No One Can Escape Walker Hayes
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You know Walker Hayes. Even if you don't know the name, you know Walker Hayes. A three-split screen and the words "Bourbon Street Steaaak and an Oreo Shaaake" and your memory is officially jogged. All of a sudden, you're transported to your couch, mid-football season. Or maybe it takes you back, also to your couch, but to a past TikTok scroll, where you've watched him dancing with one of his six kids. Or you might have seen him perform at the AFC Championship this year, drowning out the commentary booth because some beautiful soul moonlighting as a P.A. placed a loud speaker right the desk.
Hayes is like vodka shots at a bachelorette party. He comes out of nowhere and then he's everywhere. You can love him. You can think he's over the top. But regardless, you're taking him in.
When we connect over the phone, Hayes is out on the road. He is about a week out from the ACM Awards, which air tonight (March 7) on Amazon Prime Video, where he has five nominations locked in. Not to mention a Grammy nod that he's staring down for the first time. You might be tempted to call him an overnight sensation given how the last year has exploded, but this is a man 17 years into the game. A man who, even after it all starts going his way following the release of his new LP, Country Stuff the Album, is still very much in Dad-mode first. He spends a lot of time thanking God. A lot of time giving credit to his family. And a lot of time recognizing that all this business—the awards, the fame, the viral nature of being Walker Hayes—could go away just like that.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
Esquire: First off, congratulations. Five ACM award nominations and a Grammy award. What's going on?
Walker Hayes: Oh, shoot dude. I mean, I don't really know what's going on. Every single day I just wake up and kind of look where we are now regarding those types of things, like award nominations, opportunities and shows we're playing. And it is so opposite of kind of the Nashville I've known for 17 plus years, that I can't truly wrap my brain around it, man. It's to a point now where it's beyond a win for us. A win for us was last year just having a song connect with fans. Period. But having a body of work connect, being included at all these award ceremonies it's out of this world. It's very hard to process.
“Fancy Like” is my national anthem at this point. I've heard it so many times. I mean TikTok, television, everywhere. It was like if you didn't know the song, you weren't paying attention.
It kind of is embedded in the top 10 on the country iTunes charts. I live under a rock. So if people are just hearing it today, they're probably like me. I truly thought all those years would actually make this kind of fruit. You know what I mean? I had no idea that this would happen. While I was doing all that work I realized I should have just been grateful to have this gig. Again, it's unexplainable. I even listened to the song myself and it's just a testament to how my much I really don't know about music or what the public wants. I just continue to write songs. My gift that God's gifted me with is just content—just songs. And “Fancy Like” was a testament that I need a date night at Applebees that bad.
This whole TikTok-to-mainstream radio path for a hit is fascinating. You're doing something that no country artist has done before—something most artists haven’t been able to do.
It was completely—I hate to say a fluke, because someone told me once that a fluke is actually a really common fish in the ocean—but it is. I wish I had more for people as if there was a strategy, but I feel like that's kind of why this happened. There was absolutely no effort, no expectation. I was just being a dad dancing with my daughter. If you look at the videos prior to “Fancy Like,” that's all we did all COVID.
COVID is commonly overlooked as a huge part of this song. The world was cooped up, nobody was going to restaurants. A date night was probably, put the kids to bed and watch your favorite TV show with your husband or wife. And so the date night described was kind of nostalgic. But as far as TikTok is concerned man, TikTok was made for people like me. I didn't even think to caption it like, "Hey, this is my new song, “Fancy Like." I think the majority of people just thought, that's just a dad and a daughter and they like the song, so they popped up this dance. And I don't even know if people knew we made up the dance. I honestly don't know where we would be without it. TikTok most definitely sparked a bonfire that eventually made the song go to radio and on TV and to football stadiums. And it was where it all began.
You performed at the Chiefs-Bengals game, and it seems like when you appear, there's a good viral moment that follows. You blasted that halftime commentary out of the water.
Literally when I walked out off the stage and I got somewhere where I could hear my manager's voice, because it was very, very loud, my managers were like, "You are everywhere right now." And they were like, "You'll never believe what happened." And they were getting info from friends and people on the team that were watching. I was everywhere. It was on Google, every meme, every social thing that I had. And honestly I just moved on. I was like, "That's great." I was like, "Hallelujah." My management, my publicist they were like, "It's our lucky day." They were so excited.
Three days later, my wife and I had a date night and she was like, "Did you watch the halftime thing?" And I was like, "Nah, I just heard it's obvious we were loud." I think Fallon was talking about it. And man, I watched it on my phone, in our Prius with Laney and we laughed so hard. And honestly it was so funny watching those commentators, trying to talk over the noise of my show. And I honestly felt sorry for them and then honestly just that moment, that is so par for the course of really what's been going on with me. I mean, there are things falling in my direction that you cannot explain.
People say God is good, but also, God clearly has a sense of humor.
Yeah, dude. I mean, I am learning that this year, that God is most definitely a prankster. I mean, it's all hilarious. Everybody laughs about that AFC championship, but coming from a guy, I got six kids—they're watching me dream front and center. They've seen the grind. They've seen alcoholic broke dad without a prayer. And so when we laugh about things like the AFC championship, we're also crying. We're also just humbled by the Lord's delivering. I've seen my peers who are 12 times more talented than me and they've never gotten this taste of success in this town. So it is truly just joyful moment after joyful moment for us. We're trying to brace ourself because I know that it cannot and it will not last.
I have to ask—have you been kicked out of any establishments? Because you do a lot of TikToks in public.
The public places are the best because everybody's looking at you, and I get a kick out of that. I think it's so much fun. And then it draws attention and then some people are like, "Oh it's that dude!" And everybody gets all hype. But man, my family, my kids, it's not a business for us. TikTok is a playground. And my daughter and my sons, we sit around and we're like, "What? Dude, let's do it. Let's go dance around mom." She don't want to be on camera. So let's just film it and we'll all dance around her and we just have fun. It's almost as if we don't really pay attention to how many millions of followers I've got or whatever; it's really just have fun creating one and then we'll think about the next one.
When it comes to these award nominations, you can say you're out there and people know Walker Hayes now. Has there been a moment where you're thinking: Are they seeing more than just this one song? Are they actually seeing me?
I'm a very competitive person, I kind of see Nashville as a sport. It's a game that I've been losing for a long time and now, praise God, thanks to the fans and thanks to my team, we're winning right now. And there are so many peers of mine in Nashville that I know are genuinely—they're teary eyed when they behold what has happened to my career. And they've known me from the get go. And then I know there's a twinge inside of them that's like, "Man, I want that to be me. I want to do that." There's some artists I think who will hang on longer in this town because they have seen front and center what can happen.
I think it's just a mixture of all the things. And I think that is just fine. I do not live under the pretenses that I stand on any ACM stage and that every single person in the audience is just so, so excited for you and not jealous. A best friend of mine told me one day, he said, "If everybody loves you, somebody's lying." I don't have any bad feelings to someone who is jealous or wants to take over and sell more records than me. But I will say in general, I think if you ask 90% of this town and the people, after all that we've been through, part of them has to look at this and go, "Man, that team has worked hard for this."
And that's beautiful. That's what can happen if you stay yourself and you work hard. And that's cool.
I have one more, very, short, but very important question. You're at an Applebees, Walker. Are you actually ordering a Bourbon Street Steak and an Oreo shake, or are you a fraud?
No question. If the waitress recognizes me, they don't even ask my order. They just bring it out.
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