Today we’d like to introduce you to Justin Hale.
Justin, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I was raised in a little forgotten town in southern California called Perris in Riverside County. I grew up in a house with my ten other cousins on the hill. I never knew my biological father but my mother remarried my stepdad and that allowed me to see the world at a young age because he was a GI in the Air Force.
One of the places I lived was Guam and that’s where I won my first talent show thus prompting me to fall in love with being on stage. I began writing everyday from that point on and never stopped. I always went back home to the Hill in Perris every year so I really consider that to be home it’s also where I graduated high school. I got the opportunity to live in Italy for a few years as well and that really gave me the perspective I have today on the world and humanity and how despite perceptions we’re all generally the same no matter where you call home. Europe also had an influence on my sound as an artist as well there are so many cultures in Europe blending and molding together that you can’t help but feed into that if you’re an artist of any kind. After graduating high school in Perris I left for college at the University of Arizona in Tucson, AZ. Tucson is where I really began to come into my self a little bit and started to gain more confidence. I started freestyling at parties and was being saved in peoples phone as Tre The Rapper (Because my name is Tre’ and I rapped, there were also a lot of other Tre’s on campus).
It wasn’t until a year later when I was hanging with some friends in a jacuzzi that the name Justin Hale was born (Just Inhale, I smoke A LOT of pot) so it was kind of a no brainer after a few days of thinking on it. That was when I dropped my first tape and began doing small shows around the campus (really small shows). However, this didn’t last a few months into college my parents divorced and without going into details it inadvertently forced me to have to drop out of the University. I was devastated after working so hard to be the first to graduate from a major University in my immediate family. I realized I had a lot of student debt to pay back so I used my numerous connections in college to start selling copious amounts of marijuana on and around the campus in order to pay back my debt. It was then that I was robbed at gunpoint along with my daughters mother and had to leave the city for a bit only to start secretly using my moms PT cruiser to keep up with the deliveries. It wasn’t until we left Tucson that I put selling drugs illegally behind me to raise my newborn daughter. My daughters (now 5) mother is from Washington state originally which is what brought me to Seattle.
Although her and I split due to her getting with someone she worked with I decided to remain in Washington. This heartbreaking and humbling moment because I too wasn’t perfect is really where I draw a lot of my pain from I guess…because that one cut kind of deep. You really wanna believe in people but sometimes there’s nothing you can really do. I met the love of my life in Seattle and dropped my EP “4 Her” in 2017 and thats really when I began to carve a name out for myself in Seattle. In 2018 I was invited to come back to Los Angeles to work on music with a representative from UMG Alex Duncan and began a six months development deal to refine myself as an artist and learn to focus my craft. During that time I released an EP called “500 Days” which was released 5oo days after I was released from jail pending a charge that would alter how I lived my life for the next two years.
Upon that release, I left LA and returned to Seattle to began working on myself. I thought about stopping music for good but my close friend and director Brandon Ochoa convinced me to do otherwise thus prompting me to start the writing for Rain City which would later go on to win 12th place in the race for Seattle Album of the Year at the local Town Awards shows hosted by @CraneCityMusic. Rain City and that nomination in the winter of 2018 really revitalized my career and my passion for art. I quickly followed up on Valentines day 2019 with Thorns the EP and that really took off. The music video “Lonely Hearts Club (PTSD)” released a few months later and quickly became crowned as my best music video to date followed by my Automatic video release of 2018. I most recently dropped March Madness which is a ten track LP that I am currently focused on sharing prior to working on my next release. Lastly, for the future I am working on financing my own regional tour and recording my debut album No Love in LA set to release Valentines day 2020.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
I went homeless in the winter of 2018. I fought and won just this year to have full custody of my five years old daughter. I beat my case and have a clean record now. I am in school studying environmental studies and I don’t get my BA until 2022. All of them I consider to be challenges. However, I would never change a thing about it this is my life and I draw my inspiration from my experiences.
What else should our readers know?
I am an Artist first. However, in 2017 I was signed to Heffner Management a Modeling agency here in Seattle while I was working at Nordstrom downtown.
So, what’s next? Any big plans?
I want to graduate. Everything else is just a blessing on top. I hope my art touches some people as its the one thing that has remained constant in my life. I want to eventually build sustainable smart cities across the globe. I am also quietly working on a non-profit that works to find solutions to problems that face humanity as a species such as climate change.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: @JustinHaleMusic
- Twitter: @JustinHaleMusic
Image Credit:
@BrandonxOchoa aka Bano aka Brandon Ochoa
Getting in touch: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
