Looking Stupid: Hey it’s Jesse from Looking Stupid, is now still a good time to talk?

Hayden Dunham: Hi Jesse ! Now is a great time 

How is your day there 

LS: Its honestly beautiful, it’s one of those days where the new season announces itself, and the wind has calmed down so everyone’s first thought isn’t “fire!” (I’m in the Bay Area) 

Where are you at rn? How’s your day going?

HD: I am in Austin Texas at the moment and it’s very lush here in an unexpected way 

Very green 

85 ish which is not hot here 

Though it is taking me a second to adjust to the humidity 

LS: Am I mistaken in thinking you grew up in Austin? Or nearby?

HD: Yes

I grew up here

Near downtown Austin

LS: I am also back where I grew up after living away from here 07-23

HD: I love a return 

LS: Why?

HD: It’s special to be in a place where everything is familiar but everything has been turning inside out too. To see time in this way. 

LS: Has coming back to Austin been important to you as an Artist?

HD: I went to the flower market here this morning where I grew up and thought about a route back I used to do on my bike as a preteen

I like transformation, it’s exciting to me when things have that familiar feeling but slightly off 

I fell in love with a river when I was a teenager in Austin and I love visiting it 

I know the currents here 

the last time I was here visiting the currents changes and went the opposite direction which I had never seen before 

There was a huge storm and I went out in the morning and the river was flowing the opposite way 

LS: Say more, you say, a river, but is it THE river that everyone goes to? Or a different one? Was it a junction with a rope swing or just a spot you got to?

HD: It’s called the blanco river and it goes through whimberly Texas 

It’s not the river but for me it is

There are also rock formations that I get to see shaped by the water over years this kind of stuff is really exciting to me 

LS: I only said THE like that because of a lack of familiarity, thank you for knowing what I meant haha

HD: I actually have a cat named The River 

So

You are very on point 

With your river refs 

There is also a lyric in Hold onto Me Infinity in the song Shine It that originally said “let’s go back to the river” 

Referencing that specific river and day with the current 

So, you are onto something 

LS: You recorded this forthcoming record in Iceland, right? How was it referencing and singing about things so close to home so far from it, was the perspective helpful?

HD: Yes, and actually that song in particular I made and recorded there with my friend Tjörvi.  

I am into Earth as home base right now so Texas in its volcanic history and limestone is one part and Iceland is another type of home for me. Iceland has its own composition with volcanic activity, hot springs, gushing spots in general. 

When I thought about how I wanted the composition of the album to feel I knew it had to be recorded there. 

But also, Iceland has a giant seed vault deep into the ground 

A kind of protected container 

And I feel that way there

Really held by the temperament of the earth there 

LS: You make pop music that is theoretically accessible to a lot of different kinds of people that might not meet you where you’re at, is being specific about your process a way to differentiate what you are doing in a way that makes things more clear to yourself as an artist?

HD: I think I am like a secret agent on earth  and the task at hand is to create a body of work that can transcend its form. 

And sometimes I need help to do that from specific eco systems or people or energetic states. It’s maybe not accessible to me otherwise. 

So to get ready I participate in certain processes 

Like how if you put heat on water it evaporates and the molicules sit on the top of the lid 

I am looking for that within myself 

And what can lead to that type of alchemy 

And entropy really 

LS: Have you always felt a bit separate fro your human form? In the past when you’ve interacted with pop music, there’s been a layer of prodding and this project feels more participatory, did you feel like you had to get in the muck a bit more?m your human form? In the past when you’ve interacted with pop music, there’s been a layer of prodding and this project feels more participatory, did you feel like you had to get in the muck a bit more?

HD: Yes. I think so. 

It takes a second for me to come into my body. 

And there are things that help me do that. 

So much of this album is this path of returning back to being bodied 

I think also on a vibrational level too 

The feeling of buoyancy 

Getting to be in the water of yourself and also on top of it at the same time 

I needed that levity 

But it was a real surprise for me because so much of where this album arrived from was so rough. 

So actually getting in the mud and crawling around and realizing actually the mud is warm. 

LS: How so?

HD: There’s that meme about lotus flowers blooming in muck 

I can relate really but it’s not necessarily flower that arrived something else completely unexpected. 

A new material to me.

I think if you have experienced loss which we all have, there is this moment in grief where sometimes opens 

And something new happens 

For me it was a moment where I remembered that I have a body and get to be in it. And it was a choice I made to live and celebrate this time I have with my body here on earth. 

LS: Did grief influence this body of work?

HD: Yes absolutely. 

No way around that. 

LS: There really is no way around grief is there

HD: No.

