Nicolle Galyon (@nicatnitemusic) returns to the BobbyCast. She was on 5 years ago as a songwriter but now has released her new debut album 20 years in the making. She has also started her own label, Songs & Daughters. Bobby and Nicolle talk about how she went from writing No. 1’s for other artists to telling her own story, if she’s nervous to play the Today Show and why she was added to “Beers On Me” as a songwriter. She also talks about the love of her hometown and how people back home keep her humble.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Nicole Galley and our guest here. It's just so many
number one songs, but her last three number one as
a songwriter include Gone, Here You Go, I've Been Gone,
I've Been Gone, half of my Hometown from Kelsey and
Kenny Beers on Me from Derek Spentley Swing. So she's
(00:35):
got an album called First Born that came out last month.
It shocks about it. You know, it's not a big, big,
massive label. We put on a record, we're gonna support
it with millions of dollars, we're gonna do all. But
it has slowly and organically become something really cool because
she's really cool. She's a great writer, she's a really
good singer. She's just creatively different and very special, and
so I really think that's the reason of its success. Um,
(00:57):
we're featuring this song on the Women of I Heart
Country this weekend. This song is called Tendencies Made but
I'm can't shave what but it shows little ways I've
(01:23):
never been a lead, but I got tendencies. Mama was
a real good secret keeper, so it makes sense me.
So I Nicole galleon episode three, which, by the way,
years ago we had Nicole in just as a songwriter
(01:44):
h way back. That's interesting. I just thought about that.
We could actually supplement this in a few days and
put that older one up to Yeah, that's pretty cool,
and there's nothing it's cool to hear that one. I
haven't heard that one since we did it. I guess
here is Nicole Galleon follow her Nick and Knight Music
and I see at n I t E Music, Nick
at Night Music and enjoy. When you walked in, you
(02:06):
said we haven't seen each other in a while. I don't,
and I guess this is social media. I don't feel that,
which is weird because I have, like I hugged you,
and I guess I haven't hugged you and years, I
mean literally and you were like, i've seen you in
a while, and I was like, yeah, that checks out.
I get. But I mean, as much as people bag
on social media, and I think that's there are a
lot of things wrong with the way people use it.
(02:29):
But I don't feel like I have like not seen you,
which is weird. And maybe I shouldn't feel as much
of that. And maybe it's because I'm just gone a
lot too. They don't see anybody, But anyway, I feel
like I'm your biggest fan in the whole world, and
I've I was like, oh, it'll be good to see
Nicole in today. I don't really gonna see each other
in years. Well, I feel the same way. I think.
(02:49):
I think I feel connected. Maybe that's it, Like I
feel I think I know enough about you before, we
have enough history too then to watch your life evolve.
It's like there's a foundation to be able to just
like add to when you just watch somebody. But I
haven't seen you since you got married. I haven't seen
you since so many things. Yeah, I think the connection
(03:09):
thing is right. Also, like I root for you, so
I think inside of whatever this internal feeling and um
machine that does all the thoughts and prayers and roots
and like you're in that because I root for you
all the time, regardless of what it is. If if
it's you have so many you know, projects going on,
(03:30):
and we'll talk about obviously the record, which is great.
I feel like at this point if I and I'm
gonna say this person, i'mnna say very sincerely, it really
is wonderful than it really is wonderful. And we were
supposed to do this weeks ago and I got COVID
and you invited me over to your house whenever you
did a first showing, and I was somewhere. We just
(03:52):
have never We've just always like been off somewhere, and
so it really is wonderful. Now when I say that,
I would like to now take a step back and
go A lot of people think it's wonderful. And you
were so good at what you do. And I was
having a conversation with a couple of different people who
are really it was. One was Dan of Dan and Jay.
One was Carrie Underwood, and I was like, you guys
are so good. People don't want to tell you're, like, hey,
(04:14):
good job, because you're probably always here it all the time.
And that literally is how what I felt about you
before I said that. Now that being said, they both
were like, no, we still like to hear it because
we're human beings. But you guys are so good at it.
People like me feel ridiculous when we say hey, good job,
because we know that you know you did a good job,
even though I know the insecurity of creating something and
(04:38):
it's gonna come back around in a second. But I
was with a friend of mine the other day, um,
and we we hung out. He texts me. He goes, hey,
I just listened to I don't know what it was.
Something he said, Hey, that was really good, and I thought, man,
nobody ever tells me that I do good. And I went,
oh my god, this is why I have to tell
people they do good because I liked it, because nobody
ever tells me a good job and stuff because I
think they just think I hear it and I don't
(04:59):
hear it from anybody. Because so anyway, it's really freaking
good and you poured so much of your artistry and
yourself into it, and you should be really proud of it,
and I know you are, but I just want to
say that it's awesome. Thank you, and it means it
means the world truly. I on one hand, it's like, um,
(05:22):
I the d m s and the things like that
are a bit of a blur, um, But every time
I read one, I'm like, I mean it, truly, You're right,
it does mean something. And I never really, um, I
really never thought that this was going to be that
vulnerable of a thing because I thought I was just
doing it for me. But then when it came time
to put it out, everyone was like, this is so
(05:42):
brave and and I see what they mean. Um, But
it is fun to get to get those texts, and
I can feel, I can feel the connection with people
when they do reach out and say good job. You know. Um.
What I'm finding though the most is that people are
what it's doing. More than good job is people want
to tell me their story, which to me is the
(06:02):
ultimate win in this for me, you know, because I
keep saying that word connection today, but it seems like
that's what I'm getting out of it the most. Did
you feel And there are times when I felt this too,
but that you were being and people say brave that's
always weird thing. But vulnerable if you're being vulnerable in
your project that you thought, all right, I being vulnerable here,
(06:23):
people are gonna hear it, maybe they feel a certain
way about me after they hear it, and maybe they
feel differently about me. And I'm gonna be vulnerable and
we'll see how it turns out. But then in reality
it which is people going, no, I'm like you more
than more than you expected. And I think where I
felt that the most is how specific I was in
in like a song like Winner, I was like, no
(06:44):
one else is going to really care about this, but
I'm going to be so proud of it that I'm
I'm gonna this is where I'm gonna go with this record.
But it's just wild how many people. And it's not
just it's not the obvious character, you know, it's like
a fifty year old man. It's like, oh my gosh,
this made me think of this, and I'm like, really,
I thought no one would care about this. When I
(07:04):
wrote my first book, I'd written a lot of stuff
in there that I thought people were going to judge me.
And I was embarrassed, not of it, but I was
embarrassed that people would feel sorry for me. And that
has always been like my trauma is I got. You know,
it wasn't a charity. I wouldn't be here as a kid,
want to eat, to do anything. And I was so
embarrassed of this stuff, and I was like, man, nobody's
everybody's gonna think less than me or think differently, and
(07:26):
it all like you're saying, it's exactly what you're saying.
People were like, hey, uh yeah, that that's me too.
With always like a six degree difference, so it's always
very close but slightly a little different. But I was like, Man,
that to me opened up the world of being creatively
vulnerable and speaking from me. And you've written so many songs,
but they really haven't been from your face or mouth
(07:48):
or name, and you know that's got to be I
don't want to use the word pressure, but a different weight.
You know, whenever you're deciding to record or even want
lyrics to what to put in us on with you singing?
It like, was that a factor? It actually was easier
because I knew what I hadn't been able to say
all these years, because I was having to compromise. That's
(08:10):
interesting and collaborate, be so collaborative. Yeah, and um, it
didn't feel like pressure. It felt like creative freedom actually
more than anything. Um, even things like picking when a
record comes out, or like getting to put songs in
a sequence on a track list, like those are things
that people take for granted that songwriters have never gotten
(08:32):
to have that freedom and get to be creative in
that way. So from the get go it just felt like, oh, wow,
I have so many options. What didn't feel like pressure
at all. Brag on you to you a little bit
more like I would see even the imagery and the
promost promo pieces that you did to me, they were
even so much cooler than just the standard promo work.
(08:52):
But I would see it in the time and effort
that you went through to do it again, even just
as a passion piece, as you would say what it
was in your mind and what you're making it. It
was so heads and shoulders above what these what what
everybody else does? And I just would would look at
your prom but before I heard anything, maybe I heard
a clip of a couple, but even early, and I
(09:13):
was like, if you weren't doing the songwriting, if you
weren't putting out an art a record as an artist,
like you would totally dominate that space too, Like you
have some some gift of aesthetics. Thank you. I um,
I enjoy it, and I think it's the thing that
I don't have um any pressure around because it isn't
(09:36):
technically a part of my day job. Like I've always
loved editing video and editing photos, and like long before Instagram,
I wanted to have a video blog. And so I
think it's just like an extension of storytelling for me,
and I've never fully gotten to do that, Like I
start to get to be a part of the beginning
of telling a story with a song, and then the
artist takes it on and then they go make it
look how they wanted to look for them And I
(09:58):
didn't realize how hungry I was for that part of
the process until this started. And honestly, that was a
part of the process that felt really vulnerable because I
I think I think I found a safety in being
like a little bit behind the scenes, and I think
I had some I don't know, maybe some messaging early
on in my life that was like, don't get too
(10:18):
big for your bridges, which was like a Midwest, you know,
blue collar mentality that I think kept me in that
safe space and not really ever stepping out and putting
myself out front. So when it came time to go like, oh,
you're gonna put your photo on the front of this
this record, I was like, no, this is the scary part.
Now I have to own that this is about me. Um.
(10:40):
In fact, we the original creative concept for all the
visuals and aesthetic for the record was for me to
do selfie photos in all these different mirrors where you
never saw my face. It was just gonna be me
taking a photo of myself. But then you never saw
my face in the mirror because I again, I was
just not quite ready to sit there and show of
face and name and be like this is really about me.
(11:02):
But then then the project just took on a life
of its own once I got the creative the right
creative people around it. But now I'm kind of like,
I feel like I'm opened Pandora's box. I'm like, I
want to make more things like this. So, alright, you're
rich and and I definitely want to get to some
of this specifically, But you're rich and to make more things,
but you're also running a label, and you're also writing songs,
(11:25):
and you're also and I would never be someone to
say you can't do all these things, because I just
I wouldn't um. My company at times has said, hey,
you're you're doing too much. You're you know, you can't
focus enough here, and I don't agree with them at times.
At times they have been right. Mostly not, I've done,
in my opinion, really good job of putting the amount
(11:48):
of work into the project that needs to have the work.
How do you feel about that same situation happening to you.
I think the word that's like I keep going back
to was just integrity, because this conversation is coming up
a lot right now. People are asking me this question,
and I'm like, I just want to make my time
(12:08):
decisions based on integrity. If I've entered into a label
deal with someone, I want to handle that with integrity.
And when it comes to a point where I'm not
doing it that way anymore, than I need to make
a change, Um, when I'm not showing up for the
things that I've you know, committed to showing up too,
and I can't do that anymore, and then includes my
family too, like, um, But I think I think if
(12:31):
you had asked me a year ago about this record,
like what would you do to support it? I would
have had a pretty small answer and a safe answer
of like I'm gonna put it out and it's gonna
be precious, and it's gonna sit there on Spotify and
Apple and and I'll feel like this was for my
this was more for my legacy and for my like
bucket list, and and then I'll just go right back
to work a year later. Now now that it's been
(12:54):
out a few weeks, Um, I think I'm a lot
more honest with myself about how much energy and Tom
I'm gonna put into the record and promoting it because
I'm seeing what it's doing to people when they see
it or when they hear it, and so I feel
like I owe it out of integrity to that project
to give it all I've got UM and I don't.
(13:15):
And I think all things are connected. What is that
all ships rise or whatever that saying is raises all ships? Yeah,
I did to check out half with that saying. But yes,
I think I think you and I are the same
and that we're like both and people like this is
going to make this stronger, and it's all gonna I'm
gonna learn things through this one process that I can then,
like I'm learning so much putting out my own album
(13:38):
that that I can bring back an offer to the
label side to be able to look at an artist
and say, I've actually done what you're doing, and I
have empathy and understanding UM and can tell you that
some more truths based on my experience as being an
artist myself. That's a unique tool that a lot of
other label exects don't have in their toolbox. So that's
(14:00):
how I look at it. I don't look at them
as as they're in competition with each other. I actually
look at it as if this could if this record
were too No matter where it goes, I'm going to
bring all the other people along with me. And that's
the point of Songs and Daughters. That's the point of
all of it. Now. The other thing I'm learning with
age that I'm sure that you have is that you
always have the permission to change your mind. And I
(14:23):
think as an opportunity, if there were a huge opportunity
to come up, I'm allowed to say, hey, I need
to take a break from something. I need to pull
back from writing for a month or two to do
this um. And I'm just trying to make those decisions
based on what matters. When I'm eighty years old and
I look back on this time, am I going to
kick myself that I didn't give my record all I
(14:45):
had because of twenty to thirty songs that I needed
to write this fall. I don't know. You know when
you mentioned with age with me, it was I don't know,
seven eight years ago when I was like, yeah, I
think the world doesn't mean it's a bad a way
like it's it's easily manipulated, not the people, But you
(15:05):
can bend it. We're always told it's got to be rigid.
This is how the world works, you gotta do it
this way. No, the more time I spend here, the
more I realize completely bendable. All the rules that you
know their rules because they've been set because other people
did them that way, but doesn't mean you have to
do And in most times you're gonna be unsuccessful if
(15:26):
you go against but it's a few times that you
are very successful that kind of creates a whole new
path for everybody else. And so that has been the thing,
and you know you're it's like preaching to the choir
when you say that stuff to me, and I say
it back to you, like the world's bendable. You can write,
and you can be over thirty and start artist's career,
or you can be It literally can be done, and
(15:48):
because it hasn't been done doesn't mean it won't be
done at a just a superior level. And I think
that even if you decided to quit after this, I
think that it's thing for people to see and go.
