And The Writer Is...with Ross Golan - Ep. 33: Zach Crowell

Episode Date: November 10, 2017

Hailing from Nashville, Tennessee, this songwriter is responsible for some of the most genre bending hits in country music. He co-wrote and co-produced Sam Hunt’s album ‘Montevallo,’ including "Body Like a Back Road," which has shattered records for the most consecutive weeks on top of the Billboard‘s hot country songs chart as the longest running #1 by a solo artist in history. This CMA Triple Play Award winner has written and produced multiple chart-topping songs for artists such as Carrie Underwood, Dustin Lynch and Keith Urban. And The Writer Is... Zach Crowell!  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 mega house 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.andthe 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 this week we are featuring five countries Music Hipmakers in honor of the 51st Annual CMA Awards. Hope you had a chance to see Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood host the 51st Annual CMA Awards this week on ABC with collaborations by Kelsey Ballerini and Reba McIntyre, Brad Paisley and Cain Brown, Marin Morris and Nile Horn, and Pink doing Barbies.

It was Country's Night to Shine with unforgettable performances and the best of the best honored in several categories. You can check out the winners and highlights at Cipterbury. CMA Awards.com. Today's guest is our final guest of CMA Week. We really appreciate all of you guys for listening. This one is Zach Crowell and Nashville Native who listens to all kinds of music. I mean, that's why you get artists like Sam Hunt.

He has worked with Sam since the very beginning, and they have managed to break down all kinds of barriers for country music. Zach is a friend of mine, and he was super hospitable from the very beginning. and this trip to Nashville was made, partly because he hit me up and said, hey, why don't you do a trip to Nashville? So I'm excited to have Zach on.

He signed it yesterday's guest, Ashley Goreley. So it's all in the family here at And The Writer is. This one is featuring Zach Crowell. Welcome to And The Writer is. I'm your host, Ross Golan. This week's writer has written and produced a slew of number one country records. But now your typical ones.

he has written the kind that sit in the top 10 on overall iTunes chart for like four months. In a genre that rarely sits amongst the Justin Bieber's of the pop world, this writer bends the rules of what's country and what's pop. From Nashville, Tennessee, this gentleman has worked his way up from day jobs to Grammys. And the writer is the humblest of masterminds, Zach Crowell.

Welcome. Wow. It's funny, I was listening to that going. I did all that. That's crazy. But it is pretty crazy when you think about the, you know, when we're all in this together, we're all writing songs and different cities and all that stuff. And it's nice in an era where there aren't aisles and stores that you can look in the top 10 of iTunes and you can see Sam Hunt along with, you know, DJ Khaled.

and one of my favorite things is when I see people comment somewhere or something on the internet and say I never listen to country music until I heard Sam Hunt I love that. Yeah. Like it's all the hate that he gets. It's nice to kind of have the other side of people who are being exposed to a whole new.

Well, even your first cut, your first cuts a Grammy winning song, right? Yeah, that was a weird, yeah, that was a weird. And it's an R&B. Yeah, that was a weird backwards. It's not country. No, no, no, no, no. So your background isn't really country anyway.

Absolutely. It would be country because I'm born and raised in Nashville, and I've been around country music my whole life, but I never thought, it sounds so dumb to say, I never thought to pursue country music in any sort of way. I'm a 90s kid. I grew up in 90s, hip-hop and R&B, and being in the South, it was all cash money and no limit

and Swaf House and all the anything Mani Fresh ever did. My goal is still to meet Mani Fresh. But it's funny, Because I spent 15 years pursuing urban pop music. When you say you're pursuing it, that means that you're sitting in your house. Just baking beats and writing songs and writing hooks. And, you know, I mean, it starts off from day one buying an MPC and wanting to be Manny Fresh or Dr. Dre or Ferell or whoever was doing it.

Did you think about moving to Atlanta? I never did. I never did. And I've realized God's master plan. Like it made sense that Nashville, you can do it all from Nashville. you just can't fully commit to it, but you can officially do it. There's a hip-hop scene,

and there was an underground rap scene that was bubbling and still is. So I was just kind of in that scene for the longest time and learning how to produce and play and write and interact. So, you know, the quick stories, I did all that for 15 years.

Well, let's start from the beginning, so it's not such a quick story. You're born in Nashville. And your parents are musicians? Are they not? No. My dad is a musician. My dad is a musician.

He's in still a band to this day that he's been in since high school. No way. What's it called? The exotics. They still play gigs in town and like sell out things. Do you go to them? Yeah. I mean, they play once every month or two or so.

But they, you know, sell out stuff. Is it covers or is it all? I think they did original stuff way back in the day. But now they just, you know, they play, you know, retirement things. and high school things. Did you grow up going to these gigs? Yeah, not like every day, but two or three times a year. My dad was always, but there were always instruments.

Here's the funny thing, there were always instruments around my house, guitars and bass stuff, and my dad sings, but I never played them. I never thought to play them. I was always playing sports. I never thought to pick up a guitar when I'm 12 just sitting around the house. There was always one, but I never did. Did you know how to play it and you just weren't into it? No, I never had an interest.

but I was a music kid and I loved, I was a music nut and I was the group, I was the kid in his group of friends in high school who was the music, I was the DJ of the friends, you know? Like I was, I made mixtapes for my friends and I was the guy at the party who was at the stereo, just, you know, I was that guy.

And at this point you're playing, this is, no, I mean, not playing, but I mean, at this point, you're, the music you're into, none of its country. Or it's mixed in there with the... It's mixed, but it's rooted in hip hop, though. It was, you know. Who introduced you to hip hop?

I was always attracted to that kind of music. I have a memory of whenever Will Smith's summertime came out, I have a memory of laying on my living room floor, writing it out on my Christmas list that I want to KSingle for summertime, which is still a smash hit song to this day. It's better than all this. So, I mean, that would have probably been like 10 or something. Right.

