My fingers are in tons of pies! Hugh talked about songwriting from dusty notes, Monty Python animations, shooting music videos, piezo mics for guitars, creating sounds from voice memos, pushing through writer's block, and podcast editing for money.

My guest today is Hugh Macdonald aka Fairhazel a British/South African singer songwriter, artist, producer born in Brighton but raised in London, Cape Town and Paris. Hugh left Berklee College of Music in Boston in 2018 returning to London to work with Communion Music under the name Fairhazel, releasing his first single 7x7 in February 2018 to critical acclaim. Roisin O’Connor of The Independent described it as having "tender, whispering vocals that recall the likes of Villagers, Ben Howard and Sufjan Stevens”. Inspired by artists France Gall, Harry Nilsson and Andy Shauf among others, Fairhazel has established himself as a musical storyteller blurring the lines between fiction and true stories. 

At his Los Angeles studio, he works on creating all aspects of his music himself from songwriting to arrangement, production, and engineering. He also frequently produces and mixes music, primarily rock, folk, jazz, pop and soul. Although Fairhazel is a solo venture, a band often accompanies him at shows and he has opened for Agnes Obel, Banfi and Astræa. Recently he played Whispering Bob Harris's Under the Apple Tree, and featured thrice on the lineup of the Counting Crows Underwater Sunshine Festival. As well as the Fairhazel project, Hugh runs a monthly live music event with his wife, Danielle, soon to be growing into a day long monthly festival. Hugh and Danielle also direct, shoot and edit music videos for independent artists. 

I met Hugh back in 2019 when he came through Nashville at 21 years old and we did a live stream for our Youtube channel where Hugh wrote a song on the spot using lyrics from you Rockstars in the comments and everything was recorded on the Roswell Pro Audio Delphos and Colares mics. And Hugh has since worked with me a couple of years as the head videographer for our NAMM videos in Anaheim CA.

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Website Links:

Instagram: @fairhazel_
TikTok: @fairhazel
http://fairhazelmusic.com/

Additional podcast editing and production by:
Brayden Stremming
Vlad Vasilcenko