All I can do is create some good m HM.
At the end of the day, that's what it is.
Just create something good, and that is your extremely strong
(16:11):
base their strategic decisions you have to make. But but,
but there are so many people that aren't creating something
good but then have all the other stuff, or they
have something mediocre are pretty good. They're like, I can't
figure it out. You got if you can create something good,
you can almost go anywhere and do anything with it. No,
you're so right. I'm watching that happen right now, like
we've not been. You know how the music business, the
whole entertainment world is one big favor. Someone's asking someone
(16:34):
for a favor in return for a favor, and it
doesn't always look that way to the average consumer. But
that's a lot of the economics of our business. And
we have not been asking anyone for favors because we
just the goal was to put it out and to
make it exist, and that was a big enough goal
as it was with all the other things I had
going on. So then, so now I guess to your point,
(16:56):
it's kind of starting to work on its own, which
I think is what you're saying, Like you don't have
to scream about something if it speaks for itself. Um
So I'm I'm just curious right now to see, like
even justus. That's good. I think that's where I am.
Big picture. It's like, i feel satisfied that I did it,
and now I'm curious to see what else it's gonna do.
(17:18):
What do you want it to do? UM? I wanted
to be heard. I think that's because I feel kind
of what I on the back of what I just
said from what I've seen so far. When people hear
and see and when I say see what there's another
visual component of the album. There's a visual version of
the album that you can hit play that has not
been released yet. It's coming very soon. UM that I
(17:42):
think when we show people that or they hear the record, UM,
it's it. Um, people start telling other people about it
and they want to show it to other people, and
so I just want to. I just want people to.
I want people to have that experience because people are
you know, whether it's someone in my family or someone
in the music business that's seen the video or heard
(18:04):
the record, they start, Oh, it's it's doing this human
thing that's beyond the music business, which is making people
think about their own story in their own life. And
that's the heart of storytelling. So be honest with me,
For a second best case scenario in your mind before
you put it out, because best case can be you're
playing stadiums and you're like the ZAC attack and you're right,
(18:25):
I mean really that that that's always my best case
scenario with anything, Like I'm I show as popular, they
like me president like that. I have the biggest, wildest
best case scenarios, also have the worst worst case scenarios
where I die and somebody shoots me and it's like,
I'm on both sides. But you, as you're making the project,
what was best case scenario in your mind? Um? Wow?
(18:46):
As I was making it as big as I would
let myself go, was just to get it finished because
it was a fight. I was like clawing to get
it finished, Like why because my schedule it was nothing
and there's nothing convenient there were. I had every excuse
in the world and every reason in the world and
conflict in the world for this to never be finished.
It's a lot to write and make a record and
(19:09):
and to really be the driving force behind it. I
don't technically have. At the time, it was really just me.
No one else other than me and my producers knew
that I was doing it. No one was pushing it along,
giving me a deadline. It was all on me. UM,
So that was the goal when I was making it.
Now I would say, like best case scenario, you know,
(19:29):
like literally, like when a Grammy get nominated for a Grammy,
like those those kinds of things. UM, I would love
I would love for it to be commercially successful enough
to be able to, um do it again, you know,
and as you know, like there's a team around this. Now.
I've built a small, lean and mean team of pretty
(19:51):
young people that are doing a lot of this stuff
for the first time, and we're all learning as we go,
and I would love for them. I would love to
support that infrastructure so I to be successful, if for
nothing else, for that, so that we can keep doing this.
Why not put any of your artists on it as
a feature because it wasn't their story. Um. I felt
(20:17):
like I was so insular, just it was so many
of the ideas and concepts for this where I needed
to make it about me. And I know that sounds
kind of selfish, but there was this I was like,
that's why I've it's taken me twenty years to do
it was because I was so afraid to make it
too much about me. And that's something I think I've evolved.
(20:40):
I've grown through a lot of work and self awareness
and wisdom with age to realize that that's that's not um,
It's not a bad thing to make it about me.
What maha carew are doing me? I mean there's a
lot of me, um. But you know, by doing you right,
you can also do for others really right. Yeah, And
(21:00):
I do yes, UM. And I do trust myself that
if this word of growing too something much bigger, that
I have enough examples now in my career to look
back and say, anytime I've been elevated, I've looked for
opportunities to elevate others. And so I trust myself with
the power that could potentially come with a project or
anything in my life getting bigger. Let's go to the
(21:23):
first song that you cut? Which one was the first?
You not not track one, so I don't want to
go easy and go let's check out Torongolan, But which
one did you record first? And then I want to
talk about after it was done. I think we started Sunflower, Ah,
(21:43):
I think we started um Sunflower and Deathbed maybe around
the same time. They were the first ones to go
in and like sing on and put some production on.
Let's play Sunflower like crazy Chid you that you're super
(22:04):
that sick till's fun. I want to find place since
So you wrote that with Jimmy Robbins and Sasha Sloan
who were friends with Sasha and Henry. And she's just
she's freaking awesome. Um. So you know that song is
a little brighter than most of sasha songs. You know,
so you are you and Sasha friends? How did that
(22:25):
write come together? Sasha and I have become songwriting sisters
over the last i'd say three or four years. Um.
I was a super fan first um her. I heard
her song Thoughts, having no idea who she was, and
I was like, oh my god, I want everything about this. Um.
And then I wrote a few songs with her for
her for her records. UM. We wrote a song called
(22:46):
House with Them Mirrors and is It Just Me? That
has Charlie Pooth on it, and I hearded that one girl,
is it just me? I don't know that that sounds awesome?
Thank you? Yeah? I love right with her and she's um,
she's just so good. She's like this hidden gym in Nashville.
Nobody knows. She's like a hidden resource almost, but I
(23:09):
wrote a lot with her, and I think the thing
she has the most songs on this record, and it's
because the more the more I wanted to get human
and real and maybe daring with an idea. She was
the one that I felt safest to try that with
Um because she's one of those yes people that's like, yeah,
we could write anything, and she's kind of I think
our journeys to becoming artists were similar and that we
(23:32):
love writing with other people, but there were a lot
of things that we wanted. I think she would say
this too. There were topics that she wanted to write
about for herself that there were there weren't other artists
that she got to write about that with, and so
that's how she became Sasha Sloan. That's kind of how
I became firstborn. Um. I was just like, I want
to write a song about being tall, I want to
write a song about being a working mom. Like there's
(23:54):
nobody to write those things with. Is it easier to
vulnerable things? I think I know the answer here, but
with people that has been vulnerable with you when you're
writing things, and I kind of feel like that's a
bit of what you're saying that if you have with
Sasha she's like porner guts out, then you feel safer
to pour your guts out with her. Just on the
flip side of that, yeah, yeah, And I loved getting
(24:17):
to do some two ways two on this, like I
have Disney World with her, it's just the two of
us and younger women. Was just me and Hillary Lindsay.
And I think there's something even more intimate when it's
just two people in a room. It's funny. You look
at these like pop songs and there's twenty four writers
on them, and I'm like, could anyone really do like
a big deep dive on their feelings in that room?
It feels I think the less people and I think
(24:39):
that around the whole project, like the less input, it
was almost like the more real and the more aligned
everything could could be. I find if I'm writing jokes
or I'm writing something funny and there's more three or
four people in the room and only two of them laugh,
I'm like, oh, I must not be right. However, that's you. You. Actually,
(25:00):
if I'm with one person we're writing and they laugh hard,
that's just it. I just know one on one. They
were actually dialed in. They were listening with working together,
like that's funny, and I shouldn't base it because I
have the same issue on a much lower level obviously,
when I'm writing things to say on stage, and I
have tried to stop doing that as well, because I
can't judge on two people that don't laugh. We have
(25:21):
four people in a room. I like work with one
person and if they laugh, I just commit to it.
When you're creating, will you sometimes get so deep in
it that you don't know if it's good anymore? Yeah?
And I don't think I was that concerned with how
good it was. Okay, let me let me take the
word good back. That is a very generic word. I
meant for quality. If I'm doing something and I stand
(25:42):
in a long time, I'm like, oh, this sucks because
I can't Sometimes I'll lose it. I'll lose whatever that
instinctual thing that made me go for it. I go
this isn't funny or this isn't compelling. You've done it
at a high level for so long, either for others
or now yourself, do you get into that point where
you're you've been in it for a while and you're like,
is this even good anymore? Yeah, I think I'm a
pretty fast writer, um, And I think that that where
(26:07):
I tend to start to wonder if it's good is
if you get stuck on something for a long time,
like there's one line or there's one part of the
song that you just it's almost it almost feels like
a helicopter, where like the propeller has to just keep
moving for me too, for me to keep moving forward creatively.
But like once you get stuck on something for a
really long time, a lot of doubt creeps in and
(26:30):
it's almost like I just my brain turns into knots
and I can't And that's where I lose perspective, is
when you just get stuck on one thing. So I'm
more like, Okay, let's just keep bouncing around to get
these parts that we know can work. Because when I say,
there are some people that want to sit there and
grind for six or seven hours on an idea, and
it's almost like almost feels like masochistic. I mean, it
(26:53):
feels like we gotta just sit there. It has to
be difficult in order for it to be good. And
I'm I'm more of kind of like, let's just oh,
let's just keep it moving, um, because when it slows down,
I I lose perspective and I'm like, uh, why are
we even doing this? Replaying some the death bed, which
(27:16):
is the same three writers here, any symbolism gonna be
the last track? You think? Yes, I knew. I actually
(27:37):
made the track list for the record, um before I
wrote any of the songs. Um, they made the track
list for the Okay, you can't just say that and
walk away from it. You wrote the track list of
the record before you wrote the songs, Okay, now please
explain how you did that. So I thought about it
like a book, because I've been saying this is kind
of like a memoir, which was the purpose was to
(27:58):
leave my story from my kids until now right. And
so I had the idea for Firstborn in I've realized.
I was like, oh, twenty two is my lucky number.
I wonder when my birthday is on seven twenty two,
And it was a Friday, and on that day I
was like, I'm putting out a record that day. It
was as simple as that is so weird. But so
(28:19):
then the idea for Firstborn came a couple of months later,
I screenshot it and wrote out Firstborn Nicole galleon seven
twenty two, and I texted that screenshot to like three
or four people and like of my close friends, not
even really in the music business, and I'm like, I'm
putting out a record this day accountability, and that makes
it feel real to me and even aesthetically to see it.
(28:39):
I just made it like in a note or something.
So then from there I gave myself, um all of
one So I said, I'm not even going to think
about it until January one, and I'll have it finished
by the end of twenty one. So when January came around,
I it's almost like I had invited these ideas to
kind of come to me, and I started to write
down these titles. UM. I had like a bit of
(29:01):
a creative burst, as I would say, and just started
thinking of all these keywords like sunflower, UM, younger, woman,
like things that I'm like, that's somehow tied to my
life UM, and I just kept and then I compiled
them and then I put them in where they would
live in my life. Winner obviously being first because I'm
born in winter, deathbed being last because that's the end.
(29:24):
UM and filled in the blanks in the middle, and
then I just kind of ruminated on them for like
a month or two as I was living in my
hometown in Kansas at this at this point, so I
was like going for jogs in my hometown, seeing the
old houses I grew up in and so um. Once
I kind of concepted what each word, like, what what
is some What what does sunflower mean to me? You know?
(29:47):
What is the meaning of that? Once I did that
to all the songs, then I wrote out the writers
beside them as if the song was finished Winner McNally, Osborne, Sunflower,
Robin's Sloan. No, Yeah, I did. And then I called
my friends and I said, I like, I called Sasha
(30:07):
and Jimmy first. Jimmy was always in on this from
the beginning. He's been the one that was like, when
are when are we starting? I don't have to produce it,
but I'm helping you do this, like you know, and
he obviously was going to always be a producer. But
I called them and I'm like, I got a couple
of ideas, and then I just started texting back and
forth with Sasha like what if Sunflower was this? And
(30:28):
she'd hit me back, like what if it was this
and what if you were you know, superpower with Sunflower
And so we had like skeletons of the ideas once
I showed up for the right But I have screenshots
in my phone of the whole track list with all
the potential, like the writers I wanted to write it with,
and it didn't end up being exactly that I would
(30:50):
say of what the record is ended up being that way.
But I think that was also me like just being
hungry for that part of the process, you know, writing
pieces like I get to write all the time, but
getting to create a body of work I've never really
gotten to do. So that part was I think the
part that I was most excited about. Well, if the
word power ball comes to you and some numbers afterward
(31:11):
takes out to me, just to send that over and
that that would be awesome. Your hometown in Kansas, you're
you know, you're very proud of it. You go you
live there for part of the year. Still I'm assuming, right,
you know, I know you did. Um, So when you
go back, how do they treat you there? Um? Like
they have no idea what I do? Almost um? And
I think that's why I love it so much. Um,
(31:35):
they know me now because we lived there for a
year and a half. They know me now more as
like Charlie and Ford's mom. You know. Um we lived
there for a year and a half. And the last
week that I was there, Um, I was on this
CMT like camp Fire Sessions or something with Kelsey Ballerini
and it was on TV and it just happened to
(31:57):
be on a night that I was getting together with
some of like all my mom girl friends there and
so we ended up watching it and they were like, now,
this is so cool, but why are you on here? Not?
