Bryan Hayes brings Americana to Cup 'n' Cork on Sept. 4

Memphis, Tennessee, musician Bryan Hayes' songs are laced with vignettes about life, and his style, known as Americana, is a mix of folk, blues, country and rockabilly.

"Our music is honest," he said. "It's about experiences we've lived."

In 2010, Hayes was deployed to Iraq, and several of the songs on his most recent album, "Farther Down the Line," were influenced heavily by that experience.

About five songs draw something from that deployment, and some were composed while he was in Iraq, he said.

"Three or four of the songs were written either in part or in whole while I was deployed," he said. "It's impossible to go on a deployment in a combat zone and not come back seeing things a little differently."

He said the experiences in Iraq helped him view life with more mature eyes.

"Hopefully it made my songwriting more mature as well," he said.

Hayes said the point of the music is to leave the audience feeling something.

"Hopefully people come away with something they can relate to, whether it's a happy song or something that makes them cry," he said.

Before he became a full-time musician, Hayes was a middle-school teacher in Arlington, Tennessee, a Memphis suburb.

Teaching afforded him the time off to pursue his career in music.

"Being a teacher gave me the ability to tour," he said. During the two years he was teaching and touring, his band did more than 100 shows.

In 2015, he will play more than 200 shows, he said.

The seven-piece band Bryan Hayes and the Retrievers is embarking on its first coast-to-coast tour, taking it as far as California and New York, as well as Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico.

"We're going to tour nonstop until next fall," he said. "We spend most of our time out on the road."

When he's not on the road, he is at his farm in the rural community of Moscow, Tennessee, about 30 miles east of Memphis.

A studio situated on the farm bears the name Farmhouse Recording.

Hayes said he and his wife foster abused and neglected dogs on the farm, and that sparked the idea for the name of the band, the Retrievers.

"We're dog junkies," he said.

He also has an independent record label, Retrievers Records, which he uses mostly to release the work of new and upcoming artists, many of whom are local to his Tennessee home.

The 43-year-old musician has worked as a singer and songwriter since 2004, when he released his first album, "Just a Man." By 2006, he had released a second album, "Long Hard Road," followed by a third, "Still Just a Man."

All his albums, as well as the bands' merchandise, are available at www.bryanhayesmusic.com.

The album also may be purchased on www.Amazon.com. Downloads of the songs are available on iTunes and CD Baby.

Proceeds from downloads of the song "I Want to Run," one of the songs composed in Iraq, go to the Wounded Warrior Project.

Hayes will perform at 6 p.m. Sept. 4 at Cup 'n' Cork, 11 S. Spanish St. in Cape Girardeau.

Pertinent address:

11 S. Spanish St., Cape Girardeau, Mo.