Caleb Hearn on Loosening Up and Letting Go in New Single “Friend Right Now”
[UNPUBLISHED:] Hey Caleb! Thanks for sitting down to chat with me today. For any of Unpublished’s readers who might not know your music, can you give us a quick introduction to yourself and how you got started in your music career?
[CALEB HEARN:] I just turned twenty-two years old, but I started writing music at a very young age. I remember one Christmas when I was twelve or thirteen, my parents got me a guitar. I started learning just basic chords and I was just writing sappy love songs and that kind of thing. It was always a passion for me that I always held on to. But I grew up in a very small town where doing music wasn't a realistic dream, it wasn’t something that made sense. I was always kind of battling that. In high school, I put it down for a little bit, played sports, and did all the normal things that a normal small-town kid would do in a high school setting. Then I met one of my best friends, who is my roommate in Nashville now, ironically, who was also invested in music. We both started doing that together and kept it up. We kept it on the side for a bit until we got the balls to start doing it a little more publicly. After that, we both graduated high school, said how fun it was, and then put it on the back burner again.
It wasn’t until I put it down after high school that I realized something was missing. Then it hit me that this is really what I was born to do and what I want to do. So, during the COVID year, I started taking it seriously. I hopped on TikTok, started promoting my music, and it was at the end of 2020 that I had my first song take off on TikTok. I’ve been an artist full-time ever since.
[UNPUBLISHED:] I also want to give you a massive congratulations on your recent release of “Friend Right Now!” How are you feeling now that it's out in the world?
[CALEB:] I'm super pumped. I've always wanted to do something upbeat and fun like this. It took so long for me to find a song that felt right because every time I would write, I felt like this emotional piano ballad writer. It is so hard to cross over into a fun space. I tried it over and over and over, and then one day we wrote “Friend Right Now” and I knew we found it. I've been super pumped on the song for months, and now that it's out and now that I’m seeing the response…. it's been great.
[UNPUBLISHED:] It is so fun to me that the song is talking about a sad topic and is lyrically more introspective, but sonically, is upbeat and easy to dance to. Putting together the juxtaposition of the sad lyricism and upbeat production, what was it like creating the song?
[CALEB:] The process of creating the song was honestly really cool. I remember being in the session and using Ed Sheeran’s go-to where he takes a sad concept and makes it feel upbeat and happy. He’s the absolute greatest at that, and that's what we wanted in the song. We wanted people who are big lyric listeners to be able to relate lyrically. For the people that don't want to be sad at the moment, we also wanted to make something where they can shut off the lyrics and just bop their heads and have a good time. It’s cool to me that it connects to people in both ways instead of just one. It just came together so quickly and so easily, which was so nice.
[UNPUBLISHED:] The music video for “Friend Right Now” follows you through a lot of different shots and moments in a variety of different styles. What was the process like creating the music video, and what was the inspiration and direction behind it?
[CALEB:] The music video was great for me because it pushed me out of my comfort zone. I wouldn’t say I was acting in this one necessarily, because I absolutely wasn't an actor, but it pushed me out of my comfort zone as a person being in the film. Normally my music videos are shots of me just performing the song, just looking sad, or doing something very nostalgic. With “Friend Right Now,” I had to act and dance a little bit, move around more and get my body loose. It was just a whole process on set to get me to move.
[UNPUBLISHED:] Are you not a dancer?
[CALEB:] Not at all. They were trying to get me not to be so stiff, which was chaotic for all of us. The overall idea of the music video was to just be like, “Screw it, I'm working on myself. I'm just going to live and do what I want.” That feeling and vibe was the coolest and I think carried throughout the music video, and enforced how much I needed to loosen up. Everything I was doing was just self-care, like ordering a pizza for myself, running around with my dog, working out, and swimming in the pool. It was great spending time alone and making it look fun. That's always something that people are so afraid to do, but you have to be able to enjoy time by yourself. You can still do that and it'd be a blast, so we wanted that to show in the music video. Ironically, of course, I was with a crew of people, so it made it a lot of fun in a different way. All in all, it was just a blast being pushed out of my comfort zone.
