And The Writer Is...with Ross Golan - Ep. 27: Dan Wilson

Episode Date: October 23, 2017

This guest is an artist, songwriter, and producer of some of the most iconic pop songs of the last three decades. He’s also the frontman of rock group Semisonic, responsible for the memorable hit "Closing Time." This lyrical genius has released four solo albums and become a highly sought after and diverse collaborator, working with artists such as Taylor Swift, Chris Stapleton, P!nk, Phantogram, Noah Cyrus, Bishop Briggs, and many others. He's penned top hits including Adele's "Someone Like You,” the Dixie Chicks' "Not Ready to Make Nice," and "Home" by Dierks Bentley. He just wrapped his US tour in support of his latest album release ‘Re-Covered,’ a collection of his reinterpretations of songs that he wrote for and with other artists, for which he also wrote and illustrated a deluxe book/CD, including session stories and songwriting tidbits. Ladies and gentleman, And The Writer Is...two time Grammy Award Winner…Dan Wilson!Recorded in front of a live audience at Youtube Space LA! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey guys, this is, and the writer is, and I'm your host, Ross Golan. I've written with hundreds of artists and writers over the years, and my favorite part of each session is the first hour when we catch up about life, the industry, politics, composition, whatever. So this is a journey of learning why people write songs, how people write songs, and most importantly, who the people are who write the songs. I'm producing this with the Great Joe London, big deal music publishing and megahouse music management.

If you want to listen to the songs we discuss in this podcast, follow us on our socials, find out about special events, or buy some of our merchandise, go to our website www. www. and the writer is.com. Oh, and if you enjoy this podcast,

please rate us on iTunes or whatever your preferred podcast listening site is. We really appreciate that effort. I'm excited about this one, because this one we recorded live at YouTube Space with Dan Wilson, who just recently released his album, Recovered, a collection of his reinterpretations of songs that he wrote for and with other artists, has written songs like Closing Time for his band Semi-Sonic

and someone like you for Adele, not to mention Grammy Song of the Year, not ready to make nice, for Dixie Chicks. So he spans lots of genres and he kills them all. So without further ado, here is, Anne the Writer is featuring Dan Wilson. Welcome to And The Writer is. I am your host, Ross Golland. This week's venerable writer and artist is verifiably a genius. He's written multiple evergreens in multiple genres. He led a rock band when alternative music cross over to pop. He penned arguably the most controversial country song in the past decade.

and he co-wrote certainly one of the greatest ballads of all time. From the Twin Cities, this gentleman puts his family first. And the writer is, still the industry's best calligrapher, Dan Wilson. Thank you for mentioning the calligraphy. So, full disclosure, in our finale last year, we got to ask you some questions on a panel for the Songwriter Hall of Fame at the Grammy Museum. so I used the calligrapher line then

and it was funny so I used it again tonight. So that's why I said still. That's sort of the songwriter thing is the edit thing like that little nuance or you try to go and you find the word like well still the industry's best just wanted to clarify that that meant no one else has come in the music industry and like outdid your calligraphy. It's a doggy dog world of calligraphers and music.

I kind of see this all like this behind-the-scenes calligraphy going on. So anyway, this is pretty cool. So I don't know if you remember how we met, do you? I think it was, now, everyone has their own version. Hopefully yours is more drunken and excited than mine. I think I tweeted you out of the blue because I thought you were awesome. Yeah, how does that happen?

So I had this song called Unkiss Me for Maroon 5. And when one of, like, you were playing closing time 10 minutes ago, and I was kind of getting emotional, because for me, hearing that song reminds me of the time before I was a songwriter. You know, it reminds me of when I was like just starting to write songs at home in a band in Deerfield, Illinois. And, like, that was the kind of song that I would hear. and everyone knew it.

It was just so big, and it reminded me, it was such a nostalgic moment. And so to have you reach out to somebody meant a lot. So thank you. You're welcome. I just love that song, Unkiss Me so much. And I remember driving around, listening to that Maroon 5 record,

and every time it would get, there was a lot of great songs on that album, but every time it would get to Unkiss me, I would just be so moved and excited. And I suddenly realized that we have this sort of instant cold call machine now in Twitter. And I could just like tell you you're great and say, let's hang out, which we did. Which you did. And now we're here.

Yeah. This is awesome. So you're from Minnesota. Let's start from the beginning. Why is Bob Dylan, Prince, and Dan Wilson coming from Minneapolis? Like, where is it about? Minneapolis that makes this kind of artist?

Well, I am a musician probably very much because of Dylan and Prince. I mean, indirectly as a fan and as a kid. Dylan, you know, grew up in a small town in northern Minnesota and came down to the cities and hung

around the U of M for a short time and escaped. Prince became famous as a teenager and stayed in Minneapolis. And that was just when I was kind of, like the way you're talking about when your awareness was kind of, you know, emerging. When you're a kid, you just think a song is this thing that floats down from the sky, but as you get older, you start to get a glimmering that people make songs and people make music. And of course, that's when I started thinking I could do it too. And at that time,

Prince was the prime example of how to do music. And he lived in Minneapolis, and he had stayed in Minneapolis and all his peeps were from Minneapolis and all the great musicians that he surrounded himself with had moved to Minneapolis or were from there from his high school you know and I just it gave me this example that I could stay in Minneapolis and be a musician so going in before that I mean when do you start playing music my parents commanded me to take piano lessons in second grade they told me that I would thank them later because there would be parties when I grew up and there would be a piano in the house

and I would become the one who would sit down at the party at the piano and sing the pop hits of the day and it would be a wonderful experience for me and it would make me more popular. I think it was already apparent. I was really a very mathematical child and so they wanted every end that I could get. Yeah.

