Rich Hayden is a Los Angeles-based artist who photographs LA’s underground music scene. He graduated from the School of Visual Arts in 2002. After a too long hiatus from photography and a roundabout life journey that has included:

 

1. growing up in White Plains, New York and falling in love with heavy metal and punk rock music as a teenager

2. traveling across the US in a van

3. watching the Twin Towers fall from the roof of his building in Manhattan on 9/11

4. living in Brooklyn

5. serving on a Navy ship 

6. deploying to Fallujah, Iraq with the Marines

7. living in Joshua Tree, California

8. working as a Visitor’s Services Associate at the Getty Center

9. travelling to Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Germany, Poland, Israel, Egypt, Turkey, Sweden, Italy, France, Kosovo, Serbia, Albania, El Salvador, Vietnam, Cambodia and Ireland (among others)

10. living in Queens

11. creating an oral history of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

12. working for a non-profit whose offices were located on Wall Street and overlooked the East River 

13. moving to LA and selling his soul to the entertainment business ahead of the birth of his daughter

14. losing said entertainment job in January of 2020 only to start working in a hospital in March of 2020

 

he circled back to where he started: combining photography and music. These photos capture the way he thinks life should be lived – loud, colorful and free. He currently resides in LA with his wife and daughter.