November 29, 2019 • 20 mins
This week's winner, Stephanie, interviews the band about their careers as hit songwriters.
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Speaker 1 (00:11):
Welcome to one fan to interview the band, a production
of our heart radio We're Old to Me. We just
released a new album, and while on tour in the
U s. We decided to ask one fan to come
hand backstage and ask us questions during in for an
inside look into our new album Life on the Road.
Journey is a band and much more. Welcome to the crew.
This week we're in Tausa, Oklahoma. I didn't know that
(00:35):
it was me would talk you back? Didn't listen to
the words falling out of mount down in the middle
of mad A. Hey, I'm Brad from All Dominion. And
(00:57):
in today's episode, we will be talking about how being
songwriters before being a band has influenced our career. A
few of the songs that I've written, which some fans
might not know are Guy Walks into a Bar for
Tyler Farr, Light It Up for Luke, Brian, Save Her
for Anny Day, Kenny Chesney. The songwriting for me has
influenced my career by I mean, god, how hasn't it?
(01:21):
You know it's moving in Nashville and really deciding to
focus on songwriting really changed my entire life and the
whole trajectory of it. Met these four guys because of that,
and uh, we can keep putting out good stuff and uh,
people connect with and and try to become part of
people's lives. And that's that's what songwriting does. Because in
(01:53):
the Battle wheel in Mama, So, Hi, I'm Stephanie and
(02:22):
I won the contest one fan to interview the band. Alright, okay, hello, Hi,
I'm good. How are you guys doing? You're good? Yes.
I just want to start out and say congratulations guys
on winning the Vocal Group of the Year last snig.
So that is amazing. How did you discover your songwriting ability? Um? Like,
(02:49):
and it's kind of a threefold question. So how old
were you? What was your first song that you wrote? Oh,
discovering your songwriting ability? I mean, I remember when I
first started put in the guitar, uh and I was
also playing soccer. We went to Europe and I took
my guitar with me and I would have these like
(03:09):
three different little riffs I played and like my body
should be like played play like number one, the number one,
and play the second one, you know, So like I
feel like those are the first three things I ever
like made up, you know, I mean and then from there,
you just you know, you get a girlfriend and you
try to write her a song, and o uh, you know,
you just hear other songs that you like, and you know,
(03:30):
you just think how they do that, How did I
do that? How did I do that? You know, so
you just try to do it, and you know, maybe
you sound like this or that at first, and you
know you're kind of building your repertoire and your influences
and then yeah, you know, I think the same thing
with me was, you know, I knew I wanted to
play guitar. I had a guitar and I wanted to
play it, but I didn't know how to play anything else.
(03:51):
So I just made something up. So it was like
the first thing, you know, instinct really for me to
do was to create a song that I could play.
So was all like learning to play the guitar and
learning how to write at the same time. Yeah, mine
was kind of funny because, um, I used to when
I was younger, I played hockey and I had a
(04:12):
buddy and I had like, you know, I learned piano,
and uh, I had a guitar, but I didn't know
how to play it, so I tuned all the strings
to one chord and I would just kind of hold
and bar, you know, and hold it down to make
a chord. But my buddy and I would goof off
and we would make up songs, like joke songs about
our teammates, just to kind of rip on them and
make everybody laugh. And uh, I remember like we had
(04:36):
a couple and I kind of felt like things are
kind of good, you know, like I liked them, and uh,
but you know, I just figured that was crazy. But
I remember like the first time one of my teammates
was like, you know, I know you guys are joking,
but I actually really liked this song, man, And like
that was the first time I was like, you know,
had any confidence. I went, you know, I think I
(04:57):
actually could make up songs. Cool. So about how old
were you guys? Would you say, I mean that I
was for me, I was, I'm gonna say probably yeah,
I was. I think when I first started Yeah yeah,
maybe yeah. But I actually do remember being really young,
(05:20):
