And The Writer Is...with Ross Golan - Ep. 203: Ashley Gorley pt.3

Episode Date: January 13, 2025

Today’s guest is the definition of a songwriting legend! With a record-breaking 76 #1 hits (and counting), 10 ASCAP Songwriter of the Year awards, and the title of NSAI Songwriter of the Decade for 2010-2019, he’s set a standard that’s hard to match. His songs have dominated the charts and sound-tracked lives, earning him Grammy, CMA, and ACM nominations and wins along the way. But behind the stats is a humble, hardworking collaborator whose passion for music and dedication to the songwriting community make him one of the most respected names in the game. He’s the guy behind the hits and the inspiration behind the hustle.And The Writer Is…Ashley Gorley! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to And The Writer Is with Ross Golan. There are millions of singers, thousands of artists, and only 40 songs per genre at a time. These are the stories of the hottest creatives, the most venerable legends, artists, songwriters, executives, and more. Follow our socials and share your music with the and the Writer is community. See you all there and now. Here's this week's episode. Let me tell you about Ascap. ASCAP is America's only creator-first performing rights organization or PRO.

Their main job is to pay you royalties when songs you write are streamed broadcast on radio or TV or played live. They're great at collecting royalties. In the most recent year, they collected more than $1.7 billion for ASCAP members. So what makes ASCAP different? They're the only PRO in America that operates on a not-for-profit basis. The only one that was founded by music creators and is still governed by music creators and publishers. And they're in Washington all the time advocating for songwriter's rights in the age of AI. ASCAP represents over one million members, including this episode's guest Ashley Gorely.

If you are a songwriter or composer, ASCAPE, is where you belong. Writers can join for free. Learn more at askep.com forward slash why join and follow at ASCAP on socials. Chart metric is proud to sponsor

the upcoming season of and the writer is. As the go-to source for up-to-date global social streaming and audience data for artists and music industry professionals, chart metric strives to ensure

everyone can have a successful career in music. They're easy to understand and powerful analytics on over 10 million artists and 100 million tracks will help answer all of your questions from tracking your stats to discovering new talents. Throughout this season, we'll be showcasing chart metric data to reveal insights about our featured artists. Plans start as low as $10 a month. Learn more and get started today at chart metric.com. Welcome to Ann the writer is. I'm your host, Ross Golan.

Today's guest is, there's so many things here that I've already read. This honestly is like a real thing, but this is your third time on this podcast. If you don't know this guy by now, I'm not even going to read this. This is ridiculous.

Let's just go with that like currently of 76 number one songs. I feel like that's about like, this is a ridiculous amount of success. So I'm just going to go to the interview. All right, there you go. That's all you're good. If you guys want to hear like the first and second time I talked about this guy, go to those.

And this is why. See, this morning I went and listened to those podcasts. It's been a minute, right? So the first one was November of 2017 is when it came out. Oh, wow. But we recorded it. This is your life. We recorded it.

I don't know when we recorded, but you had 33 number one songs. when we recorded it. You had 34 number one songs by the time it came out and 35 by the time we wrote the anecdote underneath the caption that none of the numbers could keep up. So I feel like every time that's sort of what, that's the gist of your career. It's like if you try to keep up with it,

you're just going to like lose track. But I don't know if you were, I don't know if you remember this. In the first interview, we have the windows open, so you can probably hear the hawks in the background. I don't know it. I don't know it. We read through the titles of your 33 number one songs at that point.

I don't remember that. That's funny. And if you do the math of what it would be like to listen through 76 number one songs in succession, it would be two and a half hours of music or something crazy like that. That's funny. I'm not out of that up. Yeah. So it's like it's, it's egregious.

And I'm just going to get, I'm just going to get weird again. And I feel like I should read the rest of these. Now that you've just, let's see where we're at. And so if I repeated them in the first, from the first one, I'm sorry. But I'm pretty sure this is correct from where we left off. Okay. I'm just going to read these. So just, you know, you can go take a walk around the block.

All right. All right. I'll be back. You should be here. Middle of a memory. What Makes You Country Eyes on you Fix a drink

Unforgetable Marry me Life changes Rumor Catch Love ain't Living I don't know about you

Remember you young One big country song Good vibes What's your country song The emphasis dude Whole Here's different Hole in the bottle

Yeah. That's it. Right. Hard to forget. One of them girls, you should probably leave. That's a great song. Thank you. Sand in my boots.

All my favorite songs. Notably a not a country number one. True, true. Country again. Take my name. New truck. Bears on me. What he didn't do.

God gave me. a girl. God gave me a girl. Gold. That's a good sound true. She had me at at Head... She had me at Heads, Carolina.

Single Saturday night. All I need is you. Missing the title on that one. World on fire. If you can point out the one that I'm missing, I'll give you a dollar. Save me the trouble. Truck bed last night.

everything I love, you proof, thinking about me. I had some help. Hey, that song's doing it, right? It is. It is. It's doing okay. Is it weird to like every time that, you know, people talk about how many number one songs you have? Or is it kind of like, no, that's why, you know.

Yeah, pretty weird. I mean, it's always like, the funny thing is they'll say, no matter how many you say, they'll be like, dude, are you to 200 yet? Or some number that's literally impossible. So it doesn't matter what you do, they rounded up some unachievable number. And I'm like, no, not yet. 100 years from now. Well, this was a question that I had.

Oh, by the way, that second interview was in 2020 in the middle of the pandemic. Yeah, yeah. I was trying to learn how to use Zoom. Yeah, I don't even know what that recorded, right? It sounded like it was on Zoom. But what's amazing is just how, one, it's nice to have friends in the business for long enough that you can do this stuff for. I'm all about it. Yeah.

But anyway, it's weird that when people are as start to have these landmark numbers, and every time you have a song that goes number one now, you're breaking some record of your own, assuming nobody else has more number one songs, is why is the next question always, when will you retire? That's what I don't like about it. What is, what is the reason? When you start getting little achievement awards or like all of a sudden it's like, man, when are you going to stop?

It's like, no, no, that's not what I want to be 21. I want to start over. You know, it's just, I don't know. It's funny. I guess it's a natural question. I don't have an answer. When you come across people like, you know, who are, who've had this kind of success in other fields, do you find that what songwriters do, is that, is that applicable in other industries? I don't think so.

You know, because like if I have friends that sold a company, you know what I mean? Then it's not like they were wildly, they're passionate about the money maybe or about the people, but they're usually not passionate about what they're doing, you know, when they sell that. And if they are, then they keep rolling. I mean, some people have a goal that's a number or money. I mean, most writers, I know no writers, I know do, you know. Usually it's just a, you know, it's up to them whenever that happens or it happens and they don't know it. And then they find out three years later they retired, you know, it usually happens like that.

but yeah, not as applicable. I think writing is its own monster, you know. It's one of those things you actually might still do if you weren't getting a dime from it. There's not many jobs, you know, like that. Maybe a professional, maybe a sport, but I don't know. But what's weird about professional sports is interesting because the industry and the league

decides when you retire half the time. It's rare that a player says, I'm done right now, just like it's rare for a song. wrong writer to do that. But it's not rare for the league to say, we're just not going to, you're now going to sign into some other smaller league. And the indicators are different. Thankfully, the age is older in the music business than it is for you're running back, you know. Yeah, it's a little, it's older to start for most people and it's later to quit. Yeah, yeah, you're coming right out of college, you know, in the best shape of your life in sports,

whereas it takes us a little while try to get in that shape, you know. So there's a little delay on it, thankfully. It took a while to get to those first 33 number one songs. But it does feel like the last few years that the numbers are almost ramping up for you. Are you figuring out the Matrix or what? No, I don't know, man.

I'm definitely, I've told a lot of people I was in Nashville for 11 years, four in college, and then seven with a publishing deal without a hit. you know, so that's, that's a long warm up, you know what I mean? A lot of us have been there. So it was 2006 before I had any, you know, anything in the top 40. You know what I mean? So lately, I don't know, it's just, I don't know, I feel like God's favors on it.

