When we began dating (dating again actually, we had been lovers in previous years) I was still reeling from a really bad breakup that truly left me devastated. She helped me pick up the pieces of my life and find myself again. I started meditating and shaved my head and really dissected what made me tick and what patterns I was creating out of my life. For all the personal growth work I had done previously, this time period took me ever so much deeper. I started seeing a shaman, who helped me sort out so much internal stuff and did some powerful 10 day silent meditation retreat. Jillian and I have such a deep bond and went through so much together as we really discovered all the deepest darkest parts of each other. All of this really took me into a deep seclusion. Regarding The Lovers, when I started to really understand who I was and what I was doing here I had to take stock of what I had created. I threw out some songs that didn't fit me anymore and added some songs that really fit where I am at in my life. The first half of the album deals with my breakup and the second half deals with the love and connecting Iine was creating with Jillian. I basically started over at that point and re-recorded all the songs and remixed them. so I really made the album twice. 

From the beginning this album has pulled inspiration from the Tarot, spiritual and emotional balance.  Talk a little more about the final product and these ideals.  

I would say that while tarot has inspired me, what I am really expressing are universal archetypes. From the day I released my first EP, Little Boys and Dinosaurs, I had the vision for all my albums to follow. First THE FOOL, then THE LOVERS..and there are more to follow. For me, art has always carried a powerful level of manifestation. I write, paint, and sing that which I am working on..or seeking in my life, and from there it manifests in the world.  For THE LOVERS, it was as much about the different aspects of myself as it was about my relationship to others. 

Prophetically, I met the girl of my dreams while making it and could not be happier. The tag line for the album is "our true nature is to love that which opposes us" which to me means the duality inside us as well as the duality we experience in relationship. The "other" is something we are always measuring ourselves against. To truly love someone you have to love all of them, and that is the nature of love itself. Because when we love someone even with all their triggers and trauma and insecurities, it gives us permission to truly love all of those things in ourselves, which is what really makes someone unstoppable. and thus leads to my next album..THE HERO. 

How does or will fashion, performance, visual arts and music all come together with The Lovers?

That remains to be seen. Jillian and I have our project, RITUAL (www.makelifearitual.com) which encompasses all those things. We will be releasing our first single under the name "Ritual" later this spring. In terms of fashion and performance we will be focusing our main energy on that. Mainly because we want to spend our time together. and if we focused on solo projects we may not be able to travel as much together, so we started a band. 

For want of a better phrase, is this a concept album?  Is there a definitive beginning, middle and conclusion?

Definitely. It starts with the struggle of a relationship and ends with the triumph of finally accepting and loving "the other". Technically, the first four songs are about my breakup and the last four songs are about current relationship. The process of one to the other was detailed in the journey of this album. For instance, The first Valentines Day I spent with Jillian she found a painting I had done..a self-portrait that my ex-boyfriend had literally stabbed in the heart before he left. He ripped a huge hole right through the heart of the character I had painted. Later I went back and painted blood dripping from the heart and left it hanging on the wall as some sort of reminder I suppose. But on that Valentines Day, it literally flew off the wall and hit her on the head. She was like "what is going on with this painting?" after I told her, we decided to do a ritual. we took the painting up to my roof and literally burned it. I let go of so much pain that night. It was a ritual of cleansing. When we got back downstairs I wrote the song "Never Again" which is the second song on the album. Each of these songs has an equally in-depth story to it and I've placed them just so to illustrate the journey. My journey of THE LOVERS.

Can we expect more great music videos from these tracks?

I hope so! that depends entirely on how far it reaches. I spent every dime i could on this album (way beyond the money i raised through Kickstarter in 2011) and so now I am just going to see what happens and respond. I have visions for videos for all these songs...but I will have to let fate decide about which song actually gets made into a video. We do have an epic music video planned for "Ritual" we will be shooting in the next few months..I cant wait. 

Feel free to speak at length about anything else that went into this project that I haven't asked.

Well I guess I would say that it feels so weird to finally be done with it. The last 2.5 years of my life have always been consumed with this album. From the day I raised 16,000 dollars for my Kickstarter campaign I was forever changed. Raising that much money, while not a lot to some artists, was a huge deal to me and gave me the biggest kick in the ass to make this album as good as it could be. I wrote and re-wrote each song and spent countless hours obsessing over every track. Now, its done. I am so proud of this album, more than anything I have ever done. Jillian helped me co-produce and added piano and strings and even sang background on a few tracks. which is just so lovely to me..creating art with the one you love is priceless..I highly recommend it.

You can purchase The Lovers and learn more about Cassidy Haley at www.cassidyhaley.com 

Stop! Look! Learn! Move forward - Cassidy Haley

Photo: Sunshine Rebel Records

 It’s been almost two years since I first interviewed Cassidy Haley.  Since then he and I have both come a long way and learned a lot.  For me it was doing verbal interviews instead of by email.  I now provide myself and my readers results that are more connected and offer a much wider range of motion.

As for Cassidy's life and career lessons?  The attention he initially received in the beginning, set off more of an explosion rather than just sparking his ambition and creativity.  With offers of management, promotion, etc. he immediately saw this huge picture of national tours, album releases and big productions.  However, he learned quickly that it wasn’t that easy.

