And The Writer Is...with Ross Golan - Ep. 44: Joe London (LIVE from The University of Southern California)

Episode Date: June 4, 2018

This week we have a special interview recorded LIVE from the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music. Hailing from Wisconsin our guest is a Grammy nominated and ACM Award winning songwriter and producer from our And The Writer Is… family. He is responsible for penning diverse hits such as Thomas Rhett’s Grammy nominated and BMI Country Song of the Year, “Die A Happy Man,” Pitbull’s “Fireball,” Jason Derulo’s “Wiggle (feat. Snoop Dogg),” Sage The Gemini’s “Now and Later,” Fifth Harmony’s “BO$$,” Tim McGraw and Faith Hill’s “Speak to a Girl,” and Lizzo’s “Worship.” In addition to his success as a songwriter, he is a renowned producer who recently co-wrote and co-produced Thomas Rhett’s Grammy nominated album ‘Life Changes’ as well as co-produced the album’s hit single “Craving You (feat. Maren Morris).” He also co-wrote and co-produced Bomba Estéreo’s Grammy nominated albums ‘Amanecer’ and ‘Ayo’. As an individual he is equally as kind and as he is talented. He’s the man who makes everyone sound like angels, And The Writer Is… Joe London! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to Season 3 of And The Writer is I am 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.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 The USC Thornton School of Music has been hailed by Rolling Stone magazine as the cutting-edge department that's become the site of Los Angeles' most productive new music scenes and was recently ranked as the top school of music in the country by the Hollywood Reporter. To learn more about USC Thornton or to schedule a campus visit, go to www.usc.org at u.

forward slash music before we get into our interview let me set the stage we are coming to you from the popular music forum class at the University of Southern California's Thornton School of Music we're here on the USC campus

before a live student audience USC is one of the top music business schools in the country their Thornton School of Music has produced some of the most successful composers musicians music business executives songwriters and dare I say podcast hosts of our time

wink Wink hosting us today is Chris Sampson Vice Dean of the Division of Contemporary Music and founding director of the popular music program at USC

Chris thanks for having us today Thanks so much Ross It's great to have you here I think this is the ideal place for a podcast to happen because we've got these phenomenally talented professionals songwriters, producers, instrumentalists,

and the opportunity to get to hear your insights and learn from you is invaluable. So thanks, Ross. We appreciate it. Well, thank you, Chris. Welcome to And The Writer is. I'm your host, Ross Golan. This week's writer-producer has multiple Grammy nominations from multiple years, including this one,

from multiple genres. He's had hits in country, Latin, hip-hop, R&B, pop, and started in a rock band. One of those songs, by the way, was Die a Happy Man for Thomas Wrett, which was number one for six weeks on country radio. That hadn't been done for the nine years prior. From suburban Milwaukee, this guy brings his Midwest humility to an industry drowning in egos. And the writer is My Podcast, Brother in Arms, Joe London. I listen to you, do that intro every week, and it still amazes me every single time.

Oh, that's amazing. So, just to give you guys some background who don't know the podcast and those who do, Joe is the guy who I sit next to during every single interview. And we were thinking there would be, it'd be really cool to have a discussion with this guy so you can actually hear that he's a human who's not just like, it's not a button that I'm pressing and I just call it Joe London. But it's an actual human. and he's currently working. Yeah, exactly.

You're currently working. Yeah. As you can see, he's actually running Pro Tools from the stage. I felt a little naked without my rigs. Yeah. I had to keep it nice and close. Also, that was so awesome what happened before we started. Can you explain what that?

Okay, so one of the things that, this program didn't exist when I was here. And it's nice to see how powerful it is. And what happens before you guys actually have interviews or you have guests is people raise their hand and they say what's on they have coming out. They tell us about where their shows are, things like that. And it's really cool to see that you guys support each other like that. I hope you guys actually get to each other's shows

and encourage each other because maybe the best advice I ever got was be friends with assistants. Because eventually they'll be bosses. and, you know, one of the producers of the podcast, Casey, who's in the second row, we were on each other's hall at Partee, on the third floor at Partee, and we were freshman. We were, yeah, we were freshmen together, and here we are four years later. For those who can't hear, there was so much laughter in the background. So Casey and I've known each other since we were freshmen,

and I think you'll see that a lot of the people you're in class with right now, somebody here is going to be a very successful marketing person, and somebody here is going to be a great manager. You might have multiple ones. You might have great publishers and great songwriters and great artists among you. So just make sure you guys support each other, because you guys are the music industry. You're not trying to get into it,

but you're actually just starting into it, but you're already in it. So you need to know that. That's why supporting each other is helpful. And you know, you guys who are putting songs up on DSPs and on Spotify and whatnot, you know, that is the business. You're already doing it. You're already doing it.

So congratulations to you guys. It's awesome. You should give yourselves a round of applause. Yeah. So let's pretend you and I don't know each other. Okay. So you were born. in Milwaukee.

I was born in Milwaukee. I was born in specifically Greenfield, Wisconsin. Where's that? It's like 15 minutes out of like downtown Milwaukee. North, south. It's a little south. Oh, so we were not that far from each other. I mean, I was older.

How about that? Like what? Like an hour and a half maybe? Deerfield, Illinois. It's got to be, you know. There we go. Hell yeah. We got some deer.

