WHS senior working on third self-produced album

Most musicians are lucky to put out an album every few, if not several, years.

Jordan Hayes is hoping she can average one per year.

Hayes, a senior at Whitefish High School, already has two self produced albums on platforms like Spotify, SoundCloud and iTunes, and she’s gearing up to with plans to finish her third by graduation.

Hayes has been writing music since she was 8 years old, and recording since she was a freshman in high school.

She describes her genre as mostly rock, though indie and electronic music play noticeable roles in her sound on “Spaced Out,” her second album.

Her biggest influences are also varied.

Hayes is quick to point out the 1970s folk-rock band America as a big inspiration, one she remembers listening to with her parents for many years, but she also notes indie-rock band Young the Giant and One Direction frontman Harry Styles as other influences.

“My genre probably isn’t very well reflected in the second album, as I have like three different genres on there,” she says with a laugh. “But I am moving into a more rock sound.”

The writing process is spontaneous, she says, with music and lyrics emerging from an abstract idea, like a color or a feeling.

Then the songs go through a long work-shopping process.

“When I write a song I’ll begin basically in the beginning of the school year, and then throughout that year I’ll look it over and release it in the spring,” Hayes said. “[My first album] was a lot of different things about growing up. I was experiencing a lot of things, the whole high school thing with getting new friends, losing friends, relationships beginning to happen, things of that sort.”

Collaboration is a big part of making music for Hayes.

At various points in the writing and recording process she says she’ll post a snippet online on a few different platforms to see what people think.

“I like to put my demos on certain websites like Soundcloud or an app I use called Vampr. I can put either something I already released or I’ll put a demo up and be like, ‘This is the work I make,’ and people are like, ‘That’s really cool, I’d like to work with you.’ So I’ll present them with some of my previous works and we work upon that,” she says.

The apps afford her an audience outside of just friends and family as well. On Spotify she’s seen monthly play counts hit as high as 4,000, though slower months are closer to 100.

“It definitely depends on when I just released something,” she said.

While she’s already churning out albums and new songs constantly, Hayes says her focus as a senior in high school is on the next step — psychology.

Hayes plans to attend the University of Nevada-Las Vegas in the fall and major in psychology, with a minor in music.

If things work out with music, she’d be content, but the wonders of how peoples’ minds work and how they can be helped is just as attractive.

“I would love to have a music career and travel the world making music. Honestly, just performing music for anyone is a really great thing and I really enjoy it,” she said.

A big component of her interest in psychology ties in her musical passions as well.

“Music plays a big part in psychology. There’s a thing called music therapy, and it’s just really amazing what many different things can help a person mentally, such as music, or exercise or things like that,” she said. “I’d like to understand that and then help others strive for happiness.”