AUSTIN, Texas – This man is an artist in so many ways. He knows the art of selling homes because he is a Real Estate agent. He knows the art of playing music because he is one rocking bass player. And as of late, he knows the art of getting showy with a paintbrush; being quarantined due to COVID-19 restrictions, he has rediscovered his talent of painting with acrylics.
Jeff Hayenga – known as Jeff Hayes when onstage – seems to do it all. A showman at heart, Jeff is also a storyteller with a big heart and a loving, supportive wife named Christina, who works in the restaurant business while being his best friend in all of his adventures. Jeff said she is his “rock” and thoroughly supports his three-pronged career.
He is into rock-n-roll but feels the blues more, swinging his bass guitar since his days growing up in Fargo, North Dakota nearly thirty years ago.
“My best friend John and buddy, Kent, lived on my block,” Jeff explains. “John was already playing drums at school for several years. Kent picked up a guitar and began noodling on it around 1984. I said, ‘If I got a bass guitar, we could have a combo.’ I went and put a bass and amp on layaway that week. Our first band, ‘The Vagrants,’ played at the church and high school functions until college in 1991.”
Photo Credit: Stan Martin
In 1995, he and the other band members hired a 13-year-old musician named Jonny Langseth, and they became “Kid Jonny Lang and the Big Bang” and moved to Minneapolis. In 1998, he moved to Austin, in part because of music legend Stevie Ray Vaughan.
“Mike and Ted Larsen, drummer and guitar player in ‘The Big Bang,’ and I had visited Austin in 1992 as sort of a ‘Stevie Ray Vaughan’ pilgrimage. We just had to see where he played and lived. The Fabulous Thunderbirds and the legend of Clifford Antone were huge inspirations, as well. We spent an incredible week, and had to drive back to Fargo, vowing that I would move to Austin some day.”
Little did he know his passion for Stevie Ray Vaughan would be connected in a bigger way to his life twenty-seven years later. See, aside from his musical talents, Jeff is a painter. Not houses. Portraits.
In particular, one recent painting of Stevie Ray Vaughan has been a big hit. He donated the first one of SRV to Jeff Parks at “Mud Bugs” in Buda. The cajun-food restaurant is now staging a fundraiser to auction off the painting to benefit Addicus’ Legacy Dog Rescue organization. The event is set for November 13 and 14 with two dinner seating times each night.
Prior to painting the SRV portrait, Jeff did one of the famed travel reporter, Anthony Bourdain, which also hangs on the wall of Mud Bugs. He was then commissioned to paint a portrait of a friend’s dog, “Cowboy.” Thus, the fundraiser combines two of his passions – painting and dogs; he owns two of the latter, Rebel-Sue, and Lenny, who is named after SRV’s first wife.
“If one thing came from this pandemic, it’s that I was able to pick up acrylic paint and a brush again, after a 30-year break,” Jeff explained. “I was a Fine Arts major in college with a music minor…I was shocked, myself, how quickly my painting skills came back. I’ve begun selling commissioned works for friends and local restaurants. It’s cathartic capturing the expressions of my favorite musicians and pets on canvas.
Photo Credit: Stan Martin
“I first realized that I had artistic talents early on. Maybe around five, six (years old) when I would draw chalk pictures on the sidewalk or excel in first grade art projects. The teachers let me know pretty clearly that I was different. As I grew up, I became ‘the art guy’ for my grade level. I later made the art for my band’s t-shirts and for my senior year’s ‘Spring Blast’ event. It was only natural that I would take it to the local college and see where it took me. I also didn’t see myself using my talents for ‘commercial’ applications. It seemed like somebody telling me to ‘do it again’ or ‘change this’ wouldn’t feel like “art.” Now I’m enjoying painting and selling my pieces because nobody has told me to change anything.”
There was a time, however, when Jeff nearly lost it all.
In 2004, he was struck from behind by a car while riding his motorcycle on Congress Avenue in Austin. He should have been dead. He lost thirty days of his memory as he lay in a coma for a short time, banged up, with a few skull fractures. He had flipped off the motorcycle backwards and his head went through the windshield of the car that hit him. The alleged drunk driver of the car fled the scene, but police were able to track him down as the vehicle’s bumper lay nearby, the vehicle identification number evidence of who had been driving. Jeff learned a lesson: to wear his helmet each time whenever he is on his bike.
Christina kept watch at his bedside after the accident while he healed, praying for his recovery, tending to his needs. He recovered and knows what a close call he had. The couple has “a great partnership,” Jeff said. They renewed their wedding vows this past year in Las Vegas where they were first married twenty years ago.
He continued playing music once recovered from the injuries and found a new passion: selling houses as a Realtor. He’s been doing that the past twenty years.
“After touring with Bernard Allison for a few years,” Jeff said, “I decided I needed something more solid as a career. I always said, ‘If I’m not in the Black Crowes by my thirtieth birthday, I didn’t make it in the music business.’ I returned from a European tour, just before turning thirty and decided I was done with the road. I sold cell phones and cars for a few months when a co-worker mentioned Real Estate. I found I was great with people, so it was an instant success.
“I really like being a Realtor because I’m not ‘selling’ anything. I’ve made my clients thousands of dollars in equity and saved them from losing it on rent. Win-win.” Currently Jeff is with Sky Realty in Austin. He has sold homes in Round Rock, Austin and the surrounding area.
He says that Round Rock / Pflugerville and Buda / Kyle are two of the hottest Real Estate markets in the country right now. “Homeowners are leaving Travis County to escape higher taxes and unaffordability,” he said. “Central Texas is growing at an incredible rate.”
“It’s been easy to sell in Austin,” Jeff explained. “Some years have been better than others, but the weather, food, culture, and live music are unlike anywhere else I’ve been (pre-pandemic). The values continue to go up, making good investment sense to my clients.”
Asked what motivates him to keep on track with music, selling homes and painting in these strange times, he said this. “I’m motivated by the reaction of the listeners, I’m rewarded by applause and appreciation for a good, entertaining show. In my business, I’m motivated to earn a comfortable living and provide excellent service to my clients and friends.
“I really don’t have any regrets, looking back on my life,” he added. “I’m married to my best friend and have an incredible life, here in Austin. Music, art, Tex-Mex, great friends, my dogs, and my Harley Davidson round out a solid schedule of living life to the fullest.” He also said he doesn’t miss the snow of Fargo and Minneapolis.
A friend perhaps put it best when he said to Jeff, “It’s an artful life.”
Indeed it is, full of color, texture and passions.