While she’s known throughout Hollywood and beyond as a celebrated actress and beloved cultural icon, Sharon Stone has recently added one more skill to her resume: songwriting.
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Approaching the craft with the same sense of intuition and openness that informs so much of her other work, Stone has been dabbling in music for over 15 years, mostly out of the spotlight. Primarily focused on poetry and self-expression, it wasn’t until relatively recently that she began to branch out and co-write with others. Now, on March 19, one of Stone’s finest collaborations to-date is available: “Never Before,” a complexly romantic single with a tinge of ‘40s post-war dreamworld magic, performed by and written with singer-songwriter, Hayley Sales.
“Sharon Stone is amazing,” Sales told American Songwriter, recalling when she met Stone for the first time several years back. “Our connection happened around the time I lost my first deal with Universal in Canada. I was in Los Angeles, getting a little swept away in Hollywood and a mutual friend of our’s basically said to me: ‘Hey, Sharon Stone is a phenomenal writer and I think you two might really be able to create something fantastic.’”
From there, one thing led to another and the session was officially booked. But, for as exciting as the prospect of writing a song with Sharon Stone was, Sales was a little nervous… at that point in her career, she had never participated in a co-write. “I didn’t even know how they worked.” she said. “I was like ‘What do you even do at a co-write?’ And, of course, my first time doing it ever was with Sharon Stone… so I was worried that I would totally blow it.”
But as soon as Sales got to Stone’s house, all of the nerves began to melt away. “The connection was instant,” she continued. “Sharon was so warm, which is the best way to describe it. We started by talking for a few hours, actually, as if she was making me feel at ease. We both started talking about romance and, eventually, we made our way over to the piano and I started coming up with a little melody. She was standing right next to me and we just got in the zone… It was honestly amazing! I couldn’t have written this song without her. She was really, really great to craft lyrics with. She was so good at keeping them simple, saying so much with so little. I was blown away by her ability to articulate herself. It was the type of thing where her words are just the tipping point and there’s so much meaning hidden within them. To me, that’s the sign of a genius writer. When we got together, she took what I was capable of and threw it to the moon. It was so much fun!”
For her part, Stone explained that Sales’ enjoyment of the experience was mutual. “I asked Hayley—who had been working so diligently—what she had in mind for her dream moment,” Stone told American Songwriter. “I asked her to visualize it, to explain it to me. Then, we took it from there. I love music, so I want great singers and talented artists to perform what I write—artists far better than I. This song brings the feel of a standard into the current moment and I like that.”
Feeling good about their progress, Sales and Stone made a demo of their composition and gave themselves a well-deserved pat on the back. As most songwriters know, it’s one thing to write a good song… but to write a good song and have a fantastically fun time doing it? That’s the kind of blessing that deserves to be held onto, to be cherished—and “Never Before” in particular hit a sweet-spot, blending an impactful sense of longing with an undeniably tasteful arrangement and Sales’ phenomenally jazzy vocal performance.
But, this glow of positivity didn’t last too long. “We wrote it, we recorded a demo and we felt great,” Sales said, “but then I got wrapped up in all of the legal stuff.”
This was a turning point in Sales’ story—in 2016, a week after she delivered the masters of what was supposed to be her next album to Verve Records (an imprint of Universal Music Group), they shelved the project and blocked Sales from getting back any rights to the music. In short: after a two-year-long legal battle, Sales threw in the towel and walked away from the project, leaving the songs lost to history (and the UMG archives).
“I can’t describe to you how tragic it was,” Sales said. “I was pretty much done with the album, I had created all of these songs—some of them were even ancient ones that I first wrote as a teen. I mean, this was gonna be my album. I had finally revisited all of the influences that I really, really resonated with. We had it going off to get mastered and I was so excited. But then, the team completely switched over.
“I was like ‘Okay, cool. I’m gonna take my music and run,’” Sales continued. “But, it turned out that Universal Music Group had just put in place a new rule where they don’t sell or return masters. It was a moment of heartbreak. I definitely felt like the illusion had shattered for me. I know that stuff like this happens all the time, but it was unbelievable to me that I could no longer touch my art. It wasn’t even about whether the record was good or not—I don’t know if my record was ever even listened to. It was just this terrible, weird thing.”
After that, Sales’ life began to spiral. “My career just completely bottomed-out,” she explained. “I went from being pretty much on a good flow with things going pretty well, building up my life, my art and my career and then, suddenly: ‘Kaboom!’ Nothing. We were trying to get that record back for a long time and eventually we had to give up. It was never going to happen. Then, I was just depressed. It was such a loss and it was so painful that I literally couldn’t get out of bed many mornings. It was absolutely heartbreaking.”
But this wasn’t the end of the road for Sales. See, raised on a diet of movies, shows and music from the 1940s and 1950s, Sales has a sense of pre-Internet romanticism ingrained in her (hence the aforementioned “‘40s post-war dreamworld magic” that graces her music). Inspired by the voices of the past who made brilliant art against all sorts of odds, Sales got her saddle ready and prepared to ride once again.
“Eventually, I realized that I could either keep being depressed or I could get my shit together, go back into the studio and create a new record all on my own,” she said. “I definitely, definitely couldn’t give up because I knew that I hadn’t recorded the album that could be my ‘swan song.’ I know that sounds kinda funny, but I grew up completely infatuated with everyone from Judy Garland to Queen to Billie Holiday—these vocalists where their music matched them, matched their quality and followed them. I didn’t feel like I had ever done that on a record. It took a while. I had to get funding, I had to scrounge up a few of the angels in my life who were willing to do favors for me and make a whole other record with very little financial incentive.”
As tough a task as this was, Sales did it. With help from her father—Richard Sales, who’s owned a recording studio in Washington D.C. for all of his daughter’s life—Sales got back into the studio and officially began work on her third studio album, Ricochet, which is due later in 2021.
“I’m so grateful it’s all happened this way,” Sales said, looking back. “I see that there was a trajectory of my life where I would’ve taken things for granted. Everything came very easy when I was young—maybe I was spoiled. But, there’s absolutely nothing that I’m not giddy with gratitude for now. Even down to me being like ‘Wow! Someone actually wants to like my Instagram post?’ I’m literally grateful for everything. I had pretty much experienced an entire decade of nothing but closed doors—just doors slamming in your face, forcing you to realize that you have to do it on your own. But, I couldn’t give up, music is my soulmate. I honestly can’t imagine a plan-B.”
And Sharon Stone didn’t give up either—amazingly, “Never Before” was actually saved from the chopping-block of Sales’ never-released album (it was written too late to be included, thankfully). Through the entire legal headache, Stone stood by Sales’ side.
“Through all of the years between the writing of ‘Never Before’ and now, Sharon’s been so supportive,” Sales said. “It’s a cliched thing, but most people don’t support you when you’re down and out. So, for someone to be a little angel to you when they have no reason to be, I’m forever grateful for that.”
Thus, we come to the current moment. Finally being able to release new music for the first time in a decade, Sales is jumping back into the game with a tasteful and expressive album under her belt, feeling good about the prospects ahead. While Stone is still a far way off from stepping into the musical spotlight herself—“I sing enough to direct a session, but nobody wants to hear me sing; I’d rather sing along in the car,” she explained—her musical and emotional contributions to Sales’ craft have been invaluable. Ultimately, the duo’s collaboration is very similar to Stone’s description of it: an old-time standard written for the here and now.
“I’m just so excited,” Sales said. “To be honest, just to know that I get to put music out at all and that people will listen to it… it feels so good.”
Watch the music video for Hayley Sales’ and Sharon Stone’s new single, “Never Before” below:
