Haley Reinhart
Biography Haley Reinhart
Haley Reinhart
With her beguiling vocals and powerful delivery, Haley Reinhart brings both raw passion and soulful sincerity to all her musical output. A 26-year-old singer/songwriter with timeless sensibilities, she began honing her formidable vocal chops by singing with her parents’ band at age seven. In recent years Reinhart earned a gold certification in the U.S. for her breathtaking rendition of Elvis Presley’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love” and has emerged as the leading artist on Postmodern Jukebox (a YouTube-based rotating music collective). Also a burgeoning voice actor and co-star of the Netflix original animated series F Is for Family, Reinhart is now set to make her Concord Records debut on September 22, 2017 with What’s That Sound?—an ambitious and masterfully realized album combining original tracks with covers of iconic songs from the late 1960s.
Originally from the Chicago area, Reinhart was born into a musical family with a deep love of rock-and-roll, funk, jazz, classic pop, and the blues. In her early childhood, she started joining her parents’ rock band Midnight onstage and quickly found herself hooked on performing. “One memory that stands out is my golden birthday, when I turned nine on September 9, 1999,” says Reinhart. “My parents were playing a tattoo convention and there were all these tough-looking people and biker dudes there, and I got up to sing a LeAnn Rimes song with my hair in little Princess Leia buns. But then once I started singing it got so quiet and the tattoo machines all went off—everyone was listening to me. I was so overcome by it, I cried right afterward, but they were happy tears. I just thought to myself, ‘This is amazing.’”
Through the years Reinhart continued singing with Midnight, and later joined a high school jazz band that led her to perform at major jazz festivals across Europe while still a teenager. She then studied jazz in college and, at age 20, landed a spot on season 10 of American Idol, eventually finishing in third place. The following year, Reinhart made her full-length debut with Listen Up!, a 2012 Interscope Records release that premiered at #17 on the Billboard 200 chart.
A milestone year for Reinhart, 2015 marked the release of “Can’t Help Falling in Love” (a song included on her 2016 sophomore album Better). Chosen as the unforgettable soundtrack to the Extra Gum ad spot “The Story of Sarah and Juan,” Reinhart’s spellbinding rendition hit #1 on Spotify’s global viral chart in 2015 and has now amassed over 57 million streams on the platform. That same year, Reinhart began collaborating and touring with YouTube sensation Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox, offering up jazz/ragtime/swing-inspired updates of songs like Radiohead’s “Creep” and The White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army.” To date, Reinhart’s Postmodern Jukebox contributions have garnered more than 112 million views on YouTube.
When it came time to create her third full-length, Reinhart took the helm as co-producer alongside GRAMMY Award-winner John Burk. In selecting the 11 covers featured on What’s That Sound?, she focused in on songs originally released between 1966 and 1969, a time period whose turbulence Reinhart finds parallel to today’s cultural climate. Made at the historic Sunset Sound and mixed by Bill Schnee (a GRAMMY winner known for his work with Marvin Gaye, Rod Stewart, and Steely Dan), the album was recorded to tape and performed solely with vintage instruments. “Recording analog makes such a difference and adds a warmth that you just don’t hear that often anymore,” says Reinhart, who made every effort to capture the era’s sonic signifiers throughout What’s That Sound?.
True to that moment in time, What’s That Sound? embodies a wide spectrum of perspectives and moods: the heavy urgency of Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth,” the breezy cool of The Kinks’ “Sunny Afternoon,” the folky whimsy of The Mamas & The Papas’ “Words of Love.” From track to track, Reinhart delivers a nuanced vocal performance closely shaped by her deep-rooted familiarity with the material. “All my life I’ve been hearing my mom and dad sing these songs with their band, so it felt only right to recreate them through my eyes,” she notes. Also including several of Reinhart’s indelible originals, What’s That Sound? unfolds as an album that boldly pushes forward while tenderly looking back.
Proving the singular scope of her talent, Reinhart also recently wrapped up the second season of F Is for Family. Produced by Bill Burr, Vince Vaughn, Peter Billingsly, and Michael Price, the show features Reinhart as a little boy named Bill growing up in the Pennsylvania suburbs in the mid-’70s. “The show completely fell into my lap, but it’s a total timepiece and fits perfectly with everything else I’m doing,” says Reinhart. With its second season premiering on May 30, F Is for Family also stars Laura Dern, Justin Long, and Sam Rockwell.
