'This crushed me': What Walker Hayes learned from his difficult relationship with his dad

Walker Hayes was terrified, barely able to get words out. He was trying to tell his dad he loved him, or respected him, anyway.

In his 20s, Hayes and his wife started having children. Waves of emotions crashed through him daily. And the new dad decided it was time to tell his dad how much he appreciated him.

But it would be tough. Walker's dad was a workaholic, a self-made real estate agent who rarely talked about feelings or emotions, let alone showed them. Father and son had a distant relationship; the two rarely spent time together.

Still, Hayes said, "I had this desire to look my dad in the face and say, 'I'm proud of you, I love you for supporting me.'"

For days, Hayes practiced what he was going to say, constantly revising it to come up with the perfect words to express his gratitude and admiration.

Then, on a car ride with just the two of them, along Hillcrest Road in Mobile, Alabama — sweating, mind racing, stomach roiling — Hayes turned toward his dad at a red light.

"I just want you to know," Hayes said, haltingly, "you're doing great. I'm so proud of you."

His dad's cell phone rang then; and his father mashed the answer button immediately.

"Charles Hayes, hello."

Walker Hayes never finished that conversation. He often replays that moment when his dad answered his cell phone, wincing every time.

"This crushed me," the country star said. "If he only knew how long I'd prepared that speech."

Hayes sighed backstage at Nashville's Municipal Auditorium during a break in rehearsing for the tour he's on now. As much as that moment with his dad pains him, Hayes thinks he understands why it happened.

"My dad for his entire life wasn’t prepared to accept words of affirmation. He was trained to get up and get busy; his addiction was work," Hayes said. "So my speech there, well, that’s like talking to a drunk when he’s drunk."

In advance of Father's Day, Hayes — whose 2021 hit, "Fancy Like," launched him into stardom across music genres — talked for two hours about the difficult relationship he had with his dad and how that informs his parenting style.

And how he has missed his dad every day since Charles Hayes died in March 2021, just before "Fancy Like" hit the radio.

"Did he look me in the eye? Did we have those deep father-son moments with each other? No. That would’ve been great," Hayes said.

"But I’m so grateful for the example he set in how he treated other people and how he loved his job despite circumstances. I saw resilience and persistence every day."

Brady Bunch, Alabama style

Charles Hayes wasn't always a realtor; that was his second career after being a music minister for a conservative church that booted Hayes when he got a divorce.

Why real estate?

"He took an aptitude test that showed he wasn’t great with people, that he shouldn’t go into sales. So he went into real estate," Walker Hayes said, smiling. "He was a go-against-the-grain-er."

Shortly after, Hayes met his next wife, and the two started a "Brady Bunch"-like family; he had three girls and a boy, and she had three boys and a girl. Walker Hayes is the only child the two had together.

Hayes remembers his father spending long hours at work as far back as he has memories. But, most mornings, his dad would take him to breakfast at Waffle House or a local restaurant called Colonel Dixie.

"I’d walk up and tap his leg to see if he had change, and I’d dig in his pocket and play songs on the jukebox. The waiters and waitresses knew me."

Outside of that, Hayes rarely saw his father, and when he did, it often was to get spanked for an infraction his mom had reported happening earlier in the day. The worst punishments came when Walker Hayes misbehaved in church; his dad would hit him with a belt after the family got home.

"As a kid, it was damaging," Walker Hayes said. "As an older child, I probably vanished so I don’t have to deal with anger or mood swings.

"That stuff sticks with you. When you're wounded as a child, there's a part of you that doesn't grow. I'm a 40-year-old man, and someone can hit a nerve that brings up shame, and man, it sets me off. I imagine you heal from damage like that the rest of your life."

A tear-soaked phone call

Still, it was his dad who set up the gig at a local club that launched Walker Hayes' career. And his dad remained a fan of his youngest child's music until the day he died.

In fact, one of few times Hayes remembers his dad crying was over a song called "Craig." Walker Hayes wrote it about a close, supportive Nashville friend who gave the Hayes family a car and so much more when the family was struggling.

"My dad called me — he never called me — and I answered, and he was crying. He said, 'Walker, this is the best thing you ever wrote.'"

Walker Hayes and his wife have seven children — one died in 2018 in childbirth — and he said his relationship with his dad made him much more intentional about spending time with his kids. He often takes the kids on tour with him, and one daughter, Lela, 17, performs with him on stage nightly.

"I spend a crazy amount of time with my kids. I spend every waking moment I can. I have zero hobbies. I’d never play golf on a Saturday because I look at my children and think I’d rather spend four hours with them."

Still, the country singer concedes he may have some of his dad's workaholic tendencies, an idea he explored in the song "Briefcase": "Now I get it Dad, it's a juggling act / Between feeding the kids and feeding the dreams we chase," he sings. "I guess a guitar doesn't fall too far from a briefcase." 

"As a father now, knowing all the aspects of life I’m juggling, I have so much mercy and forgiveness for my father. Now I know how difficult it is. I’m just a kid myself trying to raise kids," he said.

"But just sitting with my kids and paying attention, I bet it’s the biggest gift we can give them."

Reach Brad Schmitt at brad@tennessean.com or 615-259-8384 or on Twitter @bradschmitt.

Walker Hayes to play Ascend Amphitheater

What: Walker Hayes makes a hometown stop on his Duck Buck Tour with openers Ingrid Andress and Ray Fulcher

When: 6:30 p.m. Friday (June 23)

Where: Ascend Amphitheater, 310 First Ave. S.

Tickets: $35 to $154 online at concerts.livenation.com

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Walker Hayes: What he learned from his troubled relationship with his dad