Fieldians. I mean, we've got to be, you know, like, what, 30 minutes, 40 minutes, whatever. Anyway, so we don't know each other, so. You have brothers and sisters? I have one brother who actually lives out here now. Okay. Older? Younger? Two years older. Is he a musician? He is not. He actually is very good at guitar, but never fully pursued music. Did your parents play music?

No, my parents didn't, like, my mom would play a little, like, occasion or, like, sing around the house, and, like, she loved. music played music all the time but my grandma is kind of a great story so my grandma my mom's mother um she was a singer of a choir and my grandpa was the conductor of a chorus and orchestra wow so basically they both worked for this company called alan bradley which was like a switch electronics company in the Midwest and back in the day these companies would have like entertainers that they would pay to travel all over the United States and play shows for like Christmas and all like their events and stuff.

So my grandpa and grandma met as the conductor and as a girl in the chorus. 18 year difference in age, which is pretty crazy. Got married, had four kids. So they kind of introduced you to music? Totally, 100%. Like my grandma was incredible piano player,

incredible singer. Did you learn religious music? No. No, it didn't grow up very religious, but just grew up around music of all kinds. When did you start playing? You started playing guitar, right? I started playing guitar, yeah. I was like the kid who always wanted to play guitar, but my mom was like, I'm going to buy you a guitar, you're going to play it for a week, and then it's just going to sit there and collect dust. But finally, eventually I convinced her, I was like, I really want to learn. And so she bought me an acoustic. I really wanted an electric guitar, because I was just going to. I was like, I don't want to learn acoustic guitar.

But she bought me acoustic. She's like, if you play for a little bit and you get good, we'll buy you an electric guitar. So she bought me acoustic. She, like, loved Bon Jovi. So when I was a kid, she was like, if you learn like these Bon Jovi songs, we'll buy an electric guitar. One, which is kind of crazy because, like, playing Bon Jovi songs on an acoustic guitar was very difficult and really crushed my hands but gave me enough, you know, strength

for when I actually got the electric guitar. it's funny because you get an electric guitar you then have to get an amp and you get an amp you have to learn tones and you have to start going through all these frequencies and learning what everything does and that's why I never played electric guitar really it was just like it was such a pain in the ass

I was like well you have to learn four things versus just yeah I mean that's four too many things for me I'm pretty sure she just didn't want me to play electric because she didn't want to have to listen to me jamming distortion guitar right at all hours of the day when you finally got it were you doing that

oh yeah yes just terrible terrible electric guitar all day long it must have been miserable to listen to what's the earliest recording you have of you play like were you recording yourself on a task cam or anything like that when you were

so in high school my buddy had like some free program I forget what it was it was like some strange like maybe like Windows Microsoft program that was like a sound recorder it wasn't really meant for like tracking music but it recorded and I think you could do separate tracks

and so we would record a little like guitar things and started like writing songs you know like freshman in high school what's your first song called oh boy uh I think let me think here we had a song called daydreaming that was kind of a nice song

daydream about you know that special someone did you have a special someone at the time oh yeah yeah I was like the kid who fell in love like when I was really young. Like I was always in love with someone. Always had a crush on somebody. And you found my heartbroken when I was like seven.

Really? Oh, yeah. So you remember? It seems like it's like you still feel it. Oh yeah. You want to hear a crazy story about getting heartbroken when you're a kid? So I fell in love with this girl. She was kind of like, she was two years older than me.

Just mad in love when I was. You're seven? Seven? No, this was in, like, seventh grade. So I was, what, like 14? Yeah. And my family would go on family vacations with her family, and so we'd always hang out.

It was great. And then we'd come back from family vacations, and we'd be in school, and then she, like, wouldn't want to talk to me. But she ends up starting to date my brother, who's two years old than me, which just destroyed me when I was a kid. Oh, just wrecked me.

But I think, you know, gave me some good you know some good shit for later on writing songs yeah exactly um that's really

honest yeah you know um what was your band called in high school um our band was called hash but not for the reason you think no no no you guys don't understand

you guys are thinking like west coastians I don't know if that's a word but like hash where we grew up is probably literally like potatoes. Yeah, corned beef hash. Like you grew up in the Midwest and that's like, like,

a bulk of my meal is carbohydrates and starches. Exactly. You're probably naming your band after like quality potatoes. Yeah, a good breakfast at the local diner. A good, a good breakfast side dish. Did you play around?

Yeah, yeah. We played all over, like, you know, we played the band at our high school and like, I'm trying to think what else we played. You know, we'd have like house parties with friends and do Green Day covers and like were you good? Yeah, we were pretty good. I mean, we weren't great,

but we were like a good high school band, you know. How do you know? I sang harmonies. I didn't sing, but two of the guys in the band sang pretty good harmonies. Can you sing at all? No, I'm terrible singing. I sing more than I should.

For how good I was saying. Did you know that it was great or good at the time? Like, when did you start realizing the difference between good and great? that's a good question um i think like once we started actually recording the music you know and i play it for like my parents or or you know some like uncles or my brother and they they were like yeah this is actually kind of sick and like they'd actually listen to it outside of like other music and stuff um i was like okay this this is cool like people are actually listening to

something you made which is probably one of the best feelings ever sure so that was just like a thing that I found early on. I was like, you know, this is cool. Whether it was good or not, I'm not quite sure when I ever, I'm not sure if I still know that. Right. Were you thinking at the time, oh, you know, I should pursue this as a profession? Did you know it was a profession?