like long before that, and being in a car. I mean,
I just remember it. Maybe that's probably like maybe five
or six. I remember hearing a song in the in
the car and uh, really like starting to think about
like how does somebody do that? How do they how
do you make up a song that had never been
made up before? You know, And I really got obsessed
with it and really tried to think and like try
(05:43):
you know, I tried to make up some stuff even
at that age. But that's that was like the moment
that like really like I got fascinated but and has
like really honestly brought me to this point. Yeah, that's
really neat that you have like a specific moment that
you remember at that young of an age age. So
can you describe like how a song comes together for you,
(06:05):
Like from the time that you think of a song,
you know, had that very first thought, to the time
you get it down on paper. You know, it's sort
of at this point in our careers, we've worked on
it for quite a while now, so now it's sort
of like, you know, it starts with the idea usually,
you know, but you know, to be honest, all songs
happen in their own way. But most of the time
(06:27):
what happens is we're always kind of open to what
may be a good song. So it might be something
you say, or our friends say, or we say, or
we see on TV, or we read in a book
or something that sparks an idea, and we write that
idea down and then, you know, say we're gonna sit
down and write a song, and we'll start going through
our phones looking at all our notes and we've all
(06:48):
written down tons and tons of ideas, and we'll just
start kind of tossing out like, well, I had an
idea for a song that was maybe this. So it's like,
you know, one day I was like, you know, like
the other day I dropped my hotel key and picked
it up, and I was like, a hotel key is
a cool title. I wonder what that could be about.
And then we start talking about what could you possibly
(07:09):
write a song about a hotel key? And then you
start thinking, well, maybe it's actually about the girl that
keeps a hotel key as as a memory. And then
you know, Trevor is like, actually, my wife, you know,
she does keep hotel keys as memories. And then so
then you have some sort of reality based in it,
and then you create something from there. You just kind
of start spitballing back and forth and people are playing
(07:30):
things on the guitar or you know, a few hours
later you got a song okay, okay, very cool. Um okay.
So you don't necessarily um write them in like a
linear fashion. You just like sometimes you write multiple songs
at a time, or well, I mean usually not, but
I mean you can't happen. Sometimes we're in the middle
(07:51):
of writing one song, somebody says a line, or you
just play something and you might break off, and yeah,
you might veer off and write that song. You might go,
that's pretty cool, let's record that, and maybe then that
can be a start of a song that you come
back to you later. That does happen, And that's sort
of what happened with a song called My Heart as
a Bar that's on the album. Is we were starting
to write one song and one of the lines in
(08:14):
the song was my heart as a bar, And then
we realized that that was actually a better idea and
actually the whole song should center around that, and so
we switched gears and we wrote a completely different song.
That's really cool. So what have been some of the
biggest influences and inspirations when you are songwriting? You know,
(08:35):
I think for all of us, one would be just
moving to Nashville and when you when you get there
and you see these songwriters that are on the top
of the you know, they're they're on their game, and
they're having all this success and they're writing. You go
out and you see then perform their songs, and you're like,
(08:56):
how in the world did they write something so incredible?
It's it's very inspiring. So that definitely will kick you
into gear and make you want to be better. So
I would say that's probably hold true for all of
us at some point. You know, even before that, there's
other musicians or you know, like I'm a huge Bruce
Springsteen fans, so I you know, I was influenced by
(09:16):
him and or or family members that play music or
you know, but we all have our own individual um
like in early influences. But I would say in the
realm that we're in right now, moving to Nashville was
probably one of the biggest for us all ye that
(09:56):
you talking about, do you guys ever get writer's block?