And it turns, I don't think I've ever played the piano at a party and sung a song, actually. But because I was the oldest, they made me study piano until I was in, like, 10th grade. Were you doing classical, or were you actually playing the pop songs at the time? No, I was, see, that's the disconnect. I was doing classical. And my first teacher was a really theoretical woman who was all into the... A theoretical woman, like... She was real.

She was real. No, she was... She was... She was... She was embodied, but she had, she was really into the circle of fifths, how the scales work against each other, what it, you know, what, what it all kind of, how it all works. So I got this very, very theoretical training early on. And then in ninth grade, I studied jazz piano with a guy named Herb Wigley.

And jazz is like, secretly, it's songwriter training. Yeah. It's totally songwriter training. Yeah, the bridge of, um, closing time is out of control. I mean, how does that actually get? I mean, that must have been a moment when people started liking that song.

You're like, how does this work? Yeah. I mean, you can do it. How do you get away with that? Do you have brothers and sisters? I have a brother and a sister. Were they also musicians? My parents ran out of steam

commanding everybody to practice the piano. But my brother is an amazing songwriter, and I learned much. much of what I know about writing from my brother Matt. Did you ever co-write with him? Tons. Because we were in a band, well, we were in various bands in high school or junior high

when being in a band means you have a bunch of meetings. And talk about what band you're going to do someday. Yeah, and it's going to be awesome. What was your first band? And we had a real band. We had a band called The Love Monsters. That's, I guess, the first band where we took the reins and really had a lot of vision for it.

And he wrote most of the songs, and I helped. Did he sing? And he sang. And he's a drummer, but I was made to play the drums in that band. Oh, so you play drums too? Yeah. Yeah. I actually know that.

I just felt like throwing it out there. Nicely done. I know this because we've written together a lot now. So what brings you from, so you're in this band in high school, when do you start writing for yourself? Do you remember, like, your first song where you were? were actually talking about something that mattered to you. Was your brother bringing that out of you?

No, Matt kind of figured it out a long time before I figured it out. And I watched him and tried to kind of channel what he was trying to do so I could help him write the last verse or a bridge or something like that. Or sometimes he would give me a pile of lyrics and I would write the melody. This was for our band, Trips Shakespeare. So, okay, there we go. So you went from Love Monsters straight into Trips Shakespeare? There was a couple. I went to Harvard and studied art, thought I was going to be a painter,

went out to San Francisco to live a bohemian life for a couple of years, and then my brother Matt asked me to come back to Minneapolis, join his band, and learn all the guitar parts on the left channel of the stereo mix of an album he had just made. That's really funny. Wait, so in Harvard and in... That was where we had the love monsters. That was where it really kind of came. Oh, really? Yeah.

Wait, was he? So he was in Boston with you? He went to Harvard, too, yeah. Oh, okay. What's the age difference? Two years. It's convenient. So.

If your goal is to be in a band in college with your brother, yeah. That's really cool, especially, you know, I mean, not to stereotype Harvard, but I imagine being in a band, and Harvard is probably a really cool thing to do. Because I imagine most, that's, you know, arts. Isn't it cool everywhere at all times? Yeah, but there are. places, you know, in L.A., there are all these, people are born artists, and

their parents are artists, and everyone's an artist. And so being in a band is like, that's cool. I've got, like, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday of going to, you know, friends, bands, concerts. Versus, I think at Harvard, you're in a band, and you're probably one of the only

bands amongst your friends. I can speak for, Galaxy 500 came out of their great band. So there's two. You know, there's two. So you go to, in San Francisco, there's a great music scene. I was just crying.

You were just crying? Yeah, I just moved out there and cried for like two years. Why were you so sad? Anxiety of being 24 and not knowing, you know, why isn't the universe showering me with riches and purpose? Oh, okay. You know, how am I going to make my dreams come true? but did you know what your dreams were?

Because you went for painting, you know? I basically always knew that I was going to be a musician. You just didn't want to admit it? At times when I didn't want to admit it. It's interesting. My family, I think they didn't think it was a super wise decision to be a musician, but they were really, really supportive of it.

My parents were really supportive of it. What did they do for a living? My dad was a doctor and my mother was a nurse. and yet they kept making you guys do music because they knew that talking about being a doctor or a nurse or medicine at a party sucks. Because what happens to, if you're a doctor, they say, I've got this pain,

everybody talks to you about their pains. Yeah. It's odd though, because you were saying how in your sessions, you end up becoming a therapist. As a co-writer where artists come in, you basically try to coax out their pain. Oh, my God.

So you write about it. It's totally true. Yeah. Dr. Wilson. I'm going to ruin your night. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Yeah, exactly. I was talking to my dad the other day.

