Country music star Walker Hayes hopes to inspire people struggling with addiction through his music. The 44-year-old singer-songwriter, who battled a drinking problem for years, celebrated his eighth year of sobriety in October. Last month, Hayes released his EP 'Sober Thoughts,' which detailed his journey to recovery.
Because there was a time in my life where I would have said, 'There's no recovering from this. You know, this is going to be my life.' 'I'm always writing about recovery once a week,' he added. 'I mean, there's always one song out of five each week that touches on my story or someone else's.' The Grammy Award nominee noted the country music scene can be associated with promoting drinking culture. Hayes wants fans to understand there is another option.
Country singer Walker Hayes on his new collaboration with JCPenney 'Honestly, when it comes to fashion? When they called me, I'm not sure I was that confident as far as, like, ‘Am I equipped to make fashion decisions?’' he said. 'But as they included me and honestly just dove into my personal story, they gave me more and more confidence, and they allowed me to really, really help create this line. 'A lot of these items are personal that we did together.
There's T-shirts with textures and colors that I feel confident putting on and wearing all occasions,' he added. 'Honestly, it's my life in clothing form. You know, in 25 items. It's what I do. And so, I give JCPenney so much credit for trusting me, and, honestly, just setting me up for success with this line again.' Hayes recalled that he never really chose his own clothing in the past.
feel like that's actually a genius way to create a men's line — to use a real dude who probably shops and wears clothes like your normal JCPenney person,' he said. 'And so I just happened to have a cool job that goes along with it. 'It's been a magical relationship, so organic and something that I would easily continue in a heartbeat. It's been a blast. I can't wait to see it on people. You know, out in the world.