Wordless

Written by Des Dare Barragan

Have you ever met a writer who didn’t have the words?

No words to write, post, or speak For what was jumbled in the mind?

Routined to using language to understand the world inside. Now faced with only feelings, That words don’t seem to define.

Is a writer still a writer, without words to summarize?

Identity can seem so shaky, Short of the things that seemed to make thee.

Maybe the depth of these words Takes time.

Is wordless revelation still solidified?

“I called my friend Ben Parks, and I said, ‘Ben, I think I wanna come out in this magazine.’ He’s like, ‘Wait, what, say more!’ ‘Artistically, I think I wanna come out!’”

For the first time, Haley Montgomery introduced herself to us in her artist name, which marks a new era in her music and personal life.

“Confessions changed my life. It changed so much about my theology, my views on God, and my views on the Christian life. It changed my relationship with what music sounded like. My community just grew exponentially in that project. It sort of pulled me out of this very sad, lonely, isolated, ‘I’m a Christian artist trying to fit into this very narrow, tiny box,’ into this sort of just open space, collaboration, all kinds of friends, all kinds of sounds. It just brought so much freedom to my creativity. I love Confessions.”

So to everyone reading, welcome to the party!! But before we move over to all things Dall, let’s backtrack to the beginning of Haley’s professional music career.

Believe it or not, Haley was a competitive figure skater her entire childhood until she abruptly quit during a “hellish senior year.” She describes that God also awakened something in her for music that year. She wrote her first songs, dropped her first EP, signed with a management company, and was touring, all by her senior graduation. At the start of touring, she met her long-term band members, including her first drummer, Brian Dall, who later became her husband. Haley spent a lot of time in Nashville, and she became a primary worship leader at a popular mega-church in the city (San Diego). In time, events led her and Brian to leave that church, and Haley thought she’d never lead worship or write music again. Haley found healing in therapy and the support of new artistic and spiritual communities, “My circle with music really began to grow around that time ‘cause I’d kinda given up on entertaining this one-way streak relationship with Nashville, and I was really embracing being a west coast artist and not trying to fit into the Nashville scene anymore.”

Cue the dawn of her most recent full-length album, Confessions.

As the Confessions project refreshed her community, Haley was met with the cluster of feeling like she was sitting on her best work but had no standing in the industry. The impression of always being in the wrong place at the wrong time hung over Haley her entire career, and the industry’s response to Confessions drove that lie even further. She recalls, “One label exec said to me that the content was way too sacred for the secular market, and it sounded way too secular for the sacred market.” Haley made something that the industry didn’t know how to sell, but that couldn’t stop the album’s purpose. Confessions took off through other creative mediums, including a documentary, a devotional book, a study, and a re-imagined album. Productions, she quickly admits, she could never and would never have done alone.

Haley describes the initial album, her internal conflicts, and what seemed like the lack of intervention from God as “the deepest disappointment I think I’d ever felt, and the only thing that I knew to do next was reach for a hand. God, just being who God is, had people plotted already all around me to receive my hand and listen to what was important to me and affirm that it was all good. And I think, more importantly, reminded me that I’m not my work.” The kindness of God met Haley in people who believed in her and what she was doing, now she seeks to extend that gift to others.

The guidelines she experienced in the Christian church and Nashville music industry formed Haley’s context for what she imagined music could be and how she could create it. She did what was asked of her for a long time, confessing that it felt good to hit the mark, but the appeal lost its taste, and Haley longed for something she had yet to see or experience. “Here I am now at 33, and kinda for the first time, I feel like there’s no real specific parameters around the question, ‘Haley, what do you wanna make, what do you wanna create? If control and achieving a specific thing is no longer sittin’ in that number one spot, a different question comes up, ‘what do you want?’” The laborious process of facing what’s within to claim what you want was the first indication of Haley’s transition into the name DALL.

After 11 years of life with just her husband, Haley explains, “I didn’t want to be a mom. Even as a kid, I could remember feeling a pretty significant disconnect from other kids playing house, or with barbies, or babysitting.” At age 20, she and Brian nearly broke up because she couldn’t believe that a man who loved God could love a woman like her who didn’t want children. This belief was formed in shame after years of being told that it was God’s will for all Christian women to procreate. The continuance of her relationship with Brian defied that stereotype and declared that it is okay to be a Christian woman who does not feel called to be a parent. After years of working on accepting that truth, the news of her pregnancy was overwhelming, and Haley and Brian chose to keep that time for themselves and God. Haley recalls, “A dear friend, very early on, gave me permission to take the whole pregnancy to just grieve and to unburden me from the pressure to be excited.” Being away from the projections and questions of people was the safest way for Haley to process the months and anxiety leading up to the birth of her daughter, Parker-Lou. “I was in prayer, and I was crying, and I was just like ‘God, what is it that you say to me right now, and then I’m just gonna say it to her because I don’t have my own words.’ I just heard God say to me, ‘I love you, and I want you.’ So those are the first words I said to her,” remembers Haley. Since then, Haley has added, “I like you,” and God continues giving her all she needs to connect each phrase with sincerity.

The name DALL emerges from seasons thick with confronting depression, disappointment, and yielding control. The will to live, let alone create, collided with the funk that Covid brought on and the complexity of a surprise pregnancy. Haley shares that in that darkness, she tried to be done with music and had a routine of imagining burying herself in her backyard and praying to God that she would die there. But every time she opened her eyes (in real life), she would envision herself standing straight up, and the hole she dug for herself would be covered. That scene was on replay for a long time untila revelation clicked for Haley. A place meant to end in death incrementally became a refuge for her to grieve and let hope trickle in. Three years later, Haley testifies, “There is a will to live, there’s a will to create, there’s a will and a desire to discover beautiful things again. I can’t imagine that would have come any other way than that metaphorical death.”

That

One of her favorite things to challenge herself with is the question of, “If I were honest…?” It’s up to you to fill in the blank from there. In the words of DALL, “How true it is when we extend that permission to each other, we’re helping guide each other to the truth, and it is something that has to be provoked. That’s another reason why we need each other. Freedom is found in the truth.”

Follow DALL & her creative projects

DALL’s Instagram | @what.a.dall

DALL’s Website | www.whatadall.com (coming soon!)

Haley Montgomery’s Instagram | @haleymontgomerymusic

Haley Montgomery’s Website | www.haleymontgomery.com

The Table’s Instagram | @thetableartsociety

The Table’s Website | www.thetableartists.com