IN CONVERSATION WITH HAIDEN HENDERSON: THE 5SOS PRODIGY

Last week I had the pleasure of chatting with Haiden Henderson, an American-born singer/songwriter, TikTok phenomenon and future superstar. In just a few short years on the scene, he’s gained global recognition, a devoted fanbase and earned himself a spot on the wildly anticipated 5 Seconds of Summer tour, a colossal achievement for any emerging artist. 

Admittedly, going into the Zoom call, a feeling of near dread engulfs me as I realise the gravity of this interview. Haiden, hugely popular, successful, undeniably cool, both in music and fashion, the object of a thousand affections, and an exceptional talent who’s about to embark on an arena tour. And I, predominantly a mere photographer, dusting off my ‘journalist’ hat. 

I anticipate spending the next twenty minutes stumbling over myself, and the longer I waited in the Zoom lobby, the more I began to doubt myself. I am nothing if not riddled with unwarranted imposter syndrome.

The cameras turn on, the call connects, and my worries subside. Haiden appears with a huge grin and immediately cracks a joke about the (grown-out) bleach job on my hair. 

Haiden: Oh, my blonde twin! 

I’m immediately laughing.

Bella: Oh, hey, diva! 

Haiden: What’s uuuup? ‘Bella, where the hell have you been loca’! 

A hilarious reference that could’ve been extremely awkward had I not recognised it. 

Haiden (Con’t): Are you a Twilight fan? 

Bella: Oh, you know [I am]! 

Haiden: Thank God. I just finished Eclipse yesterday. It’s been long enough for me that I forgot how it all went, and yeah, it’s fantastic – and my guitarist’s name is Bella, I’m very excited about it. 

Bella: So, I’m basically in the band then?

Haiden: You’re in the band! My sister’s name is actually Bella too, and we [he and I] look related, so this could all be a family operation we got going.

Bella: Like… maybe we’re twins? 

Haiden: We could be twins, separated at birth. Who knows?

He’s quick-witted and easy to talk to; I’m completely at ease following our immediate back-and-forth. 

Bella: Well, it’s nice to meet you! Thanks for hopping on. I know it’s early for you over in L.A. 

Haiden: Oh, it’s not too bad. It’s okay.

For Haiden, it’s 8am. He’s clearly more of an early bird than I. 

Bella: So [let’s get started]! Congratulations on… everything. You’ve amassed over 10 million Spotify streams, millions of views on YouTube, and of course, you’ve got this tour with 5SOS coming up. I’m sure it’s just the beginning. How are you feeling about doing an arena tour?

He takes a moment to find the words.

Haiden: I haven’t – I have yet to develop the emotions. I think maybe… 

Bella:  Still processing? 

Haiden: Yeah, still processing… besides just being like an average boy, I am slow to process things on this scale. I can’t even imagine having 20,000 people like in front of me. All I know is that I’m probably gonna say something dumb several times over, and I’m going to hit a lot of high notes, and I think the cover that we’re going to play is going to get the girls really excited. 

Bella: Oooh, do we have any hints on what the cover is going to be?

Haiden: So it’s a [Lady] Gaga song. 

Bella: Oh my god. 

Haiden: Oh, it’s got to be Gaga, of course. 

This diva.

Bella: Well, we have a great sense of humour here [in the UK], so I’m sure the jokes will go down just fine.

Haiden: Yeah, if you’re a 5SOS fan, you’ve got to have a good sense of humour. Those boys are funny.

Bella: How did this all come to fruition then? How was it being approached by the band when they asked you to support? 

Haiden: Well, my team and I had been talking about this tour for like six months, because once 5SOS goes on tour, I know about it. I’m like, ‘guys, I think 5SOS are going on tour’ and everyone was talking about it for months and months. Even preceding that, as soon as I had started making music, they were one of the first names that we were just hypothetically throwing out that one day I would love to open for this artist. So it was really out in the universe. 

Bella: So it’s really a full-circle moment then. 

Haiden: It is so full circle. I mean, I started watching them on YouTube before I had sentient thoughts. So this is like, as full-circle as it could possibly get for me.

Bella: And they were an inspiration to the music then?