Did your parents get it? When you were like, oh, I like hip-hop. Yeah. Yeah, they didn't. I really don't think they knew much about it. Like they, you know, I don't know. I don't know. They never gave me a hard time about it. I specifically remember, like, this was a,

I feel a pivotal point in my life. I remember in sixth grade, like the audio tech class. It was GM tech. I remember dubbing the chronic from Nick Dorrell. You know, let me dub the chronic, and I remember going home and listening to The Chronic on my couch, and I heard my dad coming down the hall, and I'm, like, taking my headphones off

and putting my... cassette player, tape player, under the... That was a pretty raw album, you know, but that record killed me. I mean, I feel like probably affected every single one of us, you know. I've recorded in that room this week. Which room that they did... Well, actually, I was recording with Mike Alessando,

and it was the originally Death Row room, so shout out to Mike, but... Yeah. It's crazy to be in that room and be like, oh, man, the energy of... Like, that's one I wouldn't... Still to this day, when I go to L.A., and I drive and I see names of streets or you drive past something and you see Compton or you see whatever. I get excited. Like, I'm sure like hoods and like awful places that, you know,

some, you know, crazy things go down that, that I, you know, but I like smile as if it's like a museum or like a historic place. But yeah, man. So I, you know, it was, it was hip-hop. When did you go from dubbing records to trying to make your own. I graduated high school and I want to say I made my first beat in high school, my senior year at a friend's dad's house. I still have it. Is it good? No, it's hysterically bad. But it has like all the, from the keyboard has like the applause sound and like ocean sounds and, you know, like those sounds that come on those little thing. Did you name the beat? No.

Did you ever show anybody? No, I would show it right now. It's hysterical. Maybe I could send it to you if you want to, whatever. No, you definitely should send it to us. But you hear it, you go, it's a kid who has no clue about music trying to make music. In retrospect, do you look at it and think that maybe you knew more than you thought? Probably.

I've realized now as an adult, and I'm not the singer, I'm not the player, I'm not the musical, genius in the room. I've realized I'm the guy who is looking for candy, who's always looking for catchy things. And I've realized that's my, that's my best role in the room. It's not, it's not to be the poet in the room. It's not to be the vocalist. It's the guy who's just waiting, who's just constantly listening for catchy things. Because if I boil all the music I've ever listened to down, it's rooted in catchy. The catchy parts are the parts that I like. And I've, you know, now over the past few years, just learned to embrace that.

I'm like, there are plenty of good musicians who can play better than me. I'll hire them to do it, and there's plenty of good singers, and there's plenty of what I've, but I've realized everything, back to Will Smith's summertime, like there's little,

the part where he says two miles an hour, so everybody sees you, that's a catchy little hook and how he did it, and it's those little catchy moments, because it's not about the lyric, it's about the, I don't know,

but it's like the feeling and the vibe. The feeling in the vibe. It's like, so that's real talent, because there's, it's more, people in Nashville co-write naturally, I feel like. People don't look down on co-writing.

And somehow in the pop world, people tend to look at it as like, oh, well, they didn't write all their own music. Which is very strange, because that's not really how it's ever worked. But in, in the co-writing community, everyone really has something of a defined role, even if everyone can do everything,

it's still being honest with themselves enough to say, all right, well, I'm probably the melody guy in this room. There's some rooms where I don't tend to write a lot of the lyrics, and there's some rooms where I write all the lyrics, and there's sometimes where I do both. To me, it makes perfect sense. On a basketball team, you want a real tall guy, short, quick guy, and a medium guy.

Like, you have a team. It makes perfect sense And Nashville embraces that In a good way And it's George Straits Had like a gazillion hits And hadn't written any of them It's like so Nashville embraces songwriters

And it's like it's built It's literally built on songwriters Which is amazing Speaking of built on songwriters Okay so here's some six degrees of separation for us Your cousin is Will Hogue Correct Will Hogue was on tour

and his pedal steel player is a guy named Adam Ollendorf Yes Adam Ollendorf taught me how to play guitar

because we lived on the same street when I was nine through my childhood Because of that My In They were on tour with Sugarland

When Will was on tour With Sugarland And I just Met my Then girlfriend Now wife and she loves country and I liked country

my dad loves country but again like I liked it I didn't understand it yet I hadn't had any cuts yet I was trying to learn how to do it but I was Adam was in town with Will and so I said

he said why don't you come to the Greek in L.A. So I came to the Greek and I brought my wife and it was our first date was going to see cousin play at the Greek.

That's amazing. Yeah. And we walked in, she got me like a cowboy hat, and I wore a cowboy hat because I was like, I'm going, and she thought was just going to be another Hollywood guy and said, I'm like, no, no, no, I'm not cool. Put on a cowboy hat. I like, I went into this thing. We went backstage and met Will.

And obviously, I've hung out with them since. But that's actually our six degrees of separation happens long before you and I ever worked together. When was that? That was probably. had to be, you know, 2010, 2011, something like that. Adam Olendorf, he just played on a bunch of demos for me, and still to this day I'll use him on a random thing or, you know, his whatever. But the first country hit I had was a song called See You Tonight by Scottie McCreary

that Adam played on the, he played all the parts on the demo, all the steel and all the guitar, whatever, like the very first country hit I had, he played on that. And that's amazing. Well, so to go to that, because I figured that was a good transition, because to be honest, that's really like, you know, you really start breaking into the country world around 2012. That's probably around when we met. Yep. And at the time, you got the new theme song to Chevy.

Yeah. And it was a song called Strawn that you wrote with Ashley Gorely and that you and Will Hogue saying it. and that becomes like a new was in a way was that your first? That was the first like real like legitimate that was the first money I ever made

from a song separate of a draw necessarily. It was the first like oh you actually got a sink and like here's some you know here's some real estate money like yeah so that's that was insane how that happened and I don't know if you've ever done those kind of commercial pitches,

jingle pitches, I guess. And that was kind of a, there was like a year when I was at my publisher, Warner Chapel, and I was doing these random, there's a guy who runs that department called Frank Domeno. You know Frank, name Frank? He's a New York guy, but he does kind of all the sync stuff. And he, I met him, I was in New York, I met him, and he had, you know, sent me little things of try to write a song for a McDonald's commercial

or Kmart or Gap or whatever. And I did all these ones and, you know, I'm just trying anything. And I got real close on a couple ones and I didn't get them. But the Chevy then came along and the whole town kind of attempted it. Like it was like, hey, wanted this kind of song for this kind of thing. And I wrote three songs for that pitch. You had like a week to do it. And I wrote three songs and that one, you know, just kind of.

