Red Ryder Entertainment

My name is Haley Bonar (rhymes with Daily Honor), I am a 28 year old singer/songwriter who resides in the lovely village of Minneapolis, MN. I recently wrote, recorded, and just released my new record Golder. Titled after the dreams I had about the record cover being shiny gold, Golder represents me striving to become a better artist, growing with each song I write.

Since I can remember, I have been writing songs and singing. I grew up in the Black Hills of South Dakota and was blessed with creative parents and younger siblings who I could direct in our games, theatrics, and dances. I played the piano from a very young age, picked up the guitar when I was 14, and started playing open stages around Rapid City shortly thereafter. The music scene where I grew up was fairly scarce, except for the punk shows that would happen once a week or so. Though I played acoustic guitar, I was asked many times to open for punk bands. In my senior year of high school I recorded and self released my first batch of songs on a self-titled album, my graduation gift from my parents. Beats a Ferrari, right?

Everything changed for me when I left my home state for a new adventure and landed in the metropolis of Duluth, MN.At an open stage called “Experimental Thursdays,” I brought my guitar and Farfisa organ and played a few originals and a cover of “California Dreamin'” by the Mamas and the Papas. Little did I know that one of my musical idols, Alan Sparhawk of Low fame, was in the small audience. When I finished, he promptly approached me and asked if I would open for Low on their upcoming tour. He also asked to hear my new album, which was later released on his Chairkicker's Union label the following spring. Before I knew it, I had quit school, crammed my Honda Civic full of gear with my drummer, and was opening for Low across the country I had barely seen. I was twenty years old.

Since then, I have released 3 full length albums and several EPs, including my most recent EP, “LeO”, which is mostly instrumental, and now Golder. With Golder, my band and I went into Pachyderm studio (Nirvana, PJ Harvey) in Cannon Falls, MN, knowing most of the songs in advance, but reconstructing them while in the studio. Some of the songs were ones that I had scrapped before but that came back to life with the band, learning them on the fly, and recording them shortly after. The songs themselves are largely a reflection of a period of time which involved a great amount of change. I moved to Portland, Oregon in the summer of 2009 and left everything I knew behind in Minnesota.The gamut of emotions developed from being in a wonderful and lonely new place allowed me to write many songs and when I felt that I had written a solid body of work, I came back to Minnesota to record, and eventually re-settle. I returned in July 2010, became active once again in the amazing Twin Cities music scene and started a side project called Gramma's Boyfriend (new wave/punk rock/electro pop).

Golder, for me, is an evolution into something brighter, heavier, and stronger.