And if you do, like, what do you guys do
to overcome that? Yeah? I mean I think I think
(10:20):
I definitely do, or I just sometimes just feel uninspired,
you know, like tough to kind of come up with
an idea. But I think a lot of times, you know,
it comes and goes. But also that's what's so great
about writing with co writers is that you know, sometimes
I won't have an idea, but that will, you know,
And then that's to me, the hardest thing about writing
(10:40):
a song is finding what to write about. Once you
find a great idea, it's like, it's not that hard
to write this song. It's harder to come up with
the idea, at least for me. So yeah, sometimes sometimes
you do. For sure, it would be harder if, like
you said, if you were doing it by yourself all
the time, you would definitely hit oh, real writer's block,
because I even like, you know, like I remember like
(11:01):
reading about like Miles Davis. He's like, you know, here's
a genius, charmed player. He's like, but he'd always surround
himself with like the new cool guys because it's like
he's only one dude, one guy only has so much
to offer in the world, and you you just well
doubt yourself, you know. So it's like if if I
was sitting here writing and a song by myself, and
(11:23):
I would have a line or whatever, and I'd be like,
oh that god sucks. But actually, you know, if I
was writing with these guys, they might go, actually, dude,
that's pretty cool, and it just takes them to go
like it doesn't suck, man, it's pretty cool, and then
you go okay. Well then it just pushes you forward,
so so you don't stop yourself. They keep you going okay.
So then do you guys write most of your songs
(11:44):
together then as a group in some form? Yeah? Yeah,
the song the Old Dominion songs that don't know about
the album, Yeah, I mean in some forms. Sometimes it's
all five of us. Sometimes it's one of us and
a couple other friends, or two of us and some
other friends, or three, you know, different combinations, but it's
always some different combination of some of us. Yeah, okay,
(12:04):
I know you've written for other artists, So what does
that look like? Do you write those songs as a group?
Do you individually write those? How do they find you?
Do you have them in mind? Yeah? And usually not,
almost never we do. We don't write with anybody in mind.
We just um, we're always we're always writing, and we're
always just trying to write a great song that day.
(12:26):
We're not necessarily trying to write an Old Dominion song
or you know, Kenny Chesney song or Blake Shelton song.
It's just we're just trying to find, like Brat said,
find that great idea and then write a great song
that we like. And then you know, after we do that,
then we kind of figure out if you know, doesn't
maybe sound like us or you know, we pitch most
(12:47):
of them. A lot of the songs that ended up
being Old Dominion songs also were pitched to other artists
and you know, never cut. So yeah, we don't really do.
The process is not any different. You know, we're just
we're just trying to write a great song and then
it'll land where it's gonna land, or sometimes it won't
ever land anywhere because it's not good and it still
(13:08):
never lands anywhere. Yeah, the old two good song. Then,
has there ever been a song that UM was picked
up by another artist that after they did it you
went back and thought, oh, I wish we would have
done that song instead. UM. Never like there's never like,
(13:29):
oh I wish we would have done that, like a
regret kind of thing. But you know, there are some
songs that we used to play quite a bit in
our set, like a say you do for Derek's Bentley
or wake Up Loving You for Craig Morgan, We're two
that we played quite a bit and we still can
play those songs and actually, like early on before we
broke and you know, we're old dominion necessarily it really
(13:51):
helped us because we would play a lot of shows
where nobody knew who we were, and usually in that
situation you gotta play cover songs and keep people interested.
But we were able to play these songs that we
wrote for other people that they recognized, and we were
able to say that, you know, we wrote these songs.
So it was a pretty cool way for us to
introduce ourselves to fans that didn't know us yet. Yeah,
that is okay. So how has your songwriting abilities improved
(14:15):
over the years. I know you you mentioned that Nashville
was a big inspiration, but just your abilities as a songwriter, Um,
you know, we've gotten faster. I mean, it's easier now
to recognize when something is not good or when it's good.
We've just gotten gotten a better eye for that, so
you don't waste as much time writing a song that's
(14:37):
probably not that great, you know. So I think it's
just kind of learned more a little tricks you know
how to before you're like, okay, it's got to be
a verse and then it goes into the pre course
and he goes into the course and it's like you
do that kind of sometimes, but there's little ways to
to tweak each the form and you know, just little
(14:57):
tricks you learned that. Yeah, you get developed a better
eye for like it's kind of like painting and painting
and then every once in a while you gotta step
back and look at it, you know, and then go, okay,
well it's what's going on, and then dive back in
and it's the same song, and you get a better
eye for stepping back and listening and going okay, yeah,
we're writing a song. But if I was driving down
the road and this came on and I didn't know
where to and care about it, would it stopped me
(15:18):
and grab my attention? Is it that good? You know?
