One of the newest members of Skagway’s small-but-lively arts scene has arrived by way of Nashville. Recording artist Cooper Lynn Hays has toured, competed in nationally televised singing competitions, organized a honkey-tonk burlesque show, and now performs with a band in Skagway.

Cooper Lynn Hays’s recording career, like so many artists in the last 19 years, got its start on the TV show, American Idol. She had been in a local talent show in her small hometown of Bridge in southern Oregon but she didn’t advance. So she wanted to show everybody in her town what they’d been missing.

“I decided to find the biggest talent show in the whole world and go and do that one instead. And I asked Jeeves, you know, back in the day when you Ask Jeeves, like what’s the biggest talent show in the world, and they’re like, there’s this new show called American Idol,” said Hays.

She made it through to the Hollywood round from there and proved her hometown doubters wrong. But she wasn’t done yet.

“I held a fundraiser in my tiny town, raised enough money to travel to Hawaii and try again. I made it to the top 50 that year, and it was Paula Abdul and Randy Jackson and Simon Cowell and I learned a lot about what I want and what I don’t want in show business.

Hays finished college in Oregon then loaded up a van, left her to-be husband behind, and headed east to Nashville.

“So I got a job at a legendary Honky Tonk. And I served fried bologna sandwiches and beer. And it took a long time for me to be allowed to get up on the stage,” said Hays.

Those fried bologna sandwiches would go on to fund the recording of a full-length album and several EPs. One of the songs was inspired during her time in the Big Easy.

“I was at Jazz Fest in New Orleans. And I witnessed a jazz funeral for the first time. And it was really inspiring. And quickly, a jazz funeral is a New Orleans tradition, a black tradition. Where when you die, they don’t just slowly take your coffin to the graveyard and mournfully put it in the ground. They walk you around in a parade with second-line music, and they dance your body and shake you in a coffin all the way to the grave where they then cut your body loose, and they celebrate with your spirit, and it was so inspiring to me,” said Hays.

Hays would go on to tour with her band Cooper and the Jam, she also played with Cooper and the Rhinestoners.

After touring she took a job running a burlesque show at a legendary honky-tonk in Nashville and finally started making real money. She and her then-husband Ian had a nice apartment and everything was great for about a month, until the pandemic.  They had 48 hours until the end of their lease after the show got canceled. So they packed up in a blur and retreated to a remote cabin in her home state.

“We came to Oregon to hide in the woods in an old cabin that my uncle owned to wait for the pandemic to calm down and then the forest fires of last year came and pushed us out of that cabin. We had nowhere else to go. And we came up to Juneau where my husband’s from and we just wanted some fresh air from the forest fire. We were in Juneau for a couple of weeks when we needed some time alone. We were staying with his parents and we just needed a minute. So we came to Skagway for a weekend. We were just gonna stay at the Skagway Inn and we ended up staying, yeah, I think we might be here forever,” described Hays.

Cooper Lynn Hays and her husband have settled in quickly. Cooper has joined a band called The Bad Hombres. The band is now known as The Bad Hombres and Badder Mujer.

They have upcoming gigs on Saturday, April 24 at the Red Onion Saloon, Saturday, May 8 at the Skagway Brewing Company. On May 15 they’ll play an outdoor show on the Dedman Stage at Seven Pastures in Skagway.