I didn't forever. I mean, it's sort of like, you're either in a band or you're not in a band. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. I also grew up playing a lot of sports. And so like when I was like in high school, like sports was like more of a thing the music but I always loved music way more than I loved actually playing sports. I just happened to be

kind of good at it. What were your sports? I was a I was swimming cross country and and like a little bit of track track and field. Did you um look at schools for sports? Oh yeah like definitely was like going to go to school for swimming. That was kind of my main one. I was like doing that ever since I was a kid. But like after doing that for so long I just had so much more passion for music. So, my plan was like to just go to a college, figure out what I wanted to do. I guess I'm kind of jumping around, but figure out what I wanted to do and ended up meeting a couple guys in college, starting a band. Where was that college? So I went to college at a place called University of Wisconsin, Ashkosh, like Ashkosh, Bagash, the clothing company.

I imagine the uniforms were all denim for all this work. Exactly. Just like, just denim football. And like a sick denim onesie. So you guys started a band and what was that band called? So that band was called A, B, and the C, which is the band that I actually moved out to California with the guys that I met in college.

You left school early to do that. Yeah, I only went to school for one year. So what gave you the confidence to say, you know, this isn't for me, I'm going to pursue. I'm going to move somewhere. And why did you guys say you were going to, I mean, you're in Oshkosh and you moved to the Bay Area, right? Yeah, we moved to the Bay Area.

Why? The Bay Area. So the way it kind of goes is that we met about halfway through our first semester. I met this guy named Koli and a guy named Zach Pingel, who was the bass player. And Coli was a singer, I was a guitar player and Zach was the bass player. And the whole second semester of college, we were like skipping, you should not do this, but we were skipping class, driving down to Chicago, playing shows, just being really active in, like, playing music and pursuing the band.

And I think we just, like, so the guys that I started the band with had just broken up with a band that they were in, who was, I believe they were signed to a major, I can't remember, but that had broken up. And I think me coming into a couple guys who had already been signed, they kind of already knew the business a little bit. I think that was like a boost of confidence for me to be like, oh shit, like this is actually a thing.

Like, these guys have been on tour around the States. Like, that's crazy. And when you're playing in Chicago, I mean, it's the third biggest city in the country. So you're playing at, you know, these huge, were you playing at metro or elbow room?

We played a Shuba. Yeah, Shubas? Yeah, that was kind of our main spot. And we would like, you know, we would create a fake email as like our band manager. Of course, we didn't have a band manager. And we would do anything to just get an opening slot

on like our favorite bands. Did that work? It did. It always does. It always works. It's crazy. Just create a fake manager and don't sound like an idiot on email. I used to say, I'm sure I've told this story, but when I was at Partee, I used to call,

there was a thing called Yellow Pages of Rock when there was something called Yellow Pages. And it had the list, the direct numbers of all the execs from all the companies. And it was updated every year and it was like $600. bucks but I knew someone who had like the 1997 one I was like well I mean some of them some of these numbers still work so I used to call on my roommate's name was Mike Thompson so I know I've said this story

before but I would just call and be like hi I'm Mike Thompson from from Raw Songs Records I've got an artist you gotta hear and I went and I would go and borrow somebody's car drive to somebody's office and you know make CDs and give them demos and that's how I started meeting people. You can lie your way into the industries, kids.

You don't even need a degree. Fake it to you make it. I'm just kidding, Chris. Of course you need a degree. Unless you don't in this case. Oh yeah, exactly. So basically we were going down to play shows in Chicago and stuff and eventually we just decided that this is something we all really wanted to do. The music was really good and so

I went to my parents and I was like, I'm going to drop out of school. I'm going to move to California to be in a band. Was it like a sit down? Like a real like, it had to be like in. And the crazy thing was like, it was right when our second semester grades came out. And mine were like, the second semester was terrible.

But the only class I got an A in was my music class. So I felt like that was a nice little like, I'm dropping out of school. But like, see, like this music thing, you know, I got an A here. So you should let me move to California and be in a band. So this is end of your second semester. So it's like it's springtime in Wisconsin. Yeah, she's got that. Beautiful. It's not great anymore.

So you're like, look, I'm leaving. Yeah, my vision is just complete tunnel vision to doing music. And she was like, nah. Short. Short conversation. Very short. But here comes my grandma back in my musical grandma. My grandpa had passed away, but my grandma basically went to my mom was like,

look, you got to let him go. If you have passion and if he has passion to do something, something, like, you got to let them do it. And so she basically convinced my mom, like, you got to let him move to California and pursue music. That's, I've, like, such a special bond with my grandma, especially just for doing that. Is she still around? Yeah.

And every time I go home for Christmas, I'm like, Grandma, you have to play me piano because she's an incredible piano player. So every year, I think, around this time, she starts warming her fingers up and getting ready to put on a little performance for me when I come home. What's her name? Marcia. Nice. Grandma red hair.

She has big red hair. hair. Every day gets dressed up, dolled up to like, you know, the nines and just fully. She's the best. Shout out to Marcia. Yeah. Killing it. All right, so you're in, so you moved to the Bay Area, where? So the reason we moved to the Bay Area is we actually met a couple of guys from an awesome band called the Morning Benders. I don't know if anyone's ever heard of them. So we became friends with this. This is back in the MySpace days. We're huge fans of their band, just like send them a message on MySpace. We're like, hey, we're a band from Milwaukee. Love your guys music, here's some tunes.

