When Toronto singer-songwriter Hayden Desser and production designer Christie Greyerbiehl tied the knot, they served wine from Ravine Vineyard Estate Winery at their wedding. So when the offer came in to play a solo show there on Sept. 21, Desser jumped at the opportunity.
Known simply as Hayden, the Toronto native burst into national and international consciousness in 1995 when his independently released DIY album Everything I Long For became the subject of a bidding war between American record labels.
He signed with Outpost, a subsidiary of Geffen Records, who released the record in the U.S., and the lead song Bad as They Seem caught on with the grunge crowd. He was accepted as a more lo-fi purveyor of the genre made popular with the success of Seattle-based bands such as Nirvana and Soundgarden.
But that success was all too much for Desser, just 24 years old at the time.
“It was partly exciting, because my dreams were in a way coming true,” he tells The Local. “But aspects of it were just too much. One day I was meeting some of my heroes, and the next day my back would go out, I couldn’t walk. My mind and body were experiencing it.”
That excitement followed almost two years of building a grassroots following in Toronto and Southern Ontario. He describes travelling around the area with his guitar, playing solo sets between grunge bands, and selling his tapes out of the back of his Toyota Tercel as a much more fun experience.
After the release of his second album, 1998’s The Closer I Get, Outpost folded, the hype machine subsided, and Hayden returned to those roots. He put out his third record, 2001’s Skyscraper National Park, in an original run of 100 copies on his own Hardwood Records label, delivering the CDs to friends and family members.
Almost 30 years on from his debut, any hint of Hayden’s grunge-adjacent past is long gone. On Are We Good, his ninth and latest album, his voice is much more melodious, somewhat muted on some songs. Instrumentally, the distorted guitars of his earlier work are replaced by piano on many tracks, acoustic guitars on the others.
And he wears his influences on his sleeve on the opening one-two of East Coast and We Danced, emulating Leonard Cohen’s playing style on the first song and naming that bard’s So Long Marianne on the second.
“Clearly I’m obsessed with him,” Hayden laughs, “as everyone should be. Since I started seriously writing songs my big five were Leonard Cohen, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Tom Waits and Bob Dylan. I’m one of those people.”
Fellow Toronto singer-songwriter Leslie Feist chips in on vocals on the record’s first single, On A Beach, an uplifting song that Desser says actually has at its core a relationship at a crossroads.
“It comes from a place where people are hypnotizing one another to try to get back to how they felt and treated each other when they first met,” he explains. “There’s an undercurrent of tension, but musically it is quite uplifting.”
The video for On A Beach features actor Steve Buscemi, of Reservoir Dogs and Boardwalk Empire fame, playing a psychologist.
“We’ve stayed in touch since the mid-’90s when I did a song for his directorial debut Trees Lounge,” says the Thornhill, Ontario native. “I had this plan to go to California where Feist now lives. I shot him an email and he showed up. He was so professional and awesome, he took the role seriously.”
Desser explains that the title of Terry Cloth Blue comes from a memory of his first crush at 11 years old.
“She was wearing this one-piece,” he laughs. “It was beautiful!”
And there’s some local content on the album, at least title-wise, on the song Miss Fort Erie.
“The part of the song where Miss Fort Erie opens the blinds after a night of craziness is inspired by ’70s rock stars,” Desser explains. “It’s very tongue-in-cheek. I think I just took Miss Fort Erie out of the air. I was trying to figure out what would be a fun-sounding beauty pageant town, and I was thinking about playing in the Niagara-Buffalo area, which I did a lot in the ’90s.”
Are We Good, which features collaborations with Aaron Dessner and Matt Berninger of The National, drummer James Krivchenia of Big Thief, and engineer Jonathan Low, who has worked with Taylor Swift, is Hayden’s first album of new music since 2015.
“It always takes me a long time to make a record,” he admits. “I’ve really had my eye on the prize enough to be really ambitious. I only write songs that I’m pleased with if I write them when I really feel like expressing myself in a genuine way. It’s hard for me to pull songs out of the air just to release material. Over the years I’ve become meticulous and obsessive with my music.”
In November, he’ll be heading out with a full band for a tour that will take him across the western provinces. Niagara-on-the-Lake audiences will get his solo show at Ravine.
“I like to play at least a couple songs from each album and a few from the new one,” says Desser. “It will be an intimate solo show, just me, with my piano, a guitar and probably a bass. It’ll be fun. I’m looking forward to it. I love that vineyard.”
Tickets for Hayden’s performance at Ravine Vineyard on Thursday, Sept. 21, presented by Noisemaker, are $45 plus taxes and fees, and are available at ravinevineyard.com.