The thing is once you get those moments too and you kind of feel like, oh, well, I can repeat this. Or at least you feel like it's attainable enough to be... Because in a way, getting a big license, like a Chevy commercial, that becomes the theme song of a car company. It gave me a lot of confidence. Yeah, right, exactly. I look at it as... Remember the first time I kissed a girl, you go, oh, I can do that.

I can... It's not that scary, like, I have more confidence. Let me try that again, kind of thing. So I remember getting the Chevy thing. I remember kind of going, all right, now I'm here. And also, that was at the very, you know, I was about to be dropped. I was like a month away from being, if you want to get into my, like, last second buzzer beater of a, of, of, of, of, how did you know you were going to get dropped?

So, okay, I signed a deal in 2010 with Warner Chapel and Combustion Music and Ashley Gourley Tapeering was a whole big, whole big partnership. And I was kind of signed as a pop urban guy. Because you had the Lecray. Well, no, at that point, that hadn't happened yet. Right. I was, because I was in town, and I had met Ashley, and, you know, he's a big successful country writer,

but he was just starting to become that big writer. He was still early on for him, and I was the first person he ever signed, but I was kind of signed with the intention of, hey, I'll make a bunch of stuff, and he and I'll go to L.A., and we'll try to get in some rooms in L.A. And I did it for a year or two, and just,

I mean, in hindsight, it's hard for me, a guy here in L.A. to beat at the time, Luke and Max. And I'm not going to beat them? Like, you know what I mean? It's really hard. So I'd go out there and I'd do L.A. trips once a month and I'd go for a week or so.

And I'd write with any and everyone I could. And I'd be writing hooks and sending them to Ashley. But the goal for you at the time was to be successful in pop music. Yeah. Yeah. It was totally to be in pop music. You weren't even aiming for country. So the year, you know, the first year goes by

and the typical Nashville publishing deal. I get picked up from my next one, for my next year. And at the end of that year, you know, at that point, the publisher's paid you some money and if there's been no money coming in, they can't just keep paying you forever.

You know, it's an investment, it's business, I get it. And they don't want to pick up my third year option, but they don't want to drop me. So they decide to do a six-month extension of my second year. And they're like, hey, let's just try six more months. Let's bet on them six more months. So six more months go by.

Nothing happens, you know, and I'm still just plugging along. At that point, my wife's pregnant. We're married as her first kid. It's the only time in my life I've ever considered quitting. And it wasn't considered quitting. I was just going to, I was like, I might just have to do something else. Like, you know, if I'm going to get dropped, I, you know.

So what would you've done? I don't know. Like, I have no idea. Like, praise Jesus that I didn't have to. Like, it was, so I signed a second six-month extension. And it ends December 31st, 2000. 2013 or something like that yeah oh 2012 right uh December 31st and I met Sam hunt in October and we wrote cop car two weeks later and it from at that point it all

but cop car hadn't even come out yet so cop car it took about a year but we wrote when we wrote that song if we want to jump to that song when we wrote that song it was instantly a big deal around town I've realized now after being around for a few years that songs like that don't come along very often like like we wrote it and the whole town kind of got a little bit of a frenzy about it. It was just, it was a good song, you know? Yeah, and people just wanted it. And it was three, Sam was a nobody, I was a nobody.

Matt Jenkins, the other writer was a nobody. We're all just new dudes and it's kind of, there was a little bit of who were these guys and how did they write, how do they write a good song, you know, kind of thing? And it opened a lot of doors and that's, that song specifically. How did you write that song? Typical day. I met Sam about a week before.

he and I wrote our first song together and then like a week later me him and Matt Jenkins is just a typical Nashville thing he wasn't trying to do the artist thing he didn't know yet it at that time no no at that point he and I had clicked

and the first time I met him we sat there and talk for hours and I was like are you trying to do the artist thing and he's like he wasn't sure like songwriting is his first love he's a songwriter at heart and, you know, strip it all the way.

He's a songwriter, and so he didn't quite know, because there's just, I mean, he's a commitment to being an artist. Like, it's a, it's a decision, you know, and so he didn't quite know, but he started to accumulate these songs that, I feel that only he could do, you know, he had the song called Take Your Time. It was a, you know, a big hit for him that.

Never heard of it. Yeah. But I wish I wrote it. I should zoom. He started to have these songs and they were so him, you know, and like, couldn't imagine anyone else doing them. You know, so he was like, you know, and at the end of the day, Sam's real competitive.

He's like, all this people, he's trying to win. So when you guys start writing and you have Copcar and there's this frenzy, when did Keith Urban hear it? And was that sort of like a giant shock? Was there when you heard that he wanted to cut it, were you out drinking within five minutes? Yeah, it's a good. So we wrote it, we wrote Copcar. And at the same time, that year earlier,

I'd been writing songs a lot with Jerry Flowers, Keith Urban's bass player. I've been writing a bunch of songs, and Jerry would always play these songs that we'd written to Keith. And coincidentally, at that same time, Keith and Jerry hired me to come out to L.A. And program, help program stuff for Keith's tour,

program tracks and just help beef up some of the music for his tour, which was a great opportunity for me. You know, I'm still at the time dead broke and got nothing going on. You know, and you get a call from Keith Urban, hey, we come out and help me arrange my tour. Yes. Doesn't matter what the thing is after that. They're asking me what my day rate was and I'm like, I have no, I only know what that means. Ten million dollars. I can't remember what. Either way, it was, it was awesome. So it was like in a month, I was going to go out to L.A. and do a week out there. And in that time, he heard cop car through i'm pretty sure my publisher uh chris farron at combustion museum i'm 99% sure he sent it to him and uh but keith didn't know that i wrote it he didn't know that the guy whose tracks

he was liking the guy who was hiring to come out there he didn't realize that it was the same guy uh he just loved this song cop car and he also loved these other guy sounds somewhere in that month of us coming out there he put it together i don't know if jerry told him or whatever but the first day at rehearsals, I'm in LA at SIR or whatever room, and I'm, you know, just sitting there with my laptop, and I'm just trying to be one of the cool kids because I've never been, still not, but still never been in the room with super talented people.