He hit me back. He's like, yo, we're playing Milwaukee in a month. We need a place to crash. Can we crash at your house? So it was like, sick. Come crash at a house. So just became friends with all of them. They crashed my parents' house. And then the lead singer of the band was like, I work at a studio in San Francisco. Your guys' music's cool. You should come to San Francisco. I'll record you and give you like a deal.

So like literally a month later, we were on our way to San Francisco. That's incredible. Where did you live? Like once you were out of that. We literally moved to San Francisco. We pulled, driving over the Bay Bridge, have no place to go. Oh my God. Your mom's like, don't pursue music.

And then she's like, you're proving her right every step of the way. Every step of the way. So you go and you record and who's recording you at this? So basically we like end up meeting some people staying at their house. And yeah, a month later, his name's Chris Chu he gets back from tour and he's like okay

let's do a week so we scrounge up like any money we had we were literally for like two years we were busking on the street in San Francisco oh amazing eight hours a day just you know doing beach boys and Beatles songs

because we're very Beach Boys and Beatles influenced so we were doing like you know our best what was like a big one Obladi obla da that one yeah hit it off

really well. We did some like Paul Simon and some Everly brothers and stuff like all kind of old classic songs. And you would try to sing harmony and they're like no Joe. Yeah, I was always trying to sing how many but you're like you're not singing key and key. Right. Right. Okay, I'll just play guitar. And so, yes, we did a week with Chris at this amazing studio in San Francisco called Different Fur Records. And so the manager who used to manage the Morningbenders was a guy named Steve

Brodsky, the late and the great, he passed away a few years ago. But we basically just fully infiltrated their whole camp, kind of. Amazing. And just started making records at that studio. And then Steve kind of took us under his wing and started managing us. And it was just a long journey of being in a band and writing and learning to produce and all that stuff. The USC Thornton School of Music has been hailed by Rolling Stone Magazine as the cutting-edge department that's become the site of Los Angeles' most productive new music scenes and was recently ranked as the top school of music in the country by Hollywood Reporter. Offering degrees in music industry, film scoring, popular music, music production, jazz and classical, USC Thornton alumni are

award-winning songwriters, renowned film composers, Grammy award-winning artists, and industry leaders, including myself. Set within the heart of Los Angeles, students have a unique access to the music profession that provides just as many learning opportunities outside the classroom as within. To learn more about USC Thornton or to schedule a campus visit, go to www.usc.org dot U.S.S.C.org slash music. So did you produce the band? I did. I did. I produced like a lot of the early demos. Did you know that's what you were doing?

Were you like, yeah, producing or you're like, no, I'm going to record my band? No, we need to figure out a way to record our music. so I like really shittily in the beginning bought like a microphone and tried to do my best and just literally learned to produce just by doing it and watching tons of YouTube and just a lot of trial and air

honestly. When you were done with the music what did you do with it? Like were you selling it while you were playing shows? Were you sending it out to people at... Yeah, we started... Yeah, we're playing shows all over, we started selling it.

You know, Steve's tried to get started like pitching us to labels and stuff and, you know, along the way there was a bunch of potentials that never ended up happening, but, you know, we're selling it online, selling that show. So how did you meet Ricky Reed

who becomes... Yeah, so okay, so at the same time, do you guys know a producer named Ricky Reed or wallpaper, is that name? Yeah, yeah. Amazing producer, good friend. So he, at the same time that we moved to San Francisco, he started working with that same guy's

Brodsky's who started managing wallpaper. So this was about like halfway through the band's kind of like life. Steve was like, you guys are great. You should meet this awesome producer. I'm starting to work with. His name is Ricky. You should show him some of your songs. So we did and he likes him the songs and he was like down to produce a couple of them.

So he produced I think three of our songs, one of which was like our big single that kind of got us the most traction. For those of you don't know who Ricky is, he was not. nominated for producer of the year last year, probably should have been nominated for producer of the year this year. He should look him up. He was, I think, one of our first five interviews, something like that. First three, maybe.

He's a good friend of both of ours. And so I asked him in this segment, what would Ricky Reed ask Joe London? He asked these three questions for you. Oh, three-parter. He says, you want to get last-minute tequila brunch at Salazar. do I always okay I'll tell him that

he also said can I borrow your melaton always just don't just remember to plug it in when you and then his last question was can you turn down the base for a few minutes we're cutting vocals

is that a question that's more of yeah it's more of just an ongoing statement that I get a text message well it's kind of cool it goes to the same thing we were saying earlier about you know your friends as you go

further, Ricky Reed and I had our first single together and now we're doing an album on Interscope together. You guys work together and you have a studio on top and below. You share a studio with each other. And it's like when it comes down to it, it becomes your friends just working your way up. Yeah. And that's why that was so cool in the beginning because you guys are all are a community that will continue to grow together. And that literally is what it's about. You know, it's just keeping those connections and those friendships you guys have and like you guys will eventually just all

be the music industry that's just the way it goes I remember someone saying that to me early on like I think it was Barbara Kane at BMI who's like the best ever but Barbara said to me once like you're the music industry and I remember thinking like that sounds insane and then years down the line though

it's like you are you become the music industry sure so explain your relationship with your PRO who is now evolved into other relationships. So the band's kind of, as our band started kind of fading out and we realized other, you know, people who had other interests and things were happening, I was

fully pursuing production at that point and like producing for other people and making tracks and, you know, spending hours in my room making hip-hop beats and shit. I moved down to Los Angeles where Ricky Reed was also doing a lot of the same stuff. And so Casey, this guy right here, was was working at BMI at the time. And literally just opened so many doors from me. Like your PROs are such a big asset of your guys' careers.