So it's developing that ability, uh to recognize whether it's
you know, because especially in Nashville, anybody can write an
average song or even a decent song, but the playing
field we're at is it has to be better than that.
You know, you can't just write a good song. You
have to constantly be going, is this could this be
a favorite song? You know? At least that's the bar
(15:40):
we try to set ourselves. So I think we've gotten
a little bit better at recognizing that in the moment. Okay,
So how has being a performer affected your songwriting? Good
or bad? You know, doing all these all the shows,
and I mean, I think it's it's only helped, you know.
I mean when I first moved to Nashville and I saw,
like I'd go to the Blue Bird Cafe and you'd
(16:01):
see these hit songwriters that you've never heard of before
perform a song that you definitely knew that you maybe
didn't like, but you'd see the writer perform it, and
you'd be like, oh man, that completely changed that song
for me, Like you would completely now have this new
appreciation for the song because the writer is performing it.
So I think that I think for us anyway, I
(16:22):
think we perform our songs better than anyone else could
because we wrote them. That may not be true for
some people, some writers, you know, I don't have any
aspirations of performing, but we obviously did. So I think
for some reason, we are able to communicate what we're
trying to say better than someone else can communicate it.
(16:42):
So I think, you know, it helps our live show.
It helps us connect with our audience and their reaction,
helps us know what they want to hear, and helps
us maybe write the next song for them. So we've
talked about UM some of the other country artists that
have UM performed your songs. UM has any other genre
artists from other genre than your music? Have you written
songs for them? No? Uh? I mean there's a Van
(17:06):
Lit that records. It's like they were a rock band,
but I think they recorded a song when they were
trying to be a country Uh. So, I don't know.
I mean, just this year, I've started to write a
lot more with UM, some people in other genres. Not
other artists, but with a handful of pop l A
writers and writers from London and New York and stuff.
(17:28):
So you know, maybe that will happen UM, but UM,
you just never know. It's kind of like starting over again,
you know. So maybe at some point we'll we'll write
something for pop artists or not. Yeah, I can see
that because your your music is UM, it's more than
just country. It has those other you know, overtones of
(17:50):
the other genres. Sure, those other genres have influenced this
just as much as country music has. So we just
kind of looked out and landed in country music and
are having success there. Um, But we listened to everything
so um, you know, I think we would all love
to branch out a little bit too, that'd be great. Um.
So what are some tips that you would have for
(18:12):
an aspiring songwriter? The biggest tip I think is just
to keep writing, just to not stop and just write
and write and write and write. And you know, we
always kind of say, you know, it's easy to it's
easy to chase what you think people want to hear
and fall into that temptation. Um, but you try to
you gotta try to resist that and try to, you know,
(18:34):
stay true to what you think is a great song.
And what's moving you is probably going to move someone else.
So if you're going to chase after what you hear
on the radio, you're behind the ball. You know, you're
definitely writing what was written years ago because it takes
that long for it to get to the system to
on the radio. So there's there's a whole crop of
(18:55):
guys and girls out there that are writing something fresh
and new that going to come out later. So you
just gotta be that person and try to write your
own personal story and then hope, hope that that is
what you know works. And also just which is what
we did when we started to find success, right, something
(19:17):
that you can't wait to listen to when you you know,
when you get in your car. You know, if if
you're not super excited about it and you don't love it,
somebody else isn't going to. So it's just write what
you love. Somebody else will love it if you love it. Okay,
that's really good advice. Yeah, did you give anything else
to add? We'll show up on time. That's important. Never
(19:37):
stop for lunch, and uh, always have fun. Yes, well
this has been great. Thank you to my Heart Radio
and the Twister for giving me this opportunity. Mama find
(20:09):
now that's you Ain't Songking, Thanks for joining us on
this top of the tour one fan interview. The band
is a production of my Heart Radio. For more podcasts
from my heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcast.
