February 3, 2025 • 62 mins
Clay Mills is a Grammy nominated songwriter with cuts by Darius Rucker, Trisha Yearwood, Little Big Town, Lady A, Diamond Rio and more. When he’s not writing he is mentoring writers through Songtown, an organization he co-founded with hit writer Marty Dodson, offering a songwriting masterclass, community building and mentorship. In this episode we talk about how he came writing jingles in NYC, not giving up and his huge number one song cut by Diamond Rio, “Beautiful Mess”
Find Clay Mills
Listen to Beautiful Mess
Songtown
Worktapes is Produced by Brandon Carswell
Film & Editing by Shaun Carswell
This episode was filmed at Sound Stage Studios in Nashville, TN
Episode intro music written by Brandon Carswell & produced by Micah Tawlks - "Back To Us" Worktapes show cover art designed by Harrison Hudson
**All songs used by permission**
Find Clay Mills
Listen to Beautiful Mess
Songtown
Worktapes is Produced by Brandon Carswell
Film & Editing by Shaun Carswell
This episode was filmed at Sound Stage Studios in Nashville, TN
Episode intro music written by Brandon Carswell & produced by Micah Tawlks - "Back To Us" Worktapes show cover art designed by Harrison Hudson
**All songs used by permission**
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to Work Tapes. This is a podcast where we
tear up our songs. Why with the song written? What's
it about, what's the context and emotion behind it? Where
were you at the time, what were you going through?
How did certain lines come to you? What's the inspiration?
How long did it take to write? I'm Brandon Carswell
and I'm fascinated with songwriting and how songs are built
(00:29):
from the ground up. It's easy to hear a full
production song on the radio and dismiss its origin story.
I want to hear the rough draft of the song
or the work tape. I want to explore the very beginning,
how songs that move us and make us move our more.
Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Work Tapes.
(00:50):
I'm Brandon Carswell. Today we're joined by a Grammy nominated
songwriter who is cranking out hits in the early two
thousand's for sure, Between Darius Rutger, Kimberly Locke, Clay Walker,
Trisha Yearwood, Lady A Little Big Town Reba and Diamond Rio. Welcome, Welcome,
(01:14):
Clay Mills, good to be here, Thanks for coming. Yeah,
I was excited when you said you would be on this.
I looked up your catalog and I was just like, Yes,
there are so many great songs we could talk about.
It was I I always will send a message out
(01:36):
to my guests and kind of let them choose the song.
Sometimes I'll go in and I'll be like, let's let's
talk about this one though, because I like it the
best or whatever. So I just say all that to
say it's it's It was a hard choice to go
(01:57):
look at everything you've written and side the song we're
going to talk about today, but I think we chose
a good one. We're going to talk about a Diamond
Rio song that is widely known called Beautiful Mess. We're
going to go through the original work tape of that
and so fans of that song will be able to
hear something that they haven't heard. And it's a really
(02:21):
cool work tape. So in addition to all of these
other things that I just mentioned, you have a really
cool thing called Songtown, where your mentor writers, which you
co found with your partner Marty Dotson, who's another hit
songwriter in town, which I do want to discuss that
(02:41):
as we get into it, because I think it's really cool.
You have a podcast that goes with it, and so
let's just dive right in with who are you? How
did you start in music?
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Wow, that's existential, Like who am I?
Speaker 1 (02:57):
It's a big quote? Am I doing here for our listener?
Is that? Don't know? Because you know, like one thing
that's interesting about talking to songwriters, especially really huge songs
like this is you're not the artist on this song
and so.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Well, the heart and soul comes from the writers and
it kind of gets transferred into the body of the
artist that sings it. Yeah, but there is an essence
there that only comes from the songwriter, but it's they're
not the artist on stage exactly.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
But the general public kind of overlooks the name of
the writer. Yes, the majority of the time. Then are
they think the artist wrote it themselves? Right, which is
when I was a kid, that's what I thought you did,
Like you write your own songs and you put it
on the radio. I didn't know there was a business
behind it. So, like I said, introduce yourself, where did
(03:50):
you come from? And kind of like what got you
into music in the first place?