I know this is your story, but he was, he wrote 10 songs in his life. Like any landmark was a song. So my birth and he was said, be your own boss little man, write your own song, little man was his thing. And then through my 20s, he was giving me shit about my career choice.

It was like, I had this epiphany when I went for his 60th birthday. I brought some equipment back to record him. And I was paying attention to this song and I pressed stop. And I was like, this is your fault. You know, like, you were the one who chose this profession for me. Had you written a song that was like, be your own boss, old man, go be a doctor, little man. Maybe that'd be something different. But it's like parents instill maybe what their real dream is sometimes.

into their kids. Well, I will say we, um, one of our little, uh, my family's little touchstones was this, um, seven inch record that my dad's high school duwop group had made.

It was just a piano and them singing four part harmonies. And I think they had had the experience. My dad had actually had that experience of his harmony group at parties with their piano player, you know, entertaining and having people dance and stuff like that. But my family would get together and listen to this 7-inch record altogether. And it was almost like an icon of our family. So it probably influenced my brother and I a lot. Do you still have it?

My parents have it. Actually, no, I have a copy of it too. There were a couple, and I had one. Do you remember those songs? Oh, note for note. I heard them a hundred times, probably more. It's really interesting. Were they good?

Well, the songs were not originals. They were the hits of the day. It was Shiboum. It was Blue Moon, Dun & Dewwop style. And what was the other one? The day isn't long enough, which is a killer. Killer song. It's interesting how much pop hasn't changed

when you have, you know, I know this is old, but if you do umbrella, Ella, Ella, A, A, A, that that's not a whole lot different than show boom, show boom. Right, that having those moments of finding things that are singable, that are not words, is super valuable. And I imagine that having been exposed to sort of the great songs of that era is for sure that's influenced you. But it's funny because I would gravitate to, even though I loved like,

umbrella and Shaboum and also oh you know there's so many like nursery rhymes with nonsense lyrics but I rarely am able to get the nonsense lyrics into my songs I don't know why it's hard it's somehow it's a challenge that awaits me yeah we'll get there so when you come back to

Minneapolis to start trips Shakespeare that changes everything, right? Yeah. Because suddenly people are noticing your ban. Yeah. Out of Minneapolis. How does that happen?

Well, I mean, like I said, you have to remember at that time, there was a lot going on in Minneapolis. Husker Doo was there at the time. The replacements were there at the time. You know, all of Prince's offshoots were there at the time. the time, the beginnings of Soul Asylum, you know, just lots of, there was a whole scene and Twin Town, Twin Tone Records was there, like, kind of supporting that scene. And it was very conceivable to have a band in Minneapolis at that time and do everything you needed to do

to, you know, to be a musician. When you started Semi-Sonic, was it difficult to do a band without your brother? Yeah, it was. Matt and I collaborated on a lot of songs, but he did a lot of the songs in Trip Shakespeare on his own, just 100%. And there were certain things that I would do that just didn't fit that band. Matt would tease me that I listened to the radio too much

and my song sounded too much like the radio. And so I would come in with something and it wouldn't fit the Trip Shakespeare quirky ethic in a way. And when Trip Shakespeare, we all decided to take a break and just not do it for a while and see what that was like. And I immediately started trying to put together something where I could write things that sounded more like the radio

and see what that felt like. That worked out. Yeah. That's crazy. So you go and you write your first EP, of sorts. It's not really called an EP at the time, right? Yeah, I think it was, yeah. Okay. So you write this EP and your publisher now, still,

who is just introducing you on this stage, he hears it and you get a publishing deal. Is that the right order of things? Approximately that. There was the EP and probably a big pile of songs. Right, of course. You end up releasing music in 94, 95, 96, these are the, in a lot of ways, the defining years of what you'd call like alternative music. I mean, you had 91, 92, you kind of get Nirvana, you get Pearl Jam, you get, and it starts to pick up. And 94, you start getting Radiohead and Weezer, and you start, and you become part of the zeitgeist. Was there like a race to trying to get songs out at that time?

when did you start feeling like you were becoming part of this community of bands? Well, I think that was a conscious decision. A friend of mine had told me, a really good artist told me, stop being such a loner, stop being off on your own island, an artist without a movement is soon forgotten. and it really struck me and I kind of I think that time in music was

I was really inspired by what was happening of a certain kind of loud guitar basically bands that would travel in vans which we had and we were and it was like somehow it felt like being nearly exactly what I liked was a possibility you know like in music

music. So when you do closing time, which is now on your third release of sorts, or it gets as part of your... Yeah, it's like the third. Yeah. So you write this song, did you know when you were done with it that this one was special? Once again, no, I didn't know that it was special. Who told you it was special? Somebody says, everybody. Yeah. I know the meaning behind. I know you discussed it before, but I think this one's important because... because I think there's, at least the stories around it are really that it, or the folklore, is that it's really about you becoming a dad. Partly it is.

So putting that out there and knowing that the, you know, the press and everything that's going to happen with, I guess you don't, you're just writing the song at the time, so you don't think about press or any of that. It really wasn't just writing it. It's crazy. But as a musician who's about to be a dad, how are you dealing with the emotional? Like, it's hard enough. I've always figured that if I have a child, they'll starve to death until recently, you know?