And Keith walks in and comes up to me and introduce himself and gives me a big hug and gives me this look and says, he says, me and you need to get in the studio sometime, my friend. And like, I had heard that he had heard Copcar, but I can't be the, it took everything in my power not to go like Keith, you know, do you like my song, man? You know, I'm just trying to be cool. I'm like consciously saying play it cool in my head.

Very professional. Yeah, but I'm like freaking out. And the first day he didn't say anything. That night my publishers are calling me. They're like, did he say anything about the song? He said anything? I'm like, no, he didn't say anything. I'm just going to play it cool, keep playing it cool.

And the next day, Keith, I swear he did it to me on purpose. He knew he was going to give me a memory. Like, I swear he, he like, so I'm sitting there the next day with my laptop, my drum machine program, whatever I'm doing. and that guy, and I'm so glad he did, he walks over to me with a guitar, we've never talked about the song before,

sits down next to me and starts singing me the song. He goes, we drove right there, and I'm sitting there like, I'm like, this dude's singing my song to me, you know, and he knows what he's doing. He totally knows what he's doing, and I'm totally fine with it, you know.

So he sings literally the first verse and chorus, and it ends, and I remember going, man, like, what do you say? like what do you say you like turn the other way and sniffle a little bit and like wipe the tears from your eyes and then turn back being like

I didn't know what to the end I just remember I don't know what I said but I'm sure it was like man that's great good job you know I don't know what you say you know because I mean I'm dead broke wife's pregnant about to lose my publishing deal like I mean it's like

in hindsight it's like it's a buzzer beater it's the last second you know wrote this great song right at the very end and then he we talk and two days later, we're at some studio out in L.A. Cutting the vocal to it, I'm like literally changing my life.

Sure. And he let me produce it, which was insane. In hindsight, he let just a no-name dude produce. Luckily, the demo was real close so that it wasn't that far to go, and he could kind of hold my hand along the way if I happened to totally take it off course. But he sang it out there, and, you know,

it was like, I'm going to say, the third single off of his record. I started to get a little nervous, you know, because I'm like, oh, this is about the first single off a record, you know, and it's not, and then the next single, and it's not, and I'm kind of like, oh, shoot, man,

is this like, is the best song I've ever written just going to be a cut? You know, because you're trying to get on the radio. And luckily it was, and, you know. I'm still waiting for shame to come out. Oh, you're going to go back two records. That was my only, that was my only Keith Irving cut. Now I was just hoping that.

I was, when Cop car came, I was like, good, keep going. Because if it's a, if there's a hit, then, maybe they'll keep following it up. Yeah, you want him to be hit. Once you're past like the fifth single, you're kind of like, I think that.

Then he did somewhere in my car, another car song. Yeah, right, I know. Which I'm sure you're sitting there going, there's no way he's going to put that one out. Totally. You're not putting out two car songs. Well, plus like, well, this is what's interesting about Keith, is that he knows more about pop music than any pop writer I know.

He's extremely sharp. Like, he knows. He'll tell you about playlist that are current within the minute. I mean, he shows up and he knows what's going on. on Spotify right now. What is cool? He knows all that. He loves music more than anybody.

Yeah. He's a music nerd. He doesn't care about country or pop. And that's what's kind of interesting about, obviously you're the same way. It's like you're trying to, you're just writing your music that's so clearly deeply rooted

in not just, it's not like Merle Haggard country as the kind of music that you grew up on. It was like you were into to Dr. Dre meets country. See, I could tell you, I don't know anything about Merle Haggard or Johnny Cash. I don't know anything about the Beatles either. It's like, it's no disrespect to Burl Haggard.

I don't really think about the Beatles. I don't anything about Prince. But I know a lot about Dr. Dre and I know a lot about E40 and all of these guys. Like, you know, just certain things just didn't cross my path. But, you know, the 90s kid and I was in Nashville, so 90s country is in me, which that's a huge era of country music. back to that I feel the divine plan. I never moved to L.A.

I never moved to Atlanta or New York. When I had this pop training, urban training, and then all of a sudden I start to write country music, it sounds like Copcar and it sounds, you know, like it's only natural that it's slightly urban leaning and slightly pop leaning, but it's, it's a, it was the perfect timing, you know, of the genre kind of collided with urban music

right at the time I was getting going in it. Nashville really embraced me, the songwriting community, really embraced me because I had spent 15 years making... You earned it. Yeah, like I had... You were at least showing that you were earning it. Yeah, so when I get in big rooms real quick, yeah.

Like I was a new guy in Nashville, I was a freshman, but I had kind of the chops of a senior kind of thing, and I started getting big rooms, and I was real quick, I was real professional. and I was, mixes were good and all that kind of stuff and, uh,

well, I mean, obviously you start getting these, you go from, I'm about to get cut, I'm going to write a number one cop car kind of record, but then all of a sudden you have Dirk's

and Jake Owen and you have you know, Scotty McCreary and it seems like it's becoming natural for you to start writing at least major label big name cuts. Yeah. And getting used to,

to it. Were you used to it by the time because you had a number of the Dustin Lynch records? You know, did Copcar open the door for Dustin Lynch or was that even before, were you starting to work on that before Copcar came out? Because all of a sudden you start getting you start getting hits on a regular basis. Copcar, I would say, is the specific kind of pivotal song that it was a songwriter's song.

Every writer in town was, I say every writer. A lot of writers in town were really excited about that song. So it got me in a lot of rooms. So then I had the opportunity to write with a bunch of people. And now at that point it's on me to do my job and write good songs with those people. And at that point, it just kept going. And so far it's doing good. Yeah. And also your bar gets raised. You know what I mean? Once you start having, oh, if I have to put in this kind of effort to get one, then I need to put in this kind of effort on all of them. And it starts to get really exhausting because you can't just walk into a room anymore. more and be like, oh, let's write a song. And then you leave for the day. Instead, it's like,

you walk in and you're thinking, man, this better beat every other song this artist has written so far for this album, every other song that everyone else is writing in this entire town, and maybe even other towns. It's trying to get, it's all of a sudden, it got real hard. Yeah, like, but I remember when riding Copcar, I remember having a feeling when we were writing it, a feeling that I never felt before. Like I knew it was good. Like I was, like even that day as a dead broke, no-name dude, I was aware that, hey, this is real, like,

it got real good all of a sudden. Yeah. So now I kind of, it's like I know what the drug felt like, and now I'm kind of aware of that. Because you've been in a long enough to where, you know when something's pretty bad. And, like, so you know when to kill certain things. You know, this isn't any good.

