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Interview with Cameron Hayes

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Superego has an incredible dark, gritty sound - what emotions and thoughts drove this passion?

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Cameron: ​"Thank you! So, this song is almost autobiographical; I reached a point in life where everything I did was to please others and make them happy, while I didn’t care about myself or what I actually wanted to do. I wrote Superego right in the middle of this realization, and I see my current self saying to the old me the lyrics, such as "you live by your superego when you gonna to learn to let go?". It was a real-time of self-development and I realized that I didn’t need nor want to be this perfect, try-hard, people-pleaser when I was just making myself miserable... so the song is me telling myself just to relax, have fun, make bad decisions, learn from them and live my own life." 

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What is it like for you as a female artist within the music industry?

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Cameron​: "I think being a female within the music industry is tough if I’m being honest. There's a lot of being patronised and doubted. A load of men I’ve known and have worked with throughout my career, in particular, doubt my ability as a 21-year-old woman. They automatically assume that I only sing and that I can’t play any instruments and that someone else writes my songs for me, when I’m actually classically trained, have been playing the piano since I was 6 and writing songs since I was 11. To be honest, I probably know equal or even more than they do. It feels a bit like a boys club sometimes, but I am very appreciative to have my management made up entirely of women, and also to be working with more women than I have before at the moment." 

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In the track, you talk about 'the dark side' - what is the dark side for you?

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Cameron: "The dark side for me is being selfish and putting myself first. Now I don’t mean hurting anyone in any way, but just not doing anything unless it makes you happy. It’s a case of self-care, but also saying no and not feeling guilty about ‘letting people down, because at the end of the day how do people's perceptions of you truly make you happy? People demonise you for this, especially if you’ve always put others first and suddenly stop, but at the end of the day, you have one life so do whatever the hell you want as long as you’re happy; do whatever you want, love whoever you want, be whoever you want, live your life! Remember, you are always the villain in someone's story."

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This track seems to have combined music and psychoanalytical ideas very nicely - do you have any interests in psychology independent of your music?

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Cameron: Thank you so much. I’m really into psychology, particularly Developmental psychology, and Forensic psychology; the human brain is so interesting and I love to find out why we do things that we do and how our life experiences shape the way we are. I think it helps me to both understand the people around me and also understand myself. I remember when I was younger I begged my parents to take me for an MRI scan of my brain because I wanted to analyse it… what a weird kid! I do think if I wasn’t a musician, I would have loved to have been a forensic psychologist! It’s still something I read about in my sparse free time, and just generally find fascinating.

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How have you been spending your time during a lockdown?

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Cameron: Lockdown has been weird, I spent the first couple weeks so motivated and then the whole ‘okay so we’re in a global pandemic’ hit and took me out of action for a bit. However, I’ve really got into cooking over this time and I’m enjoying it so much! I am in love with Japanese and Chinese cuisine, so have been experimenting with a lot of that. Some dishes I’ve made recently include octopus tempura, teriyaki beef with pak choi, chicken yakitori, and of course a classic katsu curry. Also just having time to chill out, watch films and relax, has been absolutely lovely - I’m currently obsessed with Joaquin Phoenix’s performance in ‘Joker’. And then really most of my time has been taken up working on my music! I’ve been writing a fair bit, having a lot of Zoom writing sessions which have been going so well, recording some covers for my YouTube channel while I work on the original songs, and really trying to hone my guitar skills... it’s been busy! I definitely appreciate the situation I have been in over this time however, I’m one of the lucky ones.