We'll see you at the next show.
Welcome to one fan to interview the band, a production
of our heart radio We're Old to Me. We just
released a new album, and while on tour in the
U s. We decided to ask one fan to come
hand backstage and ask us questions during in for an
inside look into our new album Life on the Road.
Journey is a band and much more. Welcome to the crew.
This week we're in Tausa, Oklahoma. I didn't know that
(00:35):
it was me would talk you back? Didn't listen to
the words falling out of mount down in the middle
of mad A. Hey, I'm Brad from All Dominion. And
(00:57):
in today's episode, we will be talking about how being
songwriters before being a band has influenced our career. A
few of the songs that I've written, which some fans
might not know are Guy Walks into a Bar for
Tyler Farr, Light It Up for Luke, Brian, Save Her
for Anny Day, Kenny Chesney. The songwriting for me has
influenced my career by I mean, god, how hasn't it?
(01:21):
You know it's moving in Nashville and really deciding to
focus on songwriting really changed my entire life and the
whole trajectory of it. Met these four guys because of that,
and uh, we can keep putting out good stuff and uh,
people connect with and and try to become part of
people's lives. And that's that's what songwriting does. Because in
(01:53):
the Battle wheel in Mama, So, Hi, I'm Stephanie and
(02:22):
I won the contest one fan to interview the band. Alright, okay, hello, Hi,
I'm good. How are you guys doing? You're good? Yes.
I just want to start out and say congratulations guys
on winning the Vocal Group of the Year last snig.
So that is amazing. How did you discover your songwriting ability? Um? Like,
(02:49):
and it's kind of a threefold question. So how old
were you? What was your first song that you wrote? Oh,
discovering your songwriting ability? I mean, I remember when I
first started put in the guitar, uh and I was
also playing soccer. We went to Europe and I took
my guitar with me and I would have these like
(03:09):
three different little riffs I played and like my body
should be like played play like number one, the number one,
and play the second one, you know, So like I
feel like those are the first three things I ever
like made up, you know, I mean and then from there,
you just you know, you get a girlfriend and you
try to write her a song, and o uh, you know,
you just hear other songs that you like, and you know,
(03:30):
you just think how they do that, How did I
do that? How did I do that? You know, so
you just try to do it, and you know, maybe
you sound like this or that at first, and you
know you're kind of building your repertoire and your influences
and then yeah, you know, I think the same thing
with me was, you know, I knew I wanted to
play guitar. I had a guitar and I wanted to
play it, but I didn't know how to play anything else.
(03:51):
So I just made something up. So it was like
the first thing, you know, instinct really for me to
do was to create a song that I could play.
So was all like learning to play the guitar and
learning how to write at the same time. Yeah, mine
was kind of funny because, um, I used to when
I was younger, I played hockey and I had a
(04:12):
buddy and I had like, you know, I learned piano,
and uh, I had a guitar, but I didn't know
how to play it, so I tuned all the strings
to one chord and I would just kind of hold
and bar, you know, and hold it down to make
a chord. But my buddy and I would goof off
and we would make up songs, like joke songs about
our teammates, just to kind of rip on them and
make everybody laugh. And uh, I remember like we had
(04:36):
a couple and I kind of felt like things are
kind of good, you know, like I liked them, and uh,
but you know, I just figured that was crazy. But
I remember like the first time one of my teammates
was like, you know, I know you guys are joking,
but I actually really liked this song, man, And like
that was the first time I was like, you know,
had any confidence. I went, you know, I think I
(04:57):
actually could make up songs. Cool. So about how old
were you guys? Would you say, I mean that I
was for me, I was, I'm gonna say probably yeah,
I was. I think when I first started Yeah yeah,
maybe yeah. But I actually do remember being really young,
(05:20):
like long before that, and being in a car. I mean,
I just remember it. Maybe that's probably like maybe five