We should just throw this away. And the painful part is you know when something's okay. but you're in it and you kind of like got to finish it you know those get painful you know and I know a lot of people who are really good at just stopping it and it's and it's like it's heartbreaking but then maybe you have a shot at writing another song yeah I can I can stop it sometimes

but I anytime I've done it I've done it in like rude ways and like there's like an art to doing that of kind of going hey this isn't any good right and we should throw this in the trash we all recognize this isn't good right like it takes a certain I get there are a lot of times where I want to say that but I just don't have the courage to.

Some people do, and I love it when they do, you know. So you go, the Dustin Lynch records, you know, where it's at, hell of a night, these are number one songs. And I don't know exactly the order of what happened in 2014, because it seems like they're just all come out at the same time. Yeah, it was a good year. Yeah, it was a good year, for sure. And that's also when Sam Hunt really, you know, breaks.

Yeah. So you're on one hand working as a songwriter and a producer, and then you start working as like, because you and Sam have such synergy. At this point, you start working as in a weird sort of way as an A&R guy. Because when your main co-writer is starting to become an artist, you then become the guy encouraging that person in a different way than a normal co-writing relationship.

It's weird. Sam is, you know, the biggest thing that has ever happened to me personally, because I wrote Copcar with him, and his artist thing has obviously affected my life. But he is fabulous at delegating jobs, at getting people to do things, and putting people, he saw something in me from the day we met, and he didn't care if I was super successful or a new guy or whatever. He saw that I had some sort of angle in my head that I was able to think. And he's embraced it. And he gives me the freedom to do things.

He listens to me. He doesn't have ego. He listens to me when I suggest things or, you know, if we're talking about any branding thing or any tour thing or Instagram or a lyric of a thing, he listens to me. And he's still at the end of day, has the final say, but he embraces his team. How did you start going from, you know what?

Not only am I, you know, in the matter of I'm going to get dropped to, I'm going to now sort of take on a role as, I don't know what the, I guess, A&R guy manager almost. Yeah, I mean, it's about, you know, Sam, early on he and I found a way to incentivize me on the, whole thing. Did you just walk through that door? Were you nervous about the idea? I just kind of started doing it. So when I first met him, we were just writing songs. And at that point, he had just had his first hit with Kenny Chesney, a song called Come Over. And I came around the timeline, but at whatever

point he decided to pursue the music, to pursue a solo career, an artist's career. Me, coming from the underground hip-hop world, I was working with him. regularly on things and I said, hey man, we should put out a mixtape. I was like, we should, we should record a little mixtape and just give this thing away. This is what I've done for 10 years with these underground rappers and singers. I was like, we should just put out a mix tape. And Nashville had never done that before. Nashville's, you know, typically behind the curve on a lot of things. So he and I made a acoustic mixtape. So crazy. Just at my house, you know, like we, We purposely kind of dumbed it down

and made it sound rough and raw, made it sound like a thing. And I hosted it on my Dropbox thing and he just, you know, at that point, probably had a few thousand Twitter followers. You know, like, I don't know, you know, hosted it on my Dropbox and it was one of those things it kind of just spread, you know.

I don't have any numbers of, I've tried multiple times to track down numbers of how many times it was downloaded or spread or whatever. But it downloaded so much, it crashed my Dropbox thing and I got contacted by someone there saying this is not, you know, you can't do whatever you're doing

with this service, you can't. You can't do that's not what this is for kind of thing and which was awesome, you know, like, totally what you want. You get kicked out of using Dropbox or doing something right. So it was just spreading and at that point he starts to go on the road and develop a touring thing

and then he has tons of fans singing all the songs because it just kind of spread. And so that was early on in that I'm telling him, hey man, we should, we, I'm kind of using the words we, we should go shoot a video. Like we should get a YouTube presence. So I'm just kind of, he's such a songwriter.

He, he, but he saw that I had ideas and he was, you know, just embracing those things. And, you know, we didn't know that it was going to work so well. You know, we're just, you know, just kind of just chipping away at the thing. Do you think it works well because of the fact that it crosses, Or do you think it works well because it's his voice? I think it's a whole bunch of them. You know, I think absolutely crosses genres.

Like, it, there are a lot of people that were raised on country music and urban music. Like, it's my taste, I think, and his taste are in line with a lot of people. You know, I think a lot of people love R. Kelly. We've talked to Luke Laird, and we've, you know, obviously, Ashley is like coming to Nashville, or comes to LA a lot to write. When we're in LA or we were just in Vegas writing, it's like you know, you

a lot of, it's okay to not feel like you have to be, I'm this genre in an era where there are no real genres. Yeah, it's hard to, it's a little embarrassing even talking about setting boundaries on music. It's a little like foolish. It's a little dated

right now. It's a little dated. It's like, really? Are we still doing that? It's, you know. So you go from you know once Sam breaks he's got take your time leave the night on house party just huge records all this changes

do you start feeling more stable at this point or is there a part of you that's like oh no I'm still gonna lose this publishing deal like you do have a part of that at all times like I'm still like there are times my publisher will call me and they're like what's you doing I'm like I'm working

like kind of like I'm you know I'm not on the couch no no no I'm in here like I'm working. Like, as if someone's going to get mad at me for taking... Yeah, and it's like, you know... But I think that's a good thing. Like, I think that's... But yeah, I think there's part of me I always think

someone to be kicked out of town, but, you know, hopefully that doesn't happen. The next year you get some more big names, you know, Easton Corbyn and Billy Currington. But the big next name is Carrie Underwood. Yeah. How do you meet Carrie Underwood? They, her manager, Anne Ableut, who's super duper sweet, and they've embraced me.

Right after Sam's record came out, they, she emailed, actually called me one day. Yeah, Anne called me and asked me to come in just for a meeting to, you know, want to meet me. And so I go in, you know, terrified. And I realized in hindsight, they were trying to figure out who, who made. that record, who made that Sam record? You know, like, who was, did I do that or did Sam do that? You know, kind of like, so, you know,

they were just kind of feeling me out and, you know, probably seeing if I was a nice guy and would potentially be easy to work with. And, you know, and, you know, I think they're just, you know, doing their due diligence. And they, uh, they embraced me. And, you know, I think right around that time

I got to write with Carrie, I wrote with her and Ashley, wrote a song called Heartbeat, which ended up being a hit. That sounds really good. Thank you, man. It's the best song on that album. Yeah, I mean, you've got a lot of songs on that album, but that song is pretty incredible.