PROs are BMI, ASCAP, CSAG, all that stuff. Global, which is another. Which is like their job to basically like help connect to you and, you know. And so Casey basically at the time, like me, him and Ricky all met. and it was like right around that time that Ricky was looking to maybe sign some people and Casey had just moved to a new publishing company and so we like decided to like let's try this out this could be a cool thing and so that basically started my whole like production and writing career

so you moved down to Ali do you have any social life happening at this point like are you just like oh I'll just go wherever I need to go or I mean like are you in a relationship at this point yeah so when I moved to San Francisco I met my now wife literally the second day I was in San Francisco and she's been an incredible like she's I mean but she was just down to go you were like let's go down to LA

she's like all right well her parents live in LA so that made it a lot easier right dude when we came down here it was crazy I mean the band was fading we literally like why was it fading I mean you guys moved out to San Francisco together and then it's just yeah I mean just I think literally when our manager Steve passed away

that like hit us really big and kind of put the brakes on things a little bit because we all kind of figured like you know what are we doing actually things were quite moving as fast as I think we wanted them to um I think life was starting to get in the way a little bit we all kind of had other things we were starting to do um so we moved down to L.A. and uh literally moved in with Michelle's parents for a little bit trying to figure out what we wanted to do like I didn't know L.A. that much I was like either driving or like taking the train down and biking to sessions. But finally we ended up getting an apartment down in LA and that made things a lot easier. What do you mean you were biking to

sessions? Yeah biking or taking the train to sessions. I didn't have a car when I first moved down here. Right. Being in San Francisco. So how do you, so how do you logistically get from Michelle's parents' house to say like Westlake? A series of planes, trains and automobiles. It must have taken hours So there's a train in Santa Clarita Where her parents live That it's just like the Metro link

Or whatever And you take the train down Get off at Union Station You get on the What is it? The red or the purple metro Yeah Take that all the way up to Santa Monica And then you just take another bus

Or just walk down Santa Monica And then when you're done with the session You have to take the same way back Or you have to leave the session early Because the train Only leaves at a certain time Oh my God Yeah, definitely get a car if you live in LA.

It's much easier. Right, exactly. So how do you go from that to, I guess, Wiggles is probably the first, like... Yeah, so Wiggles's kind of, I guess, the first one. So there's a producer named Accident, who's an amazing producer. And at the time, Ricky Reed and Accident were working a bunch on his... On the wallpaper record. How do you explain an accident?

It's just the best dude, but he's just like a kind of weird. Yeah, he's a... You know, there are musicians where they're true artists, and maybe that doesn't, maybe they're off on another planet. An accident, who I love dearly, is proudly off on another planet. So, yeah, so basically the two of them had an idea, like everyone had been kind of grinding, doing sessions in L.A., working super hard and we're like, let's like get out of the city a little bit and be creative and do something a little bit differently.

So me and a couple other people, and I think it was five of us, started this little thing called Start from Infinity, which is the strangest name. And I don't even know how we got to that. But basically five of us, we went out to Joshua Tree was the first trip. And I highly recommend doing this, especially if you're like writing or producing. Basically getting out of the city and just spending a week together in a house, there's make the weirdest stuff, just get it all out. And out of that first trip, we actually got the instrumental to wiggle by Jason Drew

Lowe. And we got a Tim McGraw song called The View. I think there was a-fireball? Not that was a later trip. Boss? No, no, that was- Really? That first trip, I think, was just the wiggle instrumental in the Tim McGraw song. Worth the trip.

Definitely worth the trip. And basically, like, we just found this crew of people that like had the best kind of chemistry like it was so simple we had fun we were partying and making music we were just being really creative and like you know we'd split i think there was actually six of us we'd split up into two groups of three and we'd be like okay you have an hour go outside you write a song on acoustic the other people go on the computer make a beat and and then we'll flip-flop and we'll compare and see which one is the best you know like really creative fun ways to make music. What was it like to hear

Wiggle on the radio having done, you know, being in a rock band and doing all this and then you go away and then your first hit is Wiggle. It's like it doesn't sound like anything that you've done as an artist up until that point. What does it like to be like this is the first song

that kind of represents you know, it's the first song in your discography. That represents me as a human. I mean people look at your discography and they kind of like look at you, you know, that's how they start to to judge you and over time

you're hearing a song in the radio for the first time is like definitely is one of the best feelings ever

it's a feeling that I don't think ever really gets old and especially at that point I had been in the music industry for I don't know a good

seven years or something so it was a very much like a like like it's something's starting to work you know the industry can be tough you know

it just takes a lot of hard work and a lot of persistence and so that was like definitely a moment where it was very good feeling. And up until that, you even question, you know, I shouldn't say you, but I guess the idea is,

most of us, I think, question, am I crazy for still going to all these sessions? Totally. Well, it's funny because music is such an intense passion that, like, a lot of times you don't question it and you just keep going and going, because it's just,

and you just have so much drive. But, yeah, at a certain point, I guess you kind of do turn around and go, like, wait a second. Right. What am I doing? Yeah. But that moment definitely was a nice moment. So Wiggle does really well, gets you a BMI award, goes, you know, multi-platinum.

