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Hunter Hayes knew he wanted to honor the “rare...experience of being loved deeply, fully and unconditionally.”
Hayes, 34, called it a “stars-aligning moment” when he worked with songwriters Sam Ellis and John Mark Nelson last year on a heartfelt ballad that he hopes will be “good enough to be a wedding song at some point.” It was “like watching a song fall from the sky,” Hayes remembered of the fast-moving process. “It was beautiful the way that the song kind of just flowed out.”
The singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist debuted the result, “Every Piece,” on Friday (September 19). He brings the song’s emotional lyrics to life with his signature, genre-blending instrumentation style, incorporating elements of country, pop and soul into the “groovy,” “electric guitar-based” love song. Hayes said of his blended sound that “nothing’s off limits,” and “nothing’s out of bounds. …There’s parts of this production that I’ve never done.”
“I wanted something that celebrated the sort of the intricacies and the nuances of falling in love with somebody, and feeling loved for all of you and feeling really, truly seen,” Hayes said in a recent interview with iHeartCountry. “I think I just wanted to celebrate the couples that love each other for all the pieces that it takes to make the beautiful picture — not just the picture (as a whole), but everything that goes into it. …It was just really fun to write, really fun to celebrate that kind of love, that feeling of being fully seen and fully known by someone.” He said the chorus and the bridge (“You’re like a stained glass window/ A puzzle so complete/ I love every piece of you/ With every single piece of me”) hold “the heartbeat of the message of the song.” He sings:
“Every piece of me needs/ Every piece of you/ You put me back together/ When I come unglued/ You’re everything I’ve dreamed of/ My everything to lose/ And every little piece of me loves/ Every piece of you”
“I was very clear on. I felt very clear on celebrating that kind of love, that sort of unconditional, ‘I love all the pieces,’” Hayes said of telling the story of “Every Piece.” “The goal is always to have something good enough to put in a wedding, but (also aiming to capture) sincerely feeling that emotion, that breath of fresh air with meeting someone and finding someone that sees you and loves you that way, and really celebrating and being grateful for that kind of all-encompassing love.”
Hayes offered a unique look into his music-making process in his Road to Evergreen online series earlier this year. The five-part digital show took viewers on a journey through the singer-songwriter’s living room studio, his inspirations and the process of bringing this chapter of his career to life. Evergreen is several years in the making, Hayes said, crafting the concept alongside Wild Blue and Red Sky. The five-time Grammy-nominated artist said he appreciated “this trilogy of storytelling,” and has been working on Evergreen on the side “for a hot minute.” The highly-anticipated era is defined with joy, hope and a focus on the future.
“I wrote about a great relationship. I wrote about the ‘me’ that I wanted to be, and just kind of used it as a prayer,” Hayes said. “Honestly, the whole project, it has been and continues to be a version of a prayer or a manifestation, or however you connect with that. …I wanted this to feel joyful. I want it to be happy. And I wanted it to be an album where even if that isn't a season of your life that you're necessarily in, I want you to be able to dream in it. I want you to live in it, and I want it to feel like it's yours. It's just a matter of time.”
Hayes also “had a lot of fun experimenting” with instrumentation throughout the project, including with acoustic guitars (and swapping different strings to achieve a different sound), mandolins, the ukulele, and the Oud, which Hayes discovered while scrolling through TikTok. Fascinated, he pledged to learn how to play the fretless stringed instrument that many use “to express deep emotions.”
“Every Piece” — which has already strongly resonated with live audiences, Hayes said — follows a few other recent releases from Hayes as he ushers listeners into his Evergreen chapter, including “Fragile,” “Wait,” and “Around the Sun.” Though Hayes has not set a release date for the full Evergreen project as of publication time, he teased that he’s “got some shows” and “some big announcements coming up” soon.
“There's a lot of moving pieces right now, but this has been a really fun chapter to build musically,” Hayes said. “I feel like it's come together in such a beautiful way. …It just feels like everything's falling into place, and I want everybody to stay tuned because a lot of fun and exciting things (are) happening.”