Once Upon a Time I Met Halsey

One thing you're going to learn about me if I manage to keep this whole blogging thing up, is that I heart music. Just like every person on the planet, I have songs I could listen to 600 times in a row and not hate, musicians I would kill to see live and musicians I would love to meet.

For over a year now I've been obsessing over an American musician called Halsey, an anagram of her real name Ashley (Frangipane). I'm going to be honest and say that I did come across Halsey because of her friendship with Ashton from 5SOS, but nonetheless she's grown to become one of my favourite rising music stars, and her music is the complete opposite to 5SOS.

Just over a year ago she released Ghost, which I played on the way to uni and knew all the words to by the time I got there. Then came her Room 93 EP which features tracks I'm still obsessing over, especially 'Trouble' and 'Empty Gold.' The EP was only released in America, but Halsey encouraged anyone who is a fan to download the EP in any way (illegally) so that they could obtain the music. When Halsey gets signed to a UK label I will be putting in the money to purchase any music she releases, and I cannot wait for the day I get to see her
perform live (if only she could've supported The Kooks here).








Getting back to the point of this post I thought I would share my experience about meeting Halsey. One Sunday in January I travelled to London to hang out with some of my friends and hopefully meet Halsey too. We, as tradition, went to Starbucks for a few hours, had a catch up and snorted over innuendos whilst eating Krispy Kreme. A couple of fans had met Halsey the day before and Tweeted about it. We had hoped that Halsey would've had a meet up on the Sunday, hence why we chose that day, but with all the indirects, dm's and tweets nothing seemed to be working. So we went to McDonalds and tried to see if anyone had tweeted about meeting her that day. There was NOTHING. One of my friends checked her manager's account to see if he had said anything about being in the studio or a meet up, because Halsey had tweeted earlier in the day asking when British kids are free to meet up.

We ended up in SoHo, where we encountered a few familiar faces from times we've met 5SOS, so we  knew we were in the right area. Everyone we spoke to said they'd seen her manager but not her. Our plan? Ask her manager if she'd be around/having a meetup. Me, Georgia, Georgina and Ash stood on a street corner, in an area known for it's sex shops (classy) talking about makeup, selfie sticks and MySpace angles. It was then that Georgia's face was like the surprised emoji, and she whispered 'there's Ashley.'

It was Halsey and her producer and everyone who was waiting for her crowded around. All I could hear was odds and ends of Halsey saying she was looking for her manager and that she should hire all of us to work for her. She met her manager in a restaurant (called Bone Daddies which is the best part of this entire story) and then she came back out to see us all. There was only around 12-15 of us but she made sure that everyone got a chance to get a picture and talk to her. She chatted about the soy sauce stain on her jeans and the cut on her finger, whilst taking selfies and making sure everyone got the chance to say hey. I didn't think I could appreciate Halsey anymore than I already did but meeting her changed that. I watched her listen to a cover someone had done of one of her songs, before recording video message after video message to fans. Usually I'm pretty quiet and embarrassed when meeting people I admire but I felt so at ease with Halsey. We had been talking about her outfits earlier in the day and we told her about our love for her boots, I called her cute before getting a photo and she complimented my freckles which NOBODY has ever done so that was pretty cool. She also said the quote of the century 'any place is a wine place' which I related to on a spiritual level. I know sometimes some fans can feel a little nervous to meet their favourite musicians/actors/models/other famous jobs, but honestly if you want to meet Halsey and you're reading this, believe me when I say she's so chill.

I hope that whilst Halsey travels across Europe recording her debut album, which I'm so unbelievably excited to hear, she manages to get signed here, because I'm not sure how much longer I can wait to see her live and, legally, download her music.

You can follow Halsey on Twitter @halseymusic
Thanks for reading,
Aimee :) x