We were lucky to catch up with Hazen James recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Hazen thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Do you wish you had waited to pursue your creative career or do you wish you had started sooner?

I honestly don’t know. I think if I would have been doing this for 30 years, I’d be in a totally different place artistically. Maybe I would be a lot better as a singer or guitar player, but you can’t really play that game. This was my particular journey. I think the time that I wasn’t writing songs and releasing music has allowed me to gain perspective and develop at my own pace without trying to make it big or write hit songs. I have a nine-to-five gig that pays the bills, music is a hobby. And music is a way for me to challenge and express myself. The recording is more of a recent thing as way to share with the world.

I think if I would have started when I was in my teens or twenties, I would have tried to sound like what other people sounded like or what I thought people wanted to hear as opposed to what I want to sound like. Being older allows me to have less pressure and an added self-awareness for how I want to write songs. These songs are for me because this isn’t my career. I definitely want people to hear something I’ve done and like it but I know this isn’t my livelihood. If only 10 people hear a song, I’m not getting dropped from a label or out of a job. This gives me a lot of freedom which makes the creative process much more fun.

The other reality is that previously it was much more difficult to produce music and get it out for people to consume. You needed a recording studio of some sorts and some way to distribute physical media. That problem doesn’t exist anymore…you literally just need a laptop and an internet connection. Honestly, the democracitizing of creating music without having to rent studio time or have a label enabled me to do what I do. There really isn’t a barrier to entry any more, just a willingness to do it and time.

So to actually answer the question, I think I started doing this when I was ready to do it. The technology got to a point that allowed it to happen but I was also at a place in life that enabled me to express myself and be OK with how it is perceived.

Hazen, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I grew up doing visual arts so I’ve always had some sort of artistic twist to whatever I was doing. I didn’t really pick up a guitar until college at Appalachian State University. One night in particular inspired me to start playing. A friend and I happened to see a blues musician, Gibb Droll play a show on campus. I’ve never witnessed someone who had complete mastery of something in my life like Gibb had on the electric guitar. He literally melted our faces and I was like “I want to be able to do that.” So I got a guitar and started playing every day. For the record, I have never been able to remotely approach the skill that Gibb has, not even close, that guy is an absolute wizard.

The pandemic was a pivotal moment for me as a musician. During the lockdown and isolation, I decided to start recording covers to challenge myself. It was a way to stay sane. Each day I’d eat lunch quickly and think of a song I wanted to learn, play and record within an hour or less. I kept doing it day after day like it was exercise. After a while I gathered up some courage and started sending those cover songs to friends that were also musicians. And soon other musicians were sharing music with me. I think during those times everyone was looking for any kind of human connection and music was that connection. All told, I think I recorded roughly 500 covers of songs ranging from Bob Dylan, Dinosaur Jr, Pearl Jam, Bon Iver, the Cure, MJ Lenderman, R.E.M., the Lemonheads and many others.

Eventually, I starting writing my own songs and releasing on streaming services. In early 2024, I released my first album, ‘the struggle is part of the plan’. The album has undertones fueled by the specter of the pandemic such as isolation, uncertain futures and self-doubt. Looking back at the album now it is super raw. Not just some of the subject matter but also how I recorded it. I was still very much in the midst of a learning curve. There are still some really good tunes on there such as ‘For the Record’ and ‘The Art of You’ just maybe not recorded the best.

Additionally, over the last year I worked with my friend, Bobby Haywood, to take his songs and produce his album “Blue” and then the follow up “Bird in the Hand” under the band name Someday, Somehow. The trick with that was that he lives in San Diego, so we traded files back and forth and the final product has us together playing music like old times, even though we were never in the same room.

In the past year, I’ve released or produced over 50 songs that are now out on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, etc. I also got picked up by WKNC in Raleigh and they play my songs “For the Record”, “owls’ and ‘soundtrack” every few days on the radio. It is so crazy to hear yourself on the radio for the first time. I had neighbors and friends send me texts that they heard me on the radio, which is wild. I wish everyone could experience that feeling just once.