or six. I remember hearing a song in the in
the car and uh, really like starting to think about
like how does somebody do that? How do they how
do you make up a song that had never been
made up before? You know, And I really got obsessed
with it and really tried to think and like try
(05:43):
you know, I tried to make up some stuff even
at that age. But that's that was like the moment
that like really like I got fascinated but and has
like really honestly brought me to this point. Yeah, that's
really neat that you have like a specific moment that
you remember at that young of an age age. So
can you describe like how a song comes together for you,
(06:05):
Like from the time that you think of a song,
you know, had that very first thought, to the time
you get it down on paper. You know, it's sort
of at this point in our careers, we've worked on
it for quite a while now, so now it's sort
of like, you know, it starts with the idea usually,
you know, but you know, to be honest, all songs
happen in their own way. But most of the time
(06:27):
what happens is we're always kind of open to what
may be a good song. So it might be something
you say, or our friends say, or we say, or
we see on TV, or we read in a book
or something that sparks an idea, and we write that
idea down and then, you know, say we're gonna sit
down and write a song, and we'll start going through
our phones looking at all our notes and we've all
(06:48):
written down tons and tons of ideas, and we'll just
start kind of tossing out like, well, I had an
idea for a song that was maybe this. So it's like,
you know, one day I was like, you know, like
the other day I dropped my hotel key and picked
it up, and I was like, a hotel key is
a cool title. I wonder what that could be about.
And then we start talking about what could you possibly
(07:09):
write a song about a hotel key? And then you
start thinking, well, maybe it's actually about the girl that
keeps a hotel key as as a memory. And then
you know, Trevor is like, actually, my wife, you know,
she does keep hotel keys as memories. And then so
then you have some sort of reality based in it,
and then you create something from there. You just kind
of start spitballing back and forth and people are playing
(07:30):
things on the guitar or you know, a few hours
later you got a song okay, okay, very cool. Um okay.
So you don't necessarily um write them in like a
linear fashion. You just like sometimes you write multiple songs
at a time, or well, I mean usually not, but
I mean you can't happen. Sometimes we're in the middle
(07:51):
of writing one song, somebody says a line, or you
just play something and you might break off, and yeah,
you might veer off and write that song. You might go,
that's pretty cool, let's record that, and maybe then that
can be a start of a song that you come
back to you later. That does happen, And that's sort
of what happened with a song called My Heart as
a Bar that's on the album. Is we were starting
to write one song and one of the lines in
(08:14):
the song was my heart as a bar, And then
we realized that that was actually a better idea and
actually the whole song should center around that, and so
we switched gears and we wrote a completely different song.
That's really cool. So what have been some of the
biggest influences and inspirations when you are songwriting? You know,
(08:35):
I think for all of us, one would be just
moving to Nashville and when you when you get there
and you see these songwriters that are on the top
of the you know, they're they're on their game, and
they're having all this success and they're writing. You go
out and you see then perform their songs, and you're like,
(08:56):
how in the world did they write something so incredible?
It's it's very inspiring. So that definitely will kick you
into gear and make you want to be better. So
I would say that's probably hold true for all of
us at some point. You know, even before that, there's
other musicians or you know, like I'm a huge Bruce
Springsteen fans, so I you know, I was influenced by
(09:16):
him and or or family members that play music or
you know, but we all have our own individual um
like in early influences. But I would say in the
realm that we're in right now, moving to Nashville was
probably one of the biggest for us all ye that
(09:56):
you talking about, do you guys ever get writer's block?
