Jack Black & Dedication: A Chat with Haiden Henderson
Written by Coog Radio on October 4, 2024
While on tour with MICO, I had the absolute honor to chat with Haiden Henderson before his show in Houston on September 20th at White Oak Music Hall. Continue reading to hear about the singer’s tour, his music and so much more.
Amarylis Rodriguez (AR): Hi, I’m here with Haiden Henderson! (To Haiden) thanks so much for joining us today, would you like to introduce yourself a little?
Haiden Henderson (HH): Yeah! I am in Houston, which is perfectly fitting and we’re on tour right now… so it’s been chaotic and incredibly fun, but it’s also release day for me so lots of stuff flying around.
AR: Yes! I listened to [the new single] by the way, it’s so good.
HH: Ah, I’m so glad! But yeah, I make music and play live as often as humanly possible, and I just dropped a new song called “Sweat” and that’s pretty much there all is to me.
AR: Perfect. So, you’re currently on tour with MICO, you’ve done six out of ten shows so far. You’re more than halfway there. How has it been?
HH: The show’s have been awesome, I guess “rewarding” is the word that comes to mind. So many of them have been sold-out and the audiences have been wildly engaged. The meet-and-greets in the merch lines have been going until 1:00 in the morning, so it has been exhausting but my favorite part of this job is actually meeting people. It makes the views on the internet and the streams on streaming platforms feel tangible.
AR: Yeah, and how does it feel to be in that final stretch of the tour? Are you a little sad about it? Are you excited to just relax?
HH: I don’t think that leading up to the tour I realize that I’m even going on tour until the day that I leave, and I don’t think I realize I’m getting off the tour until the day that I’m home. So I’m really just taking it as it comes. We are going to Disney World on our off-day in Orlando, so I’m incredibly psyched about that cause our band is basically full of a bunch of closeted Disney adults… including myself.
AR: *Laughs* And I know you said you’re in Houston today. You’re at White Oak, correct?
HH: Yeah, we’re at White Oak.
AR: Awesome, that’s one of my favorite venues. I hope you have an amazing time there, but since you got to Houston have you been able to do anything fun? Or just in Texas in general?
HH: Today we went and got, what I would assume, is a pretty authentic Texas Barbecue. Which if there was a worst meal you could have before a show, I’m assuming it’s that. But it was incredibly good… and you know it’s the real deal when the orders are weighed out by pounds.
AR: I’m glad you got to try the Barbecue!
HH: Is there anything else that we should do while we are here?
AR: I would say… definitely if you’re traveling through Texas, the go-to is going to Buccee’s. Have you been there?
HH: Oh of course, it’s a tour staple too. Any driving tour in America, you have to hit Buccee’s. [If you’re going with] anyone that hasn’t been there, on the way to Buccee’s you have to hype it up and make it sound like this illustrious wonderland where all things are possible, and then they go inside and they’re just like: “Oh sh*t, this is if Costco had a baby with a gas station.” But yeah, Buccee’s is number one on the list.
AR: Your description of Buccee’s is perfect.
HH: Yeah when got there, we were basically like the gas station f*cked Disney Land, and what came out of it was a beaver mascot and a bunch of handmade deserts and barn-chic indoor decor. It’s an experience.
AR: Yeah, for sure. That was probably the best description.
Now I know for me personally, I love going to shows and I feel like the artist to crowd connection really adds to the experience.
HH: Totally.
AR: Do you have any favorite ways to connect with the audience or with fans in general?
HH: Yeah! Oh my gosh, my least favorite shows are the ones where the artist just gets up and plays through a setlist. Mostly because, back in the day I feel like the whole point of going to live shows was to hear high quality music. People didn’t have iPhones or iPods to hear music, so the highest quality of sound would be when you were going to see bands like The Beatles or the Rolling Stones live. But nowadays, live music is kind of the worst quality of music you can listen to because you have your phone. So the only reason to go to a live show is to feel like you’re connecting with the artist and for that reason, I try to make my shows as much of an experience as possible. In between songs, I’m doing a stand-up routine half of the time or I’m interacting with the audience. In the middle of a song, the band and I will stop randomly out of nowhere and I’ll say some stupid thing and then we’ll go back into the second verse.
AR: Yeah that’s an amazing take. Do you have any specific fan moments that have been super memorable to you?
HH: Oh gosh, yeah I think as we lean more into it, the signs get crazier and crazier. People will just try to say stuff that will make me blush on stage or question my morals but it’s typically centered around whatever song I have coming out at the time. When I dropped a song called “hell of a good time,” there was a sign that said: “I’m gonna show you a hell of a good time later, daddy.” And that was weird because my mom was at that show. I think someone recently on a sign offered my a thousand dollars for a bottle of my sweat. Because I dropped a song called “Sweat.”
Pretty much any grotesque thing a person can put on a piece of cardboard, I will read it out loud because I can’t help it.
AR: No that’s awesome. So, we love to ask this question to any artist on tour and I’m sure you get this question a lot… but we have to know, do you have any pre-show rituals?