Now your children have a better shot. Now they have a better shot at not starving to death. But, like, when you're at that age, you know, you're not, like, bringing in a ton of cash and doing all that, and you're going on the road. did you think closing time really meant like closing the door on the band or closing the door on the career? Did it have anything to do with that? No, it was...

I was probably in a state of sheer terror about becoming a father in some ways, but in other ways I probably was sort of because I didn't know what to expect, I probably didn't think too much about it. And when I was writing songs, at that time I had this weird theory that I think I don't really have as much anymore,

but it seemed so important at that time. I thought that every line of every song should be, you should write every line in every song so that it could be interpreted in two really distinct different ways. And so I was into this kind of mode of like, just trying to go for double meanings and kind of, pun is the wrong word, because it wasn't jokes, but it was like sort of something

would be a metaphor for something, and you'd think you'd understand what the metaphor was, but actually there was another metaphor underlining that. So when I was writing closing time, I thought I was writing this song to end the sets, and I thought I was writing a song about bar time, and then about halfway through the song, I realized that I was playing this joke on myself,

that it was about a child being born and getting bounced from the womb. And at that point, I realized that every single line up to that point was a double meaning. It all kind of, you know, for me, it's probably for everybody. It starts out as a hazy cloud of ideas and slowly comes into focus

and then later you tell the story as though it was like A, B, C, D, E. But it's more like alphabet soup and then it slowly turns into A, B, C, D.E. Sure. How soon after you wrote it to when it became a hit, how long did it take for it to become a hit?

I wrote it in winter of 96. Where were you? Or 97, you know, I was living in South Minneapolis. I wrote it on a couch in 20 minutes. It's freezing. It was freezing. It was super cold.

Every morning of the week, I would go meet John Munson and Jake Slickter in John's basement, and we would demo my new songs. And I was writing at a really, really fast pace so that almost every day I had a new song. And this was slightly... I don't know if you've had this experience in bands, and I say this from my other friend's observation

that if you're the songwriter in a band and you bring a great new song to the band, everyone is mad at you. Like there's a strange resentment. Why? The better it is, the more they're going to have to change their ways. You know, like, if you write a really great song, then they have to play a new song in this set,

and we have to practice it and make it great. And now it might change the identity of the band in everyone's mind, or it might, I don't know, it upsets the apple card every time. Yeah, I think it broke up a band or two of mine. I know that feeling. Like you bring a new song and everyone's, it takes on this epic importance. Anyway, when I was bringing songs to that basement, I was bringing them so fast also,

we were all kind of disoriented. And so that song was on the same day as like two other songs. And it was just a blur. And I didn't really think too much about it. And then I sent it around to a couple of friends and they said, you've got to write more stuff like this. Yeah, but then it keeps going. I mean, like, how does it go from that to like being, it's still,

that's not even the beginning of the story. So, okay, it's a, it's a gentle, my theory at the time was the double meaning thing was for me, I would have a band that would be loud like a rock band, but secretly it would be Simon and Garfunkel. Or Paul Simon. Like it would be really loud and that would disguise the fact that my real inclinations are gentle and zen-like. When you heard your voice on the radio, what did that feel like the first time? I wanted to go back and re-edit the track. Really?

Yeah. Do you still want to? Oh, yeah. Why? What would you change? The mistakes. The bad things. What are the bad things?

I'm not going to tell you. Oh, that's funny. What are your, um, did your parents and did your brother, did your family get it? I wish I could say that it was like, you know, I heard myself on the radio and it was like the best thing that ever happened to me. Yeah. But my perfectionist, compulsive side was just like, oh, shoot, you know. What were you aiming? Forgot that thing.

Like what is, what's the goal if it's not that moment? Oh, the process is the goal. So, okay, I'll tell you more about closing time. I taught it to my band and they thought it was a soft, gentle, acoustic number. And they weren't too mad at it. They were appreciative. And then when we started rehearsing for feeling strangely fine, I said, okay, here's how it's going to sound,

and I played it on electric guitar really loud. and everybody went, oh, and then it kind of came together at that point. And John made up that piano part that holds it all together. And we went through the recording process, and we did it in Minneapolis, in downtown Minneapolis, at this great studio that had all this vintage gear that would now be a treasure trove. And when the record was done, I was talking to our producer, Nick Launay,

who was really into the smart side of my band and me. and he said, what do you reckon the single is? And I said, I think it's closing time. And he said, no, no, no, no, no. That song is for the punters, like normal people, like bargoers. And I, inside, I went, yeah, that's who I want to write songs for.

Like, I don't need to write songs for a small group of people who get my jokes. So that was my first inkling, in fact. him like almost like a contrarian indication that it was going to become something. It did. Yeah. So you get Grammy nominations. You probably go to the Grammys.

Things got weird because, you know, I imagine that there's sort of like this, you know, between 1999, you know, you end up with a Grammy nomination and then your daughter is born, right? Yeah. And I imagine that that flips everything for you. Yeah. Because you have to, you know, there's this TED talk. Forget the woman's name who writes, E. Pray, Love. Yeah.

