Walker Hayes and Household Full Yr of Trick Pictures (Unique)

• Walker Hayes and his household have accomplished their yr of trick pictures problem
• The nation star, his spouse Laney and their six children all totally realized what they’d gotten themselves into inside a month of beginning the problem — however they perserved
• Hayes says he has delighted in how the duties have melted away egos and turned the household right into a selflessly supportive unit

Doing a trick shot a day for a complete yr? Trying again on his choice to go for it, Walker Hayes says, all he may assume on the time was “hey, that is gonna be enjoyable.”

At the moment, Hayes simply laughs at his utter cluelessness. He laughs at the concept that he thought this loopy thought would simply preserve being enjoyable. And he laughs on the sheer absurdity of his household doing it.

And but — drum roll, please — that’s precisely what they’ve accomplished, and maybe it’s their biggest trick shot of all: three hundred and sixty six days (as a result of it’s intercalary year, so after all they needed to preserve it actual) of bouncing ping-pong balls, flipping water bottles, throwing footballs, rolling duct tape, heaving basketballs, toppling dominos, tossing playing cards, kicking volleyballs, taking pictures Nerf weapons, filling Solo cups, whacking golf balls — and doing anything they may conjure as much as full a seemingly unbelievable trick shot and share their victory on Hayes’ social media.

“It was like an incredible film,” Hayes, 44, tells PEOPLE as he displays on the yr, “however I would not describe it as enjoyable.”

Granted, it did begin out that means. He and his three sons, Chapel, 16, Baylor, 14, and Beckett, 12, are all avid followers of the trick-shot artistry that’s a mainstay on social media, and final yr, they determined to attempt developing with their very own. The method is easy: Courageous souls depend on bountiful quantities of luck and ability to tug off a jaw-dropping feat, normally with widespread home items or sports activities tools. Viewers are spared the hours of failed makes an attempt, after all. As an alternative, they get to savor the candy miracle of success, together with the trick-shot artists’ wild celebration.

Hayes and his sons had been in a position to accomplish a number of trick pictures, and he posted a brief string of movies on consecutive days. He admits he was pleased to discover a new strategy to feed his hundreds of thousands of followers on his socials.

“I simply thought, hey, it’s simple to put up,” he remembers. “All people likes it. The boys had been excited. It was form of early summer time, and the climate was very nice. So yeah, it simply made sense. Let’s do a complete yr.”

As a result of togetherness is what the household does, Hayes’ spouse, Laney, and three daughters — Lela, 18, Loxley, 10, and Avery, 8 — had been shortly enlisted into the venture, and Hayes went public along with his intent.

However inside a month, he says, all of them totally realized what they’d gotten themselves into — the relentless tedium of the makes an attempt, the frustration and disappointment of failure that typically went on for hours, the gnawing want for creativity to provide you with a brand new trick every day (as a result of they had been decided by no means to repeat one).

“We had been in shock,” Hayes remembers. “We had been like, oh my gosh, we’ve solely accomplished a month, and we’ve got 11 extra of those left.”

This was now not enjoyable. “It was,” he says, “a grind.”

So why not give up? By no means an choice, says Hayes — not for the household led by a person who knocked round Nashville for nearly twenty years earlier than changing into an “in a single day” nation star, at age 41, with blockbuster hit “Fancy Like.” (That feat, Hayes permits, might be his final trick shot.)

Decided to persist, all eight members of the family hunkered down, devising new tips of various issue and complexity, which they then pulled off all over the place they went: at their lake home south of Nashville and the development web site close by of their new dwelling, on the tour bus all of them share, backstage within the arenas the place Hayes was performing, in retailer aisles, lodge rooms, mall meals courts, public parks, exercise amenities, eating places, airports, swimming swimming pools, faculty gymnasiums, even on their mission journey earlier this yr to Rwanda.

And because the trick pictures gathered, one thing began to occur, says Hayes, that made “not enjoyable” value each single second. The grind was turning right into a coaching floor for all times.

“I actually really feel like faculties or excessive colleges ought to do a trick-shot class,” he says. “It taught my household — and Laney would agree — greater than any class we’ve ever taken.”

Think about it: On daily basis, they set a brand new aim. Pleasure constructed at the beginning, however then naturally, their first makes an attempt failed. Thirty minutes, an hour, two hours later, they had been nonetheless attempting. Typically they got here shut. Spirits shifted always between hope and discouragement. After which, lastly, blessedly, their reward arrived. Briefly, after all, as a result of, in spite of everything, tomorrow was one other day.

“It’s a metaphor for every part lovely and significant to me in life,” says Hayes. “Something that is unbelievable — like marriage, having youngsters, chasing a dream, my relationship with the Lord — none of it is available in simply everlasting bliss. Most of it’s a variety of wrestle.”

Hayes says he has delighted in how the duties have melted away egos and turned the household right into a selflessly supportive unit.

“At first you’re like, oh, I wish to get the shot,” he says. “I wish to be the one which hits the cup. However an hour in, you’re like, I’ll actually have a good time if anybody will get it, and I’ll say that I used to be on the staff and take credit score for that. You’re simply rooting for the staff.”

He additionally has felt pleasure as he’s watched his youngsters step up and take possession of their roles.

“It’s been superb watching my boys,” he says. “By the point we acquired to most likely 250, I simply seen they began to take cost. I form of vanished, for essentially the most half, until I used to be doing one with them. They only checked out it like, ‘Hey, that is what we do daily. Let’s get it.’ Some days I’d come dwelling from a protracted day, and Laney would say, ‘Oh, we acquired a trick shot on the park.'”