Thank you, man. That's a, yeah, that was one that when they asked me and called me one day and said, hey, would you produce that song, Heartbeat, and would you be okay if Chris Lord Algae mixes it? These are like, what do you say to that? No. No, I'm not going, like, I remember going, yeah, like, what are you talking about? Like, you know, like, so, because these are like, I remember where I was standing when she asked me that. And it's like, where were you standing?

In my studio, I mean, just there in my studio, but I'm her pacing, you know, as she's, you know, and I'm like, I don't know what they're going to ask me. She's like, hey, we love that song, heartbeat that you wrote with Carrie and Ashley, and I wonder if you want to produce it and it's okay, Chris Lord Algae's mixing this whole record, you know, do you think it would be a fun? You know, and I'm like, what? Right.

She could call me and yell at me and, like, cuss me and telling me to, you know, this is what you're going to do, and I would, you know, bow down and say, yes, ma'am. And, but, you know, yeah, it's crazy. Did you run throughout the house when that, phone call was done and be like, you know. I can't remember, man. It's a, I mean, I'm sure.

Like, I'm sure, you know, freaked out. But it's crazy, man, like that. I remember I had a goal when I first met them. I was like, oh, I want one song on her record. I was like, you know, like a realistic, I bet I can get one on her record. I'm going to try really hard and get that one. And to have. You had a handful.

Have three. And it was three number ones in a row off. Like, it was, I remember being, Heartbeat. She sang it. Sam sang background vocals on the song. song, which was awesome. Oh, that's him singing background. Yeah, that's him.

Oh, I was going to ask you that. Yeah. That's, yeah, that was when I'm doing it, and I called him, I was like, hey, I got an idea. What do you think? Did fans know that? Yeah, fan, like, it was, yeah, it's definitely an own thing, but it wasn't like a marketed thing. It's a little bit cooler when it's not milked to me. Sure.

I mean, otherwise it would have just been featuring. Yeah. And it's just, yeah. Sometimes those featuring things just get a little. No, but it's so close to being a duet. But I remember this is just one of those life stories of, she sang it on the Grammys a year or two ago, and I was there at the Grammys,

they let me arrange the music and the whole thing, and I was there at the Grammys, which is just a weird sentence. Right. Sitting downstairs with Carrie and Anne, and they looked at me and they said, you want to tell him? And they were like, hey, church bells,

another song I wrote, and they go, hey, church bells is going to be the next single. Yeah. I'm like, oh, God, I'm freaking out. I'm like, oh, my God, this would be too, you know. And at that time, Ann looked at me, and I don't know if she was doing it on, like if she knew what their next move after church bells was,

but she goes, and we really love dirty laundry too. And I'm kind of like going. Right. What are you saying? You know, kind of like, you know, I didn't mention anything. I was just kind of like, oh, great. But in my head, I'm going, like, is that, you know,

and they put them all out, which is crazy. In Nashville, in LA there tends to be a lot of people who have the first single and a lot of people who have the next single and everyone has the third single. Even if your song came out already, maybe they'll release it again. I mean like the way people talk about songs like, yeah, I got the first single.

And it's like it comes out and not everybody in town has the first single. A lot of people just say that. Is that something that's prevalent in Nashville? Do, are there people who walk around? I mean, it seems like everyone's so humble and kind of quiet. Yeah, it's more humble. It's more humble and... So somebody says, you have the first single or you have the next single.

It's probably because at that point, it's true. It's true, yeah. Like, yeah, absolutely. Nashville is way more humble and laid back and honest. Nashville is very paced. It's very organized. It's very, you know, maybe times to a fault. But, like, it's a very organized machine.

You know where a certain song is. They'll probably be coming out with another song here in a month or two. But no, there aren't a ton of people, you know, walking around bragging, and that's probably more of an L.A. thing. Right. So you win the triple play. Yeah, crazy. CMA Award, which means you had three number ones in a year.

That kind of, like, solidifies you. You know, when you win those kinds of awards, then it's really hard. to go back. Yeah, see, I'll be honest, I didn't know what that was. I never, my brain had never thought, oh, there's like, there's another award past just a number one award. There's like a triple, I never knew it existed, to be honest. So when they called me, the super duper triple plays after that. Yeah, I never knew that you could win the Super Bowl. And, yeah, like, I had no idea. Like, I'm not, I had no clue. And they called me and told me I got it. I'm like, oh, that's awesome. You know, kind of not knowing. And then I won it the next year as well.

And the next year I go, oh, shoot, that's hard to do. Like, the next year I was way more aware of, of, because that's just, I mean, it's hard to, you know. It's hard to have, it's still hard to have a hit. It's hard to have a hit ever, much less three in a year. Like, I mean, it's, it's all impossible. We were, we were trying to solve it. And it was like our third episode. And I was asking, you know, do you celebrate number fives?

Yeah. You know, and it's like, by the time, you can't because, you know, you don't know when it's going to go to number four. And by the time it's number six, you don't celebrate it because. you should have celebrated when it was number five. And you know, you get to a point where people assume that you just write hits. Like that's, that it just... That's just easy.

Like your family's... Even your family and your best friends are like, oh, there's another one. Hey, I like that song. Some people are just like, oh, it's just... Now it's just standard. It's like, oh, yeah, you're supposed to have three number one songs in a year.

My dad means super-duper well, but like I'll have two songs on the charts. And I'm like, you got anything else? I'm like I've already You know That's already impossible You know Like to do and it's like

No I don't have anything else I just have the number one song And then a number eight song But no I don't have anything else But you know Yeah so people start to expect it I didn't have any cuts for a long time And when the first year

I started getting kind of big name cuts I had you know Beaver and Nikki Minaj And Maroon 5 All the same year And it was five Like five number one album songs, even though there were album tracks.