And she talks about. Elizabeth Gilbert. Yeah, Elizabeth Gilbert. And she talks about following up E. Pray Love. Oh, right. How brutal of a task it is. Yeah. To try to beat your statistical,

anomaly. Yeah. Get struck by a bigger bolt of lightning. Yeah. Were you feeling that? Oh, God. Totally. I was. Also, it was a little bit strange because the kid that was

part of the inspiration for closing time, she was born several months early and spent the entire year following that in the hospital. Much of it in intensive care. and she came home with a trache and event and a nurse and then I went out to go on tour literally at the same time and her illness lasted for several years she's a lot better now but it became pretty obvious that

it was not sustainable for me to do what I had been doing and it was a super stressful experience and it was was sleep depriving and a lot of other things. And meanwhile, I was trying to write songs. Did you find yourself writing songs about that? I tried. Yeah, I think I did. I wrote a bunch, actually. Is that the era of where you start collaborating with other people?

Kind of, yeah. Because it gets hard. I think a lot of writers, they write, maybe they knock that first one out of the park, they get that 100% or they write the whole album, and they spend five years building that first opus and then they're trying to like re-create that magic for a second album within months and it's brutal like I imagine that some of the pressure must have lifted once you started collaborating outside of your family outside of the band and all that

it's not quite like that because I didn't really understand I I'll I'll say my my first proper co-write was aside from being in bands with people, was with Bik Runga, who's an artist from New Zealand, who's tremendous, and we wrote a great song, and it went straight into a movie, and it all seemed very easy.

And then the second proper co-write that I did was with Carol King. What? What? I know. It was just by crazy happenstance. How does that, how do you happen to co-write with Carol King? So here's my version of it.

Closing time was, at its peak. I don't want to be slanderous in any way, but my manager, Jim, was talking to one of my publishers, John, about a business matter that was unsatisfactory. And I like to say that he was advocating at a high volume at the time. And my publisher, John, said, oh, Jim, Jim, wait, can I put you on hold for just a second?

I'll be right back. I have another call. And then John came, the publisher, John, came back on the line and said, do you think Dan would like to write a song with Carol King? And my manager, Jim, had to stop advocating about the other thing and say, yeah, he would, he totally would. And that's incredible.

And we got together. I didn't really know what we were doing. We were just writing a song. We ended up doing a song that ended up on Semi-Sonic's third record. When did that one come out? That's like 2001, right? Did you tour it at that album? Yep.

So when you were back from that, I guess that's when Kenny, your publisher, moves over to Chrysler, so you end up moving with him. And that must have brought sort of a whole new enthusiasm, because I think whenever you build a new team, you know. That's interesting. Yeah, I think that's very true. And then very shortly after that,

you write the most controversial song and, you know, I think as far as country's concerned, since 2000. I mean, I know we talked about it, and we talked about it in our closing episode last season, but, you know, you write something controversial, and you're pushing the artists to do that because you want them to be vulnerable,

because people react to that. Right. And they're so scared to do it, and then the second day of co-writing, you really get them to say what you want them to say, and what everyone wants to hear them say. What any fan would want them to say. Totally.

But they also didn't, in all fairness, the chicks did not want to send any conciliatory sweetheart type I love you message to the people that had screwed them. Totally. They were very dead set against any kind of like, oh, we're so sorry, we were bad. You know, they were, they wanted to, if they were going to talk about it,

they would have to be mad about it. Did that affect your brand in Nashville? Yeah, I'd say negatively. Except for the kinds. I mean, I imagine, obviously you end up writing with you played two number one songs tonight by other country stars. So it's not like, you know, I don't know if, why do you say it affected it negatively?

Well, time passed and everyone forgot. That's interesting considering the lyric of the song. Yeah. You know that time passed and eventually those people... Everyone was ready to make nice. They were ready to make nice. Everyone was ready to make nice way before the chicks were. I had been going down to Nashville from Minneapolis from maybe 2000,

every six months or so. Maybe once a year, some years. But really, I tried to regularly go because I had the sense that it was the one place in the world where being a songwriter was like a lore-filled craft. You could train up to become a wizard nowhere else. And you could like go to Nashville and they, And it was sort of like the early days of digital recording where analog engineers would never tell you how they got a sound. Like they would never tell, they would, you'd say, how do you get that bass to sound that great?

And the analog engineers would say, I'd just do that thing that I do, you know? And the digital engineers would say, well, you plug this into there and you put that under there. And then I use this plug in and here. I'll send you a, you know, screenshot of it. Like, same with in Nashville. Like, if you come there with some kind of promise, people will just show you. like how they do it. So I went down there again and again and again. Then I wrote with the with the chicks and I still got invited back and I still went back but I had lots of political arguments at that point

every time I went. You were writing, so you wrote that song in Nashville. They're not ready to make nice. I wrote with the Dixie Chicks in LA here. So you said that earlier and I just wanted to clarify that because I thought that was really interesting that, you know, you wrote that and the Chris Stapleton song in Los Angeles. I know that the only two country songs that I've done that it mattered were both written in Los Angeles.

And there's something about every time I go to Nashville, I feel good about myself and I get no cuts. I don't know why that is. Why is there something special when a country artist comes here? Well, because they're looking for some part

of something that people do here that they can use. The thing I learned early going down to Nashville is you can't go down as a dude from Minneapolis. Not that I ever did this, but I might have had the inclination to go down there and try to write a country song with a country songwriter. But they got that.