HH: I love Texas, but I can’t say Texas Barbecue is one of them. I listen to a certain type of song or playlist that gets me out of my head. Those typically include Måneskin or the Strokes or Bruce Springsteen, people that I just feel like command a stage. I tend to steam and drink tea and do all the little healthy things, and my band and I usually do a shot for fun.
We usually dedicate our shows to Jack Black, I don’t know why. I think it’s because we are all School of Rock fans. We put our hands in [the huddle] and we are like: “Okay we are gonna do this for Jack Black tonight. Jack Black is going to be proud of us after this one. 1…2…3… Jack Black!” And then we go out and perform our little hearts out. Just for Jack Black.
AR: That’s so funny. Fun fact, I actually have the same birthday as Jack Black.
HH: No f*cking way. Oh my gosh. Another fun fact is in L.A., I lived literally down the street from him. So I see him walking around in his tie-dye shirts with crocs and noise-cancelling headphones on, just like wandering around. East L.A.. He’s just authentically himself.
AR: As he should be. He’s a legend.
HH: A hundred percent!
AR: Okay, so we’ve covered the tour… I would love to speak with you more about your music! You’ve had a few releases this year, and I feel like each one really continues to stand out against the rest. How do you stay inspired and motivated to keep writing and creating music?
HH: Wow, firstly thank you so much. It tends to change every few weeks for me. I really believe that what keeps people in this industry, long enough to have a career, is being able to change your motivations. Cause in the beginning, for example, I was doing it because I needed the money. I felt like I was in a survival mindset. I was living in the back of my truck and playing guitar in my free time, and skipping class. I just needed to pay rent. When I got a record deal and actually got some money, I suddenly felt lost because I didn’t know why I was doing it anymore. [But as I started] playing shows live and seeing the connection in real life was the reason I was doing it. Lately, I’ve been really motivated by feeling happy for the first time in my life. Like in my love life, my personal life. With my friends and my community. From song to song, seeing how people connect to it and building that community is what keeps me going.
It’s kind of a vague answer but that’s perfectly correct because motivation is such a vague thing.
AR: No, yeah of course. I love that answer. So, what does your songwriting process look like? Are you constantly thinking of new melodies and lyrics in your head or do you have designated days to just create?
HH: So basically my first two EPs, Good Grief! and then Choke on My Heart, I wrote those in my bedroom alone. It was after Choke on My Heart that I started collaborating for the first time in a way that was actually fun and beneficial. The lover boy EP was kind of the product of me collaborating for the first time, so nowadays it looks a little bit different than it did but it typically starts with a phrase or a word that catches my attention in daily life. I love words and phrases. I’m just a wordy kind of person in my day-to-day life. My friends call me a “yapper” because that’s what I am.
AR: That’s so cool. I’m not a musician myself, I can’t write a song to save my life, so just hearing about those different creative processes is just so interesting to hear.
HH: I feel like the nice part about music is that it doesn’t discriminate against background or what you can do. I feel like I muscled my way through song writing. I’ve been writing for the past three years, while my friends have been writing since they were like four. I feel like an outsider in this world, but it doesn’t seem to stop me.
AR: Yeah, definitely not. I feel like you’ve been on fire lately.
HH: Thank you so much, I try my best and at the same time I try to ignore everyone and everything around me and just keep my head down, and do what I’m inspired by.
AR: And I know you spoke a bit about this earlier, but what exactly got you into music?
HH: Boredom, I think, was a major player. I was studying aerospace engineering at school and thought I was going to be an engineer for the rest of my life. My high school didn’t have any music programs or anything, so I was interning at SpaceX and the pandemic happened, and everyone had to go home. I was slowly starting to indulge in this hobby I was getting into, which was playing guitar. It slowly became an obsession and I was skipping class more and more to play.
I was born with a problem in my hands, it’s called “Trigger Finger,” and it’s typically only seen in eighty-year-olds and basically the tendons in your hands are too swollen to slide properly. I was playing guitar so much that it came back. I woke up one day and my hands were frozen shut and I didn’t really know why. I thought I was paralyzed. I tried to get through it for a few weeks, I would stick my hands in ice every morning and pry them open to keep playing. But I went to the doctors and they said I had to stop playing, so I started writing for that reason. Then I realized that no one was going to sing my songs, so I had to learn how to sing. It felt like every step of the process was purely out of necessity.
AR: Wow, that is such an interesting story. Thank you for sharing that.
HH: Yeah, of course. It’s a weird one. I feel like I stumbled into this career path and I am incredibly grateful that I did.
AR: Yeah! I know you have a show soon, and you need to get prepped and ready. Before you go, I just wanted to thank you again for speaking with me!
As we close things out, is there anything you’d want fans to know/ be on the lookout for?
HH: I want them to know that I am eternally grateful and am where I’ve always needed to be somehow. I am at an all-time high of gratitude right now.
More than anything, I just want people to come out to these shows. It’s where the community is built. Music really brings people together.
And yeah, I’m working on a new EP to drop in 2025 and a headline tour as well!
Please note, this interview has been slightly edited for length’s sake.