On April 11th, 2025 my new album, “No One Knows My Range” will be released. I am beyond proud of it. It’s how I wish my first album sounded. I’ve learned a lot since the first record and I think it shows. The songs are tighter and have more depth to them. On this album, I had the expert help of Bob Witchger playing drums and occasionally banjo. His addition took the songwriting and sonic palette to a whole new level. I love how the album showcases a bunch of different sounds influenced by my idols (R.E.M. being a big part of it) but done in a way that is unique to me, in my voice. For example, a song like ‘owls’ comes from me being obsessed with Dinosaur Jr., especially J. Mascis’s guitar style. The new album features a lot of songs played in an open D tuning that I came to love as I was trying to learn a bunch of songs by the band, Hovvdy who I believe often plays in that tuning. By the way, you should definitely check out Hovvdy, they are phenomenal. Playing in alternate tunings allowed me to play differently instead of using normal standard chords. It was like learning a foreign language but also unlocking new possibilities.

One of the songs on the album that I think is amazing is “Hebron”. It’s based on the Hebron Rock Colony up in the North Carolina mountains near Boone where I spent a lot of time. It’s one of those songs that magically came out of the ether. I wrote it in like 10 minutes but it was like it wrote itself. Every time I hear it, I hear things that I didn’t even know I was writing about. There are spiritual overtones, play on words and a defiance to it, all played with chiming atmospheric acoustic guitars and Bob Witchger’s excellent banjo playing. I love that song. It doesn’t necessarily sound like the rest of the album (other than the other acoustic song ‘Take Care’), but I thought it fit the theme of the record.

Another song I enjoy on the new record is “Deep”. It was the last song recorded but the first song on the album. I wanted something fast and high energy and was a call back to another band I love, the Replacements. It rocks, especially when Bob’s drums accelerate in the first chorus. It gives me chills every time I listen to it.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

This is going to sound kinda morbid but I wrote a song a few years ago called ‘For the Record’ which is about trying to piece together what a person was all about by rummaging through the artifacts they left behind after the died. I bit of the motivation for this project was to leave something behind so people could get a glimpse into my head and hear my voice. These are my artifacts.

The other aspect is to constantly challenge myself. The new album is called ‘No One Knows My Range’ because I want to show the world and myself that I am capable of a lot of stuff if I put my mind to it. We are all works in progress and have the capacity to expand what it means to be us. We just need to embrace it. This album sounds about a billion times better because I think I am growing both as an artist but also in how I produce music. I want it to be good, for me, like something I would want to listen to on a regular basis. That is the barometer I measure myself on. I want to be proud of what I produce and that motivates me to keep learning and improving.

I didn’t initially set out with any goals in mind but my big goal for 2025 is to start playing live shows and figure out a way to get to 10,000 monthly listeners on Spotify which sounds crazy at the moment but sometimes you need crazy goals.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

Personally, it’s rewarding when I’ve had people come up to me and say this project has inspired them to do their own creative projects and bring them to life. To be unafraid. That is amazing to me and humbling. Even if I never get 1M listeners or win a Grammy, having people say they’ve been inspired to create things is really something special.

I also love that I get to work on music with really talented people such as Bobby Haywood in the band ‘Someday, Somehow’ or on the new Hazen James record, “No One Knows My Range” I worked with a uber talented musician, Bob Witchger. His musicality is amazing to the point that I’m like “I can’t believe he wants to play on these songs with me”. For real, he is really good and it gives me a boost of confidence that someone of his caliber wants to work with me and craft these songs.

Lastly, it’s rewarding to see my family enjoy it. I know I couldn’t do these things without their love and support and it’s cool when they say they checked out a song and thought it was great.

I get so much energy from this project. In the midst of writing a song there is like this weird out of body kind of experience happening where you are tapping into something that you can’t even describe. Being in tune with that feeling is something special and I hope everyone gets to find that in their life.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://hazenjames.net
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hazen_james_music/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimhazen/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@hazen_james_music
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/hazenjames
• Other: https://linktr.ee/hazenjames