Canberra girl Hayley Jensen has come a long way since Australian Idol 2004, nominated as Female Artist of the Year at the 2022 Golden Guitar Awards and teaming up with Canadian country rock royalty, Clayton Bellamy, to write festival banger Four Boots.

This Sunday 4 December, Hayley is playing the Royal Hotel in Queanbeyan to celebrate 18 years in the music industry, in the place it all began.

When did you first fall in love with country music?

Country music wasn’t on my radar at all growing up. It wasn’t until I started writing Past Tense & Present Peace, I remember listening to a lot of Miranda Lambert and Carrie Underwood.

Then I started looking around the Australian country music scene and, all of a sudden, discovered this whole industry separate to anything that I had been a part of before.

There are radio networks, festival circuits and touring scenes behind Australian country music, separate to the mainstream music industry that’s just thriving – it’s amazing.

Does the inspiration behind Four Boots come from a personal place?

I always like to blame it on the co-writers when I talk about this song. Like, I would never have done anything like this.

But nah, I certainly have had my times in between relationships, when you’re moping at home on the couch and your friends go ‘let’s just get out of the house, do some karaoke, maybe play some pool’. And it’s like ‘ugh fine, alright. But I’m going to be a sad sap.’ Then you get there and… (laughs). The world has different possibilities.

A lot of these songs are often written from the man’s perspective, too. I thought it’d be fun to give it that little bit of a spin and tell it from the girl’s perspective.

What was it like producing your Breakin’ Hearts album during the pandemic?

We wrote and recorded the whole album during lockdown. All of my vocals were actually recorded in my cupboard.

It was pretty cool being able to record your album in your ugg boots. But the really cool thing is that I recorded my parts here, Clayton recorded his parts in Canada, and the producer of the whole album is based in Canada as well.

I’m always amazed every time I hear it, how well it came together given we weren’t in the same country, let alone the same room.

Are you looking forward to coming to Canberra?

I am! I’m originally a Canberra girl, I grew up on a property just outside of Canberra and I went to school in Canberra.

This little run of shows that I’ve created celebrating 18 years in music is my way of summing everything up – the highs and the lows.

I’ve been through marriage, divorce, finding myself again, finding my passion for country music, finding love again, and making music my full-time job, all in this last 18 years.

Canberra will be the last show of this run. We’ll wind it all up where it all began!

How has the Canberra community influenced your music career?

If it wasn’t for Canberra, I would never have made it through on Australian Idol, that’s for sure. They voted for me, got behind me every single week, I’ve never seen anything like it. I remember coming home and there were banners all around the streets, it was just incredible.

I would love for Canberra to come out this weekend; it’s an all-ages show, so bring the family and come help me celebrate these awesome years.

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