They are fine. They don't actually need someone from Minneapolis to come and pretend to write a country song. They want to just have you do what you do well. So a country artist coming to L.A., they're coming here because they know what they're looking for and they're going to get it when they're here. Yeah. I mean, it's just interesting because that song becomes

that wins the Grammy for Song of the Year. Clap, clap, clap. That was insane. That's crazy. No pressure. Having been part of the Grammy committee, I see how difficult it is to get that nomination. And when people say that that's an honor,

They mean that. I mean, you're talking about tens of thousands of songs are submitted by the best artists and writers in the world. And for you to even be considered to get a nomination is an honor. And then this is your second, you know, you had won a nomination. Or you could say you won a nomination earlier with your own project. Then you win songwriter or song of the year for Dixie Chicks. Heads off to you, Dan. Thank you.

I'm impressed. You do a solo album with the great Rick Rubin, and although we can continue talking about that, I know we're short on time, so we're going to jump to Adele someone like you. I heard of it. Sounds familiar. It starts off with a 12-measure verse.

That's crazy. The chorus is in... The pre-chorus really could stand as a chorus in itself. And then the chorus is an A-A-B-C chorus, which is pretty nuts. The arrangement is very unusual for it to be that hooky and for it not to be a double chorus. When you are writing these kinds of composition, I know we have these debates.

When we write, we usually meet before we write just to get our conversation done before the session starts. because geeking out about composition is super fun. There's a lot to talk about it. Yeah, totally. Are you aware of it when you were writing that or that some of those things are kind of unusual? I mean, most people don't start a song.

You try, you know, the don't Boris get to the chorus kind of things. And then you're doing not like a long verse. It's a verse and a half in a way with the 12-measure verse. And not to get too, you know, too much into that, but it's a very strange arrangement. You know, are you thinking about pushing that envelope or is that just a byproduct of what happened? Well, I bet that neither Adel nor I gave it a minute's thought, like a second's thought. I don't think we even thought about that, any of that. Like, I am aware, it's like I said about alphabet soup. Like you, you, you

later you can say well we just sang the alphabet ABCDE but it was just like a you know like a jumble and I only really notice things like symmetry or asymmetry if it's bothering me

like I don't notice it if I love it I only notice it if it annoys me I know that's a very self-referential answer but I like how you know the real story about that song has nothing to do with composition

and it has to do with the recording of that song and the song that made the the version of the recording that made the album. Well, I mean, do you mean just how we actually did the record? Well, I guess I'm trying to get you to tell the story about how she wanted to maybe go back and record

certain parts over, you know, and that there's other people who tried to produce it out and when it comes on to it, everyone had real demoitis, give or take. I mean, when I make a demo, even if I know that it sounds like a demo, like literally just has a guitar and a voice or super simple,

I like try to figure out if there's a way to indicate the orchestration just by the way the piano or the guitar moves. Like, oh, this will be the place where they will like have the strings play this melody, even though it's just a guitar. Or, you know, the piano will sort of be indicating what a band might do. it's like abstract. And at the same time, I'm trying to make the vocal amazing.

So what Adele and I ended up with was on the first day, we had like, the first verse was finished. The first chorus was mostly done. The second verse was like a half of a verse and then this really weird second half of a verse. It was actually a lot more symmetrical

than you're describing. than the final outcome. You know, the first day was like unfinished, but more symmetrical. And on the second day, one of us, I think maybe me, suggested that we'd take the second half of the second verse and turn it into a bridge.

We kind of jumped, kind of like chopped it up into pieces. And then we did have a couple of like, a couple of little differences in the chorus when it goes, don't fuck. That was something I said. suggested to her. And she thought it sounded painful. And I said, yeah, it does. It just sounds painful. And she said, well, I don't like it. I said, well, it's just a demo. So, okay, we recorded it with

those high notes in the middle, what you called AABC, that was the B, I guess. Then they went and did a couple of different versions anyway with soul band and big orchestra and different tries at it. And then in a kind of a flaming hurry near the end, she decided she liked the demo better than the big versions. And so live, she doesn't sing those high notes and you guys probably

don't remember, but I kind of don't either, because they're really high. It's too painful. It's too much. But on the record, I just feel like it sounds so vulnerable and so like, it's like you finally, the person is just completely falling apart at that point when the notes get so high.

Yeah, and you get overtones and how she sings. Plus she's the way. Plus she's the best. And it's good. You can record it once and then you capture it and then fly it around and you got yourself.

You know, she doesn't have to fly it around. No, she did it every time. But I mean like you can like, you really only need to capture each part once. You don't have to capture it. See, I don't understand that. I don't do it that way at all.

I like I feel like I always make people do like the second chorus different. I'm just saying that for the rest of the song she can perform it for the rest of her life and never hit that note again. Oh, I see. It doesn't matter.

You just need to capture. shirt that day. I don't feel sad if I see her sing without that note. I like the under the radar while that song's getting huge. You're about to, you know this, this album is changing all the rules. Like there hadn't been a diamond album in a long time. There hadn't been a two times diamond album. That's more than 20 million albums sold when no one's buying albums. And, you know, you know where this is headed and then all of a sudden you have... Wait, I knew what? Wait a minute. I knew where this was headed? Didn't you know that that album was selling?

