Introducing: Cameron Hayes

With her genre-bending new mixtape The Fault Is Mine, BBC Radio 1’s Next Wave artist Cameron Hayes steps fully into her power. Across seven tracks, the Reading-born songwriter and producer dismantles perfectionism, embraces vulnerability, and redefines what pop can sound like in 2025.

A sonic diary of love, loss, and self-growth, The Fault Is Mine moves between dark electronica, alt-pop confessionals, and cinematic highs — each song a new facet of Hayes’ evolution. Known for lending her pen to heavyweights like Wilkinson and Sub Focus, she now turns that precision inward, delivering a project that feels both raw and redemptive.

“This is probably the most honest I’ve been in my writing,” Hayes admits. “It’s looking introspectively and knowing that I’m a flawed person — as we all are — and taking accountability for past, present, and future actions.”

Fresh off the mixtape’s release, Cameron joins us to talk through the emotional and creative journey behind The Fault Is Mine, the beauty of imperfection, and the freedom that comes from letting go.

‘The Fault Is Mine’ has been described as a sonic diary of your past few years. How did you approach translating such personal experiences into music across different genres?

The past couple of years have been a rollercoaster to say the least and there were quite a lot of different stories to tell. It’s definitely hard to write being more open and honest, as you have to confront parts of yourself and your own experiences which can be emotionally taxing to do, but writing about difficult personal experiences is almost a form of therapy for me. And each of the stories on this mixtape have a different emotion behind it which meant they all fitted better being their own unique genre rather than being pushed in a direction that didn’t feel true to the meaning.

You’ve openly explored themes of love, loss, and self-growth on this mixtape. Which track was the most challenging to write, and why?

I think the hardest song to write was ’The Fault Is Mine’, as it made me look introspectively at the way I treat the people around me and pain I have caused. I think as humans we tend to think we’re always right, that we’re good people and we’re never in the wrong, but the thing is we arehuman - we do make mistakes, we do mess things up and treat people badly. It’s something that’s hard to accept but ultimately very important to do if you want to grow into a better person.

Your work spans drum & bass, alt-pop, and electronic influences. How do you decide which genre or production style best fits a story or emotion in a song?

I feel like when I’m making a song, it almost tells me what genre it should be in. Production is a massive form of emotional expression for me, and some of the songs on the project needed a delicate touch, like ‘Forgive Forget Pt. 1’ which is very minimal and sparse to highlight the meaning behind the lyrics, while others needed crazy drums and big synths, like ‘Overkill’ which was about the chaos in my mind of feeling like I’m too much, that I’m overkill and that’s what the production reflects.

After taking a brief hiatus in 2023 and returning with renewed focus, how has your perspective on music and your artistry evolved?

I took over a year off from releasing music which I think was very good for me, both creatively and mentally. Being able to make songs without the pressure of releasing them really lets you freely experiment without feeling pressure. 2023 was also my first year of playing live shows and that really changed my perspective on the kind of music I wanted to make. When you just release music you don’t really get to see people actually experiencing your music, but through playing shows and seeing how my songs connected with people right in front of me, it really showed me the type of music and connection I wanted to create.

With your growing fanbase and festival experience, how do you hope listeners connect with The Fault Is Mine on both an emotional and live-performance level?

With ‘The Fault Is Mine’, I really wanted to make a body of work that came from a lot of self reflection and was true to my personal experiences. I hope that people can connect emotionally, whether it’s them relating to the stories I tell, feeling inspired by the lyrics or just the music evoking feelings they’ve maybe been keeping locked away. When it comes to playing these songs live, I want this mixtape to be a big cathartic release - listening to songs on your headphones is one thing, but feeling the bass through your body and getting hit by a wall of sound when you hear them live just elevates every song, and I really can’t wait to play them out.