NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Several years ago, producer and songwriter Shane McAnally met Walker Hayes, a country singer from Alabama who was struggling to find a hit while signed to Capitol Records Nashville.
“He had a song or two that hadn’t worked and they were like, ‘We just need a hit,'” said McAnally, who has written No. 1 songs with Sam Hunt, Miranda Lambert and Kenny Chesney. “There’s nothing organic or honest about telling someone that you just need a hit.”
Hayes, who had a wife and six kids, left Capitol after his record fizzled with no radio success and took a side job at Costco to pay the bills. He kept returning to a 160-square-foot storage shed behind his publisher’s Music Row office, where he set up a DIY studio with an old version of Pro Tools, a keyboard and a guitar.
“You find yourself writing the truth, because it’s like, ‘Well, I ain’t writing for anyone but myself anyway,'” said Hayes, 37, as he sat in the storage shed known as The Shack. “The delivery, the style, the beats, I am going to make it all. I couldn’t hire a band. So I was making a lot of this stuff here in this shack. Beating on this table, shaking that shaker, whistling. And really just having fun making music ’cause I just loved it.”