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Yeah, So literally, I grew up on a farm in Mississippi.
When I remember being eleven years old on a tractor
by myself out in the middle of this three thousand
acre farm that my grandfather had, and I get this flash.
This is gonna sound weird, but I saw myself on
(04:17):
stage singing with the band, the Carpenters. Okay, the next
year in school, they came and picked kids from our
school to go sing in concert with them, and I
was one of the kids.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
That got chosen.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
So it just felt like weird to me, like this
was meant to happen. So I don't know if I've
ever told that story.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Yeah, that's really interesting even right off the bat, like
what okay, so what what would have produced that image
for you? Like that dream of were you listening to
them on the radio? Did you see on TV? Like
what was the deal?
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Yeah, just listening to their music. And I don't know
why I chose them, you know, but I remember seeing
on that tractor plow on a field and just singing
to pass the time. I didn't have a radio or anything,
so I'm singing and I just had this vision of
being on stage. I was imagining myself on stage singing
(05:16):
with the carpenter How old were about eleven or twelve?
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Okay, so really early on Were you playing guitar, writing songs,
or any of that?
Speaker 2 (05:24):
And you're not going to ask me why my grandfather
would let a eleven year old kid on a tractor.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
No, I assuming there's what he's doing. That's the way
we did it. Yeah, that's what you did back then.
That's you know, if I could trust my eleven year
old or my thirteen year old now with being on attractor,
I probably would, but I can't. Times have changed, they
have changed. Were you playing music then? Were you singing
writing that early on?
Speaker 2 (05:51):
I wasn't. I was just kind of singing. And my uncle,
who also lived on this farm, had a band, so
I would kind of sneak around their band rehearsal and
check them out. So it felt like something that was
appealing to me. It was literally the only excitement on
this farm was music, and so that you know, he
(06:12):
played in rock bands, played in clubs every night, and
I just thought that was so cool, and so I
just kind of got the bug for it back, you know,
when I was early and then when I got in school,
I was in choir and that kind of stuff, and
then high school I started playing and playing in clubs
and bands and kind of doing.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
That right, So when you got the bug for it,
was it more of like I want to write songs
or I want to perform songs.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
It was performing at the beginning. In fact, when I
got my first deal to Nashville in music, Mark Bright,
who was a producer, actually he used to have an
office in this building. He signed me to Nashville was
going to produce my first record.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
He went on to.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Produce Carrie Underwood and Black Cock, a bunch of acts.
But I've quickly found out I'd rather stay at home,
write songs, hang out with my buddies, and I have
to go on the road. I had a family, wife,
a son, and it just felt more right for me
to stay at home and not be on the road
(07:22):
three hundred days a year, you know. So once I
found out you could be just a songwriter, that's what
I went.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
For it all the way. Yeah, so let's go back
to Yeah, I'm jumping around, that's okay. Let's go back
to your year eleven and you're singing with the carpenters. Yes,
what did that look like? From that out on stage
Mississippi State University in Starkville in front of however many people,
ten thousand people. They trited a group of US kids
(07:50):
out on stage and we performed a song with them.
That's cool. Yeah, and after that what happened? You just
did that like the fire, I think so. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
And for me, like I said, it was just always
something that was a part of me. You know, Like
my brother used to get mad. He would go, well,
you always knew what you wanted to do, and I
had to try to struggle to figure it out. But
I just always knew.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Yeah, that's a really interesting thing where some people know
exactly what they want to do in life and that's
and they just put their head down and go do it, yeah,
or figure out how to do it.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
So from that point, going into junior high and high school,
I played in bands. You know we in high school,
our band rehearsal space was the Hell's Angels.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Oh wow, clubhouse. That's insane.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
So not only did I grow up fast on a tractor,
but I grew up fast practicing with the Hells Angels
at their clubhouse.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
They gave us.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Free beer and we gave them free music. Perfect for
a high school.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
I'm sure you have a lot of stories from that time.
