LOUDER THAN HATE

LOUDER THAN HATE
A Song Born in Silence & Shared with Courage
Exclusive Interview with Jayme Hoiness
Featured in 'Innerviews'
Hosted by Allié McGuire

​Some songs are written to be heard. Others are written to survive. For Jayme Hoiness, Louder Than Hate began not as a performance, but as a lifeline during one of the darkest seasons of her life, when postpartum depression, identity loss, and a fractured world left her searching for something solid to hold onto. What emerged was more than a song. It was proof that even in our quietest breaking, something within us is still brave enough to sing.

ALLIÉ: Before Louder Than Hate ever existed as a song, perhaps it existed as a feeling. Could you take me back to the version of you who was sitting in the dark navigating postpartum depression, grief, disorientation, the space you were in. What did that season of your life feel like from the inside, especially in the quiet moments when there was no one else who could see it?
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JAYME: I remember this as clear as day. It was March last year, so almost a year ago. I wrote this song when I was in high school, and I came across it while going through my old things because I was battling severe postpartum depression. I was almost a year postpartum, and it just never got better. I was working full time, watching my daughter full time, and my husband had a job outside of the house, so it was really tough.

​JAYME: (continued) I remember sitting in the tub. After looking through my things, I saw the lyrics and thought, that was a really good song. I was trying to find hobbies, trying to figure out new things to do because they say that keeping yourself busy can be a great way to get through postpartum depression. So I decided I was going to work on this song.

Originally, the lyrics were similar to what they are now. It was about how we have these dreams, and sometimes that’s all we have, but doesn’t that make life pretty sad? But with dreams, at least we get by. In the end, all we can do is try. No more fighting, no more drugs. Don’t you think we’ve had enough? No more lies, no more thinking our dreams can do enough. No more killing, no more fear. I won’t sit by anymore. I can’t take it. We are turning our world into war.

What I did was take that and apply it to how I felt about what we were going through politically, and how I felt about our society and what most of us were thinking.

And when you’re in postpartum depression, what you feel is resentment and hatred. It’s not against anyone else. It’s against yourself, because you feel like you’re not doing enough. You feel like you’re barely getting by. Am I a good mom? Of course you are, but you don’t see it at that time.

So in my mind, I’m filling myself with all these hateful things and thinking, I need to be louder than this hate I have toward myself. And as I was in the tub thinking about it, all I could hear was my daughter screaming, because she was doing something with my husband outside of the room. I thought, I can’t think, she’s so loud. And then it hit me. That’s actually the whole point. It was kind of nice not having to hear myself thinking so badly about myself, and instead hearing my daughter screaming happily in the other room, having a good time.

That’s when I thought: louder than hate. And it clicked. There’s so much hatred going on in the world, not just inside, but outside too.

So that’s a long-winded story. But it started with something I wrote in high school, over 10 years ago. It just goes to show, you keep those things from years ago and they become relevant again.

ALLIÉ: That’s a beautiful story. And I love how something from so long ago can still speak so clearly to right now. Thank you for sharing that the way you did. I think so many women experience postpartum depression, and having it is hard enough, but admitting it can feel like a burden on top of a burden. So thank you for taking us back there, into that moment. Even into your bathtub. That takes guts.

JAYME: Yeah, come join me in my tub. But yes, that is exactly where it started. It was a lightbulb moment. I realized, I need to start working on this. And that’s what I came up with, Louder Than Hate.

ALLIÉ: That’s where things start. I’m so glad you did. Let’s talk about the fact that every single voice has a history long before the world ever has a chance to hear it. How long have you been singing? Not just publicly, even privately. Were you always someone who used your voice to process life? Or did this song mark the first time you allowed yourself to truly be heard?

JAYME: I’ve been singing ever since I can remember. My family would do karaoke at all of our parties. My aunt is a big singer. My dad is a big singer. Stephen Foster is somewhere in the ancestor line, so we come from a family of singers.

JAYME: (continued) As a little girl, I had my own karaoke machine. I would sing and teach myself. It was all self-taught. In elementary school, I tried choir, I signed up for solos, but I never got picked.

I had a hard time growing up in school, from elementary through high school. I dealt with a lot of bullying, so singing was my way to get through it. I remember in fourth grade I would hum to myself, and people would say, can you stop humming? And I’d think, no, it’s the only way I can get through everything. Singing has always been my outlet.

Even through happy times and sad times. My grandmother passed away this last Sunday, and on her deathbed, I sang to her. It was Close to You by the Carpenters. Singing is very important to me.

I’ve always used my voice. I just don’t think it was heard much in school, because I was bullied so much. I started to feel like it must be a bad thing to be singing. So I didn’t showcase it.

And when I did try, like signing up for solos, and I never got chosen, I started thinking maybe I wasn’t as good as I thought. My mom would always say, you need to do The Voice. But I’ve always been afraid of someone saying, sorry, you’re not that good, we’re moving on. So I don’t try.

ALLIÉ: What an incredible outlet, though. If someone is facing something hard, like bullying, there are so many different ways they could cope. The fact that you sang through it. Singing is healing. Art is healing. Singing is a salve.

JAYME: Singing is healing. It really is. So when postpartum depression happened, I thought, okay, this is the only outlet I know. And it was funny, because I had to really work my voice. I had to get it back up and running. When you’re pregnant, it’s hard to sing. You don’t have that diaphragm control. So I had to work at it.

It became a new passion. I had something to focus on. And it brought me out of that deep depression.