It was just like, here's another number one album kind of thing. And I remember saying, my parents started viewing it as like it was not a big deal. I was just like, hey guys, I have the number one album again, like a song, the number one album, this is huge. And it was just like, oh, cool.

And then they just started talking about the botanical gardens and howlipar. You realize I climbed Everest five times. Like, we should be excited. But I stopped them and started saying to them, I started figuring out, okay, well, this, and it's harder to do now because of streaming, but I was like, okay, well, this album sold you know, 250,000 copies worldwide this week. So that's the equivalent of Buffalo. So I'd be like,

hey, if everybody in Buffalo, New York bought my song tomorrow, that would be, or this week, that would basically be what I just achieved. And try to like explain to them in like a practical number of like imagine. Always look at it like you see a football stadium. You go there's 80,000 people. Exactly. Every single person in here bought it times four, you know, or whatever.

Yeah. I remember when I had my first number one wanting to, it's such a gradual process. Like it's not an overnight thing. It's literally a decade's worth of of chipping away at the whole thing. And I remember as the day I woke up and it's number one

and I remember kind of being like, I should be excited. I should be more excited right now. Like, you know, because like, but it's just, and, well, you know, on a bigger note, it made me realize that to me, making music, creating it is still the most fun part. And which made me realize in a super sappy way that I had made it for 15 years. Like some of the most fun music times I ever had was in the bedroom with some of these

rappers back in the day, just not knowing what we were doing, but just thinking we're making the greatest classic records of all, you know, it was always awesome. And it was, because I realized that the high of a number one is no higher than the high of making a beat in my apartment off of Edmondson Pike in 2001. Like, it's still, it's still at the end of the day that music is just awesome. And as I was just trying to be so excited, I was like, I number one song, I should be super excited right now and it's like it's always been exciting that's the uh i always look at i'm like i bet lebron has more fun playing basketball when he plays a pickup game on the weekend with his friends i bet it's more fun to him like now he loves to be in the championships and being the finals but like

that point it's real work and it's task and it's like it's a different game you know but i've realized i'm like it made me appreciate the fun of music that i've had for 15 years and uh Yeah, I mean, how happy is happy. Exactly. There's no happier than like... Yeah, there's not, we don't have the words to describe if you win a Grammy or you win a number one song or you get your song cut on an album at all

or you even release your own album and it's finally out on iTunes and nobody's even paying attention because you don't have a deal or you finish a song and you play it at a coffee shop for 12 people and everybody's like, that was great. Yeah. Like all things considered, you're still just happy. It's all happy. I remember back in the day, I'd make a beat, and it would be like in key for the first time. You know, like, I'd be so excited because I played a chord progression or something. And I remember, like, burning it to a CD and literally listening to it in my car for days.

Like, just on just, because I was so excited that I composed this piece of music. And, like, there was, like, an arrangement to it. And I was so excited. And that's what I've realized, like, writing hit songs with something. Sam or Carrie, whatever, it's the same thing. It's the exact same high. Like, you know, it's nice to make money and all, but it's still the love of music at the end of the day is why we all got into this. Like, I don't know if you got into this for the money, but I would assume at the end of day, you just, you were in your bedroom who just love music and decided to chase it. I don't know if I'm qualified to do anything else, but. Exactly. That's you asked merely,

what would you do. I don't know. I don't know what I do. But I do, when people say, oh, you know, I would do it for free, that's always the thing where I'm like, well, that's not a really good way to look at it. There's probably a way, if you would do it for free, you're going to do it for free.

If you're going to do it for money, you're going to try and monetize it, which means you're going to be aware of the listener while you write on some level, and you're going to give the audience more credit than you would if you were doing for free. If you're doing for free, you can write about anything and you can do whatever you want in your room. There's a song I'm working on right now with Sam and I'm not afraid to say it. We are working on it. We hit a little bit of a wall and we're like,

you know, we should bring our own buddy. We should bring Josh Osborne in on this song. You know, and for a second, we sit here, or for a second for an hour, we sit here and we kind of talk about our egos and stuff and we're like, ah, then that's like, and he's going to take a little bit of credit. he's going to take a little bit of publishing. You know, we kind of get ahead of ourselves, and we're like, man, and we bold it down to, we go, man, at the end of the day, if we were dudes working at Home Depot,

was what we said, and we were working on this song, and we thought that Josh would be great, we would call our buddy Josh from down the street, come working on this song with us, man. Hands out. We were like, screw publishing, screw any sort of credits or whatever. We go, let's call Josh, and we called him. And, you know, it's fabulous.

I mean, the missing piece was, you know, and it's like, but it's, you have to battle your ego a little bit on that. Like, we literally sat here and go, what do you think about that? It's like, because at the end of the day, I want everyone to think that I'm the most talented person in town. And it's like, and that I'm the reason for all they said. Why? I'm sure ego at the end of the day.

You just like, you know, and that's why I try to, I try to be aware of my ego when I, you know, see those things and try to get ahead of it. And, uh, it's just fun. I'm not going to call them out, but one of the best songwriters in the world, gave a book to all of the people that he works with that says ego is the enemy is the book and that was everybody's Christmas gift this year and you know

that's great the greatest of the greatest understand that if you you can't have an ego in it because in the end nobody first of all legacy is stupid second of all you know nobody nobody's really paying that much attention. Exactly. And it's way cooler.

If you have 2% of a song that is a number one song and your name's on it, maybe you'll say to your friends, I didn't do that much on this. But for the most part, it's fun. You're sharing these moments. You know, you're sharing them with your friends.

Whatever's best for the song, it is music at the end of the day. Whatever's best for the song. I always go to Michael Jackson didn't write thriller. He wrote a ton of other ones, but he didn't write thriller. He didn't write Man in the Mirror. Garth Brooks didn't write the dance

and these dudes wrote fabulous songs life-changing songs for them but they didn't write all of them but they go that song is so good I gotta cut that song and that's you know but it's it's you get far up in the music business

and you start to have hits on the radio and just other things you start to look at splits and you start to look at all that that you know you start to look at how many writers are on this song because you started letting the money started letting the money

and that's all I go back to man, that's what I realized. Oh man, when I was 20 making beats in my apartment in Antioch, that was awesome. I need to make music like that. Like, you know, try to keep it like that. And that's what the Sam stuff, it very much is like that. Yeah, it feels like that. It feels like it's fun.