There's a little bit of magic. It's just, I mean, you can't line up songs to come out for other songs. You know what I mean? So I'm just really thankful for it. But I definitely feel like this is kind of the most fun I've even ever had in the last two or three years, just kind of trying different stuff, not having some goal of, I've got, to do this to, you know, to achieve a certain thing or to try to get in the club or whatever. What's that?

Did you used to have a goal of like? Oh, I mean, the goal was just to not have to get a job, a real job. I never said, like, I want to write this many number one. I had no idea if I could write a number one. And stats are tricky, you know, I just wanted to be able to do it for a living and not have to pick up other gigs and just, you know, be able to hang out and pay the bills, you know. When you have an album cut on an album, do you, or when you have a more, I guess even more like when a song goes to number five and disappears, is that a failure? No, no, no. I mean, you know, people are stats driven.

They love math, you know, so I don't even look at it like every number one. I mean, I have songs that went to number five that I'm maybe more proud of than a number one or more excited about, you know, where they go. So it's just kind of like, if people are hearing it and loving it and I'm proud of it being out there, and it's not a huge number thing to me. It starts to be fun once you're going up there. It's like watching a stock or your team score. You know, be like, oh, I hope this hits number one. But it's completely out of your control, right?

So it's not like you can stress about it. It's just like, I hope this keeps going. Do you check charts every day? I check charts a lot. Just because I've got, you know, I've got 12 writers. They have songs on there too. They want to know they'll ask me if I have the little password that get you into the exact access.

But I may go a week and not check it. I mean, it's kind of fun to check. For some, some people can't, stand doing that. It can depress you. You see two your songs going negative, falling off. And for some reason, I can separate it. It's stressful going up. It's stressful going up. It's stressful going down. And country songs especially can take forever, you know, like literally they could take 70 weeks, you know, to get all the way up the chart, which is wild right now. So if you're hanging on day by day, it would be tough. So I can separate it a little bit and be like, I've done my job

and I hope this goes and it's kind of fun to watch it. And I've been doing it for long enough to know that it's a slow process, so it doesn't freak me out so much. I definitely still have songs where I, you know, they don't. It's not like they all go, you know, so there's a lot that don't. And that kind of sucks, but it's still, for whatever reason, it doesn't bug me to watch it and see that happening. But you don't have, you're not up in a night being. I should have 77, but that won't.

Absolutely not. No, no, no, I never, whenever I can't sleep, it's not related to like, I got to get another hit or anything like that. There's a famous writer that I'm not going to mention and I'm going to make up numbers, so it's not obvious. but that person has, will say, 11 Grammys and is working so hard to get the 12th. And you can tell that they're tremendously hurt that they didn't get the 12th. Yeah, that would not be me.

No, no, no. I'm not, there's not, I'm not much of an awards, dude. I do like, I do like, you know, kind of all genre awards or like I'm obviously proud of them, writer of the year or some other, you know, honors I've been able to get, the icon thing thing in NPA. You know, last year was really cool. But, yeah, it's for me, it's just. I love doing it. I just want it to be relevant. I want to be able to be making an impact.

And as long as I feel like that's happening, do you know the number of how many, you included, how many writers, tape room writers are, which is your publishing company, how many tape room writers are currently on the charts? Oh, how many writers? At least four, five maybe. I mean, it's awesome. Those guys are doing so well, which, again, we probably talked about tapering before, but that's kind of part of the fuel that keeps me going as I'm getting to mentor and coach those guys and listen to songs they've started and try to pair them up with the right people. I love doing that. It seems like it seems like a lot. You do the same thing, but there's a little bit of energy you get from that. You know what I mean? Where you're

able to jump in and mentor and help set them up. It's like a good distraction from just thinking of ideas and melodies and hooks. So I know right now we're approaching, we're trying to get to 50 number ones for tape room for like my writer is not counting me. So I think we're at 47, 48, something like that. But, dude, with Hunter Phelps and Ben Johnson, Zach Crowell and Taylor Phillips and all these guys, I mean, they're crushing it. Casey Brown, everybody's, you know, I think they've got five or six on the chart right now.

Well, that brings us to our next segments. This one is, what would Ben Johnson ask Ashley Gourley on, and the writer is? By the way, he's not allowed to talk to me directly, by the way, so I'm glad he's going through you. It's always through me. If you didn't work in music, what would you want to do? Oh, that was his question?

Yeah. Well, he's got a couple. so you're just going to deal with these. Probably coach basketball or travel professionally. Then that's really convenient that the next question is, how do you feel about the JJ Redick hire? Oh my gosh. Yeah, that must be a – I saw that last night.

I've been out of pocket. So I knew that was going to happen. Or I thought it was going to happen. I don't know JJ. But it's fun, man. I like people taking shots. He's got to be the first time sometime. Yeah.

Kind of weird that it's the Lakers for you first time, but all good. Yeah, I mean. I don't know if he's coached. AAU or anything. I may have more experience than him. If you're of a certain age, it's hard to think. It's still hard for me to think of him other than being a great collegiate player. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Like I still think of, yeah. He is a good sportscaster speaker. And he seems very, very passionate. That's probably number one criteria like it would be for me if I was hiring somebody. It's a shot in the, you know, in the dark a little bit. But I feel like NBA coaching would be so tough. It's like similar to if we, if we were signing writers that already have, know exactly what they're doing,

that's tougher than if you're coaching high school or college or trying to train somebody up. So I would not be coaching NBA. I would be coaching high school or college. Well, in that team in particular. Oh, yeah, that's going to be rough. They don't settle for much. But I mean, that's cool that he's up for the challenge

and they're down to give him a shot. We'll see what happens. Then here's the next segment is what would Zach Crowell ask Ashley Gourleon and the writer is. He actually has a list. Oh, yeah, no. The thing is when it's people's first interview, I usually like to pick one, but being that like you're going to be on this a million more times,

then why not? Just let everyone have their moment. All right. He had a few questions. He said, how do you stay motivated? Because Zach has lost all motivation. That's perfect. I'm glad he's seen that.

I don't know. I mean, he goes up in that studio at 6 a.m., you know, and works on songs all the time. We have a different rhythm. That's funny that he said that he's lost all. motivation. Yeah, he says that having just finished the... Yeah, yeah, he's been grinding so hard. It's probably completely out of energy. I can tell that's really funny, but I don't know. I've never even thought about motivation. It's just fun to do. I mean, I went to a concert last night. I listened to New Music Friday

Today. I'm just in it. I just love... What was it? It still moves me. Noah Khan with my daughter. Oh, nice. It was great. Yeah, yeah. He was killing it. But, um, so that's just fun. It's still, you know, music still affects me that way. I'm not sitting there listening to the show like, oh, this EQ is off or like that hook is wrong or anything like that. You know what I mean? I can definitely, I've developed a way to separate it and enjoy it without picking it apart.

You know what I mean? If that makes sense. Yeah, yeah. He asked, how do you know when to lead drive in a session or sit back and assist? And that's actually maybe, that might be the, that's sort of the question.

Yeah. That I think people want to know what's it like to be in the studio with you anyway. But when are you the driving force and when are you the guys like, Yeah, it's hard for me to ride. I'd be a backseat driver. You know what I mean? Like, I definitely, and I think it's just because I think I'm going to forget whatever I'm thinking

if I don't say it out loud right then. So it probably sometimes people might feel like I'm running them over, but I just have to get it out or I'm going to forget it. So I am more vocal in rights, you know, than some people I can't sit there and try to think of a, like be like working on a whole verse and then say it or something like that. I'm just saying everything I think of. So that can be annoying or you could find it cool or inspiring,

depending on who you are. I've had both reactions. But I do know when it's my place to ride or drive or just watch for a second or whatever. I don't know. I feel like it's just a natural instinct. If I'm letting somebody, if it's an artist and they're fleshing out an idea, I want to hear the whole thing. You know, I'm down. I'm not trying to interrupt. But I'm not great at like a silent room, you know. So I'm going to try stuff. I like throwing stuff at the wall pretty quick and recording on the mic if I'm writing and stuff like that just to try to get the idea out. So yeah, people would probably say I'd drive more than ride, but I know I can get with other riders and also kind of just have a good rhythm, you know, going back and forth. I do struggle with that sometimes just to try to get my ideas out of my head quick and it may come off like I'm driving, you know, leadfoot a little bit. But I don't know. That's just part of it.

