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"There’s a real purgatory between being a presence and an absence": Jazz musician Hailey Tuck pulls back the blinds

Tuck knows what it means to have your dreams come true and that is reflected in her music. She sure is a rising star to watch out for.
UPDATED JAN 15, 2020
(Getty Images)
(Getty Images)

Hailey Tuck knew how not to give up on her dreams, and because of that she now holds that dream in her hands. Dropping out of a Baptist military boarding school at the age of 18 years and making the decision of leaving Paris to pursue her career might sound scary, but Hailey from Austin, Texas knew she had to do it if she wanted to see her dreams come true.

Needless to say, she did. Spending her initial days in vintage clothing markets and nights singing in jazz bars, she managed to land herself the singing career she had always wanted. 

In 2014, she released her debut EP, Hailey Tuck, and performed in Europe and Asia, including Cheltenham Jazz Festival in the UK and Umea Jazz Festival in Sweden. Since then, she has had four sold out shows and was featured live on the national radio station TSF. She has also supported singers like Jamie Cullum, Eric Harland, and Joe Sanders.

In an exclusive interview with Meaww, Hailey talks about the importance of social media and how she manages to deal with negativity. 

1. Can you briefly tell us who/what was your inspiration?

Actually my high school choir director broke the news to me gently to tell me that actually, I was a terrible actress and I would never have a musical theatre voice, and the only reason I was Dorothy in the Wizard Of Oz was because he loved to hear me sing Somewhere Over The Rainbow, and that I should be a jazz singer. I bought Ella Fitzgerald Sings The Cole Porter Songbook, and the rest is history!

2.  How do you balance your work and personal life?

Oh gosh, I don’t at all. When it’s work time, it’s work time, and when it’s playtime it’s playtime. I ruined my marriage with my career, partially. Maybe not ruined, but nailed the final nail in the coffin. It’s really hard to always be the one left behind.

3.  Is there a place and time you think you are at your creative best?

Yes. When it’s quiet and dark and alone and interesting. The last good song I wrote I rented a sailboat, not even to take out, but just to sit alone in the harbor. Also, it’s good if I have a deadline.

4.  Does every artist need an inspiration?

I think every human needs inspiration. There’s a real purgatory between being a presence and an absence.

5.  How important do you think social media is these days?

Apparently, very! I think it’s interesting that the labels have (intelligently) figured out how to shift from the past to the present now, after the fall of the wall or whatever. I’m excited to see what comes in the next 20 years.

6.  How do you deal with negative comments?

I don’t mind at all, I kind of like them. Anyone can give you a compliment.

7. What significance does competition have for you?

I don’t think of myself as very competitive, because I don’t mind losing at all, and I’m terrible at sports. But I like watching and figuring out how people win so much, so maybe I am.


8.  What's that one thing you hold above anything else?

My sisters. Especially two of them. They really believed in me for seemingly forever. I think it’s an interesting game to play in your mind about who you’d unquestioningly shoot someone – a stranger – for. I’d want to kill for my parents or my friends, but I think I’d hesitate, I’d think, are you sure, are you positive. For my sisters (two of them) I’d be like James Bond. One’s a helicopter pilot, one’s a really amazing mother, and the other one I’ll never truly please, ever I think.

9. What's one thing that you have done and regretted and wish you could get a chance or go back and change it?

I worked at a rare book shop for years – unless you’re a book psycho, you have no idea the types of people that come into rare bookshops. Aleister Crowley nuts, guys who want you to put a $1500 book in three separate payments so their wife doesn’t find out, people who want to buy an entire collection of all brown antique book sets to fill their “Library Nook” – and Christopher Middleton. He came almost every day after retiring from being an –apparently famed – translator, and tutored me French for free, and sometimes took me out for a fancy dinner at his neighborhood bar. He ended up in a home, and I called my old boss to get the number, got it, lost it, thought I’d visit next time, and he died. It would have meant the world to him if I’d visited, and I probably just went and got drunk with some loser. I really regret that.


10. At what stage does it stop being about art and start becoming about money and fame?

Oh gosh, hopefully soon! Money is evil, get rid of it as quickly as possible!

11. Tell us something you discovered about yourself - both negative and positive - after becoming a celebrity?

Very flattered, obviously this is a stock question. But I can’t really imagine that. I discover about 8 zillion new negative things a day. I hope I never discover that I stop listening. I’d like to listen more, and better.

12. How do you judge character? Do you suspect every person wanting to befriend you?

Not at all! What a nice problem to have, there are a lot of truly lonely people in the world.


13. Where do you see yourself 10 years from now?

Hmm maybe on a beach. Or a forest. Or the desert. Or at a very fancy party.

14. What's the best advice you ever received?

Ask, don’t tell. From my namesake Walter Hailey. Thank god I wasn’t a boy. He was a farmer who became a millionaire insurance salesman and used to pay me $100 per book of his choosing to read. Can you imagine how much $100 is worth to a kid? To anyone, really.

15. What is an ideal day for you?

Raging, dark, house shaking, a thunderstorm on a tin roof, with a complete guilty pleasure book. Series maybe.

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