Haiden: Yeah, totally. I think you can hear it in certain ways. I just make stuff that’s like, a little flirtier and a little bit more inappropriate, but it’s very 5SOS-y in nature. But, yeah, we were talking about the tour for months and months and months. We had everybody on my team try to contact people in different ways. Ashton (5SOS drummer) and I had already been DMing each other over Instagram, which I was already secretly geeking out about… And then basically, the day we felt like it [the opening slot] was not gonna happen, like, it was pretty much confirmed that it wasn’t gonna happen, I got a call from Liz, my manager, and she was saying, ‘you’re not gonna fucking believe this’. My first guess was that we got 5SOS, and it was that. So I was jumping up and down, walking around my neighbourhood, looking possibly insane. 

I can’t help but have a huge grin on my face as he tells the story.

Bella: Definitely the coolest guy in the neighbourhood then. 

Haiden: I mean, after that news, I would definitely say so – I mean, Billie Eilish lives down the street from me. So maybe not the coolest person, but maybe the coolest guy… 

He immediately backtracks when he realises –  

Haiden: Actually, no, Jack Black lives right there too. It’s a weird neighbourhood. But also, it’s not that bougie of a neighbourhood. It’s just that randomly cool ass people live in this area.

Bella: Well, you’re in great company then! 

Haiden: Yeah, Jack Black, Billie Eilish and Haiden Henderson. What else do you need?

Bella: My dream festival lineup. Cute.

We’re both laughing until he asks an even more outrageous question than whether I’m a fan of Twilight or not.

Haiden: Have you heard Jack Blacks music? He has music.

Bella: Have I? Yes! 

Haiden: Oh, okay, you’re a notorious [Tenacious] D fan? 

Bella: Oh, my God. I literally just rewatched [Tenacious D’s 2006 movie] The Pick of Destiny the other day. [When I was younger] It literally made my personality. 

Haiden: Oh my gosh. I’m so glad! That’s awesome. 

Honestly, I could’ve talked about that all day. As I said, Haiden is extremely easy to talk to; either that or we are, in fact, twins separated at birth. Sadly, I had to pull it back to the interview. 

Bella: So! You’ve been doing music since 2021, is that right?

Haiden: Yep, roughly 2021-ish.

Bella: The breakout hit was, I think, ‘you don’t even like me’. You got loads of traction with that from TikTok, but I read that you were originally studying aerospace engineering, which is obviously a world away from the music industry… You’re a man with many layers, I love that. Was there a specific moment in your career where you realised, hang on a minute, this music thing’s going somewhere?

Haiden: So I was studying aerospace, and when the pandemic happened, I had a lot of free time on my hands. I didn’t have to go to class in person, which meant I didn’t have to go to class at all. I started playing guitar, and my first viral moment was actually a song called ‘can’t hurt me’ from my first EP ‘Good Grief’, then it was ‘sorry to your next ex’, and then, kind of every song following that, including ‘you don’t evenlike me’, sort of had viral moments. I think it was as soon as I saw a viable career option in music – really, once I started having label conversations, that I was pretty quick to leave aerospace engineering behind because I was so criminally bored and uninspired in that life path. I was really only doing it to make my mum proud and to be the first kid in my family to go to university and stuff. So, I was just – I was trying to be like a good boy, and then I started playing guitar, and I was like, I want to be bad. Like, yes, I think I want to be bad now, and TikTok kind of allowed me to do that. As soon as I realised that I could, I did, pretty much.

I hope the way in which he says ‘bad boy’ translates as hilariously in writing as it did in conversation.

Bella: And how was the transition from aerospace to music?

Haiden: I think, just because I was so much more interested in music… I thought – I mean… I was interested in aerospace, it was my whole life, but I don’t think I knew what I was missing out on. I could play like a simple G chord or like an Ed Sheeran song or something on a guitar, and suddenly I felt all of this fulfilment that I think I was depriving myself of for the years prior, and so everything just started flooding into my body, and I was like… Oh my gosh, colours were more vibrant, and I was more excited to wake up in the morning and way less excited to go to sleep at night. 

Bella: Like, life is worth living. 

I hoped he was getting my references.

Haiden: Yeah, I felt possessed to be honest, and I was like, ‘Is this what inspiration is? I don’t know what this is’. I had all this energy that I didn’t know what to do with. I think that made the transition really easy. Even though I was starting from scratch on something, technically very late in my life, compared to my friends who have been playing guitar and writing songs since they were five, I was just so excited, and I think so hungry that it sped up the turntables pretty quickly.

Bella: Well, you have a really strong social media presence, and always have. You really interact with the fans. I saw that you were asking them for help with curating the setlist. I’ve seen the mic stand bit, which I’m obsessed with; I’d die if that were me.

Haiden: Maybe it can be, come to a show! 

