Terri Dunbar-Curran
“THERE is always music in my life, music in the form of people,” says singer Auriol Hays. “People are my music, that’s where I draw my songs from.”
She explains that over the years friends have felt comfortable to share important parts of their lives with her and their stories inspire a lot of what she writes. “Everyone needs a safe person they can sit and talk to and know they won’t be judged for the stuff that’s going on in their life. Tell me, I’m here.”
That’s the driving energy behind her latest album Dreaming Music. “It’s about giving people that sense of security. It’s about being that friend embracing the best bits of someone.” Recording her previous album Call It Love was a cathartic experience for her. “It got me past a lot of pain and into a new space.” But Dreaming Music has a completely different feel to it. “It’s a lot bolder. There’s a difference in mood,” she says. “The first album I didn’t know what I was doing, it was a journey.”
Dreaming Music was originally titled Scattering Stars Like Dust, inspired by a quote often attributed to Rumi: “We come spinning out of nothingness, scattering stars like dust”. That quote, written in one of her earliest notebooks, has been special to her from when she first decided to become a musician. However, while working on the album she realised that Dreaming Music as a title felt a lot “truer” and “easier to digest”.
“A lot of these songs are not my stories, but those of people who came into my life. Like Ben Harper, my musical husband,” she laughs, “once said, you have to have the ability to look beyond yourself.”
The album also includes songs by other artists and a collaborations.
“I wouldn’t say I covered Burn Out, but I did my own interpretation of it, my own version. And Sipho Hotstix Mabuse loved it. There were people coming into my life that were so hurt that I felt that this song was very appropriate.”
Her collaboration with Taariq Halim, When God Gets Back from Holiday, is very much about looking back and saying thank you for everything that’s happened in the past. “That’s what the new album is about, it’s very optimistic,” she says, adding that she very rarely writes songs just for herself.
She hopes that these tracks will encourage her fans to be grateful for the people that have come into their lives. “So that you can move forward with your life and be present as it happens. Dream your way to better things. And eventually you reach a point where your dreams are bigger than your own ambitions.”
Hays says she dreams and daydreams a lot. “A lot of my songs are my way of taking all of the excess emotion and beautiful things and finding a context for it. Music is my safe space where I can make sense of what’s going on in my life and my friends’ lives.”
Performing gives her a way to release all of that energy, whether positive or negative. “I love singing sad songs. Many people don’t get it, but by singing those songs I free myself of that emotion. By the time I walk away I feel so much better. I take what I’m feeling and hurl it at my audience. We would all be a lot better if we found a way to rid ourselves of our excess emotions.”
Another artist she worked with for the album was Jesse Jordan, who teamed up with her for Please Don’t Let Me Go. She initially saw him perform on Expresso and eventually met to discuss writing something together. She says they had a “lekka conversation” which helped them work out what they find important. One of the concepts that came out of that chat was that we’re only as strong as the people around us – and that’s the basis for the song. “The music came easily after sitting and chatting.”
Child Atone was the result of her working with Crimson House Blues’ Riaan Smit. “We got along like a house on fire. That man is a beast of a musician and it is a fun song to perform.” She has also always wanted to write a song which makes use of a ukulele, so Josie Fields was the perfect musician to work on Different Kinds of Love with. “It’s saying thank you to different people in my life. We’re all multi-faceted beings and different people reflect different aspects of our life,” she says.
The album, which once again saw Andre Scheepers work his magic in studio, also includes A Million Years for which Hays teamed up with Lionel Bastos.
So, what’s next for her now that she’s finished work on Dreaming Music? “I’d like to say everything! I like being surprised,” she says, relating how at a recent performance with Pops Mohamed the duo had some time to sit and chat. “That was wonderful. We talked about horror movies! He’s a connoisseur. I loved that there was that kind of connection that was so unexpected.”
For her, the ability to really listen to others is vital – listening to what people are really saying behind the words. So she will continue to listen, to write and to go wherever the wind takes her. “I flow with what’s going on, that way life is always surprising.”
l Follow @auriolhays on Twitter, www.auriolhays.com