Can you explain to us why exactly she would ask
you to be on here? And it was so refreshing
because I had been there for a year and a
half and they know I'm in the music business, but
this niche thing of being a songwriter and being behind
(32:20):
the scenes is it's kind of hard to explain, and
so I'm not treated any differently. I don't think you'd
have to ask other people there if they think that
I am or not to get the true answer. But
it's almost the opposite where I think people are kind
of like, nah, don't forget that you're just we remember
you as sixteen, don't get too big for your bridges.
(32:41):
So it's a weird and I would even say if
you put them beside each other, a red juxtaposition of
I go home, same situation. But also at the same time,
I don't believe their bridge is big enough to hold me.
So it's like I have to not be too big
for my bridges at home because they will tell me
and they're right. But I also again, there are no
(33:01):
bridges that I feel like can restrain me in any way.
And sometimes I miss you know, I'm a little wrong
sometimes on both sides. Uh, But it's coming from a
small town like you did. It is definitely when I
go back to Mountain Pine or Hot Springs, it's definitely
that it's a reset almost and a reminder of don't
(33:21):
forget now you can dream as big as you want,
but don't forget where you came from. Your hometown has
how many people? And what kind of you went to school?
Was your was that was your school in your town?
And well how big was the school I graduated with?
Thirty eight in my grade? That's pretty small? Pretty small? Yeah,
I think you say reset. I think what it brings
(33:41):
me is perspective, you know, And I um, no one's
actively trying to bring me down, But I think what
it is when I sit on my porch there and
I watched my neighbors mowing their yard or the kids, right,
I'm like, they don't give a crap about the music business,
and it allows me to get out of the bubble
of it and to go don't take it all that seriously.
(34:01):
We all get all up in this business of music
and we think that it's the whole world. There's when
you go back there, it's like nobody cares, you know.
And I think they love the music when it comes
through the radio speakers and what the music means in
their life. But all this ego stuff that happens behind,
you know, in the conflict and like the who got
what in Nashville, it just I call bs on all
(34:23):
of it when I go home, and that's it's really refreshing,
and for me, it's a reminder of what like real
life folks do, not the dumb craft that I do
all the time, which I'm like because I can. I'm
in a room five hours a day for five days
a week, and then I'm usually on a plane going
to do a TV show or do some comedy, and
I don't unless I'm purposefully going back into the real world,
(34:46):
I don't ever get to it, not because I don't
want to, because I just stretched myself so freaking thin.
The good thing about being married is she makes me
do that, and not in a way of like you must.
But we spent four days in Oklahoma with their family,
who were great, But that's a it's just it's a
whole different world and one that I'm so grateful that
I have because we're just in a small town in Oklahoma,
going to the lake, cooking dinner, going to Chili's, and
(35:09):
that is that's just it. And and again it just
for me is uh, it takes me a little bit
of a little bit out of my my opic vision
of just what I only see for me and for
what we're doing here. But I think that's so refreshing
about just what you do generally and even not even
just this project, but what you promote almost universally, which
(35:31):
is that they're just going back to Kansas and that
can be a metaphor for anything, and you know, everywhere.
But and it's represented pretty well inside of this record too.
And I'm assuming that was very important to you. Yeah,
I am. It's funny. I think people would have probably
guess the overender on how many hometown songs would have
(35:52):
been on here, but because I'm like notorious for overwriting
about how much I love my hometown, but there aren't
really any hometown songs on the record. But that town
made me some of the things that you're some of
the songs are about we're created in a town like yours. Yeah, yeah,
that I was made in that town. So if you're
(36:14):
write about how I was, how I came to be,
you're indirectly writing about Sterling, Kansas. And I think to
your point, I love like when you were saying Chili's
Lake cook out, I'm like, oh, yes, it's like a
drug to me, Like oh normal, normal, But even more
than that, it's like, as you and you know this
better than anyone in town. The more successful you have,
(36:34):
the more it starts to revolve around you. And it's
nice to go somewhere where it doesn't revolve around you.
And I'm sure to some people that sounds like really
attractive to have things revolve around you, but it's nice
and it's like nobody, nobody cares what my schedule is
their whole. They have a whole world that operates without me.
In Sterling, Kansas. That town is doing just fine without
(36:56):
me being there. So it's nice to go and kind
of get humble done that way. Yeah, it's funny you
say that. I was doing an interview with some I
was doing press for my Snake in the Grass show
and they were asking about my wife, And it's funny.
What you what? You just said? What I was like,
you know, I used to think I was the sun,
just because I've been the sun for so long. Either
I'm grinding it out trying to feel like I'm a son,
(37:18):
or once you get to a point, everything just starts.
It's all it's orbiting you all the things. And I said,
but now that I have a wife and her family,
and I said, I'm just a comment, I'm not even
a freaking planet anymore. And that's awesome. It's a it's
a different pressure. It's a lesser pressure in ways, but
(37:41):
it's a more pressure in other ways that I'm not
good at. That. Being a human is tough for me.
Like I think I was very human for a whole
long time and then I just kind of checked out.
I was like, I don't be human anymore of the
stucks this this is uh, this hurts. So what did
you turn into? If you were cyborg that just works
all the time and has no room for anything at
all ever, and so but now that human is starting
(38:02):
to like crack out of it again, just like coming out.
But I think that's what your your music is too.
It's like it's so human and you're so specific. Like
I think that's just what makes the project obviously there
that when you double meaning words and you have a
you know, your pre court, all of the technical stuff
you're great at, You've done that so many times. But
(38:22):
it's how distinctly specific you are that allows people to
feel and understand in their own specific way, which is
weird because they can have You can say something really
specific and somebody else relates in a super specific way
that's not exactly your way, but they still find a
relation to it. So I think that's really the power
of the project. But that's just my opinion. What do
I Everybody's gonna have an opinion and feel differently about it,
(38:44):
But I feel like it's so human and it's so
at times, the won would be the word I would
use for this because if I'm being extremely vulnerable, it's
not always it's my best, but it's not always my
prettiest representation because it's real. And I think some of
your songs are so real that you had to go
(39:06):
all right, I'm gonna check out of being cool and
Nicole who runs label, I gotta be the person that's
got a lot of insecurities here. Yeah. I think it
was therapy doing it. I think it. You know, people
probably sound like it's some pr sound by it for
me for me to be like, no, I did this
for me and my family. I mean, I really did.
I It wasn't I really there was no performance element
(39:29):
to it because I don't really I think I don't
really know how to perform. Have you been practicing and
performing when you've played song you've sang publicly? So I
don't want to say, but have you know eventually you'll
probably have to do well. That being said, let me
just say I didn't even think about this. I called
you a few days ago and I was like, Hey,
I'm gonna go host the Todays show for a few days,
which haven't even announced yet. But if this beats it,
(39:51):
I don't care and I said hey. They asked me, like,
who do you want to bring anybody up here to
play the show? And I just made sure you were available,
and I said, I gave him your name first so
they could probably call you. I don't know if I'm
gonna call you, but I said that because I was
also scared they're gonna be like we decided to go
all rap, we gonna do all polka. But they said
who do you want? And I very first said to you,
And so then I was like, oh crap, let me
(40:11):
make sure she can do it. But then you may
be wrong. But then you said, I haven't really have
a performed on TV. Have you perform on TV well
as yourself? No? Not really mm hmm no. And I'm
every time I do something for the first time around
this project, it ends up being better than I ever
(40:32):
thought that it could be. So now I'm almost just
like looking for that next first, you know, I'm like, oh,
so when you called me first of all, I was like,
I was in I was at a co write and
I went into the bathroom and I was like, oh
my gosh, like trying to like play my play cool
because I like I saw your text in the co write. Um,
I was ready. I forget who I was with, like
(40:53):
Jimmy Robbins somebody, and I was like, don't be a jerk,
and like I immediately just wanted to Like my mom
would be like even if I don't get on there,
probably thought of me. But I was in a rite
and I couldn't. So I just went to the bathroom
and then message you back and I, um, I've always
said that the Today Show was like a dream, like
(41:14):
a bucket list thing. I just never knew what vehicle
would get me there, you know. I didn't know if
I would get there as a songwriter, as a label.
You know, I've always wanted to write a book. I
was like, maybe that's how I'll get on the Today
having no idea that. I mean, I've never told you
that obviously, and so that just felt. It's just constant affirmation, um,
from true friends that keep coming coming through on this
(41:37):
project and saying how can I help? And that's what
you said, and that the end of your message is
like how can I help you? You know, and I
hope this helps, So thank you and not and and listen,
I think you're awesome and whatever you ever needed in
like personal real life it does mat or like here
we go, but I wouldn't vouch for it. Also if
it wasn't great, Like that's the second layer of that,
(41:58):
and that I could be like, hey, come to the
pod guest. You know we get uh, you know, a
million people a month that will listen to this. I
could do that to somebody that sucked and be like
come on, but me going, hey, I'm going on to
do this. You should come and do this nationally. And
I'm going to say I invited you up to play
because I think you're so good. Like that's one of
those things that I hope you see as that's not
(42:20):
me and you're being friends. That's me going like I
believe in you the artist and as the performer in
the creative that you are, So that's a different that's no.
I feel that because I've never felt you endorse something
that you didn't stand behind. So that's I think maybe
where the weight of that call or that message really
came from. I was like, he didn't have to. You know,
(42:41):
pressure is awesome, it is, it's awesome. I'm i that
word curious. I think that's the thing. I'm like, we
don't know what could happen if I play on play
it on the Today Show because I've never done it.
Who knows who the reach, who knows who could be
affected by my record if I got a bigger platform,
(43:02):
you know. And so I'm yeah, I think I think
I'm learning right now that there's a lot of people that,
after being in Nashville for twenty years, are are really
showing up for me out of friendship but also passion
for the project. And it's like it's making me my
mind get bigger and dream bigger. Um, so maybe I
(43:23):
will be touring this next year. I don't know, you know,
it's just kind of one day at a time whenever,
because again they said, hey, I was just gonna do
one day at first, and they were like, hey, come up,
you can bring somebody. And then it turned from one
day into oh, what have you do too? But now
it's going to be because the Monday is like a holiday,
but I want to do Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, the three
days on there. And so then they came and said
do two days. I didn't think much about it, and
(43:44):
I was like, They're like, who else would you want?
I was like, uh, A big fan of this lame Tierra,
Why don't you hit her up? I don't even think
that's that you guys. I know that she is on
your label, but I love her anyway regardless of you.
And I had her open shows, you know, for me.
But then once they were like, yeah, she's in, I
was like, I'm just feeding the hole and Nicole Gallium monster, no,
(44:05):
I know, I am. Yes. Um, that wasn't purposeful, that's
the thing. Well, and I didn't think. I didn't think
that it was. I was just like, wow, you know,
because you know, you like, there's a lot of things
in this business that you quietly lay the groundwork for
for years and years and years invisibly and nobody sees them.
And then you you hope that in three to five
years some of this stuff will start to like the
(44:26):
dots will connect on their own. And this is an
example of that. It's like, you know, I signed tire
to a publishing deal to a couple of years ago,
and a couple of years ago I started dreaming about
making a record, having no idea that in one week
we could potentially be performing as you know on the
Today Show. Um, and I've been joking. Then it's going
(44:47):
to be a Songs and Daughters takeover potentially, but just
so fun. That's pretty cool. So you've got the record?
Are you still writing? Though? Now for other folks, you are,
You're still really I am. I wrote four songs last week. Um.
I've been gone to Kansas this whole summer, throughout the
whole rollout of the record, because I always go to Kansas. Um.
And so I just got back started writing full time.
(45:10):
My calendars booked as if nothing else is going on, um,
as if this record is like not real. But I
told some people on my team last week. I was like,
we take this one week at a time, you know. Um,
I have no reason to start canceling things yet. But
if I go play with the Today Show, I'm sorry,
I'm going to go to New York, you know, and
(45:30):
um and those things. I'm giving myself permission to change
my mind. We'll see, we'll see where I am every
If you'd have told me a week ago I was
playing the Today Show, I wouldn't have believed you. So
I'm kind of like, let's see where we are in
October and November and in the spring. But I'm writing
four songs this week. Um, you know, they're all connected.
(45:51):
You know. It's good too. It's also good to get
out of my orbit. I've been thinking about myself and
this record more than I'm used to, so it's nice
to go in and write with other people. With that said,
I think I can't unknow how much fun writing for
me has become and how meaningful it is. And it's
(46:12):
a little bit I've noted. I noticed last week coming
back to writing, it felt a little I don't know
what what a fair word would be. It didn't quite
feel as meaningful to just write a song to sell
some beer. Did it feel like it was inside of
a formula you've done so many times you just kind
of hop back into it. Yeah. I was writing with
a couple of guys, um and they didn't do anything wrong.
(46:34):
They're guys I've written with for years. But they said
they literally said that line of well, we were throwing
out ideas and they're like, well, I mean, what's gonna
sell some beer? Guys? You know? And I was like, wow,
I have not. I've been in that headspace for a
lot of years, but I've not been in that headspace
for the last couple of months. So it was kind
of like a rude awakening of oh yeah, back to
the day job of trying to get on the radio again,
(46:57):
you know, And that's not what this record. That's not
where my head was with making a record, did you
or when you go to the doctor or anywhere that's
like occupation? What do you put? Um? I put songwriter first.
(47:18):
I mean probably out to have it, because that's where
all things go back to that I've um. This conversation
has come up a little bit in the last year
or two. And what feels what what feels like I'm
moving toward is more of like a creative CEO, I think,
and I don't that sounds pretentious, but it actually feels.
