With John Lee Hooker’s economy and R.L. Burnside’s hypnotic pulse among the enduring reference points, the blues is not the boundary but the centre of gravity in Haynes’s music. A singer, guitarist and songwriter, Haynes has spent more than two decades moving among blues, folk, country and R&B – and the spaces between them – with writing and groove providing the constant thread.
His route into music began early. A rock ’n’ roll compilation album his grandfather won in a school tombola introduced a nine-year-old Haynes to a new universe: Chuck Berry, Little Richard, the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly and Jerry Lee Lewis. By eleven he was learning guitar and already forming bands. Dylan, Hendrix, John Lee Hooker and the Doors quickly followed, and Haynes began trying to write songs almost as soon as he knew enough chords to do so.
As a teenager growing up in Leeds in the ’90s, that curiosity widened. He dug deeper into blues and gospel, trawling the CDs at Leeds Central Library and discovering artists including Jessie Mae Hemphill, Johnny Shines and the Staple Singers, while a growing interest in international music sent him searching further afield through broadcasters such as Charlie Gillett. Reggae, dub and dancehall had already formed part of the soundtrack to his childhood, establishing a habit of listening widely that has remained ever since.
After first moving to London at eighteen, Haynes spent several years in Newcastle studying music production before being drawn back to the capital in 2002. He would spend the following 13 years developing his own writing through changing line-ups and collaborations. A rock band proved something of a detour, with Haynes’s writing increasingly returning to blues, folk and the wider world of post-war American music. In 2006, those instincts found a new home in Alex Haynes & the Fever.
His background in production made self-sufficiency a natural part of the process, allowing Haynes to realise his songs without relying on a fixed band. On his 2014 album Bandit Blues Motel – as he had done on his 2011 debut, Last Train – he played almost everything himself, recording, mixing and constructing much of the music from the ground up. After 13 years in London, Haynes returned to Yorkshire, settling in Sheffield in 2015. His third release, Howl, followed in 2018. Also produced by Haynes, it captured the energy of a full working band through his collaboration with an Italian rhythm section. Released by Appaloosa Records, it built on a growing network of connections with musicians and audiences in Europe.
Live work has run alongside the records throughout. Haynes maintained strong ties with London after moving north, including a seven-year residency at The Blues Kitchen Shoreditch, while performing extensively in the UK and Europe. He has supported artists including Bobby Rush, Geno Washington and Alabama 3. European work has centred particularly on Switzerland and Italy, alongside performances in Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Russia.
Since 2019, his collaboration with harmonica player and singer Mat Walklate has become another major strand of his work. The pair have released two independent EPs and are currently developing their first full-length album together.
The pandemic brought an abrupt halt to a particularly active period of live and European work, but Haynes continued writing and producing music, leaving him with a substantial body of unreleased material.
Those songs draw on a musical vocabulary accumulated over decades. A little rhythmic economy from Hooker, a touch of hypnotic hill country blues from Burnside, and a lifelong fascination with folk, country, soul and R&B can all bubble up, but the mission remains simple: distinctive, strong songs, an obsession with groove and a whole lot of feel.