Hopefully I've learned throughout the, you know, the career when to drive and when to ride. So it's a nice little dance back and forth. But it helps you have somebody who doesn't stop ideas. I really like me. I like keep throwing stuff out. I think the part of co-writing that's different than writing by yourself is that this, it really depends on your co-writers, being able to say that's the part, that's the part, that's the part. That is a skill, like big time, just to be able to identify.

Some people are amazing at that. You know what I mean? So I do not have the skill to write by myself. I used to try to write like one song a month by myself just to prove that I can still make up stuff, you know, and that's long gone now. Yeah, yeah. I just, even if I kind of write something on myself, I'm always going to bring it in. I just love the people, the community, the aspect of sharing back and forth, and I don't trust

myself, I guess, as much as you or some other people do. I've got to bounce it off of everybody. So I'm definitely more of a co-writer for sure. He also said, I like these questions. Good job, Zach. He said that, you know, he started out making hip-hop and wanting to do rap and and asks, is there any music that you still want to do? Is it Broadway?

Is there something that you'd be like, you know what? I want to do, I want to, you know, because you're, one of the things I admire so much about your ability to put your head down and just go, go, go, session, session, session. Yeah. And is that like you get so, you're so focused on what's in front of you? Yeah. But you have a skill set.

Look, you have a number one song in Alt Rock. So it's not like you haven't, you know, dabbled in other stuff. We've written songs for pop. We've written some stuff for country. You know, what genre would you want to dive into? I mean, always. I kind of came up the same as Zach. Not to the, I mean, he was better than me.

But I used to make beats and just do hip-hop R&B kind of tracks and make remixes and DJ and all that stuff too. So it's funny how we both kind of came from that school. It's probably why we hit it off. And, you know, we still work together and all that. but it's an interesting little, you know, path to get to being a country writer. But yeah, I love, like you said, I'm like you, I love all the genres. So I always wanted something outside of maybe the country chart at some point, you know,

where that's some worship stuff, pop stuff, R&B, alt rock. The Weezer song was pretty cool. That wasn't like a goal I had, but it felt good to get outside of the, you know, blur the lines, get outside of the genre a little bit with all my favorite songs. But I did always want a, like a global, you know, country doesn't go as global as, you know, songs you've had or pop songs, stuff like that. So we currently have that, the Post-in Morgan, I had some help, which hit that. I never thought about that being a goal, but I guess once it happened, I was like,

oh, yeah, that's cool to have one that's actually number one in the world, which is, you know, it's tough to do. And it's funny because I always wanted like a pop hit, a hot 100 hit, all that stuff. And the ones that have happened have been, you know, kind of in the country space. It's just the genres have blurred and changed. So you can get that. So I didn't end up having to get the Ariana Grande. song to get the Hot 100 or whatever to top that chart.

So that's been a fun process last couple of years, seeing those songs all mesh and they're being four or five country songs on the pop chart, you know. Yeah, I mean, everybody's trying to do a country song. It's like, you know, and because of how, I mean, this is the 90s again. You know, it's where it's like country is is everything. Once country fans started figuring out how to stream and not buy MP3s, you know, then it really changed the algorithm. rhythm and people look at things differently.

Oh, for sure, dude. Yeah, they, I mean, it's funny now. Just what's on the radio and what people like, it's kind of, it's kind of at its truest form. Like we all say, we love everything. We make playlists with everything on there. And it's just kind of transcended over to everybody, you know, doing that. And the charts doing that a little bit too. So I love where it's at right now.

So I definitely always wanted to pop it. Didn't know that would come from a country, you know, artist or market. But it's cool that it did. So I'm not, I don't have a lot of other stuff. I do have a place in my heart for Broadway and musicals. I, in college, tried to kind of start some, write some. I know you've done that. I'm just not as patient as you.

I just couldn't do it. You know, it's like I can spend a day on a song that I think's amazing that nobody cares about. That happens all the time. But it would be hard to spend years on something. And then nobody care about it in the end. Yeah. And honestly, if I could start a, you know, if I could live two or three lives, I would

spend one of them, you know, writing musicals in New York, one of them staying in the R&B, whatever world. but Nashville has been so amazing everybody comes through there it's like it's kind of you know the way countries you know progress and change a little bit I can all the little

chords and melodies and flows and things like that that kind of come naturally to me or are used to have been useful for the past few years in country so I haven't had to like you know run outside and chase something or anything like that but you do change styles really easily it seems like you know

when you're working with jelly roll or you're working with Morgan Wallen I mean those I'm just saying the stuff that's big this week, you know, versus the last 10 years. But obviously they're very different than Luke and some of the other people we've worked with. You know, why is it easy for you to, you know, why do artists look at you as being like, oh, no, he can help me do my voice, you know? Yeah, yeah.

And that's what I want. I mean, that's kind of my goal is that compliment of like somebody bringing me in to either tie a couple of genres together or to finish out. their project, even if it doesn't sound like it's something that is naturally in my wheelhouse. You know, I've always tried to have a pretty big range. So I feel like, you know, I feel like I could confidently go in with most people, if it's not scream metal, and help them figure out, you know, something that would be cool for them to try next. And it's just because there's so much music in my system, you know, that I grew up listening

to so many different things. And I just, not that I'm great at all of it, but I definitely like to be a chameleon and kind of be that artist, you know what I'm in the studio. I take it so seriously, it's a privilege, you know, to get to try to write for these people. So it's like, I really go in and like, if I was this person, what would I, would I want to play this every night? Would I want to, you know, would this be a step up? Would this maybe, you know, is this where I want to go? So I love that, that aspect of writing where I'm trying to kind of like guess and educated guess the next thing somebody would do and it working. I love, that's probably my most satisfying part is when that kind of works. When they're trying something different that I'm pushing

for and it takes off. Most of the artists you've worked, with our men. And in the country world, it seems, you know, if you look at the people around Miranda, it's often more female. If you look at people around Casey, it's kind of a mixed bag. But it seems like that world doesn't really cross over. Why is that? Why is it that a writer, you know, of your caliber, I feel like you could obviously write

with whoever. Oh, yeah, yeah. Is it, is it just, that's just the way things work out? That's the way the genre is, I mean, you know, snapshot the chart and, you know, men to women, it's just math. Like, I love working, doing songs with Karen Underwood and Carly Pearson, Kelsey Ballerini and Dasha last week and whoever else, you know, is coming up. I love doing that. I mean, girls, I feel like there's freedom in the lyrics and the melody and the range and all that stuff. I mean, they're amazing. There's just not as many of them of those projects going on. So that's all it is. I love, I love, you know, working with either. one of those. Carrie was my first couple of hits. I went, you know, we've written a ton of songs,

you know, together that have, they've done great. And I love doing that. There's just not as many in the genre, you know, as been pointed out, there's not a lot of those. I mean, Lainey Wilson is amazing. We wrote a song, you know, a few weeks ago. That's exciting. Yeah, she's fun. And that was so fun. I was like, oh, I love that. We did a couple songs. So obviously, it's amazing to do that. But just total, stat-wise, it's going to end up being more dudes, for sure. For sure. Yeah. Do you feel obligated to fight for a songwriter rights? Yeah.

I mean, I do. You know, it's, I mean, you can either be like, okay, I made it through here, so good luck. Or you can be passionate about it and do it. You know, I've seen you at stuff. We hung out last week at the NNPA events. And I would love to do more. I love to you know more about it. Some people are more active in it.