ALLIÉ: So let’s talk about that. There’s a difference between writing something to survive it, and sharing something to be seen. When you first wrote this song last year, was it meant to be a private lifeline? Or did some part of you already know it was meant to find other people who were hurting too?

JAYME: When I first wrote it, I heard it with the instrumentation. Just so we’re aware, the instrumentation was done through AI. But I created the melody. I created the lyrics. I created everything. I just needed the background because I’m not a full orchestra.

I found software that said, sing your song and we’ll create the background for it. So I did. The first version was a rough draft, but when I heard it, I thought, this is incredible.

That’s when I realized I didn’t like how it started. So I kept working. I changed lyrics. I adjusted things. But the first time I heard it, I knew it had potential.

I did upload it back then, but it was still early in the process and it got no views. I think my friends were like, Jayme posted another song. No big deal.

So I kept working on it. And I didn’t even feel like it was ready to post again this year, but with everything going on in the world, I decided to do it anyway, despite how I felt, because maybe it would help one person.

So yes, I believed it had potential. I just didn’t think there would be an audience that wanted to listen.

ALLIÉ: Well, the crowd is there. You know that now.

You also mentioned struggling with your identity during that time. Motherhood changes you. Pain changes you. Purpose changes you. Who were you before that season, and who did you discover yourself becoming in that process?
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​JAYME: That is an amazing question, because I look back and I still see glimpses of the person I used to be.

Before I got pregnant, my husband and I owned a beautiful home here in Washington. And he got unemployed shortly after we closed on our home, maybe three or four months later. So we decided to get roommates. We made that work for a year until we found out we were pregnant.

I lost myself in that first pregnancy because it turned into a miscarriage. I had what’s called a blighted ovum. I had to take misoprostol, and I also had to get a DNC because my body wasn’t doing what it needed to do. I lost myself in that moment. And after that, it felt like a downhill decline.

When everything was done, we planned to go back to Ireland and travel, and hold off for a year. But the next month I was pregnant again. It was bittersweet, because we wanted to be pregnant, we just wanted to wait after everything we’d been through. And I don’t think I had enough time to grieve. And then even in that pregnancy, I was holding fear. We had a scare where they couldn’t find the baby at first. But they found her. She was there. She’s here today.

It was a roller coaster. And when we found out we were pregnant, I didn’t want to have roommates with a newborn baby. So we rented out our home and moved into an apartment. It felt like a backward step, but we did what we could for our family. Since then we’ve been in apartments, trying to get back to our home. Hopefully we’ll be moving back this April. I’m really hoping we can move back with no roommates.

Before postpartum, there were challenges. During postpartum, it was hard because you feel it, but nobody else feels it. Nobody else can see it.

My husband and I did couples therapy. We struggled. And then he got laid off, and I actually call that day a blessing. Right when that happened, my work started picking up, so things began to shift. And I started feeling like I had time to do things I love again. That’s when I started working on songs and released this one.

And postpartum changes you. It changes a lot about you. I think what it changed most about me is that I accept myself more now. I know I can make mistakes and it’s okay. I can say no. I can put myself first, and I can put my family first. I struggled with that before. It’s a new found respect. And my gosh, the amazing things our bodies can do. It’s incredible. I took a lot from those experiences.

And at the end of the day, I learned: count your blessings. Be thankful for what you do have, because you have a lot more than what you think.

ALLIÉ: What a journey you’ve been on, and what a journey is ahead of you.

You’ve said that what ultimately gave you the courage to share your song was witnessing the courage in others. Courage has a way of helping you recognize it in yourself.

What was the moment you realized this song didn’t belong only to you anymore, that it became something bigger than your own healing?
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​JAYME: Because it’s on my public Facebook, people started reaching out and saying, thank you so much for this song. At first, I saw it gaining momentum and people wanted the song, but it wasn’t on streaming platforms yet. I wanted people to have it. I told people to reach out and I’d send them a copy, because to me it’s more than just a song. It’s a message, and I wanted people to have that message.

Then the requests kept coming. People were saying, this should be our national anthem. This should be played at the Super Bowl. People told me, this song got me out of a four-year depression after I lost my son. This song is getting me through cancer.

The responses were overwhelming. That’s when I realized there is something to this. I’m not crazy. It’s healing people. It was surreal. There was one night my husband and I went through all the messages together. I told myself I’m going to respond to every single one. I haven’t yet, because there are so many, but I’m doing my best and I’m still working through them. I’m reading them. I’m taking them to heart. I’m saving them. And hearing that it’s getting people through tough times means so much.

ALLIÉ: And now that millions of people have heard your voice and found pieces of themselves inside your words, I’m curious how it’s changed the way you hear yourself. When you sing, “we are louder than hate,” who are you singing to now? The world? Your child? Or the version of yourself who needed to hear it the most?

JAYME: I haven’t been asked to sing it live yet, and I’m getting over a cold right now. So I’m hoping soon I’ll be able to officially debut it live. Right now all I have is the recording.

But when I think of it, and when I sing it to myself, I feel like I’m singing it to my younger self… to that little girl who was bullied and didn’t feel important, didn’t feel like she had many friends.

I’m singing it to people who feel left out, scared, alone, and who are yearning for connection and unity. That’s what the song is about to me. Unity. Coming together as one and facing whatever struggles we’re dealing with. And when I say, “you speak with fear,” it doesn’t necessarily mean somebody. It could be something. It’s poetic. So when I’m singing that song, it’s for people going through struggles. And it seems like it’s reached a lot of them. ∎

Listen to ’Louder Than Hate' on Spotify:
go.awarenowmedia.com/song/louder-than-hate