With the charisma of a rockstar and the addicting sound of your favorite boy band, Haiden Henderson is here to show the music scene a good time. Initially finding fame on TikTok after going viral with his 2023 single “you don’t even like me,” Henderson is now a rising star in the pop scene. He recently played his debut headlining shows in Los Angeles and New York and on March 15 released his most recent single “Hell of A Good Time.” This newest single – as well as the addition of his last name to his artist name – represents a new era for the “Fresh Blood” singer.
“Hell of A Good Time” takes on a more rock and roll sound, unlike Henderson’s previous musical efforts. By balancing dark and sensual musicality with playful pop melodies, Henderson is showing listeners that he’s on a new level of his persona – one that is multi-layered, well-executed and only the beginning. With a cult-like following that continues to grow, Henderson’s career holds a lot in store.
The self-proclaimed one man boy band recently sat down with Melodic Magazine to discuss his recent musical endeavors, the inspiration behind “Hell of A Good Time”, and if blondes really do have more fun.
Melodic Mag: “Hell Of A Good Time” was released a month ago and it’s already passed 2 million streams on Spotify alone, how has the feedback been so far?Haiden Henderson: It’s been very different from all of my prior releases. I feel like it’s the first song that I’m not worried about its lifespan. I think the song speaks for itself in a lot of ways and in the past I have felt the need to continuously market my releases, otherwise people would forget about them. Maybe that’s just my own insecurity, but I feel like this song, whether or not you like pop music or rock adjacent music, you’re just like, ‘this is cool’. I’m proud to have been any type of a part of a song that does that.
It’s the perfect blend of like rock meets boy band meets Jonas Brothers. What inspired the rock sound?
It had like the darkness of the Choke on My Heart EP, but the poppiness of the first EP in a way. I’ve always dipped into rock references by accident, cause I’ve always been a guitar player. My songs have always been written on a guitar and the way to get a guitar to sound more exciting is to add distortion.
It’s always been a subtle thing for me and I still feel like a “Hell of a Good Time” is kind of towing that line in an interesting way. I love pop music, I’m a pop girly, but I love pop music, but I also love the backbone and the energy and the excitement behind rock music.
You recently played your debut headline shows in Los Angeles and New York City and even got to open for Emei at El Rey recently. ALL of which were sold out!!, how did these shows inspire you afterwards?
My first two headline shows established something for me which was that I feel that I’ve always been more rock than I’ve given myself credit for. My label came to see my headline shows, and it was their first time seeing me with a full band. It was also our first time meeting my fans and girls were crying and snotting on themselves. It was this really profound realization for all of us that I have real fans that are willing to come to things and I still don’t even feel like I deserve them that much. I think that they naturally lean towards the rock side of the boy bandiness. It’s the 5SOS distorted guitars and the Jonas Brothers, but with a little bit more teeth.
Okay, let’s talk about it…. Aerospace Engineer to Musician – how and why the transition?
In a funny way, my natural inclination is to find the similarities between music and engineering and it’s because I approach music in a different way than most people.
I’m very pattern analysis driven. I have the STEM side of my brain in pretty much everything that I do. I was an Aerospace Engineer Major and I was working at SpaceX and when the pandemic hit, I got to indulge in my hobby, which was playing guitar. The fulfillment and immediate gratification I got from picking up a guitar and playing a song before I was even writing felt so much more immediate and pure than what I was doing for aerospace engineering.
I started playing guitar when nobody was around to watch me or validate me. I did it for myself and the purity of that, I just kept chasing. I then came to a fork in the road where I was like “if I want to be great at anything in my life I’m gonna have to commit 150% to it and that’s at the end of the day the thing that I care the most about”. I just went with the thing that was most immediately calling to me, which was guitar.
You’re now going by Haiden Henderson, your full name. Was there a reason behind this change and what else can we expect with this new era of Haiden?
It was always in the plan. I went viral really early on for one of the very first songs I’d ever written. So I got sucked into this world and I had to spend some time with what I felt was most authentic to me. I had multiple last names in my life because I’ve had a cyclication of father figures over the years.Haiden was the only name that’s always been mine, so it felt the most comfortable. Then a part of me was like, “Haiden is just kind of this younger TikTok friendly, Gen Z sounding thing.” So it felt fitting for where I was, but I wanted the elevated version, just like my full artistry to be Haiden Henderson, it felt more substantial. It felt bigger than just Haiden. Felt bigger than just me.
I grew up in the 2000s and I loved the celebrity culture and the people that seemed larger than life. Henderson is such a fun alliteration with Haiden. I thought, “this sounds like a name that I could have seen in TMZ when I was 12.” For some reason, I just felt like that. And so we’ll see if that happens. Hopefully if TMZ ever catches me, it’s for a good reason.
We’ve been seeing some snippets of “Bleachers” across social media, what can you share about that? When do we get to hear more?
I just did the full thing with the production at the Emei show and it was freaking crazy. I mean, that show was unbelievable in general.
But yeah, “Bleachers” is the next single. I accidentally announced that it was the next single by doing a giveaway for a couple of guest list spots for my New York show. It’s so fun! Once again, just me trying to have as much fun with the music and not be afraid to be silly. There’s not a lot of guys that I feel do that right now in pop music. Everyone’s pretty serious or sitting at a piano and not having a lot of fun. There’s not a lot of goofiness or anything like that.
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I think goofiness is the perfect word.
Yeah, everyone’s serious. We’re all here to have fun, especially for a diss track type thing. It’s like, I’m never as serious as “Sorry To Your Next Ex” or “Pretty Little Addict,” those songs represent a very, very extreme version of me where it’s just pure pissed offness or through the roof confidence or whatever.
I’m a big golden retriever dressed as a black cat and I’m never as serious as those songs make me sound, but I’m typically more like “Bleachers” where I’m just messing around and having a good time and hopefully turning a good phrase every once in a while.
What else can we expect from Haiden Henderson in 2024? Full tour? More new music?
We’ll be playing live as much as possible. That’s my number one goal. I don’t even care what it is, I’ll play to seven people. I just want to keep doing it because once you start that ball of the snowball down the hill, you just got to keep going, it’s hard to slow it down.
Two, I’ve never really released music consistently because it’s always just been me writing it alone in my room. So now that I have a catalog of music that I’m sitting on that’s well written and represents me well, I think that’s it.
I’ll be dropping probably another 10 to 11 songs this year on top of the EP that I dropped in “Hell of a Good Time”. I have “Bleachers” coming out this month and then next month I’ll have another song coming out.
Dream city to perform?
Ooh, London.
Dream artist to collab with?
Oh, you’re such a jerk. If I could say a dead artist, I think it’d be a terrible song, but it’d be so fascinating to work with Elvis in some way. He was the first human to experience worldwide fame and that’s crazy to me.
Living, I think Olivia Rodrigo is such a fucking amazing writer. And I think we would write something really cool. So I would say her as well.
Favorite rock band?
Inspiration wise, “The Struts.” I don’t know if you can call them rock, but Death Cab for Cutie is one of my favorites; they’re like this emo alt rock sphere of like the Justice League of emo all rock shit.
Favorite boy band?
5 Seconds of Summer
Dream artists to open for?
I really, really love twenty one pilots. Their tours are so fun and they’re doing backflips and magic tricks on stage.I love experiential shows like that.
twenty one pilots, Olivia Rodrigo, and Chappell Roan are great too.
Do blondes really have more fun?
For sure. I only went brunette when I was depressed, so I’m biased. I was born blonde, but confirmed blondes have more fun.
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