Local blues musician turns his bad days into good songs
Written by Joshua Stanley | | news@toledofreepress.com
While the family dog helped Greg Hayes realize his love for music, it was his dad who was his mentor.
“The Doors’ ‘Riders on the Storm’ was the first song that really hooked me,” said the blues guitar player/singer/songwriter, who recently released a new CD, “Baby Blue Demons.”
“The dog we had at the time would get scared when it started thundering and lightning right before the song would start, so it was like a joke for my dad, but I really liked the song, and I ended up buying the ‘Best of the Doors’ tape and just elaborated from that.”
At age 13, Hayes’ dad gave him an old guitar out of the attic, and a musician was born. He still plays that same guitar on stage. He was drawn to classic rock styles with a blues influence from the beginning.
“I would come home from school, and instead of doing homework, I would just play Led Zeppelin albums and Pink Floyd albums and whatever I could get my hands on — listening to it and just trying to copy what I heard, and it ended up being bluesy.”
Hayes’ love of music continued to grow, but he was “terrified at the thought of performing for a crowd.” It wasn’t until August in Bowling Green that he decided to take the chance.
“I didn’t want to live with regret. I realized that I had to do this in order to be happy.” Now, he said, “I play out as much as I can, and I’m happy doing it. You just kind of forget about everything else.”
While attending Ohio University, Hayes had an emotional breakdown following the loss of a relative, which led him to return home to Toledo. Hayes has since devoted himself entirely to being a musician.
Hayes said he always believed that you have to have something “real” to sing about to be a successful blues artist; that “passion is derived from life experiences.”
Allowing his emotions to manifest as sound, his experiences became the impetus for launching his musical career. They are laid to bare on tracks such as “Three Times a Day,” in which he describes his former doctor telling him that rather than deal with the issues in his life, he just needed to “take these little pills three times a day.”
Hayes said that when taking the pills prescribed to him, he “felt like nothing’s real. You have this sense that everything around you is not a reality. So I quit taking the pills.” He found that rather than pushing them down, utilizing his internal struggles would be the fuel that feeds the fire.
As good as Hayes’ album is, it does little justice to his live performance. To see his fingers move with such speed and seemingly automatic skill is truly impressive. His vocals come alive with an energy not heard on the disc — he seems empowered by the audience — and they respond with growing enthusiasm as he tears through his set list.
Hayes said it can be difficult to be successful in a city like Toledo as opposed to Los Angeles or New York City, but the local music scene is as good as you are willing to make it.
“A lot of people would doubt on it and say that it’s dead here and it doesn’t work anymore, but that’s people that probably are just sitting around and not doing anything because they think that it’s not going to get them anywhere,” Hayes said. “It doesn’t matter where you’re at, you’ve got to start from the bottom and you’ve got to play as many times as you can and just get the experience because that’s the only way you’re going to learn what you’re capable of doing.”
There’s “a lot of cover stuff going on,” Hayes said. “When you go out to the bars you have to play where the money’s at. Although he occasionally does covers, he prefers performing original songs.
“Covering songs is fun, because people get into it, but it’s fun to get a reaction out of a few people if you can from something you’ve done yourself,” Hayes said.
Hayes said his dedication and commitment to his musical career is evident in his lyrics and his life.
“I try to live what I’m talking about, and vice versa — talk about what I’m living. It’s just really important to me — it means everything to me. I’m at the point where I’ll do anything I can to keep doing it for the rest of my life.”