It was number one forever. It was really annoying if you had any other songs out there. Any other songwriter was very angry with you and your co-writers. Very impressed, but heavily envious. And then under the radar, you're writing a song in Country that comes out the Dirk's Bentley Home that gets nominated for CMA and ACM song of the year. And it's almost like an afterthought in a year where you have, you know, someone like you. Adel made everybody else feel like an afterthought. Any other thing that two years,

on any other two years, that could have been like a huge amazing victory, but Adele was just like so much huger than everything. We've talked about this before where an artist can only submit one song for Song of the Year for a Grammy. So it's amazing how many people must come up to you and say that someone like you is the Grammy winning song. Not only personally do I think you earn that, but it wasn't because she had a different song that won in that year of many songs. But I kind of love that everybody talks about that song

and puts it in that same category. Yeah. Because to me, it is that song. So, yeah, it didn't win song. It won an album. It won album. Pop vocal or something. Oh, it did.

Yeah, it got a Grammy. But it didn't win song because Rolling in the Deep did. Right. And a friend of mine said, you know, congratulations on winning song of the year for someone like you. And I said, actually, I didn't. It was won by Rolling in the Deep. And my friend said, yeah, but you won the moral Grammy. That's awesome.

That's my whole career. That's how many Grammys I have. I've got a lot of moral grimmies. A whole shelf Full of moral Grammys. Exactly. You know, a couple of Taylor's

songs, pink, you know, there's blah, blah, blah, a couple solo albums and then recovered. Yeah. Thank you for doing that.

Oh. I think that's sort of the future. I think people are starting to look at songwriters and giving some songwriters credit, but they give songwriters credit if songwriters are willing to go get it. Yeah.

I think it's really hard to define what we do for a living because that changed, you know, after people stopped writing it in notation and selling sheet music. Yes. You know, our jobs include producing and selling and touring and performing and singing and arranging and vocal producing, the whole thing.

So I'm proud of you for doing that, man. this is a big step. I know that that's a... There must have been a bit of you that felt like this was a big risk. Well, I mean, one of my ideals... When I was a kid, I looked at the James Taylor record that had...

You got a friend on it, and it said that it was written by Carol King or C. King or something like that. And I was very struck by that idea that people... One person could write a song and the other person could perform the song. And then when I was in my early 20s, I saw an Elvis Costello concert

where he recast all of his sort of punky, new wavy songs as soul review songs with a horn section. And they just sounded like Sam and Dave and Memphis. Like every single Elvis Costello song was rethought to sound like this Memphis horn-soaked kind of soul music. And it was great. and at first I was resistant but as the night went on I was like oh my god wait songs can be performed and interpreted in completely different ways you know this is like

it really kind of blew my mind and uh so when I set out to do recovered I felt like it had to be kind of a new take on those songs just to give me a shot at singing like it's Not fun to sing after Chris Stapleton in the round at the Bluebird in Nashville, you know. And it's daunting to sing a song that Adele has sung in the past. So I had to find some way to like re-contextualize it so I could just be me and not try to be them. I like when you talk about interpreting. When I first heard the Chris Stapleton song and when the stars come out, I thought the reason why you repeated it,

in the Swedes who are the big pop writers, they tend to not repeat things. They don't really, contrary to popular belief, they don't really repeat a lot of things. Wait, say that again. Tell me more. Swedes. Right. They don't like repeating things.

In their songs. They'll repeat melodies, but they try to find ways to do it so that way if you repeat a phrase, it has a purpose. And so I always interpreted that, that the stars were both the physical ones, and then the people in L.A. coming out

who are trying to be famous. Yes, it's a double meaning. So you sing it twice. It can be one and then the other. So I thought that that was intentional. So talk about like, and maybe it did. Maybe it was. Maybe it was intentional.

Yes? No. No. I'm giving you credit for it. Okay, so we're going to do the next segment where I'm going to list five people and you are going to tell me the first thing that comes off the top of your head.

Oh, my God, okay. Adele. Laughing. Laughing. Natalie Mains Laughing Kenny McPherson who is your publisher

who's been there since the beginning who introduced you tonight He's in the room so I can't but whine With an H? No Where's Kenny? That's a shout out to you

Ben stop whining No no W-I-N-E Semi-Sonic Literally the first thing I was going to say was fun then I thought there must be something better don't move back to fun

yeah fun let's go backwards let's go trip Shakespeare van for a guy who's as articulate as you are you know I like that you used fun and van and some good three-letter words

says the guy who's Shakespeare in that title it's kind of perfect that trips to Shakespeare's one word would be van van I like him yeah what's a message

would have for upcoming writers. Up and coming? Up and coming? Coming up writers. Writers who are on their way. Forward. Who are ascending the charts. No, I don't know.

People want to be songwriters. I've got a bunch of things. Can I say like three things? Yeah, I'm not going to... You can stop and let I'm done. Okay. Stop. Just kidding.

