Country singer Seth Ennis remembers some of the best advice he’s received as an artist. It’s something rather simple to conceptualize, but as it often goes, it’s easier said than done. “I heard a songwriter I really respect say in an interview once ‘the key to a hit song is to make heartbreak sound happy,'” Ennis said in a statement, “so I spent basically a year writing a ton of songs chasing that.”
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And out of that year-long creative journey came the scrumptious, earworm-infused pop-country song “Hair Ties (I Don’t Wanna).”
Written with co-writers Geoff Warburton and Matt McVaney, Ennis knew pretty early on in the songwriting process that this song needed to be in the ears of music fans. “[We] were writing for pitch. But I knew pretty much when we left that day, it was one I really wanted to cut,” Ennis told American Songwriter.
Ennis continued to explain that he first stepped into the writing session armed with the title “I Don’t Wanna.” From there, Ennis and his team built out the verses and found that “hair ties” fit snuggly at the end of each chorus. So, at the suggestion of his producer Jordan Schmidt, the song was titled “Hair Ties (I Don’t Wanna)” to capture the track’s effervescent personality.
As far as the sound goes, it “sounds like a lot of my influences wrapped up in around three minutes,” Ennis explained. “I grew up as a military kid, so I moved around a lot and inherently had a lot of different music I grew up listening to. I feel like I used to run from some of those influences early on in my career so I could be more ‘country,’ and now I’m trying to lean into them a little more.”
Now fully leaning into the world around him, Ennis composed lines like I remember when my best friend said / It takes 14 months to forget someone / Well I’m at 13 and I ain’t even close. It’s heartbreaking, but his sound is unapologetic about it.
“I just feel like where I’m at creatively [is] a good spot right now,” Ennis said about “Hair Ties” and his music as a whole. “I feel very free to make whatever I want and not have to force it into genre lines for any specific reason. I’m not really sure where it fits into my evolution as an artist. I’m just loving being able to put out whatever I think sounds cool and authentic.”
Listen to “Hair Ties (I Don’t Wanna)” by Seth Ennis here or below.
Photo Credit: Ford Fairchild
