GGD Interiew: Cas Haley on Family, Music and Fame
Cas Haley had one goal at Galactic Get Down, 2019 — to bring a family together with music and dance. The Galactic Get Down family trickled out of the air conditioning and into the blistering heat to experience Haley’s reggae performance. The Texas-based musician has dedicated his life to sharing his passion for music with the world. He even takes his wife and kids with him on tour, and sometimes, his kids join him on stage. This summer he made quite a few stops in Midwest in addition to GGD including Project Earth, Electric Forest, Shangri-La and Vibe High.
While the kids didn’t join him at GGD, everyone was dancing and everyone was singing. Not only is Haley an amazing performer, he’s also a really cool dude to talk to.
I sat down with Haley after his set and got to know a little bit more about one of my new favorite musicians.
Q: So Cas Haley! How was your set? What did you think of Galactic?
CH: It was good! I really like John and Joe so I’m a little bias — I love the two guys. It looks like a beautiful spot here in missor- Minnesota! It looks sort of like Missouri, it’s kind of crazy. I didn’t expect the hills. It’s really pretty. It was super hot, so it was definitely a challenge, but I had a good time.
Q: Do you prefer playing shows or Festivals?
CH: I love it all. They’re definitely different things, I really love the storyteller, sort of house concert vibe — small theaters and just me by myself. I love doing the band thing as well, it’s just two different things. I totally enjoy both of them equally, i really have a love for the story so I do like those environments where stories can be told.
Q: Is that how your albums are? Stories?
CH: It’s definitely personal stories. My music’s more about the songs and the story then necessarily the vibe or the genre. We skip around. We’ve got country vibes, we got reggae vibes — it’s more about the song. I’m a songwriter. A song lover.
Q: How long have you been songwriting/playing music?
CH: I started playing when I was about 12 years old, and I started writing songs from the get go. My parents are both musicians, they really encouraged me to keep doing it, [they’d say] “do whatever you want, Cas! You can do it!” They set me on the path to believing in something so crazy, as far as “oh yeah, you can drive around the country and play songs for people and it’ll work! It’ll pay for everything!” That whole idea, most of our culture is like “now that’s a .. I mean if you’re really, REALLY talented, or even then you might not get the support.”
I feel really lucky to have been blessed with the idea that it was possible. Because that made me fearless, especially in my teens and 20’s, there was absolutely no way in hell I was doing anything else. I did it long enough to where it just worked, and it’s too late to turn back now.
Haley with special guests Chase Makai and Chase Ingraham
Q: Going off the family vibe, your son plays with you quite often, yeah?
CH: Yeah! My son is 13 years old, and he’s been playing a few years, my daughter plays too. I’m trying to encourage them to get on stage as much as possible just for everything, developmentally, that that does. The courage of facing your fears, being able to get in front of people. They’re excellent musicians, they’ve been around it their whole lives so it’s pretty natural to them. We’re trying to get the family band thing going.
Q: Kinda like the Partridge family/ Brady Bunch? Travel the country?
CH: Yes, but like the Country/North Texas/Hippie version.
[Still not sure if he was joking or not, but I’d buy that album.]
Q: Do the kids stay home and go to school?
CH: They’re home-schooled, soon to be “road-schooled.” Which is a challenge, but my son’s been home-schooled since he was in second grade and Nola’s been home-schooled her whole life. It’s a huge part of our lives. Me and Cassy, we love it because we get to relearn everything! We’re only a couple weeks ahead of them. So people are like, what are you gonna do when they get to 10th grade? What we’re studying now in my sons 7th grade, I never even studied in high school! We do a Waldorf inspired home school — it’s very holistic, really thorough. We do a block study, so we study one thing for six weeks and we incorporate the other elements into that.
Q: I know you probably get this all the time, but I want to touch on America’s Got Talent. How did it changed your life and what did you take away from it?
CH: I took a lot away from it, the circumstances going into the scenario were a little different for me. I actually hated reality shows. I thought they were disgusting, commercial — everything that I was against. I had a friend who was like, “My brother in law knows a talent agent that can get you a back door audition to the main producers [America’s Got Talent].” So he said, “you should go,” and he really pressured me, not even expecting anything. So I went and the next thing you know, I’m living out in LA and I was on the TV show. Everything started rolling and I’d signed my life away. I get to the end of the show, and it’s me and this other guy Terry Fator and Terry Fator ends up winning.
After the TV show, they exercise all their legal options. So they basically bought my career for free, just by putting me on the show — their exposure was the price that they paid me, but they owned it. It didn’t seem fair. I was like, man I’m signing all these deals, I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. I just got into it for the chance of a million dollars and exposure and I really don’t want to do this shit. So I changed my phone number, went back to Texas, ignored them for a year and a half and they tried to lock my career up legally and I had to hire a lawyer. I ended up having the lawyer get out of my deal there and I have built it from the ground up after that. I’m not affiliated with them whatsoever anymore.
It’s like, imagine having a really good cheese burger that you make at your burger shop, and then going’ and somebody sweeps it out from under you. Now they want your name and everything that you do, but then they’re gonna change everything. It just didn’t feel right.
Now you have this fixed identity that a show portrayed you as something, and then all these people had an opinion of who were. And they wanted that product! That was their product and they didn’t want it evolving. They wanted it the same. So that’s the psychological turmoil that you get into when you’re in that big of a situation where millions of people think you’re this one thing, and it taught me a lot about how not to get caught in that “fixed identity” mode. And keep moving and keep evolving as who I am as a human being and who I am as an artist. And to differentiate between the two. Like my music, and who I am as a human being are very different things. My music is something I love to do. Being a human is my relationships and my family. It’s taught me a lot about being a human and what I want from my career.
Haley performing at the OM Dome at Shangri-La Music Festival
After meeting Haley and seeing him perform at GGD and Shangri-La, it became clear why he took the route he did. Cas Haley is soulful. When he’s on stage, he appears to be at home. There’s a real connection between him and his audience. He doesn’t need to perform for the entire world. Each stage, at that moment, is his entire world.
Cas Haley will make another Minnesota appearance at Wookiefoot’s Halloween show at Skyway Theatre November 1. Tickets can be purchased here!