It was awesome.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
And then so after I got out of high school,
I decided, nineteen years old, I was going to move
to New York City, and so I moved to New
York and got in the music business there, writing jingles
of all things. Somebody said, hey, my friend does jingles,
and they're looking for people that write songs, and I'm like,
I can do that, and so I submitted a tape.
(09:26):
And that was back in the days where they didn't
want you to write like a jingle jingle. They wanted
it to sound like a record. So I got into
that and did that for about ten years and did
quite well, had national TV commercials, did all the music.
It was excellent and it really was a good training
(09:49):
ground for me because every day I would get an assignment.
They'd be like, well, today we want something like a
dance song. Tomorrow we want something like classical music. It
was like literally covering every kind of music I could do.
I was programming tracks, I was playing guitar, I was singing,
I was writing, and I mean this was the eighties,
(10:11):
so I was literally one of the first people in
New York to start using a computer to do music.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Wow, yeah, you know.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
So we'd sync up our keyboards to the computer and
program tracks that way.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
So it was a lot of fun.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
But after about ten years, I was like, I need
to get back down south to Nashville and become a songwriter.
And that's when I met Mark Bright at E and
my music. He flew up to New York, saw me
do a showcase, offered me a deal on the spot,
and I just said goodbye to everything and moved to Nashville.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Wow, what is it like running Jingles? I was, this
is an unprepared question, is it. That's a topic that
we've never discussed on Yeah, show.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Well, before we get to that, I meant to finish
my thought. It trained me so when I got to
Nashville one day, if I'm writing with Little Big Town
or Lady Annabellam or whoever, I could go in any
direction that I felt was right for you know. It's
like you couldn't stump me. I could write with a
(11:22):
hardcore country person. I could write with a progressive act.
Even Beautiful Mess that we'll talk about later when it
came out, was a progressive song for that time. We
wrote it with drum loops. I mean it was, you know,
very different than what was going on in Nashville. So
I just felt fortunate that the training I got in
(11:44):
New York prepared me to pretty much go and write
with anyone once I got to Nashville.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Yeah, that makes sense because you're having to pivot every
day writing jingles and do something. Like you said earlier,
you've got a different assignment every day, a different kind,
different genre, whatever the client wants, right would be.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Yeah, that would give you a direction, and you know,
it's It was a very similar pace to what's going
on now with track guys in Nashville. You show up,
you write a song in a couple hours, and pretty
much the whole production's done that day.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
You know.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
It was that kind of thing. You would write something
and produce it every day. It was something different. So
it was a good pace and I learned a lot.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Was it difficult? I think that people. The reason I
asked that is just because I say, I think people
think this. I think I probably thought this somewhere along
the lines where you hear like a jingle like let's
say it's like a McDonald's thing. I think Rod Stewart
did those right. He did a ton of big ones.
(12:52):
Was it?
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Rod Stewart very very Mantal Berry Man the Hare.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Very very different artists, Yeah, very different. Barry Manilow did
so many jingles. But it's easy to think, like because
it sticks in your head, it's easy to think it's
easy to produce that. Yeah. What And this was a
question I was going to ask you anyway, It's like, what,
what is the thing that happens when you find or
(13:22):
is there a thing that happens when you find the
right hook? Because that's it's the same for a jingle.
You have to make something stick for it to be
a hit song. Yeah, or it's not. It's not going
to work right. It's got to be able to stick
in people's heads. Same with a jingle. So do you
think that the jingle work for you informed your a
(13:47):
more adult songwriting as a career writing hit songs? Does
that question make sense?
Speaker 2 (13:52):
I think to a certain extent it possibly did. I
think more so the music I grew up listening to, Okay,
I was able to just keep drawing from that because
growing up, you know, in the seventies and eighties, there
was so much variety out there of music that even
on the radio, I mean it was not so you know,
(14:15):
today everything gets into these little niches, but it was
wide open then, so I just loved hooky melodies.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
You know.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
I would have my cassette recorder and Casey Cason would
play the American Top forty. I would record it. I
would learn those songs, you know, I would. It was
just a great period to learn how to write hooky
songs because there was a lot of them, right, you know.
