album out and his Country Music
Award for New Artist of the Year still
warm in his hands, Hunter Hayes**
says it's "early at this point" to be too
worried about his next album. But rest assured he's thinking about it. "I'm writing for it," the 21-year-old
Louisiana native tells Billboard. "I'm
thinking about it creatively. But I'm
trying not to give myself an agenda.
I'm trying not to say, 'I need this song
or that song.' I've got a nice pool of songs I'm excited about, but I think it'll
be awhile before we sit down to it."
Hayes says he's been writing with "a lot
of the same people from" 2011's
"Hunter Hayes," which peaked at No. 4
on the Country Albums chart and No. 18 on the Billboard 200. "I got comfortable that family of
writers," he explains. "I feel like we
jelled well. There's a shorthand
between some of us now, this
unspoken language that works."
Hayes also plans to return to producer Dann Huff for his sophomore set. "But I'm not in any rush," he adds. "I'm
seeing a lot more creative time now --
not just creative freedom, but creative
time. You've got these superstars in
Nashville now that really take time and
make good records now. That's starting to happen more and more, and
I love that. As a fan, I'm sitting here
buying these records and saying,
'Yeah, that's exactly what I want to be
like. I want to know that I took my time
and didn't rush it or think about it. I just let it happen.' I just want to make
sure I got at it with the same approach
and treat it with the same respect I
treated the first record and not just
make a follow-up record, y'know? This
will be its own record." He's well aware that expectations will
be high for whatever he does next,
however. "I don't pay a lot of attention to it,
'cause if I did I'd go nuts -- and I'm
naturally paranoid, anyway, about the
stupidest things," he notes with a
laugh. "It is so easy to go into a
comfort zone and say, like, 'Wanted' worked. Let's get another slow love
song ballad.' No, no, no, no. I don't
care if we have another one of those,
ever. Obviously, I would like something
like that again, but I'm not going to sit
down and say, 'We have to have another love song.' I just want to go
fishing again and show some different
sides of me. That's what my favorite
records do from other artists." Until he gets down to it, Hayes -- who's
currently on the road supporting Carrie
Underwood** -- is still working
"Hunter Hayes" and says he's happy
that "Somebody's Heartbreak," the
follow-up to his chart-topping "Wanted," is getting its chance to be a
single. "That literally has been sitting on my
laptop as a demo the longest out of all
of the songs on the album," he reveals.
"I've always dreamed of releasing that
song. 'Wanted' was written just before
the record came out, 'Storm Warning' just as we started making the record.
But ('Somebody's Heartbreak') is the
song that has been playing in my mind
for years and it's now on the radio and
I'm so excited."
BY GARY GRAFF, DETROIT.
www.billboard.com
