SEPTEMBER 11
HAIDEN HENDERSON IS MAKING POP PERSONAL
BY LUNA CARDOSO
Haiden Henderson used to believe he could disappear behind the music. For the first two years, he was a self-described "Frank Ocean" type, embracing the mystery: post a song, walk away, and let the art speak for itself. But a year ago, everything changed. He began performing live shows and realised he was "robbing himself of an experience" if he didn't personally interact with his fans. Tension, his latest EP, comes from a very different place—one where connection is the entire objective.
Onstage, Haiden recognised he wasn't simply writing into the void; he was writing to people who wanted to meet him halfway. Now he's "heavily investing" in his fans, pouring energy into daily Discord hangouts, responding to comments and DMs, and even making inside jokes that make the community feel alive. "Everything I've done since doing that has had infinitely more meaning," he explains. The payoff is both emotional and creative. "It's genuinely why I do it... I make this music to see their faces when they hear it." The relationship isn't an afterthought; as he puts it, it's a "two-way street."
Haiden dresses in leather and eyeliner, with a touch of "vampire chic," naturally appearing "pale and sickly." He loves the grunge aesthetic, even though his music draws inspiration from Britney Spears and candy-coated early-2000s pop. "It just plays to my strengths and my weaknesses," he says of his style.
That tension is part of the fun, and it's beginning to spread throughout his audience. At a recent pop-up in Paris, he worried that no one would show up. Then, like a scene from a movie, "150 teenage girls all wearing edgy shit" walked toward him in slow motion from the alleyways of an intersection. It was as if he'd found his own cast of The Vampire Diaries. "I found my people," he says, "it was such a fun realisation... I feel very seen by it."
The EP marks a significant evolution from previous projects, such as Good Grief!. Haiden used to sit alone "on the edge of my bed with a guitar," calling the process "long and torturous," as he pushed himself to "poke and prod himself emotionally." This time, the process was more "patient" than "interrogative." He now writes down phrases, melodies, and fragments, letting them sit until real life provides a story to tie them together. "I can never really release a song that is not so viscerally true," he says, adding that he has a "lacking imagination" and "anything you hear in the songs is so unfortunately for me just what happened."
The title track, "Tension," came last. He knew he needed a song with that title, but "the story that the song is about just happened in my real life," and he felt "possessed." They had written three other versions of the song, but none of them "made me feel enough." The final one, based on that visceral experience, came together effortlessly. He no longer "beats" the music out of himself, but instead lets the music come out of him.
This new stage is characterise by raw honesty, patience, and a sense of community. Haiden writes not from his imagination, but from the world he shares with others who reflect it to him in eyeliner and leather jackets. Tension proves that pop music can be messy, communal, and scathing, without being overly polished. As he says, the music is the spark. The faces in the crowd are the fire.
