Harry Hudson Releases 'Can Cowboys Cry'
"People don't want to think about death. For me, it's every day," admits Harry Hudson, singer-songwriter and now, cancer survivor. After battling and beating lymphoma a few years ago, the 24-year-old budding talent is using his second chance to make music and inspire others with cancer to keep fighting. "If I don't push it 110 percent, if I don't text one person or call one person and hopefully inspire them, then it's like I'm not doing my job," he explains.
Kardashian fans may recognize Hudson from his connections to the famous family. (The celeb sisters promoted his debut single, "Cry for Love," when it released in October.) He’s also widely known as Kylie Jenner's best friend and starred in her short films on Snapchat, one of which included a rare appearance from Kanye West.
But now, the folk-pop singer is starring in a short film of his own - a 17-minute modern Western, featuring four of his original songs, “Cry for Love,” “Yellow Lights,” "No Good," and “Gone.” The visuals, helmed by Directed x MODELS, do more than act as a mega-music video for the new artist; they also tell the story of "losing yourself in the dark to find yourself in the light," says Hudson. "You find hope, you find a new way of living and excitement and love within yourself." In other words, it's semi-autobiographical of his recovery.
Hudson was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma when he was 20 years old and beat it when he was 21, but treating the cancer was only half the battle. After recovery, he fell into a "really bad depression because I was so prepared to die, that when you get your life again, it's like, what the fuck do you want to do?" he says passionately. "There's mean people. There's war. There's bullying. There's insecurity. There's fear. Welcome back. And for me, it's like, damn, dying would've been way better."
In 2014, Hudson bought a one-way ticket to New York to stay with a friend - identified as his MSFTS labelmate Jaden Smith, WWD points out - who encouraged him to "go live." And that's what he did. What was meant to be a week-long visit ended up lasting one year. It was there he started to pen a music-filled film inspired by the Old West.
Before launching that project, titled Can Cowboys Cry, Hudson talked to BAZAAR.com about how his near-death experience influenced everything from his music to personal relationships and his outlook on life.
NYC is where he really started to heal and find beauty in everyday life.
I started taking the subway, got a girlfriend, started following my favorite restaurants, got a whole new group of friends. Every day was a new agenda. I started finding excitement in life again. I'm not seeing the same thing every day. I get to take a bike and go to Brooklyn. I get to go to all the boroughs and I get to go uptown and sit in Central Park and sit by myself and read. Go to museums all the time by myself. I went to so many art museums and I never did that. I started going to the driving range up at the pier.
I'm very thankful for my friend to even just be like, "Hey, I got you. Don't pay for anything. I got you." I'm very blessed for that situation because that doesn't happen for a lot of people. For me, I needed to get my mental right.
That's when he started to get into movies.
I started studying film because my friend was acting on a show. I would be around actors and they'd come over and say, "Have you seen this film?" I never was interested in film because I had ADD and always thinking and doing sh*t, so I never had time to sit down and watch a film.
In New York, I had all the time in the world. Our apartment was above a movie theater. When he was working, I'd go downstairs and watch movies. We bought like 300 films so I'd just watch all the top ones he would tell me to watch. I started studying how music and film made the perfect baby. And I was studying composers and was like, "People are making music just for the film?" I was 21 and I didn't know this.
He got inspired to write an album from a journal he kept from his recovery.
I was writing in a journal since 2013, since I got back. You see my depressions, you see the overcoming cancer, you see all this stuff and I just realized that, damn, I have a full album here, that's already written.