Fortunately, some trick pictures have turned out far simpler than anticipated. Hayes remembers one set-up: His 14-year-old son Baylor threw a soccer at an archery goal whereas Hayes shot an arrow at it, making an attempt to pin it to the goal. “We acquired that on just like the tenth attempt,” he says, and he even hit the bullseye.

Baylor additionally was integral in what Hayes considers their hardest trick, which was elegantly easy: flipping two highlighter pens, one in every hand, to concurrently stand on finish on a counter. “I invested most likely 5 hours, and he invested eight,” says Hayes. Baylor was the one who acquired the shot.

The household additionally skilled many low factors of their year-long enterprise. Hayes estimates that they had to surrender on about 20 trick pictures with out success. “These moments would come, sadly, simply due to time constraints,” he says.

Members of the family additionally needed to muster appreciable grace within the face of mishaps. “We undoubtedly had some nightmare days the place we tried and tried and tried for hours, after which after we acquired it, we seen the digicam ran out of batteries or the individual filming didn’t movie it proper,” Hayes recounts. “We’ve had tears.”

His private all-time low occurred late one evening, out on the street along with his daughter Lela, when he realized no trick shot had been posted that day.

“I used to be able to give up,” he says. “We had been so busy. I used to be truthfully asking myself, why did I decide to this?”

Simply as he was rallying Lela to get off the bed and assist him provide you with an thought, Laney despatched him a video of 10-year-old Loxley.

“She had arrange her personal trick shot,” he says. “She had taped some issues to the ceiling and threw a ping-pong ball up, and it went down a little bit slide and right into a cup. And he or she did it. She saved the household that evening. She stored the streak alive. It acquired us all by a very powerful evening, and we stayed dedicated. Truthfully, it impressed me. You understand, I used to be going, OK, my little woman’s on board. Am I gonna quit?”

On a latest weekday afternoon in suburban Nashville, 16-year-old Chapel was the household hero after nearly 4 irritating hours of a very pesky ping-pong-ball trick shot. The household had taken over a highschool follow facility, inviting two of their idols, skilled trick-shot artists and brothers David and Daniel Hulett, to affix them in a day of a number of trick pictures.

Hayes and his three sons took turns with the Huletts, who traveled from their dwelling in Nice Falls, Virginia, as they tried to bounce three ping-pong balls into three mini-Solo cups. The cups had been staggered throughout a desk, every one a little bit farther away. Getting the primary cup was comparatively simple — seven or eight tries on the most. Then they went after the second. In the event that they missed, they needed to return to the primary cup. Each three or 4 minutes, they had been in a position to fill each the primary and second cups. However the third cup was proving not possible, and every failure elicited loud groans.

“That is the one!” Hayes urged in a frequent and futile chorus.

About two hours in, they shifted methods, attempting first for the cup farthest away. It appeared to carry extra potential for fulfillment, however an hour later, all they’d achieved was a sequence of close to misses.

A hiatus was referred to as, and the group turned to a different trick shot involving balloons, balls and darts. However as Hayes, son Baylor and David Hulett tried that, Chapel and Beckett Hayes drifted again to the ping-pong balls with Daniel Hulett. Lower than an hour later, a mighty whoop erupted as Chapel sank the third ping-pong ball, and everybody rushed again to the desk to yell, leap, chest-bump and bear-hug — a second of euphoria worthy of a profitable lottery ticket.

By now, it is a acquainted expertise for the Hayes household. It’s not simply pleasure, says Hayes. It’s reduction. “There’s no have to ever do it once more,” he says.

Afterward, Chapel accepted his congratulations with a shrug and a wisp of a smile. “It was luck,” he stated.

Hayes thinks it was greater than that. Over the yr, he’s watched his oldest son, who can be his shyest baby, come out of his shell with the trick pictures. “I don’t assume he would simply signal himself as much as save the day and hit the final shot,” says Hayes. “He’s not that child. However he has accomplished it many, many occasions. I get emotional if I discuss it.”

It additionally wasn’t misplaced on Hayes that his two boys took their very own initiative to maintain attempting the trick shot. “That’s not one thing I taught them,” he says. “That’s one thing trick pictures taught us. They wished to complete what we began. Once more, that’s not me or Laney being nice dad and mom. That’s what saying, ‘We’ve to do a trick shot for three hundred and sixty six days,’ will do to your children!”

For that fateful last trick shot, anybody else may need masterminded an elaborate trick-shot-to-end-all-trick-shots, ending off the yr with an eye-popping spectacle. As an alternative, the Hayes household is just going out in signature model: collectively. Together with the Hulett brothers, all eight of them lined up behind a desk and tried to flip half-filled water bottles and land them upright on the identical time. It clearly was not their first bottle-flipping rodeo. They accomplished the trick shot in lower than two minutes.

“I wished to do one thing easy,” Hayes says. “And I wished all people within the household concerned.”

Hayes says this isn’t the tip of the household’s trick pictures, however the string is certainly at an finish, and the time has come to savor the accomplishment.

“Truthfully, it’s been like every part else unbelievable in life,” he says. “It hasn’t been paradise. It hasn’t been bliss. It has been very onerous. It’s been a wrestle. Nevertheless it’s been an journey of a lifetime.”

Hayes, alongside along with his household, head out this week to launch his 29-date Similar Drunk Tour, which runs by Sept. 1.