And if you do, like, what do you guys do
to overcome that? Yeah? I mean I think I think
(10:20):
I definitely do, or I just sometimes just feel uninspired,
you know, like tough to kind of come up with
an idea. But I think a lot of times, you know,
it comes and goes. But also that's what's so great
about writing with co writers is that you know, sometimes
I won't have an idea, but that will, you know,
And then that's to me, the hardest thing about writing
(10:40):
a song is finding what to write about. Once you
find a great idea, it's like, it's not that hard
to write this song. It's harder to come up with
the idea, at least for me. So yeah, sometimes sometimes
you do. For sure, it would be harder if, like
you said, if you were doing it by yourself all
the time, you would definitely hit oh, real writer's block,
because I even like, you know, like I remember like
(11:01):
reading about like Miles Davis. He's like, you know, here's
a genius, charmed player. He's like, but he'd always surround
himself with like the new cool guys because it's like
he's only one dude, one guy only has so much
to offer in the world, and you you just well
doubt yourself, you know. So it's like if if I
was sitting here writing and a song by myself, and
(11:23):
I would have a line or whatever, and I'd be like,
oh that god sucks. But actually, you know, if I
was writing with these guys, they might go, actually, dude,
that's pretty cool, and it just takes them to go
like it doesn't suck, man, it's pretty cool, and then
you go okay. Well then it just pushes you forward,
so so you don't stop yourself. They keep you going okay.
So then do you guys write most of your songs
(11:44):
together then as a group in some form? Yeah? Yeah,
the song the Old Dominion songs that don't know about
the album, Yeah, I mean in some forms. Sometimes it's
all five of us. Sometimes it's one of us and
a couple other friends, or two of us and some
other friends, or three, you know, different combinations, but it's
always some different combination of some of us. Yeah, okay,
(12:04):
I know you've written for other artists, So what does
that look like? Do you write those songs as a group?
Do you individually write those? How do they find you?
Do you have them in mind? Yeah? And usually not,
almost never we do. We don't write with anybody in mind.
We just um, we're always we're always writing, and we're
always just trying to write a great song that day.
(12:26):
We're not necessarily trying to write an Old Dominion song
or you know, Kenny Chesney song or Blake Shelton song.
It's just we're just trying to find, like Brat said,
find that great idea and then write a great song
that we like. And then you know, after we do that,
then we kind of figure out if you know, doesn't
maybe sound like us or you know, we pitch most
(12:47):
of them. A lot of the songs that ended up
being Old Dominion songs also were pitched to other artists
and you know, never cut. So yeah, we don't really do.
The process is not any different. You know, we're just
we're just trying to write a great song and then
it'll land where it's gonna land, or sometimes it won't
ever land anywhere because it's not good and it still
(13:08):
never lands anywhere. Yeah, the old two good song. Then,
has there ever been a song that UM was picked
up by another artist that after they did it you
went back and thought, oh, I wish we would have
done that song instead. UM. Never like there's never like,
(13:29):
oh I wish we would have done that, like a
regret kind of thing. But you know, there are some
songs that we used to play quite a bit in
our set, like a say you do for Derek's Bentley
or wake Up Loving You for Craig Morgan, We're two
that we played quite a bit and we still can
play those songs and actually, like early on before we
broke and you know, we're old dominion necessarily it really
(13:51):
helped us because we would play a lot of shows
where nobody knew who we were, and usually in that
situation you gotta play cover songs and keep people interested.
But we were able to play these songs that we
wrote for other people that they recognized, and we were
able to say that, you know, we wrote these songs.
So it was a pretty cool way for us to
introduce ourselves to fans that didn't know us yet. Yeah,
that is okay. So how has your songwriting abilities improved
(14:15):
over the years. I know you you mentioned that Nashville
was a big inspiration, but just your abilities as a songwriter, Um,
you know, we've gotten faster. I mean, it's easier now
to recognize when something is not good or when it's good.
We've just gotten gotten a better eye for that, so
you don't waste as much time writing a song that's
(14:37):
probably not that great, you know. So I think it's
just kind of learned more a little tricks you know
how to before you're like, okay, it's got to be
a verse and then it goes into the pre course
and he goes into the course and it's like you
do that kind of sometimes, but there's little ways to
to tweak each the form and you know, just little
(14:57):
tricks you learned that. Yeah, you get developed a better
eye for like it's kind of like painting and painting
and then every once in a while you gotta step
back and look at it, you know, and then go, okay,
well it's what's going on, and then dive back in
and it's the same song, and you get a better
eye for stepping back and listening and going okay, yeah,
we're writing a song. But if I was driving down
the road and this came on and I didn't know
where to and care about it, would it stopped me
(15:18):
and grab my attention? Is it that good? You know?
