PEOP L E
Musician Zach Hurd is back in Maine, by way of Brooklyn, L. A., and a hit on Spotify (“Safe”) with 18 million plays.
our music is so breezy. I’ve just listened to “Changing,” “I Wonder,” and “Like a Bird.”It could be the best pop music ever created by a Mainer.
Thank you! What part of Maine do you come from?
I was born in Brunswick and raised in Bath, on Hyde Street. My parents taught at the Hyde School, and I went there. I played soccer, basketball, and lacrosse. I didn’t have a band yet, but the whole school does performing arts. I did a senior thesis project with two classmates where we wrote some songs, recorded in a local studio, and did a show at the end of the year. Your background on fan sites for Bay Ledges appears as “Maine/NYC/LA.” How do you reconcile these divergent cultural forces in your music?
I kind of tried not to move to New York. I played in New England cafes and other venues up here. Then in the mid-2000s I decided, “I need to do this.” My best friend from Bath’s older brother was living in Brooklyn. He wasn’t into music. He had a corporate job. But he said, “I have this spare room with a mattress on the floor.” So I made the leap and went to open mikes every night. You try to just get experience performing so you can book a club on the Lower East Side or in Brooklyn. Meanwhile, I was working at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in human resources. I knew all the security guards and engineers but also the curator. One year in Brooklyn turned to seven. By then I’d made some EPs and worked with a producer. I have to laugh. My orig34 P O R T L A N D MAGAZINE
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inal plan was: “I’ll give myself one year in New York, get a record deal, and then I’ll move away from New York.” But it was like, “I’m playing in a bunch of clubs around here, I’ve got some recordings—now what?” Then my dad passed away. He was killed in a car accident in Bath in 2013. No one else was injured. We’re not totally sure what happened. He probably had a heart attack while driving and ended up hitting a tree. Killed on impact. That played into my deciding to move from New York.
That must have changed everything.
He was a huge supporter of my music from the beginning—to an annoying degree. He’d want to play the stuff all the time. All right, dad—chill! I moved back to Phippsburg, where our family had a house. I played some open mikes in Portland and tried to meet people. But I was struggling, pretty depressed in 2014. And both my sisters were in L.A. They said, “Come out, book a ticket, stay with us! Bounce between our two places— see what you think!” A gutsy move?
Then when ‘Safe’ got put on New Music Friday, it exploded and hit No. 3 on the Global Top 100.”
I’d hit a wall as an independent artist. There’s no real road map. Some things work, some don’t. While in Maine, I opened up the Ableton software a friend had given me in New York. I already had some recording knowledge after working fifteen years in studios, but this was just for fun. I’d only do it for the music, not monetize it. Best of all, I refused to worry about it. The Bay Ledges thing started then. My grandparents had some land that slopes down to the bay in Phippsburg. There really is a Bay Ledges there! I started putting one of my songs up on Soundcloud under the name Bay Ledges. For free. Over time it started to get some traction. One of my friends ran a Monthly Mix. “Can I use some of your songs?” Yes. In 2016 I put my song “Safe” on Spotify. The next morning, a friend said, “Your song is on Fresh Finds.” Then when “Safe” got put on New Music Friday, it exploded and hit No. 3 on the Global Top 100. Labels like Columbia, Capitol, and Warner
CLARA LEE
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Spotify Smasher