Bella: Well, you know… I wasn’t lucky enough to get a ticket; I’m devastated. I would love to have been there. You know, if you ever need a photographer, hit a girl up, I’ll be there. 

A shameless self plug in hindsight. 

Haiden: Well, what show would you do? Because we have photo passes.

At this point, I’m excited by the concept but worried I’d started to use this interview as a networking opportunity. Nonetheless…

Bella: I’m in Manchester! 

Haiden: I don’t know if we have a Manchester photo pass yet, but if we don’t, then it’s yours.

Bella: Thank you! I’ll be in touch about that. 

We both laugh and stutter over each other, probably realising we’re both derailing from the point of this conversation. He brings it back.

Haiden: Sorry. What was your question?

I compose myself. 

Bella: Starting on social media and having this heavily interactive presence with your fans, do you think that that’s developed more of a connection [with them]? Do you have any standout moments with your fans as a result of that?

Haiden: I think that it has been the biggest game changer for me and for my fandom, it’s how connected I choose to be with them. I think fans give you as much as you give them in a lot of ways, because they’re humans, like we’re all people, and people don’t want to invest in a relationship with you until you invest first.

I’m agreeably nodding along, genuinely intrigued by such an introspective response. 

Haiden (Con’t): A lot of artists, including myself, are afraid to, like, break the veil. They are like, ‘Oh, I want to be mysterious, ‘I love that I don’t know that much about Beyoncè’, I was like, okay, but you’re not Beyoncè, and it’s 2026… like Beyoncè was around in the 90s, so you need to be much more invested in your fans [now] – and you kind of, in a way, teach them how to… I don’t know, treat each other and how to treat you. It’s a relationship. So I give them way too much power. [But] to your point, yes, I have them help me pick the set list. We’re voting on their favourite Haiden Henderson song tomorrow because I’m in the process of making an album, and I’m curious what they love from what I’ve done thus far. Our Discord is really active. We do Discord events every two weeks in there, and we do fan pop-ups in random locations. I’ll just post a location on my story, and show up with a guitar, and we’ll have like 100-200 people just show up on a whim to a street corner in Paris or in New York or whatever. 

I interrupt –

Bella: That is awesome. 

Haiden: -I learned a lot of this stuff from 5SOS in a lot of ways; they’re really good at what I call a ‘culty fan base’, they are really good at developing that. They’re just – their tools were different when they were starting, it was live streaming and live tweeting was their way of doing it… and now you use Discord and TikTok. 

I’m clearly enthused by his response and want to delve in more, though, conscious of my timings, I know I need to continue with questions (though I promise, my energy is far more audibly enthused than it comes across in text). 

Bella: You just mentioned you’ve got an album in the works. I know lovesucker recently came out, which, again, massive tune, by the way. 

Haiden: Thanks! 

Bella: Can we expect anything more from the album anytime soon?

Haiden: Yeah! I’m playing an unreleased song during the set with 5SOS and I’ll release that after the tour, and then we’re going to keep just releasing music throughout this year, going into the album rollout, which will officially start later this year. The music is just getting bolder and more impolite, and I think I’m just trying to be more extreme in all ways, like, more flirty, more emotional, more angry, more all the things. I’m a little bit bored with still trying to prove to myself that I’m good or good enough, and I’m just, like, just make something that sounds really unique and doesn’t sound like anyone else. So that’s the hope.

Bella: I mean, the traction [of your music is] just going and going, I wouldn’t be worried about any of that, I think you’ve got a lot of big things coming your way, the ‘flirtier and more confident’, I think it’s all going to translate and do very well [with the fans].

Haiden: I hope so. I mean, imposter syndrome is a bitch. 

Bella: Tell me about it. 

She says as a regional photographer, somehow comparing herself to a globally recognised artist. Luckily, it made him laugh. 

Bella (Con’t): I suppose, on the topic of being really interactive with the fans, you’re also really open about drawing inspiration from relationships and personal experience. Do you ever struggle with putting so much of your own life into the music? Or do you find it a positive outlet? I always say, ‘Some people go to therapy, some people make art, and the really creative ones do both’.

Tortured artists.