So it's developing that ability, uh to recognize whether it's
you know, because especially in Nashville, anybody can write an
average song or even a decent song, but the playing
field we're at is it has to be better than that.
You know, you can't just write a good song. You
have to constantly be going, is this could this be
a favorite song? You know? At least that's the bar
(15:40):
we try to set ourselves. So I think we've gotten
a little bit better at recognizing that in the moment. Okay,
So how has being a performer affected your songwriting? Good
or bad? You know, doing all these all the shows,
and I mean, I think it's it's only helped, you know.
I mean when I first moved to Nashville and I saw,
like I'd go to the Blue Bird Cafe and you'd
(16:01):
see these hit songwriters that you've never heard of before
perform a song that you definitely knew that you maybe
didn't like, but you'd see the writer perform it, and
you'd be like, oh man, that completely changed that song
for me, Like you would completely now have this new
appreciation for the song because the writer is performing it.
So I think that I think for us anyway, I
(16:22):
think we perform our songs better than anyone else could
because we wrote them. That may not be true for
some people, some writers, you know, I don't have any
aspirations of performing, but we obviously did. So I think
for some reason, we are able to communicate what we're
trying to say better than someone else can communicate it.
(16:42):
So I think, you know, it helps our live show.
It helps us connect with our audience and their reaction,
helps us know what they want to hear, and helps
us maybe write the next song for them. So we've
talked about UM some of the other country artists that
have UM performed your songs. UM has any other genre
artists from other genre than your music? Have you written
songs for them? No? Uh? I mean there's a Van
(17:06):
Lit that records. It's like they were a rock band,
but I think they recorded a song when they were
trying to be a country Uh. So, I don't know.
I mean, just this year, I've started to write a
lot more with UM, some people in other genres. Not
other artists, but with a handful of pop l A
writers and writers from London and New York and stuff.
(17:28):
So you know, maybe that will happen UM, but UM,
you just never know. It's kind of like starting over again,
you know. So maybe at some point we'll we'll write
something for pop artists or not. Yeah, I can see
that because your your music is UM, it's more than
just country. It has those other you know, overtones of
(17:50):
the other genres. Sure, those other genres have influenced this
just as much as country music has. So we just
kind of looked out and landed in country music and
are having success there. Um, But we listened to everything
so um, you know, I think we would all love
to branch out a little bit too, that'd be great. Um.
So what are some tips that you would have for
(18:12):
an aspiring songwriter? The biggest tip I think is just
to keep writing, just to not stop and just write
and write and write and write. And you know, we
always kind of say, you know, it's easy to it's
easy to chase what you think people want to hear
and fall into that temptation. Um, but you try to
you gotta try to resist that and try to, you know,
(18:34):
stay true to what you think is a great song.
And what's moving you is probably going to move someone else.
So if you're going to chase after what you hear
on the radio, you're behind the ball. You know, you're
definitely writing what was written years ago because it takes
that long for it to get to the system to
on the radio. So there's there's a whole crop of
(18:55):
guys and girls out there that are writing something fresh
and new that going to come out later. So you
just gotta be that person and try to write your
own personal story and then hope, hope that that is
what you know works. And also just which is what
we did when we started to find success, right, something
(19:17):
that you can't wait to listen to when you you know,
when you get in your car. You know, if if
you're not super excited about it and you don't love it,
somebody else isn't going to. So it's just write what
you love. Somebody else will love it if you love it. Okay,
that's really good advice. Yeah, did you give anything else
to add? We'll show up on time. That's important. Never
(19:37):
stop for lunch, and uh, always have fun. Yes, well
this has been great. Thank you to my Heart Radio
and the Twister for giving me this opportunity. Mama find
(20:09):
now that's you Ain't Songking, Thanks for joining us on
this top of the tour one fan interview. The band
is a production of my Heart Radio. For more podcasts
from my heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcast.
We'll see you at the next show.
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