It's uncomfortable for me to say out loud and to
(47:39):
own that. But I think if you're on paper, if
you wrote down all the things I was doing, it
might be a fact that even as a songwriter, I'm
a creative CEO. You know, in my making this project,
I was definitely CEO of everything because I was basically independent,
like an indie artist making this. So as an indie
artist would tell you like, you are the CEO of
(48:00):
the project. So I think that's probably that's not what
I put down at the doctor. But it soon enough.
Maybe yeah when you I'm gonna ask us forever. But
Y a year ago, maybe two years ago, you were
cans In of the Year. A yeah, what do you
get for that? And I've been waiting to talk to
(48:20):
you about that? So what happens? How do they let
you know? What's the deal? Oh my gosh, this is
so funny. Um, you get a really weird experience at
a banquet in a conference room in Topeka, Kansas. That's
what you get. Um. It's very political. Um, it's it's
(48:41):
the organization that picks cans In of the Year is
very politics based. So that whole room was a lot
of white haired guys. Um. And then me and I
was actually, this makes it even funnier. I was co
Canson of the Year with a guy that had done
phenomenal work and politics for like the state Education Department,
(49:03):
and he was like seventy years old. And every person
that's in like the government in Kansas was there. The
governor like made a speech and they had this beautifully
put together like package for him. The governor spoke and
then they're like and now Nicole Galleon songwriter, and everyone's
like you know, that's not a creative group of people necessarily, right,
(49:26):
And I'm what thirty five at the time, and they're
like looking at me. And I made this like one
of my cool little instagram ish videos. It was like
a bit of a highlight reel, very different vibe than
what the State Department put together for this other man,
and it was very awkward. Everyone just kind of stared
at me, and to be honest, I kind of wanted
(49:49):
the night to just be over. I was like, this
is not what I thought it was going to be. Um,
but it sure looks good on Wikipedia, you know, I agree. Cool.
When I saw it, I was like, that's awesome. Hands
of the Year. We just redid some of my bio
stuff and um, my manager Olivia was like, so do
you want to keep cans in? I was like, you
watch your mouth. I'll keep cans in the Year over
(50:09):
anything else for the rest of my life. Yeah, the
night doesn't be awesome for the ward to always last
and be awesome. Um, okay, I want to play a
couple more clips. We played a couple in a very
very intro before we started talking. But I do want
to give self care because if I'm I'm just going
from memory. If I'm wrong, just slat me. Were you like,
did you have like stuff on your face or in
a shower? Right? Am I right about the imagery? Yes? Okay,
(50:31):
I was in a bathroom. Okay, that's what it was,
with like wet hair, no makeup. I had like a
face mask on for part of the video. Okay, But
that's how good when I say what you did? Visually?
I see ten million things a day that people are
like this. That pick song, it's just but I can remember.
I remember that, and I can. I'm gonna be wrong here,
(50:52):
but some color blind is crap? What color was the title?
Blues and greens are very similar to me? So are
you color? Yes? So is my husband. Yes. Yeah, I'm
lucky that he can. He's like brown, he's darker tones
like brown's, greens, navies all kind of turned into each other.
Anything over like a certain threshold of dark. All looks
(51:15):
black to me. So very so, very similar right? Similar?
Here is self care? Thank I'm fatterly soul, baby, baby,
I'm crazy. Maybe I'm I'm scared to change. Gave me.
I can't can't make my self care. You mentioned Rodney,
(51:40):
there is a song with just you two guys, I know,
the first one we've ever written. I was going to
say I was surprised to see yeah, yeah. I mean
I can't write a record from my kids about my
life story and then not write a song with their dad,
you know. Um. We waited as the last song for
the record, um, and I think it was it was
daunting to write just because I had I had that
(52:02):
title five year Plan written down in the track list
with just Rodney's name next to it for months and months,
but we just never could find time at our house.
Like I don't know if you know if you're this
way or not, but like when you come home, you're
we don't have kids. Yeah that's true, and so we Um.
Like I said, I gave myself the deadline to have
the record done the end of one and December came
(52:24):
like first of December, and I'm like, the records basically done,
but I still have not written this song with Rodney
because we just couldn't find time. So we were going
to a Morgan wall And show like December like fifth
or six, and we were looking at hotel rooms and
I was like, why don't we just try to write
this song, while we're in this hotel room at the show,
and he as I was looking at this, like, you know, Hampton,
(52:45):
and I'm like, I don't think we're gonna write this
super meaningful song in a hotel room at the Hampton,
and it just doesn't look inspiring. So we got a
tour bus and we're both used to as songwriters going
out on the road. I'm doing weekend runs to write
for our us while they were on tour. So I
was like, let's just get a bus and we're saying
we're not coming back to Nashville until we have our
(53:05):
song written. And so we ended up writing it. It
fell out really fast in a couple of hours, and
and that's kind of like part of the lyric at
the end of the song says like I'm backstage a
show and here we are and this life is so
much better than anything I would have planned. So that
was we squeaked that one in at the end. But
I I think that kind of opened Pandora's box again
(53:26):
for me of how much I loved writing with him. Really,
we have not written together. I mean, we didn't write
to go the first ten years we were married, because
he just knew I was fiercely independent and didn't want
his career to overshadow mine, which was so loving and wise.
But then once I started to have success, we wrote
together a little bit with other people for other people,
(53:50):
but we had never done this thing where it's like,
you're the only person that knows I do have a
maximum in two thousand three, and you're the only person
that could put that in this song. So, um, I
think there's more where that came from. For sure, here
is five year plan. Yeah. I had a four bench
and a little big offense and two batches us checking
(54:15):
calls it out sitting now all of a sudden, got
to bring on my finger. Think being single just got
knocked off the top of bs because baby don't in
a five year plan. So I'm gonna ask you this,
(54:38):
and I would only ask you this because you wrote
about it publicly. It's not about your project. But I
remember looking on Instagram one day and you had written
that the Beers on Me song sounded a bit like
something you had written. I did not say anything about
any specific songs. Yeah, yeah, true, but because it's very similar,
(55:01):
So what what motivated you to write that? In the
land of everybody just goes, well, there's only so many chords,
there's only so many notes you can do because you're
now a writer on the song, right, And did that
get contentious at all? Um? Yeah, it was complicated. Um
for sure. Um, I think you ask about motive or
(55:23):
like what you know why. I think I've noticed in
Nashville and it wasn't just about that song, but it
was a bigger picture where there is a gray area
in rooms. You know, you're right, there are so many
only so many notes. But in the fifteen years of
me having a publishing deal, what feels like writing on
(55:44):
top of something else has gotten way more loose than
it used to be. UM. And I think I think
I felt like some good could come out of just
shining a light on on that because I've had so
many writers come up to me after her and say, man,
you know not you got us all thinking, Like the
next week we were we were like about to finish
(56:05):
our song and we thought maybe it sounded like too
much like this other song. So we pulled the other
song up and we listened to it, and UM, and
I'm like, yeah, I think that's really where my heart
was was, like, I think we've inched our away a
little too far into the gray zone. UM, and I
think everyone, um is capable myself being first of you know,
(56:28):
writing on top of other things, I think, Um, I
think I just think awareness. It was just really all
that I wanted out of that. There were a couple
of people that had mentioned them to me. They were
just happy you did it because everybody kept talking about
doing it and everybody knew what was happening, and nobody
would do it, and they were just like, we just
need somebody to kind of be a leader and go
for it. It It didn't have to be this sense. It
(56:49):
could have been a thousand different, as you said, because
it's happening everywhere. Well, that's why there were no song
titles involved. It was more about I just want our
community to just kind of like look in the mirror
and say, like, are we being are we having integrity?
You know? And that's just that's between me and myself
and you and yourself and the next writer and themselves themselves,
and I am and I think you're right. Hughes reminded
(57:12):
me of last year when this went down. I feel
like the more success you have and the more privileged
you have in in whatever position, you're in. It comes
with responsibility, and I see why, you know, I see
why you need somebody that's in my position who's not
worried if I'm being completely honest about my kids college
(57:34):
being paid for anymore. I think if I was in
the beginning of my career, and I see this happen
a lot. I know a lot of I know a
lot of situations in our industry where somebody feels like
they want to speak up, but then they're afraid to
become the villain of a situation that and they don't
want to hurt their their livelihood. You know, everyone's just
(57:55):
trying to keep their lights on. And being a songwriter
is tough top to bottom no matter who you are,
but it's you know, I had less to lose, and
I felt like that's what leadership is is if you
can stick your neck out there and be honest and
be true, um, then the people that look up to
me are more likely to be honest and true when
(58:18):
they become me. And that's you know, while that was
a complicated situation, I felt I felt like I was
me in that situation, and I felt peace about I
felt more peace after I had shared and and you know,
shone a light on it. So it um one of
the weirder things in my career so far. But um,
(58:42):
but you know, I think everything that's happened in my
career has happened for me. And I think that that
happened for me. I learned a lot about myself for that.
What I and again I saw what I took from it,
and we'll move off this and be done with it.
But what I took from it was I remember going, well,
she doesn't, she definitely doesn't have to do this like
it wasn't. It wasn't like you had no success and
you're screaming that someone ripped a song off of you
(59:02):
so you could get on a on right like you.
It wasn't gonna change your life at all. I mean
really very very little yet and you knew probably what
the possibilities of blowback were going to be. I know
what the possibilities in this town where I mean, I
say stuff all the time and then I get black
bault in certain areas until I'm just not anymore. It's
(59:23):
just a weird, weird place to wear in. Remember thinking,
all right, she's not going to gain a lot from this. Um,
she's not doing it because of that. Let's see where
this goes. So I thought it was a I thought
it was a brave and bold thing to do, and
I think other people have felt the same. I my
reputation with myself is more important than my reputation with others,
(59:45):
and I felt like I was. I liked I like
that version of me. You know, my reputation of myself
just still a weenie. And it's with others too. So
what do you know it's only common? Um? Okay, well, look,
I don't want to say. It's just you're inspiring in
many ways. Um, I don't know, it's just just what
(01:00:05):
do you say? Just keep on because a lot of
people are seeing what you're doing and going, oh, that
can be done. And I think that's probably, in my mind,
the biggest compliment I could give you is that you're
allowing other people to see what can actually be done
and that the world's bendable. And so don't freaking stop.
It's aspiring to me. You know, it's awesome. Um, I'll
(01:00:28):
end on this. Did your daughter like Hamilton's, Oh my gosh,
she's obsessed. I think I have a little fest Maian
on my hands. Yeah, I was never in musicals. I
was I would play piano kind of in the pit
for the musicals, but she's obsessed. It was so fun
whenever I saw you guys. I saw on your Instagram
she was on the program and I thought they went
to but it's here high. I was here. Yeah, I
was here in Nashville, Yester. I didn't know. I watched
(01:00:51):
in New York and I go in, We'll hold on
wait till you hear the story. I'm by myself. I'm
up there doing some work and at my agent was like, hey,
how good. Go to Hamilton's. And I was like, all right,
bout myself, I'll go. I don't know anything about It
was way early. I didn't know how lucky I was
to get tickets way early. I think it was before
the phenomenon started to exist. And so I go, and
(01:01:13):
a lot of people there, but I go what, I'm
sitting down and I'm like and they start the show
and they're like, I'm a better deep about and I'm like,
all right, I can't really keep up, but they'll start
talking soon enough, so I'm just gonna lay back and
relax until they talk and I can catch up. They
never talked, they just wrapped the whole show. It took
about half the show for me to go, oh, I
gotta pay attention because they're never stopping rapping. So I
set through half of it just going okay, eventually they'll
catch me up with their words. But then once I
was able to like sit in it and just go,
(01:01:35):
then my mind was blown. Her mind was, well, I
wish I would have known. I'm such a don't see
a spoiler guy that I don't I don't even know.
It was all hip hop the whole time. I wish
I would have looked. But then I go, what if
it had been spoiled? But then I go, that's history,
you idiot. You could have read it in a book
in eighth grade, so it really wasn't a spoiler. It's
his history. But that's cool that she likes it. Yeah,
I've um she's so obsessed with the songs. I've heard all.
(01:01:58):
I mean, I've watched it with her on Disney Plus
or something. I don't know what's on, but I've watched
it once or twice. But listen to this. I've had
to hear the songs a million times, and even still
yesterday when I saw it. I was like, I catch
something different. There's so many words, and it's so brilliant
the way there's like these three lines of how they
keep coming back to the same melodies and songs about
(01:02:19):
the whole thing. I mean, it's just it's on another level.
I was in awe. Well, Nicole, we've said it all.
What do you do now? Do you go and like
work on some sort of atomic reactor over? I don't know, Like,
what do you do now? Right now? I'm actually going
to meet um my manager Olivia and uh cheese Gal.
You know cheese Gal Courtney Laque. Yeah she did cheese
(01:02:42):
for us. Yeah, she's incredible. We um we may have
a little something up oar sleeve. We're going to go
meet and have a little pow wow a song about cheese.
I'm into it. That's the kind of music. I need
more songs about cheese. All right, you guys follow Nicole
uh nick and night music. But in I C and
N I T. I mean, it's no. If this becomes
a thing, you gotta get it. You're gonna have to
switch your name to something people could just say easily,
(01:03:03):
and I have to explain it because if I would
just go Nick and nite music, they wouldn't find it.
But if I go and I and then I complained
for thirty seconds and a second is three minutes just
to go follow up. That's how you know who your
two fans are. Phil Phill do a deep dive. That's true,
and then they tell you you got to change it,
all right, you guys follow Nicole. We put up her
name up up in this as well, and congratulations, thank
you for having me. And I'll see in a few years.