I've been in hardcore family modes where I can't be on too many boards and stuff like that. but I'm definitely, even this year, have been doing more of that, more of the giving back, trying to help, whether it's a college curriculum in writing, or it's a Washington trip, or it's trying to figure out. I go to those conferences like we were at last week and try to come back and tell my writers or inform people, other smaller publishers in Nashville, you know, what's going on, at least keep them up to date. And hopefully all those guys know, I'm down to do whatever anybody needs.

But, you know, I've got writers that are like my kids, so I want them to have an inheritance too one day, you know what I mean? So I want to make sure that it all comes through. I look at it like that. You know, your publishing company has been a big focus of yours. Obviously, if you have 47, 48 number one songs, you know, who's counting. But the most people now are talking about how important it is to own master, or we should say, sound recordings. Yeah.

owning sound recordings instead of publishing feels like at least a faster return on your investment. Oh, for sure, yeah. Why do you have a publishing company and not a record company? Right, all right. I mean, we have a record label forum. We've had a couple acts on, but we only do that to like get those writers, I mean, get those artists into a major deal and kind of split it up so that they, so we can protect them, their creative interests, all that stuff.

So we have that kind of going. Who are those artists? We had a group got a new beat. There's a guy named Jordan Road that we're working on, but we're always going to partner with, you know, Hunter Phelps. We signed and just kind of, you know, figured out a deal while he was going to be an artist for a little bit.

He's not now, but at that time we worked it out. It was great. He's putting out songs getting, you know, millions of streams. But I don't know. I feel like I've thought we've almost gone down that road because the masters can be obviously way more lucrative and the publishing kind of feels like you're throwing money away for several years before anything comes back.

But I just feel like my God-given skill set is more in the writer. training management, helping them out. And that's just my love. So we kind of just came to a point where I'm like, this is probably going to be our concentration. It's just like regardless of if it's tougher to make money from it, that's just what we feel like we're good at. So we kind of concentrate with the writers and helping them develop into, you know, into big hit songwriters. So we have artists too that we kind of develop all that stuff, but we haven't like launched a big label. I don't want to take on a radio team and do all that kind of stuff at this point. Now, who knows in the future, but for the last few years it takes, I'm so hands-on and so intense about it that I've

I feel like I can't do a whole, you know, run some label and run the publishing company and write, you know. And be a dad. And be a dad. Yeah, and husband and all the others. And do life, yeah. That is like time management is really difficult for workaholics. Yes. But it seems like you've done it really well.

What is this secret? Yeah. I mean, I don't always do it well. I like to overbook. I don't like free time. How do you know? when you're not doing well? Just when it feels off, when I feel like I've been missing from the, you know,

if I, you can just feel it if you're like, if I'm going to be in on this stuff, like, all right, if I'm writing eight nights in a row or something like that, it just doesn't feel right. But I have been able to manage it especially. That's what I loved about Nashville is, you know, kind of the schedule. I kind of went back and forth on moving to L.A. or doing Nashville sessions back several, several years ago, and the L.A. sessions were starting at 2 and, you know, 10 p.m. or sometimes starting at 6 p.m. and going all night. and just being a dad and having kids early on,

it just didn't go with it. You know what I mean? I wanted to be able to coach their stuff and hang with them and kind of do more of a school schedule, you know? And Nashville was great for that, starting at 10, you know, can get out of there at four. I used to have to leave at 2.30 to go coach basketball for a couple of years. So that kind of trained me to write quick, you know,

just because I had to get out there and do that. It keeps it really efficient. It does, yeah, yeah. And now, now I'm not, you know, the kids are older, so I'm not like having to run to a practice or whatever. So, you know, we can take more of our time and have more conversation. Do you take more of your time? Or do you now, or is it now like the, you know, the brain muscle has been worked on?

And now you go in and you're like, I don't need that much time because. Yeah, yeah, a little bit of both, right? But just more time to hang and more time to meet with my, you know, team and listen through to writer's stuff and do all that, all that stuff. And no, in Nashville, I've never, I've never written in town on a Saturday or Sunday. I'll only do nights if it's like some kind of camp. You know, we do some stuff like the Hardy Camps, which are awesome. or if we're going all in for like two days, and then I'll make sure I take a day off after that or something like that.

But I need the balance. I need to be around my wife and kids. Remember that there's way more than, you know, music to life. And it doesn't matter if this song's on hold or if somebody dropped it or it's not doing well. So I need a balance of that just to stay sane, you know. Do you ever look at it as, you know, if you, you know, when you look at somebody who, it's easy to look at somebody who doesn't have a family and, man, like, they're able to do five times the sessions and not to get FOMO about it, but you know, you look at it and you're like, man,

if I didn't have those things, maybe I'd have more. Oh, for sure. No. Then you realize that that's not really what you want. Oh, yeah. I mean, even lately there's been times where it's like, oh, shoot, they're just, you know, they're doing a writing camp here or they're doing a couple sessions here and my son has a baseball tournament.

But I'm going to the baseball tournament. Like, it's not really a thing I struggle with like, oh, I'm missing out on whatever. I wish they to pick different dates, maybe. You know what I mean? But it's almost like just up front before we had any success or anything. It was just like, we're going to try to roll like this. You know, we're going to focus on, you know, God, the kids, the relationship. And thankfully, we've, you know, made it through all that, all the crazy schedules and everything.

But, yeah, definitely, sometimes I get dubbed, like, people think I'm writing 24-7. But I'm hopefully just trying to manage time better. And I'm all over the place, naturally. So I think it looks like I'm maybe doing more sessions than I am. I'm not sure. But I love the balance. of that. I can't imagine, I mean, it'll be, I mean, as soon as it hits my brain, like, oh, if I had the freedom to do this or I could just travel around, I go to London,

come to L.A. for two months, do whatever. The other side of that, you know, I'd be lonely. I wouldn't be grounded. I wouldn't have, you know, I need to, you know, being away from my wife more than a week or five days of the time is not, doesn't feel good to me, you know. So. And once you have kids, too, it's like, if you're not, if you're not working for your, for your kids, then we're working for. Yeah, I'm not going to miss an event or whatever with them. You know what I mean? If I have to fly in a midnight or whatever. And not because I feel obligated. I just like to be there. It's fun. I love going to, you know, a game, which is just kind of an excuse to socialize other to the parents and support the kid. But family trips,

we've been able to manage all that. So it hasn't really, thankfully, since I'm not a touring artist or anything like that, we can call our schedule. It's like the best thing about the job is we can set our own schedules and we can say, we can't do this anymore. Nobody fires us. So it's been fun to just figure out a way, you know, that works for us and everything like that. But it does get tough to manage it, you know, here and there. But I definitely have life ranked above trying to get songs recorded, you know. So I try to keep it there. It's a balancing act, you know?

A little bit, yeah. And I think what I think people think that there's, if you look at any sort of scale, it never stays steady or not. So it is going to tilt every day, multiple times a day. And what are those choices that you're going to make that are going to try? many decisions, dude. I have decision fatigue every day when I get home. Yeah, it's just like, like I don't want to decide we're eating or anything. I've already made 100 decisions today, which is like a real thing. But it is. Yeah, yeah, for me, it's not a big, you know, once you make

your priorities, it's easier to, you know, kind of keep to that and be less tempted or not be so, you know, stressed that you're missing something because it just is what it is. You can't, you can't control it, you know, so I just try to do the best I can when I'm there. You mentioned God first. Do you go to church on Sundays? I do, yeah. Every Sunday? Well, every Sunday I'm in town. And then we just me, not, you know, church now, you can watch it, you can do what, you can stream it, all that kind of stuff. And we have life groups and stuff like that just to try to, you know, just interacting with other people talking about, um, the Bible is, is a huge important, you know, part of our life.

