Walker Hayes Gets Vulnerable About His Relationship With Late Father: “Sometimes I’m Mad That I’m Like Him”

Walker Hayes gets personal on his latest album, 17 Problems, delving deep into parenthood, losing his dad, and battling substance use. The country singer’s father, Charles Edgar Hayes, died in March 2021 at age 85. Losing a parent, particularly when you’re raising your own children, invites a wave of often contradictory emotions. Hayes opened up about his own experience during a recent guest appearance on Taste of Country Nights.

Videos by American Songwriter

“There are things where it’s like, ‘Ah, I remember this with Dad — wish I didn’t have that memory, wish I didn’t feel that way about him today,’” said the “Fancy Like” crooner, 45.

So grateful to Lori McKenna for writing & singing this with me. I’m sad to say I resented my dad for too many but nothing helped me understand him more than becoming a dad myself. I can’t wait to sing this one with him someday. Happy Father’s Day y’all. https://t.co/uwjh70Q9f1 pic.twitter.com/BHNcMV1aMt

— Walker Hayes (@walkerhayes) June 20, 2021

Hinting at the often paradoxical relationship between father and son, Hayes continued, “Sometimes, one day I’m mad that I’m like him, and one day I’m proud that I’m like him. I wish I could decide what it was gonna be each day. And I wish I could always just be glad.”

Powerful words that anyone who has lost a parental figure can likely identify with to their core.

[RELATED: Country Star Was Bent on Self-Destructing After His Daughter’s Death, but Fate Intervened]

What Else Has Walker Hayes Said About His Dad?

Even before his death due to a combination of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, Charles Edgar Hayes was a prominent fixture in his son’s work. On the poignant 2019 track “Dad’s Sailboat,” Walker Hayes views his grief through the lens of the titular object. His hands shake just like his dad’s did / When he was my age and I was just a kid, Hayes sings. You can tell in that cellphone number that he wrote / On that “For Sale” sign on my dad’s sailboat.

Hayes also touches on these messy emotions in his song “Love Hate,” broadly addressed to his hometown of Mobile, Alabama.

I hate you, Mobile, ’cause I need your approval like my old man’s / I forget all the games that he came to / But I remember when I couldn’t find him up in the stands, Hayes sings. Didn’t stop in the end-zone, just kept on running past those city limits / Which is weird ’cause all my lyrics got a lotta you and dad in ’em.

“Saying ‘I love you’ to him is just weird,” Hayes told Taste of Country in 2022. “So to me that’s what that song was. Obviously, it’s dark too. It’s kind of an, ‘I’m mad at you for some childhood stuff but I get it now and I’m proud anytime someone says I’m like you.’”

Featured image by Nathan Congleton/NBC via Getty Images