[UNPUBLISHED:] Were the different scenes that were happening in that music video also actual self-care habits that you like to do when you're alone?
[CALEB:] Yeah, totally. When I'm alone, one of my go-to things is a lot of driving with the windows down. I also love going to the pool or working out, and I hate to say it, but I'm a sucker for pizza. I'll order a pizza by myself and just cram the entire thing in an hour. Not the healthiest choice on that last one, but for the video, everything was inclined to things that I would do for self-care in that scenario.
[UNPUBLISHED:] “Friend Right Now” and a lot of your other recent releases hold deep and sentimental lyricism that follows different storylines of both good and bad emotions. When you're writing these songs, are you pulling from personal experience, or is it more of general storytelling?
[CALEB:] It's a bit of both if I'm being honest. There are plenty of things that happened in my past that I pull from, especially with this EP. A lot of things have changed recently for me. I moved to Nashville. I went through a breakup. There’s just so much that has happened in the last six to seven months for me, so I would say this EP is the most I've been just vulnerable with my own life.
I also love to tell a story, and it doesn't always have to be mine. I pull a lot of my songs from stories that I see in friends' lives and people that I know personally. For example, in my song, “Where Do We Go From Here?” the true meaning behind that song is actually from two people that I grew up with going to church and seeing their families. My favorite thing to do is tell a story, whether it be my own or somebody else's, and make it relatable so people can connect. I love keeping it where no one knows if each song is my story or not. I feel like this makes the listener curious, and it's cool to be able to keep that distance a bit with my personal life as I pour my heart into songs.
[UNPUBLISHED:] As I was going through some of your older music, I saw that you started in more of a Rap style but you've shifted more into Pop lately. What prompted the sonic shift for you?
[CALEB:] I started rapping in high school because it was a cool thing to do. I felt like if I was singing ballads in high school while also being on the varsity basketball team, it would have messed with my image, you know? I started singing some ballads around twelve years old, and that’s what I have always loved to do. Rap was a really fun thing to do though, and I’m not saying I was a good rapper, but I still use some of the skills I learned while trying to rap.
Once COVID hit, I was throwing styles at the wall to see what stuck. It was an eye-opening moment when I first dropped an album of Pop Rap in 2020 and then made this slow, sad ballad to follow it up. It was so ironic to me that the ballad was the style that blew up for me because it’s what I always loved to do in the first place. It was an obvious learning moment and that shift was just very drastic. It feels so me.
[UNPUBLISHED:] Would you ever explore Rap and those other styles again?
[CALEB:] I definitely would, it would just have to be in the right scenario. I feel like it would be a feature or a collaboration project. I miss the process of writing a Rap or R&B-ish style song, so I would explore those styles again at the right moment.
[UNPUBLISHED:] What artists inspire you? Whether that's just music you love to listen to or music that you pull inspiration from into yours?
[CALEB:] Some of the artists that I have always just been diehard fans of and I pull inspiration from would be Ed Sheeran, Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, Lewis Capaldi, Dean Lewis, and James Arthur. I'm a huge fan of good writing, so it's always something that I kind of aspire to follow in the footsteps of these artists that write such incredible lyrics.
When it comes to my biggest inspiration, though, I have to say NF. It's not even necessarily the sonic style of music that he makes that makes me like it. What's been the most influential thing is his delivery of the lyrics. His song delivery ability has allowed me to feel whatever he is talking about since I was fourteen. He is so good at making me feel whatever he's going through. It feels like he is a friend almost, and that delivery puts me in the same boat as him instead of just relating to him on a surface level. It’s so personal. When I started listening to him, that's what I immediately wanted my songs to feel like. Simultaneously making your songs vulnerable but also approachable to the point where listeners feel like they can cross over and feel a connection between the song and the artist. That’s huge for me and NF does it so well.