Was that part of your life growing up? A little bit. Yeah, growing up, I definitely, I mean, raised in a Christian home per se, but, but we didn't, we went to church, uh, you know, semi-frequently. Yeah, no, not, not like just Eastern Christmas, but we went a lot, but it wasn't until, uh, I mean, I was in a youth group, all that stuff. The church was all, awesome. I remember all that. But then in college, when you go away from your parents and away from that structure, I didn't know anybody in the state of Tennessee, you know, when I went to Belmont. And so I think that is where, you know, if you're going to church or you're going to an event or reading a book, then you're doing it because you want to do it. You know, so I think that

moment when you leave the nest is when you kind of have to sort your faith out and be like, okay, with no pressure on we're going to church because it's a Sunday, what am I going to do with my day, my life? What do I believe about this? And so that's just, to that's such a great time to kind of formulate that. So when I went away, it became really, really real to me. And my wife and I were in, you know, different classes at church kind of, that was like our family. You know, we didn't have family in Nashville. We had these kids. We got no babysitters. We got no, you know, so we turned to those people that were members of those groups that we just did life with. So, and we still do that. You know, it's just fun to, fun to have people

that you can be real with going through stuff, not acting like everything's okay, you know, and trying to seek the right wisdom to get through it. If you're a songwriter or composer, you have to join a performing rights organization or PRO. Performance royalties are an essential part of your income, if not your only income. ASCAP is America's first PRO, and the only one that operates on a not-for-profit basis,

which means the money they collect goes to their songwriters, composers, and music publishers. And ASCAP supports you in a lot of digital. different ways, even beyond the royalties. They run workshops and networking events for creators, like the annual ASCAP Experience. Check it out at ASCAPexperience.com. They got tons of resources on their website to help you learn about the music industry. They've even got a wellness program. I really respect that ASCAP is a true democracy. ASCAP members elect their board of directors, and the board is made up of music, writers, and publishers.

They've got over one million writers, including this episode's guest, it's Ashley Goreley. Writers can join for free. Learn more at askap.com forward slash why join and follow at ASCAP on socials. Our good friends at ChartMetric have all the data you need to power your music career, from playlist placements to stream counts,

to follower demographics and many more. It's never been easier to understand how your artists fit in the music industry and how they can grow. Chart metric does the work for you, providing actionable insights and visuals on their up-to-date global data that covers over 10 million artists

and 100 million songs. So there's no math required. Use it to find out things about your favorite artists and any of the artists and writers on this podcast. Plans start as low as $10 a month. Learn more and get started today at chartmetric.com. Going back to songs for a bit,

when, you know, there's, Morgan Wallen's famous for having, you know, 200 songs. Like, that guy's just constantly writing. Everyone's pitching them songs. Yes, it's nuts. But your songs keep rising to the top. Why?

Oh, yeah, I mean, man, he's so good and he's got such a good bar for songs and a good, you know, risk tolerance for trying some different stuff. I mean, he's just popping off so crazy right now. But I don't know. I mean, I'm very, very blessed, lucky that those songs found their way to like the radio and being singles and stuff like that. That album was so good. Had so many good songs on there. I don't know why. I'm thankful they picked mine.

I think some of them were a little different, you know, when it comes to last night thinking about me the way they're produced, the way they sound. Maybe they stood out. That could have been a bad thing. Ended up being a good thing. And so, yeah, he just, you know, I go on these little runs. So is it that you take a, you take, I mean, that. Yeah, we're willing to do that in the room. And then he's willing to sing it.

You know what I mean? He's like, let's do it. Let's try it. It's so, there's just what's, what's so interesting about, you know, you have, uh, it's, it's similar going back to the sports thing, you know, we'll just, uh, we're just going to go through all the sports. We'll do pickleball last. Come on, there you go, good.

But if you have, you know, if you're a major league baseball or something, you've got all these guys who were all stars growing up. There were all stars in the minor league. They all get to the big leagues. And there are still levels of the big leagues. And sometimes, like, why does that person hit, you know, 300 this year and then 150 the next year and then 300 the next year? and, you know, or those pitchers that seem to get 16 wins every year, 20 wins every year. And you're like, how, what is it that they're doing that is so, so acutely different that

their, that their success rate is so consistent? Yeah. What is it that you're doing that on an album of some of the best writers in the world, not just his, but, you know, in general, what are you doing that's acutely different that allows your songs to be heard differently? Wow. I don't know. I mean, especially when it comes to Morgan,

there's such a different kind of era and team of writers working on that. Charlie Anson, I wrote, I mean, the majority of the songs I've had with him or with him. And people like Ernest, John Byron, some of these guys, we'd just kind of hold up and had a crew and really, you know, really went for it on a bunch of the songs. And some of them are pitches,

you know, that he was willing to do. And some of them we wrote with him. And even Santa of My Boots being a big piano ball, I thought that had no shot of being a single or anything like that. And, of course, I ended up doing fine. But, like, it's, I don't know. In the room, maybe it's just taking a few chances or just, like, trying to raise the bar up

and make the melody a little catchier or make the groove a little more memorable or something that would stand out, you know? With songs like last night, super melodic, and it sounds radically different, you know what I mean? Which is a lot to do with Charlie and Joy Moy. And being willing to take chances on the production, that stood out.

And then the song after that was, like, the countryest thing on the radio. everything I love. So I think just being able to try different stuff, different extremes, having enough knowledge maybe to just dig in a little bit more on the flow or on that melody and just kind of, you know, I know Morgan well and know what he likes when we grew up listening to and we were similar in what we like in song. So I think with that whole big loud team, you know, a lot of those young writers were just, we're just hitting it right. We just got in a groove where he was liking what we were doing. And that's kind of all you can ask. So at least in that

era, we were writing things that he loved and that the people were loving for radio and singles and stuff like that. But definitely I could have gotten one single off that album instead of five or six and other songs would have all went number one. They would have been great. So I definitely count that as a blessing and getting lucky that we got all those songs to be singles. When you hear songs in the world and somebody's playing a country playlist, are there songs that come on and you're like, did I write this? And it's like, oh yeah, that's right. I did that.

And vice versa, where you're like, did I write this? No, it sounds like, how do I know this song? Yeah, yeah. I have written a lot of songs. You know, like yesterday I got a text saying like, hey, you should play this for so and so. And I was like, cool, who wrote this? And they're like, you and these two people. And I'm like, oh, okay.

Like, that definitely happens a little bit. If I was like, if I had to do it, if there's something on the line, then I could probably try to remember if I wrote that or not. not, but I think it's just once they're out, I've just trained my brain because of the heartache of songwriting to lay the song down and set it free. You know what I mean? At the end, and I keep going back to like, oh, that song was really cool that we did three weeks ago. What about that? It's like, I just can't do that because it's so hard, you know? And so I've just been able to kind of let that go, so to speak, and my memory is terrible, you know? So thank God there's voice memos

and you can write on a mic while recording and things like that. I'm just, I just get in a mode with my brain where I'm coming up with stuff, but I can't activate the remember it part of it at the same time. Which is fine, because you can record it, so who cares. But yeah, I don't know. That is a, that's an interesting. I think it's actually pretty common. There are some songs where they come out and like,

it's just hard to tell. It's not even the ones that came out. It could be something from six years ago that was popular around the same time that your other songs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. could be something that was, or three years ago, and you're listening to it. And you're like, is this one of mine? Right.

I can't. I mean, usually I'll know. Like, once I hear it for a while. You just have like a moment of like a brain lapse. Yeah. And it's so weird. Yeah, especially if it's on in the background at a restaurant or somebody's playing it. It's a new, it's a new song and somebody said.