Learn how to finish something. If you are the person it finishes things, it's like being a bass player. You were going to be so useful. There's something, there's a quote that says geniuses finish things. And I think that that says everything in a sense that we know a ton of talented musicians, a ton of talented songwriters. But it takes somebody who says, I'm going to do recovered the album and then to achieve the goal, to see the thought through. A lot of people are like,

I got an idea, I got an idea, and it's brilliant, but they can't see it through. Well, a lot of the drama in people's lives is the things that stop them from doing the awesome thing that we're going to do. And it's maybe, I associate it with masculinity somehow,

like the reasons I didn't get to be the best version of myself is blah, blah, blah. But there's a flip side of it, which is like, yeah, if you just habitually learn how to finish things, then that won't be your story. Ross, I'll tell you what. I'll tell you the three rules I had

when I started Semi-Sonic. I got the guys together, I got John and Jake together and basically pitched them on the idea of we're going to be a band and we're all going to like pitching together and we're going to like make, I guess, hit songs,

but by our own lights. And I told them, Here's what I would like to be our, well, it was our four rules, really. One was, we're going to split all the proceeds equally, but I get the last word. That was really helpful. Two was life is more important than music. Three was, if we're having a bad time, we have to stop and go get a drink at the loring bar. and four was if a song isn't sounding good

we're going to throw it away and I'm going to write a new one I just didn't want to slave over something anymore like trying to make something sound better because what I found was if you write a great song it just sounds good right away so you might as well just like till it under and write a new song I feel like you're good at that in sessions now that if we're in a room with an artist or it's just the two of us said, it'd be like, let's start another idea, you know?

It's hard to do that because no one wants to admit when they're like going down this path or they want to see it through, see if there's something brilliant in it. But, you know, you're right, there's something that happens, that spark is, you're looking for that spark to make you go back the next day and finish someone like you. I mean, it goes against the whole thing about learning how to finish if I'm saying, like, at some point, if it's just, I mean, finish. No, it's learning what to finish too. Yeah, it's part of it. I mean, because otherwise you're

finished, you know, if every song I finish, I see it all the way through, try to pitch them all, get them all cut. It's just not going to work that way. There's no time. There's no time, and it's also not realistic. Right. You know, part of that is taste also. I actually want, and like, I'm serious, but I know this is silly, but I want everybody to like every single thing that I ever do, actually. I have a hard time like at first. I mean, later I can say, oh, that was crap. I'm so sorry that I tried to make everybody like that thing that I did that was bad. But at the time, I have a hard time

detaching in that way. It's your love language. What? Which one do I have? I think your love language must be words of affirmation. Dude. I think so. You know? Yeah. So speaking of words affirmation, to close, I wanted to say that like, before I met you, and before you tweeted at me, I had a friend... To say that you were awesome. What? Yeah.

It's crazy, man. But I had a friend that was working with Josh Grob and a girl named Esther Somlow, who still works with Josh. And Esther was my... She used to wake me up to make sure I get to class on time in college. So we've been friends since. You know, Casey Robinson is a producer. It's not one of your publishers.

He also went to college. We all know each other from... for 20 years. And, um, anyway, Esther was working with Josh and that's, you had worked with Josh. And I remember her saying, um, asking if I knew who you were. And I was like, I mean, I know of them, but, you know, no offense. And she said, he's the smartest person I've ever met. And she went out of her way to say, I, I talked to him for a while and he's the smartest person I've ever met. And I was so intrigued by that.

that and I think that there's this envy and pride in a fellow writer who can write in so many different genres and not just write in different genres but write the very best song at that time in an era for the right genre at the right time the right concept the right melody and it takes patience, it takes work, and it takes self-awareness. And you represent the songwriting community so well because you lead by example by being nice and being fair and being a positive asset in every session. So the day you tweeted me made me exceptionally happy. And I hope that we write together for a long time. Me too.

One way or the other, I'm proud of you, and thank you for doing this. Wow. Thank you very much. Thanks for listening to this episode of And The Writer Is. If you want to hear music from this songwriter I just interviewed, be sure to check out our Spotify playlist. Or visit our website at and The WriterIs.com. If you like what we're doing, please subscribe to us on iTunes. You can also like us on Facebook and Twitter. And The Writer Is is is produced by Joe Lund.

London, edited by Miles Bergsmough, and published by Big Deal Music. A special thanks to David Silberstein from Mega House Music and Michael White. On the next episode, we sit down with David Israelite, the head of NMPA, the National Music Publishers Association, who represents all of you songwriters out there. This will be the most educational podcast, so tune in next week. So when you're talking to a modern songwriter today, that songwriter is basically making money in three different ways. They're making money from that mechanical reproduction, mostly today interactive streaming. They're making money from public performance, which are things like still

radio, general licensing to public venues, television, and they're making money from synchronizations of where their music is being married to some type of video. They put the song in a movie or a TV show or a music video or even YouTube. And a typical songwriter today, 75% of their revenue is regulated in one of those first two ways, the mechanical regulated by a World War I era law or the public performance regulated by a World War II era consent decree, and three-fourths of the revenue from a songwriter, the price is set by the federal government.

And if you're a songwriter today and you're looking at why aren't you making more money from your songs, the answers tend to go back to those two reasons. What happened in 1909, what happened in 1941, fact that those two things still govern the songs that are produced today, which is one of the most incredible things that you've ever heard. Until next time, this is Ross Bowling.