(01:03:25):
But well, and I'll see in a few weeks on
today's shot. A few weeks, all right, Bye,
Nicole Galley and our guest here. It's just so many
number one songs, but her last three number one as
a songwriter include Gone, Here You Go, I've Been Gone,
I've Been Gone, half of my Hometown from Kelsey and
Kenny Beers on Me from Derek Spentley Swing. So she's
(00:35):
got an album called First Born that came out last month.
It shocks about it. You know, it's not a big, big,
massive label. We put on a record, we're gonna support
it with millions of dollars, we're gonna do all. But
it has slowly and organically become something really cool because
she's really cool. She's a great writer, she's a really
good singer. She's just creatively different and very special, and
so I really think that's the reason of its success. Um,
(00:57):
we're featuring this song on the Women of I Heart
Country this weekend. This song is called Tendencies Made but
I'm can't shave what but it shows little ways I've
(01:23):
never been a lead, but I got tendencies. Mama was
a real good secret keeper, so it makes sense me.
So I Nicole galleon episode three, which, by the way,
years ago we had Nicole in just as a songwriter
(01:44):
h way back. That's interesting. I just thought about that.
We could actually supplement this in a few days and
put that older one up to Yeah, that's pretty cool,
and there's nothing it's cool to hear that one. I
haven't heard that one since we did it. I guess
here is Nicole Galleon follow her Nick and Knight Music
and I see at n I t E Music, Nick
at Night Music and enjoy. When you walked in, you
(02:06):
said we haven't seen each other in a while. I don't,
and I guess this is social media. I don't feel that,
which is weird because I have, like I hugged you,
and I guess I haven't hugged you and years, I
mean literally and you were like, i've seen you in
a while, and I was like, yeah, that checks out.
I get. But I mean, as much as people bag
on social media, and I think that's there are a
lot of things wrong with the way people use it.
(02:29):
But I don't feel like I have like not seen you,
which is weird. And maybe I shouldn't feel as much
of that. And maybe it's because I'm just gone a
lot too. They don't see anybody, But anyway, I feel
like I'm your biggest fan in the whole world, and
I've I was like, oh, it'll be good to see
Nicole in today. I don't really gonna see each other
in years. Well, I feel the same way. I think.
(02:49):
I think I feel connected. Maybe that's it, Like I
feel I think I know enough about you before, we
have enough history too then to watch your life evolve.
It's like there's a foundation to be able to just
like add to when you just watch somebody. But I
haven't seen you since you got married. I haven't seen
you since so many things. Yeah, I think the connection
(03:09):
thing is right. Also, like I root for you, so
I think inside of whatever this internal feeling and um
machine that does all the thoughts and prayers and roots
and like you're in that because I root for you
all the time, regardless of what it is. If if
it's you have so many you know, projects going on,
(03:30):
and we'll talk about obviously the record, which is great.
I feel like at this point if I and I'm
gonna say this person, i'mnna say very sincerely, it really
is wonderful than it really is wonderful. And we were
supposed to do this weeks ago and I got COVID
and you invited me over to your house whenever you
did a first showing, and I was somewhere. We just
(03:52):
have never We've just always like been off somewhere, and
so it really is wonderful. Now when I say that,
I would like to now take a step back and
go A lot of people think it's wonderful. And you
were so good at what you do. And I was
having a conversation with a couple of different people who
are really it was. One was Dan of Dan and Jay.
One was Carrie Underwood, and I was like, you guys
are so good. People don't want to tell you're, like, hey,
(04:14):
good job, because you're probably always here it all the time.
And that literally is how what I felt about you
before I said that. Now that being said, they both
were like, no, we still like to hear it because
we're human beings. But you guys are so good at it.
People like me feel ridiculous when we say hey, good job,
because we know that you know you did a good job,
even though I know the insecurity of creating something and
(04:38):
it's gonna come back around in a second. But I
was with a friend of mine the other day, um,
and we we hung out. He texts me. He goes, hey,
I just listened to I don't know what it was.
Something he said, Hey, that was really good, and I thought, man,
nobody ever tells me that I do good. And I went,
oh my god, this is why I have to tell
people they do good because I liked it, because nobody
ever tells me a good job and stuff because I
think they just think I hear it and I don't
(04:59):
hear it from anybody. Because so anyway, it's really freaking
good and you poured so much of your artistry and
yourself into it, and you should be really proud of it,
and I know you are, but I just want to
say that it's awesome. Thank you, and it means it
means the world truly. I on one hand, it's like, um,
(05:22):
I the d m s and the things like that
are a bit of a blur, um, But every time
I read one, I'm like, I mean it, truly, You're right,
it does mean something. And I never really, um, I
really never thought that this was going to be that
vulnerable of a thing because I thought I was just
doing it for me. But then when it came time
to put it out, everyone was like, this is so
(05:42):
brave and and I see what they mean. Um, But
it is fun to get to get those texts, and
I can feel, I can feel the connection with people
when they do reach out and say good job. You know. Um.
What I'm finding though the most is that people are
what it's doing. More than good job is people want
to tell me their story, which to me is the
(06:02):
ultimate win in this for me, you know, because I
keep saying that word connection today, but it seems like
that's what I'm getting out of it the most. Did
you feel And there are times when I felt this too,
but that you were being and people say brave that's
always weird thing. But vulnerable if you're being vulnerable in
your project that you thought, all right, I being vulnerable here,
(06:23):
people are gonna hear it, maybe they feel a certain
way about me after they hear it, and maybe they
feel differently about me. And I'm gonna be vulnerable and
we'll see how it turns out. But then in reality
it which is people going, no, I'm like you more
than more than you expected. And I think where I
felt that the most is how specific I was in
in like a song like Winner, I was like, no
(06:44):
one else is going to really care about this, but
I'm going to be so proud of it that I'm
I'm gonna this is where I'm gonna go with this record.
But it's just wild how many people. And it's not
just it's not the obvious character, you know, it's like
a fifty year old man. It's like, oh my gosh,
this made me think of this, and I'm like, really,
I thought no one would care about this. When I
(07:04):
wrote my first book, I'd written a lot of stuff
in there that I thought people were going to judge me.
And I was embarrassed, not of it, but I was
embarrassed that people would feel sorry for me. And that
has always been like my trauma is I got. You know,
it wasn't a charity. I wouldn't be here as a kid,
want to eat, to do anything. And I was so
embarrassed of this stuff, and I was like, man, nobody's
everybody's gonna think less than me or think differently, and
(07:26):
it all like you're saying, it's exactly what you're saying.
People were like, hey, uh yeah, that that's me too.
With always like a six degree difference, so it's always
very close but slightly a little different. But I was like, Man,
that to me opened up the world of being creatively
vulnerable and speaking from me. And you've written so many songs,
but they really haven't been from your face or mouth
(07:48):
or name, and you know that's got to be I
don't want to use the word pressure, but a different weight.
You know, whenever you're deciding to record or even want
lyrics to what to put in us on with you singing?
It like, was that a factor? It actually was easier
because I knew what I hadn't been able to say
all these years, because I was having to compromise. That's
(08:10):
interesting and collaborate, be so collaborative. Yeah, and um, it
didn't feel like pressure. It felt like creative freedom actually
more than anything. Um, even things like picking when a
record comes out, or like getting to put songs in
a sequence on a track list, like those are things
that people take for granted that songwriters have never gotten
(08:32):
to have that freedom and get to be creative in
that way. So from the get go it just felt like, oh, wow,
I have so many options. What didn't feel like pressure
at all. Brag on you to you a little bit
more like I would see even the imagery and the
promost promo pieces that you did to me, they were
even so much cooler than just the standard promo work.
(08:52):
But I would see it in the time and effort
that you went through to do it again, even just
as a passion piece, as you would say what it
was in your mind and what you're making it. It
was so heads and shoulders above what these what what
everybody else does? And I just would would look at
your prom but before I heard anything, maybe I heard
a clip of a couple, but even early, and I
(09:13):
was like, if you weren't doing the songwriting, if you
weren't putting out an art a record as an artist,
like you would totally dominate that space too, Like you
have some some gift of aesthetics. Thank you. I um,
I enjoy it, and I think it's the thing that
I don't have um any pressure around because it isn't
(09:36):
technically a part of my day job. Like I've always
loved editing video and editing photos, and like long before Instagram,
I wanted to have a video blog. And so I
think it's just like an extension of storytelling for me,
and I've never fully gotten to do that, Like I
start to get to be a part of the beginning
of telling a story with a song, and then the
artist takes it on and then they go make it
look how they wanted to look for them And I
(09:58):
didn't realize how hungry I was for that part of
the process until this started. And honestly, that was a
part of the process that felt really vulnerable because I
I think I think I found a safety in being
like a little bit behind the scenes, and I think
I had some I don't know, maybe some messaging early
on in my life that was like, don't get too
(10:18):
big for your bridges, which was like a Midwest, you know,
blue collar mentality that I think kept me in that
safe space and not really ever stepping out and putting
myself out front. So when it came time to go like, oh,
you're gonna put your photo on the front of this
this record, I was like, no, this is the scary part.
Now I have to own that this is about me. Um.
(10:40):
In fact, we the original creative concept for all the
visuals and aesthetic for the record was for me to
do selfie photos in all these different mirrors where you
never saw my face. It was just gonna be me
taking a photo of myself. But then you never saw
my face in the mirror because I again, I was
just not quite ready to sit there and show of
face and name and be like this is really about me.
(11:02):
But then then the project just took on a life
of its own once I got the creative the right
creative people around it. But now I'm kind of like,
I feel like I'm opened Pandora's box. I'm like, I
want to make more things like this. So, alright, you're
rich and and I definitely want to get to some
of this specifically, But you're rich and to make more things,
but you're also running a label, and you're also writing songs,
(11:25):
and you're also and I would never be someone to
say you can't do all these things, because I just
I wouldn't um. My company at times has said, hey,
you're you're doing too much. You're you know, you can't
focus enough here, and I don't agree with them at times.
At times they have been right. Mostly not, I've done,
in my opinion, really good job of putting the amount
(11:48):
of work into the project that needs to have the work.
How do you feel about that same situation happening to you.
I think the word that's like I keep going back
to was just integrity, because this conversation is coming up
a lot right now. People are asking me this question,
and I'm like, I just want to make my time
(12:08):
decisions based on integrity. If I've entered into a label
deal with someone, I want to handle that with integrity.
And when it comes to a point where I'm not
doing it that way anymore, than I need to make
a change, Um, when I'm not showing up for the
things that I've you know, committed to showing up too,
and I can't do that anymore, and then includes my
family too, like, um, But I think I think if
(12:31):
you had asked me a year ago about this record,
like what would you do to support it? I would
have had a pretty small answer and a safe answer
of like I'm gonna put it out and it's gonna
be precious, and it's gonna sit there on Spotify and
Apple and and I'll feel like this was for my
this was more for my legacy and for my like
bucket list, and and then I'll just go right back
to work a year later. Now now that it's been
(12:54):
out a few weeks, Um, I think I'm a lot
more honest with myself about how much energy and Tom
I'm gonna put into the record and promoting it because
I'm seeing what it's doing to people when they see
it or when they hear it, and so I feel
like I owe it out of integrity to that project
to give it all I've got UM and I don't.
(13:15):
And I think all things are connected. What is that
all ships rise or whatever that saying is raises all ships? Yeah,
I did to check out half with that saying. But yes,
I think I think you and I are the same
and that we're like both and people like this is
going to make this stronger, and it's all gonna I'm
gonna learn things through this one process that I can then,
like I'm learning so much putting out my own album
(13:38):
that that I can bring back an offer to the
label side to be able to look at an artist
and say, I've actually done what you're doing, and I
have empathy and understanding UM and can tell you that
some more truths based on my experience as being an
artist myself. That's a unique tool that a lot of
other label exects don't have in their toolbox. So that's
(14:00):
how I look at it. I don't look at them
as as they're in competition with each other. I actually
look at it as if this could if this record
were too No matter where it goes, I'm going to
bring all the other people along with me. And that's
the point of Songs and Daughters. That's the point of
all of it. Now. The other thing I'm learning with
age that I'm sure that you have is that you
always have the permission to change your mind. And I
(14:23):
think as an opportunity, if there were a huge opportunity
to come up, I'm allowed to say, hey, I need
to take a break from something. I need to pull
back from writing for a month or two to do
this um. And I'm just trying to make those decisions
based on what matters. When I'm eighty years old and
I look back on this time, am I going to
kick myself that I didn't give my record all I
(14:45):
had because of twenty to thirty songs that I needed
to write this fall. I don't know. You know when
you mentioned with age with me, it was I don't know,
seven eight years ago when I was like, yeah, I
think the world doesn't mean it's a bad a way
like it's it's easily manipulated, not the people, But you
(15:05):
can bend it. We're always told it's got to be rigid.
This is how the world works, you gotta do it
this way. No, the more time I spend here, the
more I realize completely bendable. All the rules that you
know their rules because they've been set because other people
did them that way, but doesn't mean you have to
do And in most times you're gonna be unsuccessful if
(15:26):
you go against but it's a few times that you
are very successful that kind of creates a whole new
path for everybody else. And so that has been the thing,
and you know you're it's like preaching to the choir
when you say that stuff to me, and I say
it back to you, like the world's bendable. You can write,
and you can be over thirty and start artist's career,
or you can be It literally can be done, and
(15:48):
because it hasn't been done doesn't mean it won't be
done at a just a superior level. And I think
that even if you decided to quit after this, I
think that it's thing for people to see and go.