I'm just like, oh, I think I did this one, you know. Yeah. Now the hits, I'm not going to say I can forget. It's not like I don't know when those come on. But sometimes it takes a minute, especially the older ones. Yeah. Do you think that Do you think that your ratio of songs that come out

That are successful is different than other people I think there's you know As Max said you know it's like one If you have a hit every year for 20 years You're the biggest songwriter all time you know When you have 76 number one songs Not including other hits Because there were some that are not

number one. Right, right, right. How many songs does it take for you to get to that? Oh, I got you. Okay. I was talking to Dave Hodges was here recently, and we were talking about Kara DiGuardi. Yeah, I love her. You know, she's sort of stopped writing.

She's just doing publishing stuff, and she's an icon songwriter. Oh, yeah. And Dave said, like, do you miss writing? do miswriting. And she's like, no, because I know that that, it was at the BMI Awards. It was like, I know that that medal took you 200 days to get to that medal. And she was done with that chase. That's a tough part.

You know, you were talking about the heartbreak of songwriting, and most songwriters are writing, you know, for every 76 songs, they write zero of them come out. Yeah. So, you know, what percentage of songs do you write? that never see the light of day. Oh gosh, 90? Really?

I don't know. I haven't done the math, but I mean, I do write a lot of songs. You know, being a topliner, I can bounce to another session while somebody's finishing that. I may lay down a scratch and go. I literally think a lot of times it's quantity.

You know, for me, of the number of songs I'm writing and so many different projects. I mean, that's how I'm able to have multiple songs on the chart. They're for radically different artists, and they can all fit. You know, if I was the artist, there's no way I could do that, you know? So, yeah, I'm trying to think, let's see.

What was the last question you asked just now? I was just asking about how many songs do you have to write? Oh, yeah, that percentage. Yeah, man, I don't know. It's wild now in the last few years. You know, when I first, first time I won writer of the year, I had three hits in that year. And when it, you know, like, that was kind of the most people were having, you know,

at the time. And I don't really know, you know, what's changed where maybe the grouping is smaller that's writing the stuff or whatever. but I definitely, I mean, I've definitely been lucky to have what we call a triple play for the last several years, which is when you get three number ones in a year. Yeah, you had nine, I think, when we did the first interview. Yeah, yeah. There was like a triple triple.

Where you had now? I don't know how many of those. I don't know. Where do you put the awards? Are they in the office or are they in a box? Yeah, there's some in a box and some in the studio or office. I don't really have them in my house, but in the back we put up some of those in the studio. Do you have anything in your house?

No, I don't think so, huh? Yeah. It's all, which we have that studio and property in the back, so we just do that. But I don't, I don't. There may be, like, one of the triple players or an ACM or something in some case, but I can't tell you where it is.

Why do you not display things in the house? Yeah, I never even thought it just never came up. I think in my mind, I want the separation from more important life to music stuff. So it's almost like the physical separation of that stuff being back there and I can go in that mode. And then when I get to the house,

I'm usually not even like listening to much music or whatever. I try to turn it off, you know, just to get away from that. Like what do your, do your kids listen to country? Yeah, they all like country, but they also like, you know, my youngest, he's 16, same as me, he listens to a lot of rap, you know. He loves 21 Savage, but he also loves Morgan and like some country stuff. Ernest, he loves him, Hardy. And my daughter is more in the, you know, kind of half country,

but half Lizzie McAlpine and Holly, Numberstone, Noa Khan, like more singer-songwriter, different lyric kind of thing, emo vibes, and kind of all over the map and the same for my oldest. They're all kind of spread out everywhere. When you're dividing your time between all these things and you've got the, you've got the studio in the back, the studio you built is in the behind your house? Yeah, I mean, it was already there. It's an old school studio.

Yeah, it was a, our, you know, our property belonged to. a 90s country band, you know, before we bought it. Was it? So Sawyer Brown. Oh, nice. And so, yeah, when we got that, that studio's already there. It's kind of old school, kind of has a vibe. But it had, like, live, you know, gear to cut all that kind of stuff. We sold a lot of that. But we, yeah, we kind of use it now as just a overboard writing space, you know what I mean? And that's where all the tape room guys go. Well, that's one place. So we, I do also like to switch up locations, like go to, I love to

go into, like, a different session spot every day. I don't have, like, my magic. room or all the stuff comes to me. So we do a lot of camps out there. The opposite of like Diane Warren. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who goes, yeah, I could not do it. I want to see some. I would change it every day if I could.

I'm being in a different spot. But yeah, so we have a studio there and we had some offices there. Tape room kind of started back there because I wasn't trying to go get a building or anything like that. So we actually worked out of there for a year or two. Just kind of doing it on my phone. We signed three riders to get started. Blaine Rhodes came on.

And then we've had, you know, Kelly Bolton come on. Caroline Hudson, amazing team. But yeah, so we have that place in the back. and we love doing camps there because you feel like you're 100 miles from everywhere. You know, there's deer, a turkey running around. There's a river in the back. So it feels like you're making a country record that day. And then we have offices at Sony, who's partner with me.

And then we also have offices, tape rooms. Offses are in red light management who are partnered on, you know, some of the tape room business. The desire to be involved in pickleball is... It's hot. It's like, it's obviously like one of the hotter sports. courts, people love playing. Yeah.

You're building courts. Oh, yeah. Is it there on the property? Yeah, yeah. We had a property had an old tennis court on it. And then we kind of like rednecked it out a little bit with some tape. Finally painted some lines and converted it to a pickle ball. But then we started having people over and everybody's having to sit out and wait.

So we just put in, we kind of changed that space to where it'll hold four courts. They're getting worked on right now. And that's really just out of me and my wife's desire just to hang out with friends and do something besides go down town and go out to eat. You know what I mean? It's just fun to like hang out. I write with the same people I hang out with and play pickleball with. And it's all it's all mesh together. It really feels like a family. So it's nothing for like whoever to come over. I mean, one night, whatever, Hoskins and Charlie Hanson and Taylor Phillips and these guys last time before we started working on the new courts came over. And I mean, we played for two or three hours. You know, it's like the most fun hours.

So it's just a I love being active. I don't sit still real well. So for me, that's the perfect kind of social, social vibe. So we're trying to get those done. Hopefully soon. You're an in-shaped guy. Do you go to the gym every day? Not every day, but probably four times a week. We have a workout room down there where we play those pickup basketball games. Or not on tour.

When you're, well, sure. No, I'm not that discipline. I mean, if I'm out with an artist and they're like, let's work out, I'm like, yeah, let's do it. I'm thinking like, I don't want to do it. But I will do it if other people are doing it because I'm not going to feel like the guy that's not working out. But if it's up to me, like I've been in LA the last three days, I definitely did not. workout.

I'm going to maybe do a little hike today, but it won't be like in the gym. Me and my wife do that together every morning at 8, and it's like our day date. Yeah. So it's like we're both in there trying to do it, trying to, you know, trying to. You're at such a different phase of your life because like at that time, we're just, we're just keeping our head above water with a three-year-old. Oh, yeah, dude. Yeah, we've crossed over to like, then get herself to school, all that kind of stuff.

And even when we took them to school, we would do that and just, you know, it's fun to out with somebody, just like I like I like co-writing. I like, you know, I love working out with her. So we have, like, like, a trainer that they're, comes in a, and he's, he's cool and just works us both out and we're just in there, you know, having a good time and hating life all the same time. And that's really funny. How many, you've got, what, I forget, is it three or four kids?

What is it? Three. Three kids. Feels like more sometimes, yeah. What, yeah. Feels like more sometimes. I always got people over, but yeah. Now that, now that your youngest is about to leave, is that, is that a weird phase for you?

Oh, it's the worst thing ever, yeah. I'm a very, like, I have things, I have a hard time. I don't want things that are great to stop. You know what I mean? So if I'm at a cool show or I'm on a cool show, I just wanted all to keep going, let's keep going, let's keep going. I love being active. And I actually love playing with and hanging out with the kids.

I love being around all of them. You know, I love being around people. So yeah, we got two more years with the last one. He was a sophomore. We'll be a junior. And I don't know. We're hoping by the end of that he leaves and maybe one of the other ones moves back to Nashville or something like that.