Haiden: Yeah, absolutely. That’s a great way to put it! Something that I resort to, because I work with collaborators – I have worked with collaborators in the past that were a little bit scared for me to say as much as I say in my songs, because they’re not used to what I like to do with my songs, which I don’t like to embellish at all. I’m relatively uncreative and unimaginative. I just put, like, real ass details, down to the minute and the time of year and the way that it smelled outside, like everything is so, so truthful in the songs. To me, it’s kind of a game where if I can get this really crazy specific detail about you or me or us or whatever in this song, it makes me feel really excited to show that person, whether or not I ever actually do, I’m kind of writing for the reaction of somebody, whether it’s the individual person I’m writing about, which could be them, or it could be me, if I’m calling myself out in a song, I love writing something like that, it makes my stomach drop.

Once again, I interrupt-

Bella: Oh, for sure, I think that’s really important.

We stumble over each other’s words again, both eager to talk and still bouncing off each other. 

Haiden: Oh, I’m so sorry- say that again.

Bella: No, no, sorry, you go ahead. This is your interview. I’m just yapping. 

Haiden: No, please, please. 

He’s too kind. 

Bella: Well, I was saying I think it’s really important to draw from personal experiences, that’s always going to resonate so much better with everybody else than if you were just talking [about situations, relationships] as a vague general[isation].

Haiden: Yeah, I think I’m just kind of limited by it too. My biggest weakness is that I don’t really come up with big, sprawling storylines that I haven’t lived before. I love artists that do, I just I’m not quite that way, so I work with what I’ve got, and something that I always tell myself and tell other people that are worried for me is that I think my job and our jobs as songwriters is to write about our experiences. I think my job and our job as artists is to release those songs so that people can connect with them. So as someone who is songwriting and being the artist that is releasing it, I’m just trying to do both,

Bella: Yeah, for sure.

Groundbreaking. 

With my twenty-minute allotment with Haiden drawing scarily close to the end, I start to worry about wrapping it up somewhat.

Bella: I’m aware we’re very low on time now, so I’ll cut to the chase. 

Haiden: No, I’m sorry, I’m also a yap-fest. 

I reassure him to not be sorry.

Bella: So, ahead of the upcoming UK tour, I may have come across a clip of you [online] struggling with the tube doors in London. 

Haiden (jokingly): God damnit. 

I’m glad that made him laugh. I do my research, OK.

Bella: Yes, I caught that one. I hope the Manchester trams are a bit kinder to you when you’re here. But since you’ve been to the UK before, is there anything you’re looking forward to most about coming back? I’m guessing not the transport options, but is there anything specific you’d like to check out while you’re here? Anywhere you’ve not been? Do you have any gigs lined up to watch?

He hits me with some more jokes. 

Haiden: I’m definitely going a few more rounds with those fucking tram doors, and I’m gonna win this time. What do you mean, they close on people? That’s crazy. 

Bella: They really said ‘get on board’. 

Haiden: Yeah, that’s some medieval shit, right there. 

Besides his spat with public transport, he goes on to tell me about his upcoming UK ventures.

Haiden (Con’t): Um, I am doing pop-ups during this tour. So, in each of the cities that I’m playing, I’m gonna pull up to a random place with the guitar and hang out with fans before the shows – except for London, we’re doing it the day after the show, and that’ll be really interesting because I’ve not headlined anywhere but London in the UK [so far]. Though I’ve played Manchester and Glasgow and stuff… What else am I looking forward to doing in the UK? I don’t know. I’ve spent a lot of time there, to be honest, so I feel like I’ve gotten my itch, like I’ve done all the classic things. I’ve split the G (a classic pub staple where one drinks enough of Guinness in one go so the beer line sits exactly through the “G” in the Guinness logo), and I’ve had fish and chips

Bella: Hell yeah. 

Haiden: Maybe I’ll try beans on toast this time, even though that sounds weird. 

Bella: Yeah, that does get mixed reactions [from Americans].

Haiden: Jaffa cakes! I’ll eat a shit ton of Jaffa Cakes and, I don’t know, I’ll probably smoke a bunch of cigarettes too, just for the vibe. 

Bella: Well, that’s the English (British) way. 

Haiden: That’s the English way, yeah! Do you have any recommendations? What should I do while I’m there?

No pressure at all.

Bella: Oh, god, that’s a great question. I mean, when you’re in Manchester, we have a really strong, grassroots music scene. There are so many places around here. I mean, the Rat and Pigeon (I realise now I couldn’t have said a more British-sounding place), that’s a relatively new venue, that’s really great. YES bar, which is right near the main Manchester venues, like the [Manchester] Academies and the AO [Arena] and blah blah blah. They put on some really cool gigs and some really cool DJs, but I’ll find you at one of the pop-ups with some Jaffa Cakes and recommendations of what’s going on at the time. 