All I can do is create some good m HM.
At the end of the day, that's what it is.
Just create something good, and that is your extremely strong
(16:11):
base their strategic decisions you have to make. But but,
but there are so many people that aren't creating something
good but then have all the other stuff, or they
have something mediocre are pretty good. They're like, I can't
figure it out. You got if you can create something good,
you can almost go anywhere and do anything with it. No,
you're so right. I'm watching that happen right now, like
we've not been. You know how the music business, the
whole entertainment world is one big favor. Someone's asking someone
(16:34):
for a favor in return for a favor, and it
doesn't always look that way to the average consumer. But
that's a lot of the economics of our business. And
we have not been asking anyone for favors because we
just the goal was to put it out and to
make it exist, and that was a big enough goal
as it was with all the other things I had
going on. So then, so now I guess to your point,
(16:56):
it's kind of starting to work on its own, which
I think is what you're saying, Like you don't have
to scream about something if it speaks for itself. Um
So I'm I'm just curious right now to see, like
even justus. That's good. I think that's where I am.
Big picture. It's like, i feel satisfied that I did it,
and now I'm curious to see what else it's gonna do.
(17:18):
What do you want it to do? UM? I wanted
to be heard. I think that's because I feel kind
of what I on the back of what I just
said from what I've seen so far. When people hear
and see and when I say see what there's another
visual component of the album. There's a visual version of
the album that you can hit play that has not
been released yet. It's coming very soon. UM that I
(17:42):
think when we show people that or they hear the record, UM,
it's it. Um, people start telling other people about it
and they want to show it to other people, and
so I just want to. I just want people to.
I want people to have that experience because people are
you know, whether it's someone in my family or someone
in the music business that's seen the video or heard
(18:04):
the record, they start, Oh, it's it's doing this human
thing that's beyond the music business, which is making people
think about their own story in their own life. And
that's the heart of storytelling. So be honest with me,
For a second best case scenario in your mind before
you put it out, because best case can be you're
playing stadiums and you're like the ZAC attack and you're right,
(18:25):
I mean really that that that's always my best case
scenario with anything, Like I'm I show as popular, they
like me president like that. I have the biggest, wildest
best case scenarios, also have the worst worst case scenarios
where I die and somebody shoots me and it's like,
I'm on both sides. But you, as you're making the project,
what was best case scenario in your mind? Um? Wow?
(18:46):
As I was making it as big as I would
let myself go, was just to get it finished because
it was a fight. I was like clawing to get
it finished, Like why because my schedule it was nothing
and there's nothing convenient there were. I had every excuse
in the world and every reason in the world and
conflict in the world for this to never be finished.
It's a lot to write and make a record and
(19:09):
and to really be the driving force behind it. I
don't technically have. At the time, it was really just me.
No one else other than me and my producers knew
that I was doing it. No one was pushing it along,
giving me a deadline. It was all on me. UM,
So that was the goal when I was making it.
Now I would say, like best case scenario, you know,
(19:29):
like literally, like when a Grammy get nominated for a Grammy,
like those those kinds of things. UM, I would love
I would love for it to be commercially successful enough
to be able to, um do it again, you know,
and as you know, like there's a team around this. Now.
I've built a small, lean and mean team of pretty
(19:51):
young people that are doing a lot of this stuff
for the first time, and we're all learning as we go,
and I would love for them. I would love to
support that infrastructure so I to be successful, if for
nothing else, for that, so that we can keep doing this.
Why not put any of your artists on it as
a feature because it wasn't their story. Um. I felt
(20:17):
like I was so insular, just it was so many
of the ideas and concepts for this where I needed
to make it about me. And I know that sounds
kind of selfish, but there was this I was like,
that's why I've it's taken me twenty years to do
it was because I was so afraid to make it
too much about me. And that's something I think I've evolved.
(20:40):
I've grown through a lot of work and self awareness
and wisdom with age to realize that that's that's not um,
It's not a bad thing to make it about me.
What maha carew are doing me? I mean there's a
lot of me, um. But you know, by doing you right,
you can also do for others really right. Yeah, And
(21:00):
I do yes, UM. And I do trust myself that
if this word of growing too something much bigger, that
I have enough examples now in my career to look
back and say, anytime I've been elevated, I've looked for
opportunities to elevate others. And so I trust myself with
the power that could potentially come with a project or
anything in my life getting bigger. Let's go to the
(21:23):
first song that you cut? Which one was the first?
You not not track one, so I don't want to
go easy and go let's check out Torongolan, But which
one did you record first? And then I want to
talk about after it was done. I think we started Sunflower, Ah,
(21:43):
I think we started um Sunflower and Deathbed maybe around
the same time. They were the first ones to go
in and like sing on and put some production on.
Let's play Sunflower like crazy Chid you that you're super
(22:04):
that sick till's fun. I want to find place since
So you wrote that with Jimmy Robbins and Sasha Sloan
who were friends with Sasha and Henry. And she's just
she's freaking awesome. Um. So you know that song is
a little brighter than most of sasha songs. You know,
so you are you and Sasha friends? How did that
(22:25):
write come together? Sasha and I have become songwriting sisters
over the last i'd say three or four years. Um.
I was a super fan first um her. I heard
her song Thoughts, having no idea who she was, and
I was like, oh my god, I want everything about this. Um.
And then I wrote a few songs with her for
her for her records. UM. We wrote a song called
(22:46):
House with Them Mirrors and is It Just Me? That
has Charlie Pooth on it, and I hearded that one girl,
is it just me? I don't know that that sounds awesome?
Thank you? Yeah? I love right with her and she's um,
she's just so good. She's like this hidden gym in Nashville.
Nobody knows. She's like a hidden resource almost, but I
(23:09):
wrote a lot with her, and I think the thing
she has the most songs on this record, and it's
because the more the more I wanted to get human
and real and maybe daring with an idea. She was
the one that I felt safest to try that with
Um because she's one of those yes people that's like, yeah,
we could write anything, and she's kind of I think
our journeys to becoming artists were similar and that we
(23:32):
love writing with other people, but there were a lot
of things that we wanted. I think she would say
this too. There were topics that she wanted to write
about for herself that there were there weren't other artists
that she got to write about that with, and so
that's how she became Sasha Sloan. That's kind of how
I became firstborn. Um. I was just like, I want
to write a song about being tall, I want to
write a song about being a working mom. Like there's
(23:54):
nobody to write those things with. Is it easier to
vulnerable things? I think I know the answer here, but
with people that has been vulnerable with you when you're
writing things, and I kind of feel like that's a
bit of what you're saying that if you have with
Sasha she's like porner guts out, then you feel safer
to pour your guts out with her. Just on the
flip side of that, yeah, yeah, And I loved getting
(24:17):
to do some two ways two on this, like I
have Disney World with her, it's just the two of
us and younger women. Was just me and Hillary Lindsay.
And I think there's something even more intimate when it's
just two people in a room. It's funny. You look
at these like pop songs and there's twenty four writers
on them, and I'm like, could anyone really do like
a big deep dive on their feelings in that room?
It feels I think the less people and I think
(24:39):
that around the whole project, like the less input, it
was almost like the more real and the more aligned
everything could could be. I find if I'm writing jokes
or I'm writing something funny and there's more three or
four people in the room and only two of them laugh,
I'm like, oh, I must not be right. However, that's you. You. Actually,
(25:00):
if I'm with one person we're writing and they laugh hard,
that's just it. I just know one on one. They
were actually dialed in. They were listening with working together,
like that's funny, and I shouldn't base it because I
have the same issue on a much lower level obviously,
when I'm writing things to say on stage, and I
have tried to stop doing that as well, because I
can't judge on two people that don't laugh. We have
(25:21):
four people in a room. I like work with one
person and if they laugh, I just commit to it.
When you're creating, will you sometimes get so deep in
it that you don't know if it's good anymore? Yeah?
And I don't think I was that concerned with how
good it was. Okay, let me let me take the
word good back. That is a very generic word. I
meant for quality. If I'm doing something and I stand
(25:42):
in a long time, I'm like, oh, this sucks because
I can't Sometimes I'll lose it. I'll lose whatever that
instinctual thing that made me go for it. I go
this isn't funny or this isn't compelling. You've done it
at a high level for so long, either for others
or now yourself, do you get into that point where
you're you've been in it for a while and you're like,
is this even good anymore? Yeah, I think I'm a
pretty fast writer, um, And I think that that where
(26:07):
I tend to start to wonder if it's good is
if you get stuck on something for a long time,
like there's one line or there's one part of the
song that you just it's almost it almost feels like
a helicopter, where like the propeller has to just keep
moving for me too, for me to keep moving forward creatively.
But like once you get stuck on something for a
really long time, a lot of doubt creeps in and
(26:30):
it's almost like I just my brain turns into knots
and I can't And that's where I lose perspective, is
when you just get stuck on one thing. So I'm
more like, Okay, let's just keep bouncing around to get
these parts that we know can work. Because when I say,
there are some people that want to sit there and
grind for six or seven hours on an idea, and
it's almost like almost feels like masochistic. I mean, it
(26:53):
feels like we gotta just sit there. It has to
be difficult in order for it to be good. And
I'm I'm more of kind of like, let's just oh,
let's just keep it moving, um, because when it slows down,
I I lose perspective and I'm like, uh, why are
we even doing this? Replaying some the death bed, which
(27:16):
is the same three writers here, any symbolism gonna be
the last track? You think? Yes, I knew. I actually
(27:37):
made the track list for the record, um before I
wrote any of the songs. Um, they made the track
list for the Okay, you can't just say that and
walk away from it. You wrote the track list of
the record before you wrote the songs, Okay, now please
explain how you did that. So I thought about it
like a book, because I've been saying this is kind
of like a memoir, which was the purpose was to
(27:58):
leave my story from my kids until now right. And
so I had the idea for Firstborn in I've realized.
I was like, oh, twenty two is my lucky number.
I wonder when my birthday is on seven twenty two,
And it was a Friday, and on that day I
was like, I'm putting out a record that day. It
was as simple as that is so weird. But so
(28:19):
then the idea for Firstborn came a couple of months later,
I screenshot it and wrote out Firstborn Nicole galleon seven
twenty two, and I texted that screenshot to like three
or four people and like of my close friends, not
even really in the music business, and I'm like, I'm
putting out a record this day accountability, and that makes
it feel real to me and even aesthetically to see it.
(28:39):
I just made it like in a note or something.
So then from there I gave myself, um all of
one So I said, I'm not even going to think
about it until January one, and I'll have it finished
by the end of twenty one. So when January came around,
I it's almost like I had invited these ideas to
kind of come to me, and I started to write
down these titles. UM. I had like a bit of
(29:01):
a creative burst, as I would say, and just started
thinking of all these keywords like sunflower, UM, younger, woman,
like things that I'm like, that's somehow tied to my
life UM, and I just kept and then I compiled
them and then I put them in where they would
live in my life. Winner obviously being first because I'm
born in winter, deathbed being last because that's the end.
(29:24):
UM and filled in the blanks in the middle, and
then I just kind of ruminated on them for like
a month or two as I was living in my
hometown in Kansas at this at this point, so I
was like going for jogs in my hometown, seeing the
old houses I grew up in and so um. Once
I kind of concepted what each word, like, what what
is some What what does sunflower mean to me? You know?
(29:47):
What is the meaning of that? Once I did that
to all the songs, then I wrote out the writers
beside them as if the song was finished Winner McNally, Osborne, Sunflower,
Robin's Sloan. No, Yeah, I did. And then I called
my friends and I said, I like, I called Sasha
(30:07):
and Jimmy first. Jimmy was always in on this from
the beginning. He's been the one that was like, when
are when are we starting? I don't have to produce it,
but I'm helping you do this, like you know, and
he obviously was going to always be a producer. But
I called them and I'm like, I got a couple
of ideas, and then I just started texting back and
forth with Sasha like what if Sunflower was this? And
(30:28):
she'd hit me back, like what if it was this
and what if you were you know, superpower with Sunflower
And so we had like skeletons of the ideas once
I showed up for the right But I have screenshots
in my phone of the whole track list with all
the potential, like the writers I wanted to write it with,
and it didn't end up being exactly that I would
(30:50):
say of what the record is ended up being that way.
But I think that was also me like just being
hungry for that part of the process, you know, writing
pieces like I get to write all the time, but
getting to create a body of work I've never really
gotten to do. So that part was I think the
part that I was most excited about. Well, if the
word power ball comes to you and some numbers afterward
(31:11):
takes out to me, just to send that over and
that that would be awesome. Your hometown in Kansas, you're
you know, you're very proud of it. You go you
live there for part of the year. Still I'm assuming, right,
you know, I know you did. Um, So when you
go back, how do they treat you there? Um? Like
they have no idea what I do? Almost um? And
I think that's why I love it so much. Um,
(31:35):
they know me now because we lived there for a
year and a half. They know me now more as
like Charlie and Ford's mom. You know. Um we lived
there for a year and a half. And the last
week that I was there, Um, I was on this
CMT like camp Fire Sessions or something with Kelsey Ballerini
and it was on TV and it just happened to
(31:57):
be on a night that I was getting together with
some of like all my mom girl friends there and
so we ended up watching it and they were like, now,
this is so cool, but why are you on here? Not?