And today it's more about vibe a lot of times
(14:46):
rather than like the the hooky part. The vibe is
almost a hook and that's equally as important. But back then,
I don't think.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
What do you mean by vibe? What is that?
Speaker 2 (14:58):
The attitude of the singer? Okay, the phrasing of the
singer is often I feel like more important sometimes than
the actual what's going on in the songwriting side of it,
Like the vibe of the track, the vibe of the singer,
What is the singer? You know, the mood they're creating.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
You know.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
It goes in phases, you know when it And I
think people are starting to come around right now to
using different chord changes, and they're coming around to writing
little stronger lyric lines, and so I've seen it go
in cycles so many times. Because I've been doing this
so long. But yeah, I just think for a while,
(15:45):
vibe and sound and attitude kind of took over and
now it's coming back. I think with the song, would
you would you inform? Would you or would you tell
kind of up and coming songwriters to do what you did?
As as far as you were studying top forty radio
without calling it studying, that's what you were doing. You
(16:07):
were recording that stuff to tape and learning and playing
it in bands. Yeah, you know cover bands people people
talk about, well, you know the Beatles. They hold these
groups up to highest, you know, esteem as artists. But
(16:27):
the Beatles were the world's best cover band before they
started writing their own songs. They studied popular music and
they wanted to emulate the best writers. So you start
out emulating, then you got to put your own sound.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
To it, you know, right.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Yeah, And even even when they were famous, they were
you know, they liked the Beach Boys, So they write
a song back in the USSR that sounds like the
Beach Boys.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
They like Bob Dylon, so.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
They write Norwegian wood that and produce it to sound
like Bob Dylan. So they were very influenced by everything
around them, and a lot of people think to be
an artist you have to hate everything and shut everything
out and just do you, right, And I don't.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
I don't think that's there's no doing you without anyone,
without everything else. You've been informed by exac right, Like, Yeah,
it's kind of like a muscle memory. So you you're
taking those top forty songs and learning them and playing
them in your bands. You're just training yourself and then
when you get into a room to write, that stuff
starts coming out. Yeah, and you have to be careful
(17:33):
not to be a rip off. Oh never, Yeah, but
it's gonna it's gonna come out and it's gonna land
like that. Right. Uh, what do you think, like how
important to you is reading to writing reading books? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Okay, because I came from went to Berkeley in Boston
for a year of music's and reading was like reading
music off a page.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Yeah, and playing. No, I don't mean reading music. I
mean we could talk about that for sure, but I
don't read music, so I always feel like out of
place with those that do. But it is what No,
I just meant like reading in general, Like that's a
question I've I've wanted to dive into that I haven't yet.
(18:25):
Just how much reading informs your songwriting lyrically.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Yeah, I was a crazy reader as a kid. As
an adult, I've just been so busy creating music that
that gets put. I wish I could read more, but
I haven't had the chance. But you would be surprised
how far you can get just pulling off of influences
(18:50):
from years ago, as far as like the words.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Going around in my head.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
And I think once you establish a vocabulary then you
can take that and.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Move forward with it. I don't sure.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
But the other side of it, yeah, I would love
to read more if I had the time, But between
writing full time, teaching online full time with this songtown community,
is just I have no time for reading.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Yeah. Well, let's talk about Songtown for a second, because
that's part of the part of how I found out
about who you are as your podcast, which is called
Songtown as well. Right, songtown is songwriting, right, And what's
(19:39):
an example maybe of something that you're teaching through that
to songwriters? YEA.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Well, first, let me say that many years ago I
did read a book and I wish I could remember
the author who talked about the first part of a
person's life. You're basically it's all about you. You're trying
to have this career in music, and you've got to
be self centered. And he was talked about once you
(20:09):
hit the age of fifty, how you want to start
giving back, and so that for some reason, even when
I was in my twenties, that made an impression on me.
