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Together with American Songwriter, we had the pleasure of interviewing Hayley McKay over Zoom video!
After recently receiving international acclaim with a number 1 on the Ignition
Country Charts for previous single, this North East Country star is back with another
uptempo Country pop banger, Breathe.
Written in Lockdown in May and co written and produced with Newcastle based
Hattie Murdoch over zoom, the song features pulsating rhythmic guitar, flowing
drums and big melody with slick production and deep bv’s. Inspired by the
lockdown, it’s about being able to enjoy the smaller things in life and taking that all-
important breather that we all need sometime, something much needed in 2020.
Hayley is an accomplished and insightful songwriter with an incredible vocal range
with a distinctive all-round style, which can effortlessly leap from earthy and soulful
raw emotion to soaring and ethereal angelic tones likened to Eva Cassidy, Joni
Mitchel, LeAnn Rimes and Kate Bush. Over the last few years she’s been co-writing
songs with award winning songwriters such as Nashville’s twice Grammy-nominated
songwriter Jan Buckingham (Whitney Houston), Bill DiLuigi, Claire Hamill (Eva
Cassidy, Wishbone Ash), Andy Vitoli, Phil Caffrey and producer/writer Hattie
Murdoch with many news songs to be released over 2021.
Breathe comes after great international response from previous single ‘Thinking
About Last Night’ (April 3rd) after gaining international support from Ireland, UK and
was recently voted in the top 10 Valley FM Indie charts in Australia and in the top 3
best new singles in Ireland. It has also gathered support on BBC Introducing. McKay
was also artist of the week on various international radio stations in the US and the
UK with features in Country Line TV, BMCA and ISSA (International Songwriters
Association).
With a forever growing online fanbase with over 6,000 followers across her socials,
she has also had long running national TV, Radio and media support from the BBC
with features in the Telegraph, Crack Magazine and ‘Track of the Week’ on many
occasions on local BBC Radio Tees along with several podcasts and sessions such as
Bob Harris’s Under the Apple Tree in home studio. She has also performed on TV
shows including RTE, The today Show-Ireland’s biggest daytime TV show, STV
Scottish TV including many of her music videos being played on Keep it Country TV.
In 2011 Hayley entered a national talent competition and winning a nice cash prize,
which helped towards the costs of her studying at BIMM (Brighton) and Access to
Music in London amongst her peer Jess Glynne. Since then, with a huge love of
performing she has played up and down the country playing numerous shows, Tours
and major festivals including Glastonbury, Cornbury, Latitude, The Sage Americana
Festival, Hardwick Live and only last year, the iconic music venue The Sage
Summertyne Americana Festival. McKay has also supported major acts Tom Jones,
Albert Lee, Scouting for Girls, Martha Reeves and Hazel O’Connor and was due to
have a big 2020 with confirmed performances at C2C: Country-to-Country at the O2
Arena in London, The British Country Festival and the famous Glastonbury. All now
re-scheduled for 2021.
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