Can you explain to us why exactly she would ask
you to be on here? And it was so refreshing
because I had been there for a year and a
half and they know I'm in the music business, but
this niche thing of being a songwriter and being behind
(32:20):
the scenes is it's kind of hard to explain, and
so I'm not treated any differently. I don't think you'd
have to ask other people there if they think that
I am or not to get the true answer. But
it's almost the opposite where I think people are kind
of like, nah, don't forget that you're just we remember
you as sixteen, don't get too big for your bridges.
(32:41):
So it's a weird and I would even say if
you put them beside each other, a red juxtaposition of
I go home, same situation. But also at the same time,
I don't believe their bridge is big enough to hold me.
So it's like I have to not be too big
for my bridges at home because they will tell me
and they're right. But I also again, there are no
(33:01):
bridges that I feel like can restrain me in any way.
And sometimes I miss you know, I'm a little wrong
sometimes on both sides. Uh, But it's coming from a
small town like you did. It is definitely when I
go back to Mountain Pine or Hot Springs, it's definitely
that it's a reset almost and a reminder of don't
(33:21):
forget now you can dream as big as you want,
but don't forget where you came from. Your hometown has
how many people? And what kind of you went to school?
Was your was that was your school in your town?
And well how big was the school I graduated with?
Thirty eight in my grade? That's pretty small? Pretty small? Yeah,
I think you say reset. I think what it brings
(33:41):
me is perspective, you know, And I um, no one's
actively trying to bring me down, But I think what
it is when I sit on my porch there and
I watched my neighbors mowing their yard or the kids, right,
I'm like, they don't give a crap about the music business,
and it allows me to get out of the bubble
of it and to go don't take it all that seriously.
(34:01):
We all get all up in this business of music
and we think that it's the whole world. There's when
you go back there, it's like nobody cares, you know.
And I think they love the music when it comes
through the radio speakers and what the music means in
their life. But all this ego stuff that happens behind,
you know, in the conflict and like the who got
what in Nashville, it just I call bs on all
(34:23):
of it when I go home, and that's it's really refreshing,
and for me, it's a reminder of what like real
life folks do, not the dumb craft that I do
all the time, which I'm like because I can. I'm
in a room five hours a day for five days
a week, and then I'm usually on a plane going
to do a TV show or do some comedy, and
I don't unless I'm purposefully going back into the real world,
(34:46):
I don't ever get to it, not because I don't
want to, because I just stretched myself so freaking thin.
The good thing about being married is she makes me
do that, and not in a way of like you must.
But we spent four days in Oklahoma with their family,
who were great, But that's a it's just it's a
whole different world and one that I'm so grateful that
I have because we're just in a small town in Oklahoma,
going to the lake, cooking dinner, going to Chili's, and
(35:09):
that is that's just it. And and again it just
for me is uh, it takes me a little bit
of a little bit out of my my opic vision
of just what I only see for me and for
what we're doing here. But I think that's so refreshing
about just what you do generally and even not even
just this project, but what you promote almost universally, which
(35:31):
is that they're just going back to Kansas and that
can be a metaphor for anything, and you know, everywhere.
But and it's represented pretty well inside of this record too.
And I'm assuming that was very important to you. Yeah,
I am. It's funny. I think people would have probably
guess the overender on how many hometown songs would have
(35:52):
been on here, but because I'm like notorious for overwriting
about how much I love my hometown, but there aren't
really any hometown songs on the record. But that town
made me some of the things that you're some of
the songs are about we're created in a town like yours. Yeah, yeah,
that I was made in that town. So if you're
(36:14):
write about how I was, how I came to be,
you're indirectly writing about Sterling, Kansas. And I think to
your point, I love like when you were saying Chili's
Lake cook out, I'm like, oh, yes, it's like a
drug to me, Like oh normal, normal, But even more
than that, it's like, as you and you know this
better than anyone in town. The more successful you have,
(36:34):
the more it starts to revolve around you. And it's
nice to go somewhere where it doesn't revolve around you.
And I'm sure to some people that sounds like really
attractive to have things revolve around you, but it's nice
and it's like nobody, nobody cares what my schedule is
their whole. They have a whole world that operates without me.
In Sterling, Kansas. That town is doing just fine without
(36:56):
me being there. So it's nice to go and kind
of get humble done that way. Yeah, it's funny you
say that. I was doing an interview with some I
was doing press for my Snake in the Grass show
and they were asking about my wife, And it's funny.
What you what? You just said? What I was like,
you know, I used to think I was the sun,
just because I've been the sun for so long. Either
I'm grinding it out trying to feel like I'm a son,
(37:18):
or once you get to a point, everything just starts.
It's all it's orbiting you all the things. And I said,
but now that I have a wife and her family,
and I said, I'm just a comment, I'm not even
a freaking planet anymore. And that's awesome. It's a it's
a different pressure. It's a lesser pressure in ways, but
(37:41):
it's a more pressure in other ways that I'm not
good at. That. Being a human is tough for me.
Like I think I was very human for a whole
long time and then I just kind of checked out.
I was like, I don't be human anymore of the
stucks this this is uh, this hurts. So what did
you turn into? If you were cyborg that just works
all the time and has no room for anything at
all ever, and so but now that human is starting
(38:02):
to like crack out of it again, just like coming out.
But I think that's what your your music is too.
It's like it's so human and you're so specific. Like
I think that's just what makes the project obviously there
that when you double meaning words and you have a
you know, your pre court, all of the technical stuff
you're great at, You've done that so many times. But
(38:22):
it's how distinctly specific you are that allows people to
feel and understand in their own specific way, which is
weird because they can have You can say something really
specific and somebody else relates in a super specific way
that's not exactly your way, but they still find a
relation to it. So I think that's really the power
of the project. But that's just my opinion. What do
I Everybody's gonna have an opinion and feel differently about it,
(38:44):
But I feel like it's so human and it's so
at times, the won would be the word I would
use for this because if I'm being extremely vulnerable, it's
not always it's my best, but it's not always my
prettiest representation because it's real. And I think some of
your songs are so real that you had to go
(39:06):
all right, I'm gonna check out of being cool and
Nicole who runs label, I gotta be the person that's
got a lot of insecurities here. Yeah. I think it
was therapy doing it. I think it. You know, people
probably sound like it's some pr sound by it for
me for me to be like, no, I did this
for me and my family. I mean, I really did.
I It wasn't I really there was no performance element
(39:29):
to it because I don't really I think I don't
really know how to perform. Have you been practicing and
performing when you've played song you've sang publicly? So I
don't want to say, but have you know eventually you'll
probably have to do well. That being said, let me
just say I didn't even think about this. I called
you a few days ago and I was like, Hey,
I'm gonna go host the Todays show for a few days,
which haven't even announced yet. But if this beats it,
(39:51):
I don't care and I said hey. They asked me, like,
who do you want to bring anybody up here to
play the show? And I just made sure you were available,
and I said, I gave him your name first so
they could probably call you. I don't know if I'm
gonna call you, but I said that because I was
also scared they're gonna be like we decided to go
all rap, we gonna do all polka. But they said
who do you want? And I very first said to you,
And so then I was like, oh crap, let me
(40:11):
make sure she can do it. But then you may
be wrong. But then you said, I haven't really have
a performed on TV. Have you perform on TV well
as yourself? No? Not really mm hmm no. And I'm
every time I do something for the first time around
this project, it ends up being better than I ever
(40:32):
thought that it could be. So now I'm almost just
like looking for that next first, you know, I'm like, oh,
so when you called me first of all, I was like,
I was in I was at a co write and
I went into the bathroom and I was like, oh
my gosh, like trying to like play my play cool
because I like I saw your text in the co write. Um,
I was ready. I forget who I was with, like
(40:53):
Jimmy Robbins somebody, and I was like, don't be a jerk,
and like I immediately just wanted to Like my mom
would be like even if I don't get on there,
probably thought of me. But I was in a rite
and I couldn't. So I just went to the bathroom
and then message you back and I, um, I've always
said that the Today Show was like a dream, like
(41:14):
a bucket list thing. I just never knew what vehicle
would get me there, you know. I didn't know if
I would get there as a songwriter, as a label.
You know, I've always wanted to write a book. I
was like, maybe that's how I'll get on the Today
having no idea that. I mean, I've never told you
that obviously, and so that just felt. It's just constant affirmation, um,
from true friends that keep coming coming through on this
(41:37):
project and saying how can I help? And that's what
you said, and that the end of your message is
like how can I help you? You know, and I
hope this helps, So thank you and not and and listen,
I think you're awesome and whatever you ever needed in
like personal real life it does mat or like here
we go, but I wouldn't vouch for it. Also if
it wasn't great, Like that's the second layer of that,
(41:58):
and that I could be like, hey, come to the
pod guest. You know we get uh, you know, a
million people a month that will listen to this. I
could do that to somebody that sucked and be like
come on, but me going, hey, I'm going on to
do this. You should come and do this nationally. And
I'm going to say I invited you up to play
because I think you're so good. Like that's one of
those things that I hope you see as that's not
(42:20):
me and you're being friends. That's me going like I
believe in you the artist and as the performer in
the creative that you are, So that's a different that's no.
I feel that because I've never felt you endorse something
that you didn't stand behind. So that's I think maybe
where the weight of that call or that message really
came from. I was like, he didn't have to. You know,
(42:41):
pressure is awesome, it is, it's awesome. I'm i that
word curious. I think that's the thing. I'm like, we
don't know what could happen if I play on play
it on the Today Show because I've never done it.
Who knows who the reach, who knows who could be
affected by my record if I got a bigger platform,
(43:02):
you know. And so I'm yeah, I think I think
I'm learning right now that there's a lot of people that,
after being in Nashville for twenty years, are are really
showing up for me out of friendship but also passion
for the project. And it's like it's making me my
mind get bigger and dream bigger. Um, so maybe I
(43:23):
will be touring this next year. I don't know, you know,
it's just kind of one day at a time whenever,
because again they said, hey, I was just gonna do
one day at first, and they were like, hey, come up,
you can bring somebody. And then it turned from one
day into oh, what have you do too? But now
it's going to be because the Monday is like a holiday,
but I want to do Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, the three
days on there. And so then they came and said
do two days. I didn't think much about it, and
(43:44):
I was like, They're like, who else would you want?
I was like, uh, A big fan of this lame Tierra,
Why don't you hit her up? I don't even think
that's that you guys. I know that she is on
your label, but I love her anyway regardless of you.
And I had her open shows, you know, for me.
But then once they were like, yeah, she's in, I
was like, I'm just feeding the hole and Nicole Gallium monster, no,
(44:05):
I know, I am. Yes. Um, that wasn't purposeful, that's
the thing. Well, and I didn't think. I didn't think
that it was. I was just like, wow, you know,
because you know, you like, there's a lot of things
in this business that you quietly lay the groundwork for
for years and years and years invisibly and nobody sees them.
And then you you hope that in three to five
years some of this stuff will start to like the
(44:26):
dots will connect on their own. And this is an
example of that. It's like, you know, I signed tire
to a publishing deal to a couple of years ago,
and a couple of years ago I started dreaming about
making a record, having no idea that in one week
we could potentially be performing as you know on the
Today Show. Um, and I've been joking. Then it's going
(44:47):
to be a Songs and Daughters takeover potentially, but just
so fun. That's pretty cool. So you've got the record?
Are you still writing? Though? Now for other folks, you are,
You're still really I am. I wrote four songs last week. Um.
I've been gone to Kansas this whole summer, throughout the
whole rollout of the record, because I always go to Kansas. Um.
And so I just got back started writing full time.
(45:10):
My calendars booked as if nothing else is going on, um,
as if this record is like not real. But I
told some people on my team last week. I was like,
we take this one week at a time, you know. Um,
I have no reason to start canceling things yet. But
if I go play with the Today Show, I'm sorry,
I'm going to go to New York, you know, and
(45:30):
um and those things. I'm giving myself permission to change
my mind. We'll see, we'll see where I am every
If you'd have told me a week ago I was
playing the Today Show, I wouldn't have believed you. So
I'm kind of like, let's see where we are in
October and November and in the spring. But I'm writing
four songs this week. Um, you know, they're all connected.
(45:51):
You know. It's good too. It's also good to get
out of my orbit. I've been thinking about myself and
this record more than I'm used to, so it's nice
to go in and write with other people. With that said,
I think I can't unknow how much fun writing for
me has become and how meaningful it is. And it's
(46:12):
a little bit I've noted. I noticed last week coming
back to writing, it felt a little I don't know
what what a fair word would be. It didn't quite
feel as meaningful to just write a song to sell
some beer. Did it feel like it was inside of
a formula you've done so many times you just kind
of hop back into it. Yeah. I was writing with
a couple of guys, um and they didn't do anything wrong.
(46:34):
They're guys I've written with for years. But they said
they literally said that line of well, we were throwing
out ideas and they're like, well, I mean, what's gonna
sell some beer? Guys? You know? And I was like, wow,
I have not. I've been in that headspace for a
lot of years, but I've not been in that headspace
for the last couple of months. So it was kind
of like a rude awakening of oh yeah, back to
the day job of trying to get on the radio again,
(46:57):
you know, And that's not what this record. That's not
where my head was with making a record, did you
or when you go to the doctor or anywhere that's
like occupation? What do you put? Um? I put songwriter first.
(47:18):
I mean probably out to have it, because that's where
all things go back to that I've um. This conversation
has come up a little bit in the last year
or two. And what feels what what feels like I'm
moving toward is more of like a creative CEO, I think,
and I don't that sounds pretentious, but it actually feels.