And when I turned fifty, I decided with Marty Dottson,
I was like, let's start teaching songwriting, you know. So
we started online. We started doing Facebook posts about how
(20:33):
the music business really works, how the songwriting craft works.
It built up to a big community. We launched a website,
started teaching classes online and it's just taken off. We
have thousands of members around the world. And basically we
just teach the craft of songwriting. I want to keep
(20:55):
that alive, especially with AI coming And you know, I
think that our voice as writers, there's nothing more important.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Right like the human aspect of it.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Yes, So on our podcast, we will talk about songwriting techniques,
will talk about the business, just whatever a songwriter needs
to know to mentally be prepared to write your best songs.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Yeah, was there a moment in your career before this,
before the Songtown teachings. Was there a moment where you
went like why am I doing this? Why am I writing?
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Or oh no, no, you always knew why. Yeah, I
just love writing.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
That's the why. It's just that simple.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
I mean my first year of college. I worked construction
between my first and second year of college, and I'm
on a construction site and I'm just writing songs in
my head all day as I'm working, Like it's just
I can't stop it, I can't turn it on.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
And I don't know where.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
It came from. Like I said, it wasn't a decision.
It just was something inside of me that always had
to come out. So I've never gone why am I
doing this? Or And in fact, even when things were
awful and I was broke, I remember, so I moved
to Nashville with a deal. I lost that deal, got
(22:26):
another deal, lost that deal. I got a pink slip
on Christmas Eve and.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
The mail from one parishion.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
Company with a six year a six month old baby
and a new house, and I get a pink slip.
And so through it all, I never there was never
a thought to quit. Like it was just I had
blinders on and there was no going back my buddy
from exile and Sunny Lamaire. We used to say, you know,
(22:56):
no bridges, no retreat. That was our mantra, and there
was no way. There was no way I could go back.
It was just so what did What did you do?
Speaker 1 (23:05):
Though? When you got those it sounds like four or
five deals you were let go from, and then there's
obviously some kind of discouragement, but you just press on
and keep going. Where did that confidence come from? Like,
did you ever have a moment and those losses for
(23:28):
lack of a better word, where you were thinking, well,
I must not be good at this.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
I don't know if it was just total fear of
failure or I don't know what made.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Me keep going, But.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
It wasn't like even though I would lose my job
at a publishing company, I had a recording studio and
I was still producing people and paying the bills, so
I was able to pay the bill kind of renting
out my studio or producing custom projects for indie artists
(24:07):
and that kind of thing. So I was able to
at least pay the bills, yep, you know, and so
that that kept me going. I mean I wasn't rich
and wasn't eaten out every night, but sure.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
I could pay my bills. The reason I asked that
is because I think it would get into a writer's
mind or a creative's mind, just with anything. Really, it
doesn't have to be songwriting that but specifically for songwriting.
When when somebody, when a publisher or whatever let you go,
or you you miss a deal, or they end it
(24:39):
for whatever reasons, it's not always a personal attack on
your giftedness or how good you are or aren't. I
would say a lot of the times it's probably not
even a factor of how good you are or whatever.
It's a business, right, And so you can't What I'm
getting at is like, how can how can people just
(25:05):
know I just need to keep doing this. I need
to keep going. That doesn't matter what this company thought
or did. This is a business. I know who I am.