Haiden: Please! We’re still locking in the Manchester venue [for a pop-up] right now. If you have recommendations for where we should do the pop-up, [I] would love that. We look for a semi-indoor location, because we don’t know if it’s gonna rain. Coffee shops, record stores, and anything that is all-ages accessible. I had a few fans recommending that we go to Manchester Castle. Have you been? What is that about? 

Confused, I don’t immediately respond. 

Haiden (Con’t): Manchester Castle? Is that a thing?

It certainly isn’t, but now I’m second-guessing myself…

Bella: Oh, I wish I could tell you I knew what that was.

Haiden: Okay. Well, shit. Oh, wait, maybe that’s a Cardiff. Is it the Cardiff Castle?

I laugh. 

Bella: That would make more sense. 

Haiden: That’s more of a Cardiff thing, is it? American here.

Bella: I do have [an idea for the pop-up] – there’s the Castlefield Bowl, which is right on the canals, it’s used as a concert space, there are seats, and it’s just like an open, public space when there’s not a concert happening. It’s outdoors, but there’s also a roofed area, so that could work really well.

Haiden: That’s interesting, yeah. 

He pulls out his phone and begins to type. I feel very important all of a sudden. 

Haiden (Con’t): Wait, what is that called? 

Bella: Castlefield Bowl! As long as I get credit for that [idea], then it’s all yours. 

I’m joking, but he’s an admitted flirt, and I’m feeling very humbled when he says… 

Haiden: You get credit for everything, for anything. 

He’s still typing into his phone. 

Haiden (Con’t): 

I try to give up credit as much as possible.

He finishes typing up my recommendations. 

Haiden (Con’t): There we go. Okay, cool. Wrote that down. 

Realising now that we’re not only low on time, but we’ve more than exceeded our interview time. I resentfully try to draw our conversation to a close.

Bella: So I’ll let you get off in a minute. I know, we’re over time. I’m so sorry about that, but I have to ask, how do the UK fans compare to the US?

There’s a brief silence until he laughs, and I panic slightly. 

Bella (Con’t): Or are they not comparing us? 

Haiden: It’s a big place, so the US has its highs and its lows. I could never say a bad word about my New York fans, because I’m not from New York, but a lot of people seem to think that I am, and my New York shows absolutely go off, and they treat them like hometown shows. Whenever I’m there, everyone’s really rallying. So, New York is fantastic. That being said, London was the best show of my headline tour this last October, and it was an absolutely insane show. It was the biggest show of the tour. The people were so excited. We [actually] had to evacuate the venue. 

He says that so casually. 

Bella: Oh my gosh. Why? 

Haiden: We had too many people passing out, and then we went across the street and, like, brought the whole crowd of people outside. 

Bella: Oh! I did see that [clip]!

Haiden: Yeah, I finished [the set] on acoustic guitars. It was really memorable, and as a boy band fan and a pop girl fan, the UK is so early to that kind of shit that I’m just really so honoured that the UK is such a strong audience for me. Interestingly, [London] is my strongest audience, as well as the UK in general. 

Bella: We’ll be seeing you on your big headline arena tour soon then. 

Haiden: I hope so. We’re on our way. This will be my first arena. I’ll let you know how it goes. I think it’ll be great.

I nod in agreement. 

Bella: Well, I’ll let you go. Thank you so much for joining us. I hope the rest of your day goes well, and again, I’m sorry that it has to be so early for you. I hope the trip to the UK goes smoothly. Like I say, sad to be missing the show. Hopefully, I can get something sorted, but if not, I’ll be watching all the clips online and hopefully get to catch up with you again afterwards. 

Haiden: Can you send – do you shoot photos? Do you post them anywhere? 

Me, freaking out a little… 

Bella: Uh huh! Yeah, I’ll send my website. 

Haiden: Perfect. Yes! 

I apologise once again for running over scheduled timings, and pleasantries are exchanged. His wonderful publicist thanks me for my time as we say our final goodbyes. I feel bad that I likely just threw a spanner in the works for what I assume is a full day of international press and interviews, but both Haiden and his publicist excitedly waved as we exited the Zoom call. I leave equally as excitedly as if I’d just caught up with an old friend. 

Haiden has now begun his tour with 5 Seconds of Summer as of the 30th March, which just kicked off in Glasgow. We wish all the best to him, his band, and his team as they begin their newest and biggest UK venture, and we can’t wait to hopefully catch up with him again. 

Tickets are linked; whether or not they’re still available is another thing.