It's uncomfortable for me to say out loud and to
(47:39):
own that. But I think if you're on paper, if
you wrote down all the things I was doing, it
might be a fact that even as a songwriter, I'm
a creative CEO. You know, in my making this project,
I was definitely CEO of everything because I was basically independent,
like an indie artist making this. So as an indie
artist would tell you like, you are the CEO of
(48:00):
the project. So I think that's probably that's not what
I put down at the doctor. But it soon enough.
Maybe yeah when you I'm gonna ask us forever. But
Y a year ago, maybe two years ago, you were
cans In of the Year. A yeah, what do you
get for that? And I've been waiting to talk to
(48:20):
you about that? So what happens? How do they let
you know? What's the deal? Oh my gosh, this is
so funny. Um, you get a really weird experience at
a banquet in a conference room in Topeka, Kansas. That's
what you get. Um. It's very political. Um, it's it's
(48:41):
the organization that picks cans In of the Year is
very politics based. So that whole room was a lot
of white haired guys. Um. And then me and I
was actually, this makes it even funnier. I was co
Canson of the Year with a guy that had done
phenomenal work and politics for like the state Education Department,
(49:03):
and he was like seventy years old. And every person
that's in like the government in Kansas was there. The
governor like made a speech and they had this beautifully
put together like package for him. The governor spoke and
then they're like and now Nicole Galleon songwriter, and everyone's
like you know, that's not a creative group of people necessarily, right,
(49:26):
And I'm what thirty five at the time, and they're
like looking at me. And I made this like one
of my cool little instagram ish videos. It was like
a bit of a highlight reel, very different vibe than
what the State Department put together for this other man,
and it was very awkward. Everyone just kind of stared
at me, and to be honest, I kind of wanted
(49:49):
the night to just be over. I was like, this
is not what I thought it was going to be. Um,
but it sure looks good on Wikipedia, you know, I agree. Cool.
When I saw it, I was like, that's awesome. Hands
of the Year. We just redid some of my bio
stuff and um, my manager Olivia was like, so do
you want to keep cans in? I was like, you
watch your mouth. I'll keep cans in the Year over
(50:09):
anything else for the rest of my life. Yeah, the
night doesn't be awesome for the ward to always last
and be awesome. Um, okay, I want to play a
couple more clips. We played a couple in a very
very intro before we started talking. But I do want
to give self care because if I'm I'm just going
from memory. If I'm wrong, just slat me. Were you like,
did you have like stuff on your face or in
a shower? Right? Am I right about the imagery? Yes? Okay,
(50:31):
I was in a bathroom. Okay, that's what it was,
with like wet hair, no makeup. I had like a
face mask on for part of the video. Okay, But
that's how good when I say what you did? Visually?
I see ten million things a day that people are
like this. That pick song, it's just but I can remember.
I remember that, and I can. I'm gonna be wrong here,
(50:52):
but some color blind is crap? What color was the title?
Blues and greens are very similar to me? So are
you color? Yes? So is my husband. Yes. Yeah, I'm
lucky that he can. He's like brown, he's darker tones
like brown's, greens, navies all kind of turned into each other.
Anything over like a certain threshold of dark. All looks
(51:15):
black to me. So very so, very similar right? Similar?
Here is self care? Thank I'm fatterly soul, baby, baby,
I'm crazy. Maybe I'm I'm scared to change. Gave me.
I can't can't make my self care. You mentioned Rodney,
(51:40):
there is a song with just you two guys, I know,
the first one we've ever written. I was going to
say I was surprised to see yeah, yeah. I mean
I can't write a record from my kids about my
life story and then not write a song with their dad,
you know. Um. We waited as the last song for
the record, um, and I think it was it was
daunting to write just because I had I had that
(52:02):
title five year Plan written down in the track list
with just Rodney's name next to it for months and months,
but we just never could find time at our house.
Like I don't know if you know if you're this
way or not, but like when you come home, you're
we don't have kids. Yeah that's true, and so we Um.
Like I said, I gave myself the deadline to have
the record done the end of one and December came
(52:24):
like first of December, and I'm like, the records basically done,
but I still have not written this song with Rodney
because we just couldn't find time. So we were going
to a Morgan wall And show like December like fifth
or six, and we were looking at hotel rooms and
I was like, why don't we just try to write
this song, while we're in this hotel room at the show,
and he as I was looking at this, like, you know, Hampton,
(52:45):
and I'm like, I don't think we're gonna write this
super meaningful song in a hotel room at the Hampton,
and it just doesn't look inspiring. So we got a
tour bus and we're both used to as songwriters going
out on the road. I'm doing weekend runs to write
for our us while they were on tour. So I
was like, let's just get a bus and we're saying
we're not coming back to Nashville until we have our
(53:05):
song written. And so we ended up writing it. It
fell out really fast in a couple of hours, and
and that's kind of like part of the lyric at
the end of the song says like I'm backstage a
show and here we are and this life is so
much better than anything I would have planned. So that
was we squeaked that one in at the end. But
I I think that kind of opened Pandora's box again
(53:26):
for me of how much I loved writing with him. Really,
we have not written together. I mean, we didn't write
to go the first ten years we were married, because
he just knew I was fiercely independent and didn't want
his career to overshadow mine, which was so loving and wise.
But then once I started to have success, we wrote
together a little bit with other people for other people,
(53:50):
but we had never done this thing where it's like,
you're the only person that knows I do have a
maximum in two thousand three, and you're the only person
that could put that in this song. So, um, I
think there's more where that came from. For sure, here
is five year plan. Yeah. I had a four bench
and a little big offense and two batches us checking
(54:15):
calls it out sitting now all of a sudden, got
to bring on my finger. Think being single just got
knocked off the top of bs because baby don't in
a five year plan. So I'm gonna ask you this,
(54:38):
and I would only ask you this because you wrote
about it publicly. It's not about your project. But I
remember looking on Instagram one day and you had written
that the Beers on Me song sounded a bit like
something you had written. I did not say anything about
any specific songs. Yeah, yeah, true, but because it's very similar,
(55:01):
So what what motivated you to write that? In the
land of everybody just goes, well, there's only so many chords,
there's only so many notes you can do because you're
now a writer on the song, right, And did that
get contentious at all? Um? Yeah, it was complicated. Um
for sure. Um, I think you ask about motive or
(55:23):
like what you know why. I think I've noticed in
Nashville and it wasn't just about that song, but it
was a bigger picture where there is a gray area
in rooms. You know, you're right, there are so many
only so many notes. But in the fifteen years of
me having a publishing deal, what feels like writing on
(55:44):
top of something else has gotten way more loose than
it used to be. UM. And I think I think
I felt like some good could come out of just
shining a light on on that because I've had so
many writers come up to me after her and say, man,
you know not you got us all thinking, Like the
next week we were we were like about to finish
(56:05):
our song and we thought maybe it sounded like too
much like this other song. So we pulled the other
song up and we listened to it, and UM, and
I'm like, yeah, I think that's really where my heart
was was, like, I think we've inched our away a
little too far into the gray zone. UM, and I
think everyone, um is capable myself being first of you know,
(56:28):
writing on top of other things, I think, Um, I
think I just think awareness. It was just really all
that I wanted out of that. There were a couple
of people that had mentioned them to me. They were
just happy you did it because everybody kept talking about
doing it and everybody knew what was happening, and nobody
would do it, and they were just like, we just
need somebody to kind of be a leader and go
for it. It It didn't have to be this sense. It
(56:49):
could have been a thousand different, as you said, because
it's happening everywhere. Well, that's why there were no song
titles involved. It was more about I just want our
community to just kind of like look in the mirror
and say, like, are we being are we having integrity?
You know? And that's just that's between me and myself
and you and yourself and the next writer and themselves themselves,
and I am and I think you're right. Hughes reminded
(57:12):
me of last year when this went down. I feel
like the more success you have and the more privileged
you have in in whatever position, you're in. It comes
with responsibility, and I see why, you know, I see
why you need somebody that's in my position who's not
worried if I'm being completely honest about my kids college
(57:34):
being paid for anymore. I think if I was in
the beginning of my career, and I see this happen
a lot. I know a lot of I know a
lot of situations in our industry where somebody feels like
they want to speak up, but then they're afraid to
become the villain of a situation that and they don't
want to hurt their their livelihood. You know, everyone's just
(57:55):
trying to keep their lights on. And being a songwriter
is tough top to bottom no matter who you are,
but it's you know, I had less to lose, and
I felt like that's what leadership is is if you
can stick your neck out there and be honest and
be true, um, then the people that look up to
me are more likely to be honest and true when
(58:18):
they become me. And that's you know, while that was
a complicated situation, I felt I felt like I was
me in that situation, and I felt peace about I
felt more peace after I had shared and and you know,
shone a light on it. So it um one of
the weirder things in my career so far. But um,
(58:42):
but you know, I think everything that's happened in my
career has happened for me. And I think that that
happened for me. I learned a lot about myself for that.
What I and again I saw what I took from it,
and we'll move off this and be done with it.
But what I took from it was I remember going, well,
she doesn't, she definitely doesn't have to do this like
it wasn't. It wasn't like you had no success and
you're screaming that someone ripped a song off of you
(59:02):
so you could get on a on right like you.
It wasn't gonna change your life at all. I mean
really very very little yet and you knew probably what
the possibilities of blowback were going to be. I know
what the possibilities in this town where I mean, I
say stuff all the time and then I get black
bault in certain areas until I'm just not anymore. It's
(59:23):
just a weird, weird place to wear in. Remember thinking,
all right, she's not going to gain a lot from this. Um,
she's not doing it because of that. Let's see where
this goes. So I thought it was a I thought
it was a brave and bold thing to do, and
I think other people have felt the same. I my
reputation with myself is more important than my reputation with others,
(59:45):
and I felt like I was. I liked I like
that version of me. You know, my reputation of myself
just still a weenie. And it's with others too. So
what do you know it's only common? Um? Okay, well, look,
I don't want to say. It's just you're inspiring in
many ways. Um, I don't know, it's just just what
(01:00:05):
do you say? Just keep on because a lot of
people are seeing what you're doing and going, oh, that
can be done. And I think that's probably, in my mind,
the biggest compliment I could give you is that you're
allowing other people to see what can actually be done
and that the world's bendable. And so don't freaking stop.
It's aspiring to me. You know, it's awesome. Um, I'll
(01:00:28):
end on this. Did your daughter like Hamilton's, Oh my gosh,
she's obsessed. I think I have a little fest Maian
on my hands. Yeah, I was never in musicals. I
was I would play piano kind of in the pit
for the musicals, but she's obsessed. It was so fun
whenever I saw you guys. I saw on your Instagram
she was on the program and I thought they went
to but it's here high. I was here. Yeah, I
was here in Nashville, Yester. I didn't know. I watched
(01:00:51):
in New York and I go in, We'll hold on
wait till you hear the story. I'm by myself. I'm
up there doing some work and at my agent was like, hey,
how good. Go to Hamilton's. And I was like, all right,
bout myself, I'll go. I don't know anything about It
was way early. I didn't know how lucky I was
to get tickets way early. I think it was before
the phenomenon started to exist. And so I go, and
(01:01:13):
a lot of people there, but I go what, I'm
sitting down and I'm like and they start the show
and they're like, I'm a better deep about and I'm like,
all right, I can't really keep up, but they'll start
talking soon enough, so I'm just gonna lay back and
relax until they talk and I can catch up. They
never talked, they just wrapped the whole show. It took
about half the show for me to go, oh, I
gotta pay attention because they're never stopping rapping. So I
set through half of it just going okay, eventually they'll
catch me up with their words. But then once I
was able to like sit in it and just go,
(01:01:35):
then my mind was blown. Her mind was, well, I
wish I would have known. I'm such a don't see
a spoiler guy that I don't I don't even know.
It was all hip hop the whole time. I wish
I would have looked. But then I go, what if
it had been spoiled? But then I go, that's history,
you idiot. You could have read it in a book
in eighth grade, so it really wasn't a spoiler. It's
his history. But that's cool that she likes it. Yeah,
I've um she's so obsessed with the songs. I've heard all.
(01:01:58):
I mean, I've watched it with her on Disney Plus
or something. I don't know what's on, but I've watched
it once or twice. But listen to this. I've had
to hear the songs a million times, and even still
yesterday when I saw it. I was like, I catch
something different. There's so many words, and it's so brilliant
the way there's like these three lines of how they
keep coming back to the same melodies and songs about
(01:02:19):
the whole thing. I mean, it's just it's on another level.
I was in awe. Well, Nicole, we've said it all.
What do you do now? Do you go and like
work on some sort of atomic reactor over? I don't know, Like,
what do you do now? Right now? I'm actually going
to meet um my manager Olivia and uh cheese Gal.
You know cheese Gal Courtney Laque. Yeah she did cheese
(01:02:42):
for us. Yeah, she's incredible. We um we may have
a little something up oar sleeve. We're going to go
meet and have a little pow wow a song about cheese.
I'm into it. That's the kind of music. I need
more songs about cheese. All right, you guys follow Nicole
uh nick and night music. But in I C and
N I T. I mean, it's no. If this becomes
a thing, you gotta get it. You're gonna have to
switch your name to something people could just say easily,
(01:03:03):
and I have to explain it because if I would
just go Nick and nite music, they wouldn't find it.
But if I go and I and then I complained
for thirty seconds and a second is three minutes just
to go follow up. That's how you know who your
two fans are. Phil Phill do a deep dive. That's true,
and then they tell you you got to change it,
all right, you guys follow Nicole. We put up her
name up up in this as well, and congratulations, thank
you for having me. And I'll see in a few years.
(01:03:25):
But well, and I'll see in a few weeks on
today's shot. A few weeks, all right, Bye,
Host
Bobby Bones
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