Yeah, that was also another nice moment is getting on stage at the BMI Awards to accept an award with Snoop Dog. That was definitely a highlight. Yeah. Snoop, I'm Joe. Hey, man. Can I get your autograph? Here's an interesting question, and I'll go to this other segment that we have planned. you don't know this

I'm going to call this segment what would Thomas Rett ask you oh boy so I asked Thomas I said what would you say and he goes why Joe London why not Joe Nebraska or Joe England so I think that's a fair question

going into this next phase I mean before this you're Joe Sparger and then as Thomas Rett asked why Joe London why not Joe Nebraska or Joe English So I had this thing for a long time where it's like nothing sounds good after Joe. Like no last name sounds cool.

And so I was in the shower one day, which is a great place to get some thinking done. And it literally just popped in my head. I was like, Joe London actually sounds kind of cool. Like it actually has a nice little ring to it. And so that same day I actually was getting coffee with Casey. And I was like, hey, I'm thinking of like making a producer name. I don't know why. but why not.

And Joe London sounds cool. Like, what do you think? And he was like, thought about it for a second. He was like, I think it's a good idea. He's like, I think if I got an email, I would much rather do a session with Joe London than I would with Joe Sparger. So I think you should do it.

And I was like, yes, that's why I did it. I feel like, I mean, we have this conversation kind of a lot because it's so accurate. And the amount of people that don't want to change their name and you know it's sort of like but the names everything I mean I was just too late to do it I think by the time I was like I want to change it

I don't know if I I don't know if I really got that far but like I think there were there was so many times and I should change my name but I'm too far into this one now I'm too far into that you've gone too far I've gone too far to change it man just like all of a sudden next year it's you know whatever Ross the boss

actually I was with a Drey and Vidaloo did caught up for Usher and they were like the first real producers that pulled me out of being in a band and they used to call me Ross the Gloss and I was like I don't know but then they started calling me Gloss

and they'd call me gloss in front of So there's like a small community somewhere in Philly who's like Gloss. The legend of gloss. The legend of gloss grows somewhere somewhere dark somewhere cold Okay so you have Wiggle

and then like a whole slew of things start coming out. You know, Fireball, which is just a massive license song, and it's like, I feel like everybody knows it kind of really breaks open John Ryan in a lot of ways. It's like even though he was on other songs and stuff, outside of, like for him, he had been doing a bunch of the, you know, the One Direction stuff. And then this kind of like shows that he's, you know,

someone different than just that. You know, that seems to be like, even though it wasn't necessarily a huge radio song it seemed like that was that was like a real defining song for all of you guys and that song really blew up in a lot of doors

I think for everybody so funny story that song was written with the same group of people that did those other wiggle and the other songs and that was a trip where we actually rented a house

in Oxnard and actually crazy story we wrote so many songs we wrote like six songs that whole trip and I think five of them got cut and came out.

And the crazy thing is we wrote Fireball and we wrote a song the same day called Day Drinking. While we were day drinking Fireball. So convenient. You know, you write about what you know. It's so economical. But there's something, I think just all those songs that came out of that group is there's just something about being comfortable with the people you're working with and like just

having fun. Like those are fun records and I think it translates because we were actually having fun. while we were making them, you know. How do you jump from Pipple to Tim McGraw and Faith Hill? Do you know what I mean? Like, where, how does it? I mean, what's the story? How do you get over, you know,

the, you, to be able to write in different genres is unusual. And then those are so polar opposite in a way. Who introduces you to the Nashville world? well i guess i mean starting off like growing up my dad like is a huge country music fan growing up in like in the midwest country music's really big in the midwest it's like every sunday morning i remember my dad listening to the country count down all the fame you know or whatever the the sunday like playlist of country music was it's like growing up i always had like a little bit of an education on country music but it was definitely like a genre i never pursued and by any means um but i

basically down the line i just met thomas ret um he was in l a looking to do some sessions we got set up i think i believe it was he liked wiggle and someone basically had set me and sean douglas who also was a writer on wiggle set us up with a session with thomas and um we wrote us we actually didn't write a very good song but it was like good but we had really good chemistry me sean and thomas really good great chemistry so at the end of the session he's like guys I got to go he was actually going to get like I think he's getting dinner with ashton kutcher or something he's like I got to go I'm getting dinner with ashton kutcher we're like okay it's weird but okay um but he's like this was really fun you guys should come out in the row with me

i like i like to bring songwheres out in the road and like write while i'm on tour and we're like that sounds incredible we've never done anything like that so so basically he flew us out to we were in like Little Rock Arkansas or something like some really strange place we'd never been before and the first song we wrote on the bus was Diapy Man and so that song like really just fully opened the door into the country music world for me what makes you a good

country songwriter I mean I think part of like being a pop writer going to Nashville like you really do kind of have to understand a little bit of the country songwriting like world and you have to know those songs a little bit and I think growing up like knowing country music

I was actually able to bring something to table. I think a lot of pop writers who go to country can get a little bit lost in the in the mix of like trying to write a pop song for country or trying to write a country song that's pop. You know, you kind of get like lost in that mix. But I mean, I don't really know. I think I just kind of had a, it was kind of in my, in my consciousness a little bit from being a kid growing up. How long did it take for that song from when you wrote it to when it came out? I think it was about a year, actually, before it came out. And it was one of those songs that, like, you know,

when you guys know, it's like when you go around, you play your music for people. Usually the second you play it, you're like, oh, shit, there's so many things wrong with this that I have to fix. But that song, even just the demo, it was just guitar and vocal. Like, that was always one I put on and I was like very confident in it. I was like, this is a great song.