My first question was, “what have you learned?”

CH: I learned to take my time. I don’t need to be where I want to be right now.  It is better to be me, where I am right now and take small steps.

I’ve learned that, basically, my grand vision of what I want to see happen is my best asset but it is also my worst enemy because sometimes I lose sight of where I am right now. I’m thinking about a huge stadium concert with fifteen back-up dancers and ten costume changes instead of about getting thirty people to my next show.  So now the 'grand vision' is kept more in check."

Cassidy went on and broke the explanation down further.  “To become a great artist you need that grand vision of where you want to go so it’s not a bad thing.  It’s just that you have to be really aware that it can put you in the fantasy of where you want to be which then distracts you from where you are”.  It was very clear already in our conversation that he has adjusted his focus to a sharper point.

From there I went back to our first interview where I was introducing people to the many facets of this incredibly creative person.  Does he still design clothes, draw, or do performance art?

CH:  Right now I’m really honing in on the musical craft.  I’ve set aside the clothing company, the graphic novel,  and am zeroing in on the music.  Of course I couldn’t be satisfied with one facet of music so I am creating three different live performances.  They include all the same songs but each is styled for a different audiences.  The rock & roll band of Cassidy Haley and The Sunshine Rebels remains.  Then there is the new ‘boy band’ The Mixtape Project which caters more to a queer audience with choreography and very pop orientation.  For the acoustic angle there are performances of either just myself solo on guitar or piano or may occasionally include other artists with acoustic instruments. “

Apparently there is a fourth performance option that Haley went on to explain. 

CH:    "There is a solo show with a more theatrical tinge that includes costumes for nightclubs and the underground scene." 

Cassidy doesn’t liked being boxed in by styles or genres.  For him, even though it may be the same story, there are many ways to tell it.  Sometimes it needs to be resculpted to speak a different audience.  Still a thru-line is there in that they are all his songs.

“Smart art” is risky though, especially in the music business’s current state as far as money goes.  Cassidy is yet another musician who has taken advantage of Kickstarter.  This program offers anyone from fan to investor the opportunity to work directly with artists. 

CH:  “It (Kickstarter) allows me to take my own risks and for my fans to take those risks with me." 

Over the last two years I’ve embraced my music career whole-heartedly.  There was so much to be learned and now I have experience to produce an album, promote an album and release an album in a way that will take me a lot farther.  The Fool was a great album but I want to reach a larger audience with The Lovers and I believe I have the tools to accomplish that now.

Good things that came from Round One of Haley’s venture into his music career were the recognition of his music videos by large media outlets such as Logo TV and AfterElton.  Logo had Whiskey In Churches in rotation for many months.  I asked, based on the insanely high quality of the production of those videos, if that notice got him any calls to work as a production designer, set artist, location scout or director.

CH:  Thankfully no.  Those were not areas I wanted to work in.  They did, however, help to grow my fanbase though.

Videos are a critical part of Cassidy’s concept for all of his music.

CH:  “Every video starts with my vision and then I’m fortunate to be able to bring in very talented people who work for practically nothing to produce videos that I’m extremely proud of and that can stand up to any major artists' videos and do it on a shoe-string budget.  I would make music videos all day long if time and money would allow.  Every song I’ve written I have a music video in my head for.  If I could I would make all those videos because I feel that the visual is integral to the story of the song.   The world is multi-media.  It’s not limited.  So I want to tell the story in every way possible and use every sense that I can.”

Based on the fact that Haley has been putting out a steady stream of songs over the past two years, I wanted to know if he thinks he’ll ever run out of inspirations or lose touch with his muses.

CH:  “No.  The biggest inspiration I have is the experience of life.  When I look deeper into smaller independent artists, there is so much going on and new artists coming out every day.  I’m so encouraged by what I am seeing and hearing, really interesting new things.  For me songwriting is a way I manage my emotional state.  I’m so crazy and such a dramatic person.  I’ll never run out of material.  I’ll spend my whole life processing and trying to evolve as a person and be writing songs the whole time.”

Cassidy did two performances over the Labor Day Weekend to promote his Kickstarter project for “The Lovers”.  On September 2, with The Sunshine Rebels, he performed at The Mint.  On September 5^th  he did a theatrical interpretation of the new single “Champagne or Suicide” in San Francisco.  September 12^th is an acoustic show at Bar Lubitsch.

You can learn more about Cassidy at www.cassidyhaley.com, keep track of his upcoming performances at http://cassidyhaley.com/events/event/listUpcoming, and contribute to his Kickstarter at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cassidyhaley/the-lovers .  Listen to the music at http://cassidyhaley1.bandcamp.com/ then buy it at http://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/cassidy-haley/id323191139

Cassidy Haley is also connected on all your favorite social networking options:

http://www.facebook.com/cassidymusic

http://twitter.com/#!/cassidyhaley

http://www.youtube.com/user/cassidyhaley

I owe Cassidy a big apology for not getting this posted in time to promote the 9/2 and 9/5 shows.  Life got in the way and then came Irene who knocked out my power for two days.  I hope anyone in the Los Angeles area that is available can make it to the 9/12 performance.