Sounds of the Sea
Whale Jam brings its concert series to Nantucket
Written by Brian Bushard
Photography by Kit Noble
Before Hayden Arnot was known as the Nantucket Crisps guy, he had a steady job booking music for the Nantucket Dreamland. The first show he ever booked was Jonathan Russell of The Head and the Heart. The summer he launched his potato chip company in2022, he brought Vermont folk singer Noah Kahan to the Dreamland, where he played his song “Stick Season” to a live audience for the very first time. That same year, Arnot also brought Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young singer Graham Nash, “American Pie” singer Don McLean and reggae legend Stephen Marley to Nantucket.
As the chip business grew, so did his music booking. In 2023, Arnot launched Whale Aid, later naming it Whale Jam—a benefit concert that combined his passion for music with his lifelong goal of creating a charity show for a cause he believes in: the protection of the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale. The chips gave him an opportunity to put it all together.
“The chips are the vehicle for these passions,” Arnot said. “I love Nantucket, and I found the chip is the best vehicle because it’s accessible, everyone loves them, and it’s the best vehicle for flavor. On Nantucket, there are so many amazing flavors and ideas and things you can work off of.” In Whale Jam’s first year, 700 people attended the benefits how in Boston. This year, Arnot is expecting 5,000 people at the MGM Music Hall on June 3.
“I would love for this to eventually be at the Xfinity Center as a big,12,000-person concert,” he said. At the same time, Arnot is organizing a Whale Jam Summer Series on Nantucket, with nearly a dozen concerts at Cisco Brewers. Proceeds from the shows go to Whale and Dolphin Conservation USA, an ecological organization out of Plymouth, Massachusetts, that works to reduce ship strikes and entanglements that contribute to the right whale’s declining population. There are about 370 North Atlantic right whales remaining, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“This is what drives us. Weas humans need these whales in order to have a healthy ocean,” said Melissa Walsh-Walker, the deputy director, North America of Whale and Dolphin Conservation USA. “Nantucket Crisps walks the walk and talks the talk and is all about helping the Whale and Dolphin Conservation, by sending the message out there to their customers.”
While Arnot’s ambition is to evolve Whale Jam into a full-on festival-sized outdoor concert series like the kind he grew up with, the Cisco shows are just as special—and in some ways more so. “From these shows I put together, you see on the next year’s concert summer fliers that O.A.R. is booking Ripe to open for them—I introduced Ripe to O.A.R.,” Arnot said. “They played Whale Jam together. It’s cool to see the networking happening behind the scenes.”
This year’s concert in Boston features bands like O.A.R. On Nantucket, they include Phantom Planet, Stephen Marley, Futurebirds, Smallpools and Flipturn .“When you’re in a small environment in an intimate setting you know everyone wants to be there. That’s the best musical testing ground,” said O.A.R. front man Marc Roberge. “The best place to perform is a small space."
Arnot’s passion for music can be traced back toa benefit concert he attended when he was 15 years old. The artist was Chadwick Stokes, the lead singer of Boston-based jam bands Dispatch and State Radio. The charity was called Calling All Crows, an initiative Stokes started to empower women in Sudan that now conducts campaigns on a range of issues impacting women and girls.
Arnot went to the show loving the artist but not knowing anything about the cause. The music was the reason he went. But he left feeling inspired and wanting to help the organization. Three weeks later, he organized his own fundraiser for Calling All Crows.
“That’s the exact example—I love my favorite artist, I went to do something because he stood behind it, and then walked out empowered and raised money for that nonprofit,” Arnot said. “I would have never known about it unless I went.” Fast-forward to February 2023 when Arnot held a meeting with the Whale and Dolphin Conservation. “I pitched them this wacky idea of booking music, supporting the whales and throwing a benefit concert,” he said. “You listen to the music and feel empowered and inspired, and you walk out feeling passionate. These are musicians people look up to, and if they get behind something, then people can get behind that too.”
While it might seem that potato chips and a benefit concert for the North Atlantic right whale are an odd combination, Arnot does not see it that way. The projects work hand in hand, he said. They both allow him to be creative and grow a passion. Arnot opened the Nantucket Crisps store on Easy Street in May. He is introducing new, wacky flavors, Polpis Pickle being one of them. Whales Tail Beer Cheese is another, a collaboration with Cisco Brewers. His chips have even made it to mainland grocery chains like Roche Bros., Stop & Shop, Market Basket and Star Market. He sees the company not so much as selling chips—which it is—but of selling an idea of Nantucket.
“When this is all said and done, I want to look back and see that the journey was amazing, that we created something that people love, we created experiences and it was special,” Arnot said. “That’s why we have this store, that’s why we do Whale Jam, that’s why we do these wacky things—it’s about creating a story that people will talk about later and have fond memories of."
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