But I cannot imagine a day where they're all in different town. I mean, I would just chase him around, you know. I would just get a spot wherever there. at. We're just all tight. I love that part. That's definitely what's kept me grounded and gets me through all the heartbreak that comes with, you know, music is them.

So yeah, it is a weird phase. We had kids early and it's wild. You know what I mean? I went to that, the Noah show with my daughter last night, and she's interning in the music business, and it is a weird, it's a weird development that we have a couple adult kids and one that, and the last one can drive now. It's a wild scene. It's really, really weird.

One of the quotes that I had that I've probably said on this a few times is that in Nashville, all the songwriters have children, and in L.A., all the songwriters are children. That's a great quote. Wow. And, you know, you have children and then who are working as a publisher. Do you fear for the music industry going forward, or are you hopeful? Because talking to you feels really... I just hear people so scared about the future, and it doesn't seem like there's a lot of fear going on. It just feels like everyone's just having a good time writing songs and reaping the rewards of being good songwriters.

Yeah, absolutely. I still feel confident about that. Like, I don't think things are going to, you know, I can't operate out of a space of fear. I've done that probably several times, and I try hard not to do that. So I think it's hard to, especially what we do, getting the best songs possible, you know, to the best artist possible and helping them fuel what they need to play the shows

and put out albums and things like that. I don't know when or how that goes away. The royalties are always going to be an issue. You know, Spotify and all the streaming stuff and everything that's going to be rough. But I feel like there's smart people,

you know, between you, David Israelite, everybody and SAI, people getting involved, they're going to try to figure it out, you know. And what I do just feels like it's not going anywhere and you do it out of a passion. You don't really do it out of like, oh, there's a better chance of me making it, you know,

doing this. So I'm not scared. I mean, it's changed so much since I've, you know, since I've been doing it, um, that I'm, I'm not scared for it to change some more. Uh, going back to songs real quick before we close up, but, um, because I was, I've been trying to figure out, you know, when you were saying, you write these songs, you, sometimes you're like, hey, this is coming out. You're probably like, oh, wait, what was that? Because I was, you were just in the room. You're saying the song that left, right, right, right. You know, but in someone who's as strategic as you are with your business, it's hard to imagine you not being strategic when, you know, with your songs that are being written.

Yeah. And, you know, are you calling the record labels to advocate for your specific songs? Do you call radio stations and advocate for your songs? How involved do you get with the publishing of your own material? Yeah, the songs I write, you mean? Or my writers are all of it? Yeah. Sure, whatever.

Yeah, this is a big misnomer. It's funny the things I've heard. I think people just think I'm doing stuff like that or like promoting songs or something like that. I've never called a radio station after the first number one I ever had when my wife and I were in the car and we wanted it to go number one so bad. Then we called one just to say we called one. I don't know if that works anymore.

I don't know how it works. But besides that, I've never called and been like, dude, you got to play this or anything. I don't have that relationship. There's a few, a couple DJs I'm friends with, but I've never sent them songs or anything like that. Yeah, I have to cut it off at some point. I like to just be, I'm probably too shy for that or something.

I don't know. I just, I like to get in the room when I'm really confident about it. Now, I might mention, you know, like if I really, really think something is perfect for an artist and they ask what I think I'm going to tell them. But if I don't think it's mine, I'm going to tell them the other one. You know, I love to A&R is kind of in my blood. So there are a few artists maybe who I would love to, you know, executive producer, A&R, the records.

It's not really that way that didn't happen much in Nashville. So, I mean, the way songwriters are. National. You do do it. You hope it goes and then you kind of let it go. I'm hands off. Yeah, it's kind of weird that I would think in our world, so much of it is who the executive producer is. The songwriters and producers are often the people running it. And in your world, even if you write nine or ten of the songs, you are not. There's a wall. I heard the, I heard the Morgan Cuts besides one of them. I heard them when they came out on Spotify. Yeah, yeah. And that's every album. Now it used to be like it would be a big deal to bring it in

and play a play your song on the speakers, but it's just gotten so busy. I think. think that it's just like stuff's coming out, I didn't even know it was coming out, you know? Most of the time when I hear my finished product is when you hear it. What's next for you? What's next? I don't know. I'm open to whatever.

I feel like I'm in a good spot where I love it, so I'm not trying to, you know, change anything or cut it down. You know, there's so many great artists and so many other great writers I get to work with that it just kind of is satisfying just to change, you know, stuff you're aiming at and what you're working for and stuff like that. So I just want to do it as long as I'm meant to do it. You know what I mean? I kind of hold it loosely also.

If I feel like God's telling me that I want to, I need to spend more time doing this or doing that. I'm totally open and down for that. But I was talking about that with my daughter last night about how long and I feel like any kind of predictions in music are just out the window. You know what I mean? I don't know.

I thought I would probably be done by now. You know, like I'd be out of a gig a couple years before now, but it's been the best through the years I've had. So you just can never predict it. So same thing with like whenever, whatever's next, I can't really predict it. You know, I'll probably get more involved. I love speaking, like, to students

or like I'll do a little more, like, kind of jumping in teaching stuff at like a Belmont or at least doing seminars and things like that or anywhere, you know, whatever, Berkeley, whatever it is. I like doing that. I don't know. I mean, I'm down for whatever's coming, you know, but I don't have some big next phase of the music thing.

I just can't think of anything that I like better than making stuff up. When you're 20 years old and he was like, all I want is a cut. Oh, yeah. And it gets to a point where it's like, it's hard, it's hard when you're in this sort of rare air kind of thing

where you're like, where do you, the goal's interesting because now you, whatever you set for yourself is just what you set for yourself. But there's no, it's not like you're, you hang around other songwriters who can be like,

oh yeah, I want my, you know, whatever. They can't really necessarily compete. Yeah, I'm trying to... I mean, it helps to be...

I'm sure it helps to be friends with successful songwriters, so you're not constantly talking about, you know. I think everyone thinks there's a there there that you'll get, you know, that... Oh, yeah, yeah, it's not there. It's never there. Yeah, you never get there, man. You can write, I mean, you can honestly write somebody's career song and then not get a text back from them or the label

the next time they're looking for a song. I mean, that's just the reality of it. I mean, that happens a lot, you know? So it's... I mean, regardless of what you do, if you crush it and you get the exact so long they need, it's not like they automatically say, okay, now give me the next one. You know what I mean? And I think people think it's like that.

It's not. As you know, in music a lot of times, it's like, if you crush it with somebody on a whole album, they may be like, okay, that was great. Thanks. Now I need to switch it up, you know? I asked Benny that early on when I first met him and I was like, yeah, but it's easy for you, you know? Oh, dude.

Yeah. And he was like, no, no, no. It's harder because they now compare everything to what you've done. Yeah. So they're like, yeah, but this isn't really, you know, versus if they, you know, It doesn't affect your, if you don't have a reputation yet, that it's not going to affect it in the same way. Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting, man. It's just not, you know, I get, I get a question a lot of time. People that don't understand the business will be like, so now the area you're in, I'm sure you get to pick. How is it when you pick what's, what artist you want to record your song? And I was like, what? You know, and I'm like, does it work like that anywhere? because I'm moving there.

Wherever that happens, wherever I get to pick who records my song. Here you go. You're welcome. It's just not that way. I wish it was. I wonder if we could go back and talk to Irving, Berlin, or these great writers. Was it different in 1909?

Was it different in, you know, for the, like, even some of the 80s, 90s country stories, you know, where it was just like this simple thing of dropping a, you know, a CD or cassette off in somebody's mailbox and they just didn't get, they're just less songs, you know. There's less songs coming out. Way less songs being written. It was harder to send it to people.

Oh, man. Dispensive to record. Yeah, it's rough now. It's like, hey, yeah, I got sent 100 songs today on, you know, a link on my phone. You know, it's just like tough to get through them. It all can jumble together. So it's so hard to stand out. But, yeah, it's not always the automatic way.