I know I've got a thing, and I'm passionate about
that thing. And we were just talking about, you know,
Nashville's a ten year town, meaning it takes ten years
to break in. Yeah, so keep after it.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Yeah, And I don't think it was never part of
my personality for me to be confident and just go,
you know, I'm great like I was not one of
those people. Sure, so what I did I had all
the self doubts you're talking about, But what I was
good at was putting blinders on and not paying attention
(25:49):
to that and just doing the work.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Right.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Someone told me, just put blinders on, keep your head down,
keep grinding, And.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
That's what I did. All those self doubts.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
I'm sure we're back there, but I just didn't give
them any power, right, you know, And so I was
just stubborn, Like you know, I was not going to
fail at it.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
You know, a lot of songwriters are stubborn. I've learned
that much in my time hanging out with songwriters and
being one. But I love that. I think that that's
encouraging even now, Like you came up in a time
without social media and all of that stuff, and putting
blinders on right now is so difficult.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Oh man, I can't imagine it.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
And to watch the perception of everyone else doing it
and you're having to put on blinders, which literally means
don't look at your phone, don't pull up socials.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Like because everyone is presenting a highlight reel of their
best moments or their best pretend moments, right, no one's
putting you know. Well, some people will put real stuff
up there, you know, but for the most part, you're
watching your scrolling and you're watching highlight reels and going, well,
(27:08):
why is everyone else's life great?
Speaker 1 (27:10):
Right? Well, that happens with any content you produced, which
I find myself just like on a personal note, being
like what am I doing? Like? Am I just adding
to the noise by having this podcast or writing this
song or doing whatever?
Speaker 2 (27:24):
What gives you the right to be successful at it
or as opposed to someone else? I just can't think
about that. I just think we have to do what
we do and just I don't know.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Yeah, I don't ever want to pretend like anything that
looks successful a was easy or actually is successful, because
I have no I don't know what does that mean?
Does that mean I'm making a ton of money on
this podcast? Because I'm not, you know, Like, I don't
mind being real about it, but I think that I
(28:00):
know how I am, how my brain works. Personally speaking,
I have to put blinders on for almost all of
the creative things I do, or I will get in
a loop and be like how can I do this?
Or why does it deepn matter?
Speaker 2 (28:17):
Because and then when you start having some successes and
two hundred thousand people watch one of your podcast episodes
and you start getting the trolls. Yeah, so five people
will say, this is amazing. Where has this show been
all my life? And then another guys, this totally sucks.
These guys are you know? It's just so funny. So
(28:41):
then you got to get you know, over that, and like, yeah,
and tune all that.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
I would say the easiest way to get over that
would be, you know, everything you do is not for everyone. Yeah,
and that's okay. Yeah, and you gotta let it.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Even writing hit songs, Oh you're a hit songwriter. That
crap on the radio. Yeah, I would never write that stuff.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Yeah, you're right.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
And I want to come back and say you couldn't
write that stuff, but I don't because I'm civil and
I would never want to say that.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
But it's true.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Also, Yeah, and there's a high level of craft that
goes into writing for a simple song.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Yes, and it's not simple, which is a really good
segue into beautiful mess because it it sounds like a
simple song, but the listener has to know that's on purpose. Yeah,
you know.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
They try playing I've tried to get up with bands
that go we want to play beautiful mess. You know,
you'll be in Vegas at a club and they're like,
we want to play beautiful mess, and you get up.
The song has so many chord changes they can't even
play it. Yeah, it's deceptively you sound simple, but there's
a lot of stuff going on in it.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Well, let's talk about how that song came about. Luckily,
an insanely talented band picked it up and could play it. Yeah,
Diamond Rio is incredible. Take us through kind of some
of the beginning of you co wrote the co writers
(30:10):
on it. What did that day or that session look like.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Yeah, well we didn't write the entire song that day,
but we show up. Had a little office on sixteenth
Avenue here in Music Row, trying to recreate the day
in my head. So a tiny, tiny office. I mean
imagine the tiniest office, like this is a mansion compared
to this little writing office. Had one little sofa in there,
(30:37):
and I had my computer set up to record, and
I put on this drum loop and we were all
into like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and so Shane
Minor me, Sonny Lemaire and I put on this drum
loop and just start playing on my acoustic guitar, and
Shane goes going out a man man these days, and
(31:00):
he was trying to emulate life does sound like Red
Hot Chilis the way he was just rapping, and we
just started laughing. We were like this. We didn't know
if it was crazy or what, but we just started
going with it because we just wrote That's the other thing.
