Haven Yates

Haven Yates is a solo artist, worship leader, recording engineer, songwriter, and producer based in the beautiful Southern Oregon area. Since learning ukulele at age six, Haven has been deeply connected to expression through music. Beginning in high school, Haven was songwriting, forming bands, joining bands, searching for partners who were as driven as he was.

Quickly becoming a prolific songwriter, Haven began to set up coffee shop gigs to sing his growing collection of original material, backed by whatever fellow musicians he could round up on a gig by gig basis. Haven joined his first band that officially stuck when approached by Luz Elena Mendoza (of Y La Bamba) to start a band called June, where he played acoustic rhythm guitar, backup vocals, wrote, co-wrote, arranged, and co-arranged, their ever-growing collection of band songs. Mendoza moved on to pursue other things, and Haven continued as the new front man with June members Matthew Lee Nickel, and Jonathan Hendrix Vreeland, with whom he still plays to this day. The three continued under the name Pneuma, bringing on Joel Swensen to play bass.

Pneuma worked hard for a couple years building a strong following in in Southern Oregon – an area that seemed to be just too small to gain the attention of the labels the band was soliciting. They eventually disbanded, came back shortly thereafter as a three piece group called Last of Three, feat. Matt Nickel, Haven Yates, and Jon Hendrix. They played and wrote until growing up moved them apart again. Another stage of life came for everyone as one by one, the three found their soul mates and married parting again to pursue different things and try new endeavors.

Fast forward about ten years to November 2013: Haven Yates and Jonathan Hendrix Vreeland set out to record over a weekend, bringing back the magic of past bands and projects. That weekend power session produced the groundwork for five new recordings, including the Christmas single ?What Child Is This,? available everywhere now for digital download. The single has had a pleasing level of success, considering it released with zero promotion budget from a couple artists who had been relatively quiet for 10 years. Yates, Nickel, and Vreeland are currently involved in a continuing side project to resurrect the magic of projects past, and share new inspiration driven by a matured collaboration.

Haven also plays bass, and co-records/produces/mixes for Proclaimer, a Christian Hardcore band, featuring Chris Campbell, Ryan Reisner, Chris Crawford, and Jesse Peck.

Influences:
PFR, Switchfoot, OneRepublic, The Fray, Coldplay, Burlap to Cashmere, The Beatles, OneRepublic, Maroon 5