Hayden or Ethel: Character as Real Life

               Hayden Anhedonia is a 24-year-old musician who currently performs under the alter ego of “Ethel Cain.” Hayden was born in Florida to a Southern Baptist family and was introduced to music at a young age through the church. As Hayden grew up, she grew into her own by first coming out as gay, and then later as a trans-woman. The dichotomy of being queer in a highly religious community after leaving the church left Hayden feeling alone, however, she used her religious roots to inspire her later music.

Before her first EP under a label in 2021, Hayden had been releasing music on SoundCloud.  Here, other notable artists discovered her work, like Wicca Phase Springs Eternal and Nicole Dollanfer. With the help of these artists, Hayden released Inbred in 2021 under the alter ego Ethel Cain, using it for the first time. Later in 2022, Hayden released the album Preacher’s Daughter, still as Ethel Cain. 

The music of Ethel Cain delves into a “Southern Gothic” and Americana genre that deals with Hayden’s life experiences and feelings towards these experiences. 

  

While Hayden is separate from Ethel Cain, she still gives Ethel Cain the characteristics that she has, but in a more dramatized manner. Hayden and Ethel are both trans-women from the South who were born into a small, very religious town. However, Ethel Cain suffers greatly in Preacher’s Daughter, which tells the story of Ethel Cain escaping her life with her boyfriend, who then forces her into sex work and later ends up killing Cain, and putting her body in a freezer so he can cannibalize her. Obviously, this did not happen to Hayden, but it is the feelings and emotions presented that connect Hayden to Ethel Cain. 

Hayden’s musical career is very dependent on her past whether it be the negative or positive experiences, which is then emphasized through the vivid storytelling she presents with her music. This use of storytelling is just one of the ways Hayden presents her creativity, but the process she uses is idea roadmaps. In Smith and Ward’s writing, the notion of idea roadmaps relates to the directional behavior of creative problem solving as an always evolving plan that is progressed by the new and old knowledge along with previous “solutions” to the same problem. As a musician, there is much work that goes into creating a song, which can consist of constantly going back and editing the music to create the product you want. While this can apply to one song, this is especially true in album making when one not only has to “solve” each song but in addition make sure that each song completes the album in the way that is wanted. 

When asked about her creative process Hayden says, “As an artist, you’re never done. There never is an end, but I think sometimes you just have to know when to call quits and be like, ‘Okay, if I work on this any longer, I’m going to run it into the ground.’ You have to trust your instinct and say, ‘Let’s wash our hands of this and move on.'" This statement is exactly what idea roadmaps signify in that there is always something to add to create a new goal for the project that is based on past works, and that there is constant thinking and tweaking to the idea. However in Hayden’s case, she is able to articulate an “appropriate” time to stop working on the material which might not be what the end goal was, but it is what the goal has become.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethel_Cain

https://thecreativeindependent.com/people/singer-songwriter-ethel-cain-on-trusting-your-instincts/