I know it's a great song. Hopefully they put it out because you never know. Great songs don't come out. a lot of times but I just was really confident in that one and it was one that I'd play and feel really good about and so when it actually finally came out

I was really excited and I was just excited that it actually caught on I mean they caught on like nothing else that you had seen even since you were a professional songwriter as far as country music's concerned yeah were you were you aware of how significant of a song it was I mean even people have multi-week number one

songs that don't necessarily become evergreens and you know it's sort of a thing where i mean the stars do have to align yeah you know and luckily for that song they just they did and and i still don't quite know exactly how the stars do align but sure but uh so what about bomba estero it's another project that you're pretty deep in that's been grammy nominated and it is it's nominated again it's you know both thomas and bombastero you've had enough work on both albums the last two albums to be nominated now twice for both um explain the latin music world and why would you spend time in the latin music world i mean that one was just like a perfect like when we did that first album we weren't like trying to do there wasn't like now there's kind of this thing where like latin music

is like really making a heavy push and influence into pop music. But at that time, that wasn't really the thing. We just had heard the band, and we were big fans of the band. And so it was like a very weird project to kind of work on, but we were very inspired by them in their first album. And I think it was another one of those things where we did a couple days with me, this is me and Ricky Reed, who's also a producer on the project. We flew down to Columbia and did like,

half the record there and then we did the other half in LA and I think it just the chemistry was so good that something really good came out of it yeah it's amazing man um what are you working on now it's a good question kind of just honestly stockpiling a lot of stuff trying to figure out what to do next I mean of course I'm there's some country stuff I'm working on and some pop stuff but really trying to find find kind of a new thing you know searching for like a new new sound or or something like a lot of times you write you've been writing now for three years straight and i think you know a lot of times you go in and you kind of do the same chords or like you pull up the same sounds and really trying to find that new thing

you know just like really experimenting and like this whole week i'm actually rented out of studio with a buddy of mine and we're just making stuff with no thought of what it's you could be or what it is just making it is that how you find a new sound yeah i think you know it's like the second you're trying to make something you're there's a target a lot of times you've like already failed you know if you're trying to do something you've kind of already you've you've lost the inspiration to just create something so like that and that's actually what we're doing when we started doing those start for infinities we weren't trying to there was no like we're going to write a song for jason derulo was just like we're going to go make something

and that's kind of how we got a bunch of weird stuff that actually ended up working so I think it's just trying to be really creative and let all the walls down and just let stuff out and I think for me personally that's that's just worked for me a lot because the second I sit down I try and make a song I end up just doing something I already did

do you know when a song is good I know when I get that feeling that like this is this moves me you know I think I think when you make something, that's really the only thing you can, like, listen to is that kind of gut, you know, gut intuition thing and just tell you, like, this is good. If you tried to define a hit song, how would you do that? I don't know. I think it's impossible, really. Like, do you have your own sort of method in how you write, or, you know, is it, or do you like the going in and just trying to make sounds and then hoping that it turns into a song?

Like is it just like seeing what comes off the top of your head or do you like more structured kind of writing? It's weird. I kind of go between both of those actually. Because sometimes like I love my two favorite things are like an amazing song that has like a track that it's like the record is just an incredible record. You know like some of those Bruno Mars records are like insane just as productions and as pieces of music. But then I also love just the beautiful song acoustic just where the song moves you so much. that, you know, we call it, my wife and I call it the pullover song. It's like when you're driving the freeway and a song comes on and it's so moving that you

have to pull the car over because you need to, you know, compose yourself a little bit. Those are my two favorite things. And I think those are always what I'm kind of trying to, one or the other. I'm trying to kind of go one of those ways. Sure. All right, well, let's go to the next segment. This segment is, I'm going to list five people and you're just going to tell me something about him.

Great. Steve Brodsky, your first manager. Oh, man. I mean, it's hard for me to talk about Steve and not get a little emotional. He's, I mean, he's like the light, you know. He's just the dude who, like, gave a lot of us passion and, like, fueled our passion and and showed us the first door, you know. He's like a brother.

It's amazing. I'd only met Steve a few times, and obviously through Ricky and through Casey and whatnot. You know, it's, he was, just so you know, his manager was our age. It wasn't like, you know, it's not like this guy was an 80-year-old guy sort of thing. So it was really sudden. It was really shocking to sort of see that. But obviously he connected dots and we're still talking about him now. So he's the best.

Ricky Reed. Oh, man. Ricky, just also like a brother. I mean, he's been just a constant. source of inspiration for me. He opened a lot of doors in the beginning. He's been very just open with his knowledge. I've just learned so much from him.

