Hayley JensenHayley Jensen has spent her entire life chasing freedom – through ups and downs, through mismatched relationships, through a stint on Australian Idol, through a life on the road, she has found it (with the assistance of her charming Belgian husband) in her hotshot Country star career.
Her latest single, the rollicking toe-tapper Wild As The Wind, charts this rugged trek.
“It’s pretty personal,” the five-time Golden Guitar finalist explains over a Zoom call. “We managed to cover quite a lot of ground in this one little song.”
The track’s opening lyrics lay the scene – a young Jensen is unfulfilled and confined within an unhappy relationship: “Once was a boy tried to tie me down, a real sweet-talker from a quiet town.” But, as she eventually croons, “I wasn’t made for captivity.”
Jensen delves into the period in her life that inspired the song. “I’d just come out of Australian Idol. It was all so exciting. The world was at my feet – it was way back when Australian Idol was actually a big thing. And I was ready to just take the world by storm.”
Her partner at the time had other ideas for her. “He was just like, ‘I don’t want you to do this. You’ve got this crazy dream, why don’t you just settle down?’ And I was just like, ‘Because that’s not at all what I envisage for my life,’” she says laughing, still exasperated at her ex’s preposterous suggestion.
The break-up, though difficult, was a no-brainer. “Obviously our paths were meant to go in different directions. I had to leave and find my way.”
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So ensued a haphazard period of house-hopping and crashing on friends’ couches, all whilst inexplicably pursuing a degree in Economics and Management (“I’m from a small town just outside of Canberra!” Jensen says by way of explanation).
“I started working in this corporate job and I met my now gorgeous husband Chris, who is not musical at all but who is my biggest champion and supporter in the world. He’s at every gig trying to sell merch, drives the band van around, makes sure we’re all fed,” she gushes.
The two hadn’t known each other for long when he mentioned that he had hired a Mustang to go on a road trip across the United States, and asked if she wanted to tag along. “I was like, ‘Shotgun!’ And off we go, wild as the wind together.”
The song has an undeniably happy ending, but excavating the trauma that inspired it wasn’t easy. “That relationship back then, it was actually quite abusive. I’ve written other songs about that and how it was a really manipulative situation. It was very complex.”
Displaying that trauma for a world of ears to listen to is also far from easy. “It’s tough. But that’s really what being a songwriter is about: sharing your perspective on the world.
“So I kind of find it a bit of a responsibility now,” she adds. “It can give someone else this crazy courage. And I’ve had that listening to other people’s songs. Music is powerful like that. Sometimes it just takes a song to hit you at the right moment and you realise you have to make a big change in your life, or that you deserve better.”
She describes being overwhelmed – both positively and negatively – with the amount of fans who have reached out to her to say that her songs resonate with them. “When you set out to be an artist and make people feel things, you don’t realise just how vital that becomes for some people. But also, we’re not therapists.
“It is really tricky to balance. I’ve learnt to be like, ‘Oh, I think this is something you need to talk to a professional about.’ Because people can really feel like they know you because you’ve shared so much of yourself through your music. And it’s like, ‘I’m glad we have commonality, but we don’t actually know each other.’”
Navigating complex situations is something Jensen seems to be uniquely experienced in. Her musical career, after all, was brought about through a baptism of fire by the name of Australian Idol.
“It is what it is and it was what it was,” she says diplomatically of the show. (She was a finalist in its second season, ultimately placing fourth while Casey Donovan emerged victorious.) “It was such a crazy time.”
She mentions her peer Matt Corby, the ARIA Award-winner who was runner-up on the fifth season of Australian Idol. The Brother singer asked her for advice before he entered into the competition.
“He was like, ‘Do you think I should do it?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, man. Just don’t get lost in it. It’s hectic. It’s going to turn your life upside down.’ And it totally did for him. I mean, it did for me too.”
The experience, for her, was “incredible” but shattering. “We were all put into a mansion in Hunter’s Hill, ripped out of our houses, and there were cameras around all the time. You were thrown into the deep end. And it was mass-produced, probably the worst of the worst of producers trying to manipulate people to create controversy. You know, stuff that would be great television.”
The stigma associated with being on a reality show was incredibly painful for her to navigate.
Jensen relays an anecdote of being invited to the ARIA Awards for the first time, and walking up to a “a famous artist, the lead singer of a famous Aussie band” – she doesn’t specify which one – and asking for a photo.
“And they were just like, ‘I don’t want anything to do with you Idols. You’re not real artists. Go away.’ That was what it was like back then.”
She sighs and says measuredly, “I just think of it like this: I was on a television show where I got to sing, millions of people heard my voice. I couldn’t try to separate myself from it at this point in time if I tried, and I don’t even care. I see it as all part of my experience. I’m grateful for it in many ways.”
She breaks into a strained laugh. “In other ways it was a total mind-fuck and we all should have gone to mandatory therapy for like a year afterwards.”
But, as with many things in Jensen’s life, the years have passed and the water is under the bridge - and just like in Wild As The Wind, there is finally a happy ending. “I’m here now doing this – what I love.”
Tickets to the remaining dates of Hayley Jensen’s Wild As The Wind tour are on sale now.
Hayley Jensen – Wild As The Wind Tour 2026
Saturday, August 22nd – Adelaide Entertainment Centre, Adelaide, SA
Thursday, September 3rd – Bigsound 2026, Brisbane, QLD
Friday, September 4th – Beaudesert Show, Beaudesert, QLD
Saturday, September 12th – Triple B Rodeo, Caboolture, QLD
Friday, September 18th – The Beer Shed, Campbelltown, NSW
Saturday, September 19th – The Oaks, Albion Park, NSW
Friday, September 25th – Leichhardt Hotel, Rockhampton, QLD
Saturday, September 26th – McGuires Hotel, Mackay, QLD
Sunday, September 27th – The Warehouse, Townsville, QLD
Thursday, October 1st – Little Alberts, Bathurst, NSW
Friday, October 2nd – The Establishment, Dubbo, NSW
Friday, October 9th – Full Throttle Ranch, Buttai, NSW
Saturday, October 31st – Neville Country Muster, Neville, NSW
This piece of content has been assisted by the Australian Government through Music Australia and Creative Australia, its arts funding and advisory body