It's very much like that. His stuff is kind of run by me, him, and his manager, Brad, who's, you know, kind of the other link to the whole thing. And, yeah. But it's run, you know. So, I mean, currently while we're doing this interview, you know, body like a backroad is just everywhere.

Crazy. It might be the biggest song that you have, right? Absolutely. I mean, I've already established that that's the peak for me. I doubt I'll ever beat that. Oh, yeah. Like, I'm just maybe just glass half empty, but I'm like, that's like... No, there's that...

There's that E. It's about... The author for E. Pray, Love, who does a TED talk about what happens after you have... your statistical apex. Yeah, at some point you peak. What do you do when you know that it's impossible to repeat something? You know, it's not like Jake H.K. Rowling isn't writing Harry Potter again.

She's going to try to write something else that's successful, but it's probably impossible to beat that. And that's what, and that's what, like, because by and like a back row, it's, you know, it's cross-suit, it's getting some cross-over. over love at Top 40 and Hot A-C, and that was never the intention at all. So at this point, it's all just icing on the cake. Like, we've talked, like, the bar isn't huge massive country song and huge pop song. Like, that's, we're saying, we're still just after country music. We're country music fans. We love being here in Nashville and being part of the Nashville, Nashville community.

So the bar, if it's, if the next song we put out is only a country hit, that's not a bad thing. Like, that's, you know, that's what we're after anyway. by like a back road is definitely surpassing any expectations we have dreamed of. Is there like an actual effort to go to Top 40 radio then? It's just happening. Sam's not doing anything. It's just happening.

I think it's just a catchy song. It's just one of those ones that just kind of has the magic little sprinkle in it that tickle in it. I mean by the time this comes out, people will know of it as something that has done a certain run or whatever it has. But when you're in the middle of it, we were talking about it in another episode where it's almost, it's hard to watch charts because some days you're like,

oh, is it, it's number five, it's number six, it's number seven, it's number six, it's number six, do you have trouble watching chart? I've gotten comfortable with it over the years ago. I've, I've a callous for it, like, I know you win some, you lose something, so I'm okay to watch it, like. I'm having a good couple months of not really checking it. Gotcha. It's an addiction, so once I start looking, it's like, ah, don't do it, just click it off.

See, to talk about Cop Car again, that song only went to eight on country radio. It's not a number one song. It died at eight. And it was my first big thing. I was convinced everyone told me that's a huge hit. It'll be multi-week number one. It's Keith Urban.

And it died at eight for some weird reason, which I still, I don't understand. But it crushed me because I was like, man, that's the best thing I've written. How am I ever going to get a number one song? if, you know, and it's, so I watched the charts that time, and I was crushed and I idolized it, and I put all these other things in my life, like, like, you know, I put too much in it. And so I learned a lot from it. And coming off of that, I realized that there's only so much you can do.

And you should write the song. And like, so now it doesn't bother me to watch songs die at 22, or, you know, you don't want them to. I was like, but it's okay. And, uh, but I like that, I like that you looked at a cop car and you were thinking, man, how am I ever going to be this? So now that we just talked about a body like a background, you're like, well, that was my apex. And it's like still going on. Wait a minute, hold on. It hasn't even reached. Yeah, who knows, man.

It's all at the end of the day, like, how lucky are we do that we get to do this and write these songs and, you know, money's neat. But I just can't believe we could do it. I get to sit here right in a studio at my house and have my wife and my two kids upstairs. I get to do this. It's insane that I get to do this.

It's a huge blessing. So I'm going to, I'm going to name five people, five things. You just tell me the first thing that comes off the top of your head. Okay. All right.

Keith Urban. Change my life without question. Ashley Goreley. Change my life without question. Sam Hunt. Wow, okay, change my life without question. Okay. I'm sorry for the next one, next person, if they did not change my life.

Change my life without question. Ross Goldman. Changing my life without question. There it is. I had other people, but I kind of think that we had to switch it up. All right, so to finish up, what's a message you would give for an up-and-coming writer? We just kind of talked about it. Realized that it's fun.

It's always fun. because I've noticed myself as I've climbed as my dreams have come true I've forgotten about the fun part of it I've forgotten that it's awesome to hear chords playing and melodies over top of them and when I embrace the fun

side of it it's more natural yeah good yeah man well thank you for doing this you know it's fun watching your your career because both of us really were kind of starting to get cuts the same year and have gone through this process in a very sort of symmetrical way yeah it's a very cool thing

it's very weird man the first time we wrote I came in I had seen a I'm just going to tell you where it came from I was on you know Broadway walking around just being a tourist because I think it was maybe my first time in Nashville writing gotcha so you're doing the whole thing going to go see the sites and all that yeah yeah yeah yeah Yeah, and there was a bar called the rock bottom or whatever. And I was like, you know, I couldn't afford really to even buy myself food out here enough. Like I could barely. And I was like, oh, it would be cool to do something where it's like, you know,

I always think there's something cool about that, blue collar party, you know. And we've both written that a couple times in our professional careers as we've gone. But the idea of being like, oh, yeah, I could like rock, rock bottom pretty well. Yeah. It's a good title. Like, there's nothing wrong. I mean, we wrote a fine song, I guess. That's true.

It's just fun. It's fun to see, like, you know, this is us writing a song in a room, hoping that we could get cuts. And then to see where we are now is really exciting. And you know, Adam, the guy we wrote that day, he's had multiple hits himself. Like, he's, I mean, he and I wrote Hell of a Night together. And, like, he's, I don't know, hits. He's, you know. I love it.

It's great that it's all happened. It's very much a blessing. Yeah, well, congratulations. Thank you, man. It's fun to share this with you. Thank you. And let's write a song now. Let's do it.

Okay. If you missed the 51st annual CMA Awards this week on ABC, you can check out the winners and highlights of your favorite artists, including Garth Brooks, Carrie Underwood, Luke Bryan, and many more by visiting cMA Awards.com. Thanks for listening to this episode of Anne 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 writer is.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 London, edited by Miles Bergsma, and published by Big Deal music. A special thanks to David Silverstein from Mega House Music and Michael White. On next week's episode, we sit down with Sir Nolan Lambrosia. Until next time, this is Ross Golan.