But there is an invitation hidden in it

LS: How did you interpret your invitation?

HD: Well, when my partner lost her body I had this opportunity to see it as a transformation where even though she didn’t have the same form she had when we here on earth that she was taking on a new form. 

So I had the loss of her previous form and also this new form to adjust to listening for. 

And I tried to listen for her everywhere, just in my day. 

And this curiosity of when she would or could show up for me, really got me out of bed 

And back into being interested in the world, which I kind of lost for a while when I lost her. 

But as we know, sight is limited, and luckily there is more here than our bodies and these forms we can see. 

There are specific songs that touch upon this, for example Physical Stuff is a song I wrote about when I asked her to help me with physical stuff here on earth 

I was in a really bad mood and feeling just frustrated to be here without her, and just really not interested in earth stuff 

And I thought, well maybe she could help me here. 

If you have ever lost someone, you know these conversations take place in my head kind of all the time. 

But on this day I was at a friends house and I was looking for tea. I am big into tea, and so was she

And I said can you help me find tea here please (in this house with many drawers), and the first drawer I opened had one bag of licorice tea, which is her favorite tea. 

So these moments where something transcends, really keep me curious about what is possible here. 

And this ever present presence, that becomes a kind of access point to being present for me

Have you had any experiences like that? 

LS: I don’t think I think about it enough. It’s always been friends mentors or a parent 

So less of the routine factor of a partner 

How has your curiosity shifted in the wake of grief?

HD: Well, I guess the thing is that in order for me to witness or experience these moments with her I had to be fully embodied or I would miss them 

So it was a kind of catalyst in a way 

And a gift really

LS: So the grief made you feel more human and *in* your body, in a way?

HD: Yes, also that it is a gift to a have a body 

A temporary precious and extremely hot gift 

LS: All the chores we send ourselves on rely on the body pretty heavily haha

The art openings, the touring 

You just had a gallery show of your art, how is being in the wake of that right before your start playing this forthcoming record live?

HD: The show is called Never is Over and somehow all are connected here. 

It is exciting to have this expression in two different forms 

And album and a exhibition 

LS: Do you save certain feelings for certain mediums?

HD: Deep

Yes

Oh man I could talk about this for hours

*special interest*

LS: How does that process go?

Bc they play into how you view each medium

HD: With music I work with air 

I shape air I move air 

I am trying to get air to hold forms, and it does across timelines even 

It’s so amazing that someone you love can record something like their voice and then you can have it beyond the time that they are embodied here 

This kind of stuff is so exciting to me about songs 

That they are containers of time 

Meanwhile with sculpture I love working on giant scales 

LS: What do those containers hold?

HD: For me they hold a lot. A conversation that was happening in that moment on that day, they hold a frequency or a vibration, also a message. 

Sophie and I started working on Makeover in our house in 2016

She made this studio that had water lining the outside which is where we first recorded it 

And it was a really joyful day when we started it, wanting to make something about becoming new again and kind of a self check in

Like a future version of yourself was reading your past version of yourself 

And later when I found the notes on that day, the whole context changed

Across timelines, I heard it completely differently and it felt like a dialogue through time, with myself but also her

So, songs have this capacity 

LS: Right, context is always shifting and you can’t always account for how, which is exciting 

HD: Exactly

It’s incredible really

Still shocks me

LS: What do you want out of this body of work? Simply to surprise yourself?

How does your live show factor into this thinking 

HD: Live shows are a container too, where you have all these elements come together, and something new is made with the audience

I love the live aspect and how alchemy plays in

When the sound cuts out, or the in ear isn’t working and you get to do something else that wasn’t planned

There is something in the moments where something doesn’t work that for me become the most exciting part. Maybe because it’s human? Or maybe because it’s not human, I don’t know 

But something can transcend 

When something isn’t as planned. 

I also just love the feeling of being together in the audience, and having a shared experience with people who don’t know each other but connect through this other thread 

I love anything post verbal 

Or outside of dialogue

I lost my voice recently and got to… try a different way of speaking without it 

And it was hard (of course) but also a lot can come through when there is a limitation or a difference 

LS: Hah, what did you land on in your post verbal moment?

HD: I’ll take any chance I get to work on my telepathy. 

So, it probably looked like, on the outside, me staring intensely into space or at people but I was really trying to… communicate something.  

LS: “I’m thinking so loud how come they can’t hear me” is a feeling I also have 

HD: Exactly 🥹

LS: Is there anything you’d like to add? I like to ask people if there’s Anything outside of their work they’re currently excited about 

HD: I loved learning about the 4th state of water 

Liquid gas frozen 

And then the 4th state is more of a gel 

Oof I love it.