Hayden Everett at Bardot in Los Angeles

Californian singer-songwriter Hayden Everett took to the Bardot stage for School Night on February 6 in Los Angeles, CA to perform several of his songs. The multi-instrumentalist was accompanied by a female vocalist to his right, as well as a saxophone player on his left. The indie-folk artist captivated his audience with a wide range of emotions portrayed in each song, drawing from personal experiences to bring his poetic lyrics to life with piano, acoustic guitar, and the perfect touch of jazz. Everett released his debut self-titled EP in 2019 and his next project in 2021, an EP called Kennecott.

Everett began his set at Bardot by performing his latest single, “Heaven on My Own,” which he released in late December 2022. The audience was silent while he performed, taking in every note with attentiveness and eagerly awaiting the next. After a beautiful opening saxophone solo by his accompanist, he harmonized with the female vocalist, who is also his girlfriend, while playing the keyboard. He went on to perform two other songs off his latest project, “Redwoods,” and “Neptune.”

Everett performed two unreleased songs during his set as well. The first, which is titled “Killer Whale,” is one that he wrote as a love song for his girlfriend. Both lyrics and instruments brought out raw feelings as he and his girlfriend harmonized magically over the live instruments. The more moving of the two was a song called “Brother’s Arms.” Everett gave a lot of backstory to this song, reliving the story of him writing a song in place of a speech as the best man for his brother’s wedding. When the wedding was just a few days away, he scrapped what he had written and started completely from scratch. The relationship between siblings was captured beautifully in both the emotional lyrics and the melody of this song as he sang about how his brother was there for him during all the “firsts” in his life.