I have seven names, by the way, so I've got five more. Okay. And you can't stop me. None of you can. You can press the space bar, but that'd be weird. Yeah. And difficult to edit it. I'm just going to edit it out, so it's fun.

Sure. Sean Douglas. Oh, man. Sean just one of the funnest people to write with he's like honestly one of the best dudes I know

as of human and every time he's like one of those people you walk in the room with and you just are smiling and you don't really know why he just kind of brings a light that that's really really awesome there aren't that many people that I like wheeze with like wheeze

yes you wheeze with Sean Douglas very funny dude he's the best Thomas and so talented by the way Sean's incredibly talented Thomas Rat kind of falls into a similar category

no I mean Thomas like especially with like the level of kind of like stardom that he's had in the last couple years to see a guy who just is so genuine as a human

and his stage just like an amazing guy through all the craziness in his career he's an amazing dude he's an amazing father and husband and I look up to him a lot. Your publisher, Casey Robinson.

Woo! Of course, an amazing person and a good friend, but also someone who really opened doors from me in the beginning. And still continues to just be a big supporter of me, and I always appreciate that. Your manager, David Silberstein. David.

A crazy story about David, and how we know each other. So, like, right before my, right before Steve passed away, um, Steve had sent David a message being, being like, I have this band.

And there was like a very short period of time where my old band was going to start a new band. Um, and he sent David some of those demos. He's like, hey, I got this new band. What do you think about them? Do you have any ideas for producers or anybody?

One of the producers that David recommended was, Daylight who produced stitches by Sean Mendes and we actually did his first cut together which we produced a song called Boss for Fifth Harmony and that all basically came through Steve emailing David which is how we met and how David came to manage me so long story short David is like a saving grace for me and you know somebody that I can call whenever when I'm either struggling or having the best time ever and we can, you know, plan shit out. Your wife, Michelle Mason. Oh, man.

She's also my interior design. Michelle is like, I mean, literally the best thing that's ever happened to me. We actually wrote a song with a Nashville guy that hasn't come out, and I don't know if it will, but the title of the song is called Favorite Part. and the lyric literally is everybody's favorite part of me is you and it sounds a little like sad maybe but it's just so true

I mean she's just like such a light that's true it is true I know exactly she's fantastic she's literally she's the best yeah she's and she's been so supportive through all the ups and downs of my career and yeah she's the best um before we close out

we're doing this podcast and the writer is together how about that how crazy is that I know it all came from one elevator trip from the BMI offices I mean that's a weird thing did you have any idea this was going to work no no I mean that's

I'm kind of one of those people who and I think you're kind of like this too like I'm almost the person of too many hobbies like I just get really I get inspired not easy but when I get inspired, like, I can't stop thinking about something unless I do something about it. And so just the idea of a podcast and then, you know, we had a trip. We were at BMI and Ross in this little meeting was like, you know, I really want to start

this podcast about songwriters. And my ears kind of perked up in the meeting. I was like, that sounds awesome. And literally in our elevator trip down, I was like, yo, I love your ride podcast idea. Like let me help record them and, you know, I can produce the podcast or whatever. And here we are. It's crazy, but... What do you think of the host?

I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. You know, he's still learning. Well, it's so weird, because, you know, like we released the first 12 episodes before hearing them. Like, no, that's not right. We released the first 12 episodes.

They were all recorded before... I don't know. What am I saying? We recorded all 12 episodes before we released any. There it is. And so, you're listening to

12 weeks of yourself naturally just talking to people and if you really want to learn about yourself listen to yourself talk for one hour every week and it's shocking

you will learn so much about how you communicate and it will change how you communicate outside of a podcast and it is shocking to like have gone on this on that journey. Yeah, exactly.

But I like doing podcasts with you. Yeah, that's great. What is some advice you would give up-and-coming writers? Let me think for a second. I think it's just make stuff, like just continually make shit. You know? I think it's like that simple. You just got to keep making stuff and making stuff and making stuff.

And of course you got to like make connections and you know and have people to send that stuff too. But like the best stuff will be heard. And so I think you just got to like really, really make as much stuff as you can and just really work on your craft. And I think it will pay off if you just really put the work in. Well, Joe, this is awesome. No, this is really cool. I mean, you know, we haven't really introduced. you to our audience yet.

And so it's been cool to have this conversation for a number of reasons, but on a personal level, I couldn't imagine doing this kind of project with someone who isn't as you're so meticulous

when it comes to the actual recording, when it comes to the editing, you pay attention, you bring really good questions when you think about this in a unique cerebral way. But most importantly, you're humble and your sweet and you're encouraging for me to pursue something like this

and for our entire team at Big Deal, you know, Mega House, for us to be pushing something like this, you know, as far as we have, we're not getting paid. We're not doing this because we're making a bucket of money. We're doing this because we love songwriters and we love the community. and we like the music business

and we want to just help out and you being with me throughout this process is why it's still going and why I feel like it can continue to go so thank you for doing this and I love you and there you go thank you thank you

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 and 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 produced by Joe London, edited by Miles Bergsmah and published by Big Deal Music. A special thanks to David Silberstein from Mega House Music and Michael White. On next episode, we sit down with Allie Willis. Until next time, this is the show. This is Ross Bowling.