A lot of times, we're just having a good time,
right we write, you know. And so we were writing
(31:23):
and we're like, what is the song going to be about?
Speaker 1 (31:25):
You know?
Speaker 2 (31:25):
And Sonny had just watched a movie where they used
the phrase beautiful mess, and I had been reading a
book and that used the phrase beautiful mess, and we.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
Important, well at that time, yeah, not anymore.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
But so we both say the title beautiful mess at
the same time. It's like a weird kind of thing.
And so we just started building the song from there.
But it literally started out as just goofing around, like
rapping like the Red Hot Chili Peppers and to a
drum loop, you know. And in fact, when we got
into the recording studio, I'm playing it on my acoustic
(32:06):
guitar for the band to cut the demo, and Paul
Lyine was playing drums, brilliant drummer, playing everything from Lionel
Ritchie to Kenny Rogers, just legendary tunes. Well, he's in
there and I give him this CD. I say, there's
a drum loop on here. Can you use this loop
and play along to it? So he listens to it
(32:27):
and he goes, well, I'm just going to incorporate that loop.
I'm just going to play what the loop is doing
and put my own part and play them both at
the same time, and I'm just going to play it live.
And he created this drum part and it's like halfway
made the song just that that part. I mean, the
drummer in Diamond Rio pretty much recreated the same drum part.
(32:51):
It was so cool.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
Yeah, And so you wrote the song based kind of
off the title. Yes, So the rest of the rest
of the song kind of trickled down from what the
title was.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
But what was that like? Because you beautiful mess could
mean a couple of different things, I assume, So what
was the conversation Because a lot of times when you're songwriting,
you're building a story. You're sitting in the room and
you're going the person is going through this, or or
whatever the subject matter is. You're creating a whole narrative
(33:28):
behind the scenes to get one lyric, right, So what
was the story?
Speaker 2 (33:34):
It really wasn't like that was, And like, I've written
a thousand songs like that. So Shane throughout that line,
going out of my mind these days and I go
walking around in a haze, and we were just kind
of joking, and then somebody said, can't think straight, can't concentrate.
(33:56):
And then Shane, who always had this ability to come
up with these kind of I call him color lines,
he goes and I need a shave, and it was like, well,
that was so wacky, you know, And so we just
kind of built it line by line, hit the chorus,
what beautiful mess I'm in, and then by that time
(34:17):
we're like, once we had the line, what a beautiful
mess I'm in, spending all my time with you, There's
nothing else I'd rather do. Once we had that, we're like, okay,
well she's she's the one that's got him crazy.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
He's distracted.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
But we literally were just kind of feeling around in
the dark to see where it was going to go,
and just spitballing crazy lines, and then it once we
had that, then now I can remember another story. The
second verse. Sonny goes, this morning, put salt in my coffee.
(34:54):
And that morning I was getting my son ready for
school put on his shoes, and he looks down. He goes, Dad,
you put my shoes on the wrong feet. So Sonny goes,
this morning, puts salt in my coffee, And I remember
what my son said, and then I go, I put
my shoes on the wrong feet. And it just fit perfectly.
So it was like just a lot of random things
(35:17):
that kind of came together in the moment.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
That's fun. How long did it take to write? You
said it took a couple of days.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
It took a couple of sessions. We probably had a
verse and a chorus and then came back. Typically with
those guys, we'd come back and write a second verse
another day. Okay, you know, actually I think we had
up into that put my shoes on the wrong feet.
We had the first two lines of the second verse,
and then we came back and finished it up. Yeah,
(35:43):
and it has a bridge. Back then we wrote bridges right.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
Oh, man, I've got a whole episode planned on bridges.
I'm trying to get a couple of guys to talk
about the importance of bridges or the non importance of bridges,
because you're right, these days we can talk about that
if you want, because these days they're just not It
doesn't seem like it's important anymore. But let's do this.