Now, obviously, if I've had success with somebody, then hopefully I can get a listen the next time around. But it's not like they say, like, oh, we've got to put out another one of his songs. I just don't feel like it's, it works that way in Nashville, even if it ever appears that way. All right. Well, here's the segment of five for five. I'm just name five things. just tell me what comes out the top of your head. We're going to start with Morgan Wallen.

What's that? I'm just going to say what comes off the top of your head. Superstar, maybe. I don't know. I mean, the shows I've seen of his, thank you is probably the first thing that comes to my mind. That's been an amazing run, dude. I mean, I'm telling you, just the kids, everybody loving the songs has been,

he's made it really, really fun for me the last couple years. Jelly Roll. Oh, real. or authentic. We've had really good deep conversations. He's so appealing just because he's just throwing it out there. You know, preacher. I might have said that too.

When I went to write with him on the road, I just did it for a couple of days, but that show was like, I mean, there's a following. He's hitting so many people in the heart. I love that guy, and I love kind of what he's standing for and what he's out there doing. Taper him. Ooh, I almost said my baby, but that's the wrong thing.

I'm trying to think family, probably. I love that. Man, it's literally like I'm the dad at the table if we're having a Christmas party or whatever. I love, I don't know if I'd still be doing it if I hadn't have started that thing. You know what I mean? It's a lonely path when you're just trying to make up songs every day. Praying somebody doesn't hate it. You know what I mean? So when I'm around them and I get to see their life, you know, like it's fun to watch your own life go from like, can't pay, you know, the bills to do an okay to be able to do this for a living. But when you actually sign somebody and you see them go from the minimal draw

to selling a catalog or getting married and having a baby and doing life with each other, that's probably my favorite part of the whole thing. You're three children. Oh, everything, man. I don't even know. Just love or just everything was the first word that popped out.

They really do mean everything to me, and I would do anything they need. If that was quitting music tomorrow, I would do that in a second. You know, they just mean the most. I mean, they're some of my best. and just there's so many things they've taught me. It's hard to even calculate it.

Your wife? Oh, best friend. Rock, probably. You know, she, that is a hack when people ask me about the hack of like, how do you balance this or do this? It's like my wife literally lives to like make other people happy and serve people. Like it's an insane situation. She's an angel.

So she definitely keeps it grounded. She's one of those that she's not in music, which is perfect for me. And she just has a great person. perspective on life and what matters more than the other stuff. And it's pretty cut and dry, you know, with her. She has a great, you know, gut instinct on everything. So that's just, I mean, that's, I can imagine it any of it, but any of it without her. Well, thanks for doing this podcast for the third time. Hey, come on. We're live though. It's so much better than a, that one, whatever the last one was, was insane. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I was going on. I was trying to work

AirPods. I'm a, I'm an old man with technology. But it is, it is nice to see the world in a different place. And it's fun. Look, man, we get to see each other kind of, a lot just because of events and stuff. And, you know, the last two years at Songwriter Hall of Fame, it's, you know, Hillary Lindsay, an icon. Oh, that was so good. An icon. You know, Liz Rose last year, an icon.

And, you know, I was trying to figure out if you took everybody who was, you know, this year, it's, you know, Timbalin and R.M. You know, you put Steely Dan, the whole list together. Dean Pitchford, is that right? Yeah, yeah. Footloose. You know, you put all these things together. And I think, you know, this, I don't want to keep focusing on the stat of what 76, number one songs,

75 country number one songs is. but if you combine all those people it still doesn't add up to about half of that you know and I think it's like you can't go into a I ask you I think I'm one of them is you know do you go in with because you're a you had a business degree do you go in with

a business mindset when you're in a session but you really can't necessarily predict how success you can't predict how success and you can't do it in the room because the artist smells it and the label smells it. And it makes a boring song.

Right. Like you have to go and take risks. Yeah, I'm not thinking with that brain when I'm in the room for sure. I think the people who want to be in the business think of songwriters as the box. But you don't realize that, no, the professional songwriters

are the ones that are on the outskirts of the box. Yeah. You know, the one amateurs that are in the middle of the box. Or they're so far out of the box. You're like, you're playing a different game. Yeah, you don't really trade. But what you keep doing is making the box bigger, not, you know, not landing in the middle of the box.

Oh, yeah, I appreciate that. So, so fun. That's fun, man. And that Hall of Fame thing, seeing you there, it's just, that's my favorite event every year. It's fun to just see, I love it all kind of blending together, somebody that wrote in the 70s versus somebody that wrote in the 2000s or 2010s, somebody like Hillary and somebody like REM.

It's just like music, you know, great songs are great songs. So that's my little annual, get to you first of all, but then also just get to remember that like, man, these songs are great, great, great. And it's not, they don't put how many hits they out of it. It's not a stat thing. It's just like songs that influence your life.

And when they get in, it's so cool. It's so cool to see Hillary get in. That was amazing. Well, that if you don't end up in the songwriter Hall of Fame, it's like, it'd be like, it's like, it's like major league baseball not having bonds or Pete. Rose or Roger Clemens or something. I mean, granted that you probably do the steroid version of songwriting and like,

you know, that would have some, I wish there was some of those. Yeah. No, but I mean, you know, that would be crazy for you. That's not a songwriter hall of fame without you whenever you decide to make yourself eligible, which is, you know. We'll see. It's funny. I don't like, I don't count that as any kind of automatic thing.

I don't, I'm not like, oh, this would be fun when I get up there. I still don't picture. It's probably a writer mindset, but I'm still when I'm watching, it's like, oh, these people are so awesome. I don't think like, oh, it's about to be my turn. I do not. It does not go through my brain that way. It's still surreal. And you got Timberlin and, you know, R.M and all these people up there that I've seen get in, baby face and whoever it's, it's, it doesn't feel like we do the same thing.

I guess because music is still magic, you know, to me. So it doesn't feel like the same. It's like, if I'm making it up, it's not that cool. Right. Yeah. It's not. It does, any song that came up before you were a songwriter. It's for the boy.

Yeah. Anything like that that you grew up listened to, you know, losing my religion when they played that. I'm like, what? These are like real people. They're playing this song. It's like a, it's like a song. It is surreal. They wrote that song. Oh, they wrote that. They wrote that. They wrote Pony and he conducted the orchestra, you know, the band to play it. That was wild. Yeah, that stuff is, it's weird to think. I use, it never really sticks in my mind, but weird to think that people grew up on our songs is a weird thought. Yeah. But I've had, you know, getting older now, so I've definitely had people being like, oh, I listen to this person. this person growing up. And I'm like, what?

You know? When was your, I figure, when was your first cut? The first of it was 2006. So, you know, you're approaching having,

you could, you could sign writers that were born the year, oh, no, it's happening. Yeah. We have,

we have, dude, I listen to Luke Brian when I was in eighth grade or whatever, you know, these songs like, what are you talking about?

Yeah. It throws you off because I'm expecting them to say George straight or, you know, old school, whatever, but it's,

it's funny when you get that point. Even this podcast has started to fuck me up a little bit where we went to, we were at the Grammys last year, and a few people who were nominated came up, and they were like, oh man, grew up listening to this. Like, grew up listening to me again. Don't call me, sir, and don't say that.

Or like, we had, dude, my wife has XM in her car, and we were just taking a road trip or whatever, and we, like, I heard, you know, three or four of my songs, and I was like, well, they're playing some old school stuff, and you look, and it's like prime country or some station like that. I'm like, you got to change this, dude. I can't be getting songs on an old school station. Like, we got to get this.

out of here. Yeah. We got to get the new stuff. Well, you look good. So there you go. You don't, you don't look nearly half your age, you know? No, no, no, of course. All right, thanks, brother. We'll see you on your fourth episode. Come on, man. Let's do it. There you go. Thanks, man. This episode is produced by Joe London, Mega House Management, and myself. See you all next week. I'm Ross Golan signing off.