Cold Water, a new single by Haylea Heyns, of Hout Bay, is about embracing danger.
“Every time I have taken a step out of my safe space, it has been incredibly daunting, but I have grown as a result,” says Heyns. “It is never pleasant diving into ‘cold water’, but the feeling afterwards is exhilarating.”
She moved to Hout Bay just short of a year ago and says it reminds her of Mtunzini, the small coastal town in KwaZulu-Natal where she grew up, although the water there was much warmer, she laughs.
She attended Mtunzini Primary School before boarding at Pietermaritzburg Girl’s High, where both her mother and grandmother were educated. After high school, she studied media and marketing, but her passion for music saw her return to university, this time to pursue a degree in music and drama.
“I absolutely loved it and graduated cum laude,” she says. “University is where I developed my skills as a singer and songwriter, and where I actually met a fellow student and friend who would later produce three of my future singles.”
That deep passion for music was ignited during music lessons at junior school and by having a “full of life” piano teacher who inspired her to pursue music in high school.
“I am still in touch with her, and she loves to tell the story of how she made me run around the garden before piano to get rid of all my energy before we began lessons.”
Heyns sang in the choir at school and also took extra singing lessons.
Her debut EP was signed to the international recording label, David Gresham Records, in 2018. Off the back of that came her single, Sorry, which was well received and playlisted on several major radio stations both nationwide and internationally.
Cold Water is her eighth single, and she initially wrote the song as an “Ed Sheeran-style ballad”, but it took a different shape during the production process.
The single is being digitally distributed by Universal Music and can be streamed on Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer and Tidal. The official music video will be released today, Friday April 15. Most of the music video was filmed in Hout Bay with a small scene shot at the Camps Bay tidal pool.
Heyns, who sang the national anthem at Loftus Versveld during the British and Irish Lions Tour in June last year, says she plans to launch two new singles, including one called Just Friends, later this year.
“The vocals for my new single, Just Friends, were recorded locally in Hout Bay at Dream Box Studios,” she says.