[UNPUBLISHED:] I also saw that you are getting ready to go on a tour of the West Coast with Rosie Darling, which is so exciting! How are you feeling as you get ready for it?
[CALEB:] Yeah, I am psyched. Right now, it's the full planning stage of what the band and set and logistics will look like. It’s a little bit stressful, but on the back end of that is just this ball of excitement. I'm just like, “Oh my gosh. I don't know how we're going to figure this out, but I know we will and I know when we do, it's just going to be great.” To be able to go on tour, especially with Rosie, whose music I would play/listen to before I ever had a song do well is crazy. I know she's going to kill it. I'm going to do my best to kill it. So, yeah, I'm super pumped.
[UNPUBLISHED:] That lineup of the two of you is going to be so fun. Have you toured before now?
[CALEB:] No, this will be my first tour. I have done a couple of one-off shows, but this is the first real tour. There are some nerves with all this for sure, but I think with the team I have around me, I will feel super comfortable.
[UNPUBLISHED:] So with “Friend Right Now” officially out and your upcoming EP on the horizon, what can listeners expect coming on the EP sonically? Is it going to be in the same style as “Friend Right Now,” or are you going in different directions throughout?
[CALEB:] I think the best way to describe the EP would be that people can suspect the normal Caleb with a lot of the songs, but I'm also going to throw a couple of curveballs. “Friend Right Now” is a bit of a curveball, and I plan on releasing another one of those at some point. For me though, there's something about the ballads and the acoustic stripped-back sound that I just am so drawn to and will never leave.
[UNPUBLISHED:] As you've grown and changed throughout your music career so far, is there any advice that you wish that you'd been given when you were first starting?
[CALEB:] Looking back on the kid that was sitting in his parents' basement trying to do whatever he could, I would tell him to take more time in enjoying the process of making the music. I do that now, but it has only been the past few months that I've got back to enjoying the music and letting go of the noise that comes with the music industry. I think when everything started moving with me for music, it became so focused on dropping more songs. All of a sudden I dropped six songs without enjoying any of the process or the reaction to them.
I sat and enjoyed writing this EP, and I also want to take the time to enjoy the reactions, whether people love it or hate it. I wish I had taken the time to just really sit back and just enjoy what I’ve been doing. At the end of the day, if you’re never really sitting in the moment, you've just turned your dream back into work. The whole point of following your dream is that dreams don’t feel like work. I'm chasing this dream so I can do what I love every day, and now I'm never working. I feel like I'm loving life and doing it because it's my dream. So I would tell myself to do that earlier because I could have had a little more fun, you know?
[UNPUBLISHED:] That resonated with me, just sitting back and letting yourself enjoy the moment, even when it's getting hectic. That's fantastic advice for anyone in the music industry, but also just in any aspect of life where we get wrapped up. I hope that you keep holding on to that advice because it's so much more fun to live life that way.
[CALEB:] It is. We only live one life. You have to love it and enjoy it.
[UNPUBLISHED:] When you're not making music, what do you like to do in your free time?
[CALEB:] I'm really big into sports, specifically basketball. I played in high school and I love to play community center games. Even though it's cliche, I’m not too much of a person that loves to be alone, so I love being with friends and being with family. I value that time. I also love anything outdoors. I love going to the lake, the beach, hiking, mountain biking…Anything outdoors. Oh, and I love fitness.
[UNPUBLISHED:] Is there anything else that you want our readers to know?
[CALEB:] I hope that everyone listens to this EP, and even though there are some sad songs in there, I hope that people find hope in this EP. There is a storyline that comes through. If you listen from top to bottom, there's a feeling of resolution and relatability in learning to just let go. I think even in my own life that's something that I've been learning to try to do more of this year, just learning to sit back and not try to control everything. I think this EP is a great representation of that.