(36:08):
Let's because we're talking about beautiful mess. Let's uh, let's
listen to that work tape and then we'll talk about
the work tape and that song a little bit more.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
I'm going out of my mind these days, like I'm
walking around in a haze. I can't think straight, I
can't concentrate, and I.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Need a shoet. I go to work and dit oft time.
Speaker 3 (36:50):
The boss man says, son, you're gonna get fired.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
You say your style.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
And behind my coffee cut patches smile.
Speaker 3 (37:03):
What a beautiful mess, What a beautiful mess? I mas
spending all my time with you, nothing else I'd rather do.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
What a sweet addiction.
Speaker 3 (37:16):
That I'm caught up in, so I can't get enough
and stuff up hunger for your Look, what a beautifulood?
What a beautiful mess?
Speaker 4 (37:28):
I mean?
Speaker 3 (37:29):
And uh, this morning, put salt in my coffee. I
put my shoes on the wrong fee.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
I'm losing my mind that I swear it might be
the death.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
Of me, but I don't don't care.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
What a beautiful mess, What a beautiful mess I mean,
spending home, my time with you. There's nothing there side grandma, dude?
What a sweet addiction is that I'm called up in
so I can't get in the fist if.
Speaker 4 (38:16):
The hunger for your love? What the beautiful?
Speaker 3 (38:21):
What a beautiful mess?
Speaker 1 (38:22):
Someday?
Speaker 4 (38:23):
Is it your eyes?
Speaker 1 (38:33):
This is it's your smile.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
All I know is that you're.
Speaker 3 (38:44):
Driving me wild. What a beautiful mess. What a beautiful
mess I mean, spending home my time with you? There's
nothing there side rather, dude, what a sweet addiction that
I'm caught up in so I can't get in the
(39:05):
can't stop the hunger for your love?
Speaker 1 (39:09):
Vote the beautiful? What a beautiful mess?
Speaker 3 (39:12):
What a beautiful mess on me spending all my time
with you? There's nothing mess on grandpa?
Speaker 1 (39:20):
Dude?
Speaker 2 (39:21):
What a sweet addiction.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
That I'm called up in.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
Case I can't get.
Speaker 3 (39:27):
In the can't stop the hunger for your love?
Speaker 1 (39:32):
I WoT a beautifulol.
Speaker 3 (39:33):
What a beautiful mess on me?
Speaker 4 (39:35):
And uh okay, I like this work tape a lot.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
It doesn't really sound too far off from the record.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
Yeah, the vocal sounds different because Shane Shane has a
real cool vibe. Shane min Or, my co writer, saying
the demo and I remember he was on the couch
in the office and he laid back. I know, you
guys can't see me on the radio here. Yeah, well
we're not on the radio.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
We're on the podcast, right, We're on the podcast, but
it's audio and videos.
Speaker 2 (40:33):
But anyway, he's leaning back and just kind of laying
back and he's singing. It was the strangest thing, but
he he did a killer vocal on it.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
Yeah, it's super cool. Like I think in the produced
version there's like mandolin and things like that that kind
of give it a lot of color, a lot of country,
a lot of fun stuff in it. My favorite line
is the salt in the coffee line. Yeah, and now
that seems like it's normal. People put salt in their
(41:03):
coffee on purpose.
Speaker 2 (41:04):
Now they put mayonnaise in the coffee, do they really? Well,
the Titans quarterback he got a commercial, He got a
commercial deal because he said he put mayonnaise in his coffee.
So Hellman's gave him a that's a ma spostership.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
Oh that sounds kind of gross. I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
Yeah, he just made it up, but it paid all
for him.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
Oh that's fun. People put all kinds of stuff in there.
I'm kind of a coffee nut, so i'm me too,
but I don't put I've tried the salt in coffee.
I don't do that to mine. I don't mind.
Speaker 2 (41:34):
Unless it was salted caramel or something. But it does give.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
It a little more of a there's a thing to it.
I definitely see the appeal.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Do you like grind your own beans in it?
Speaker 1 (41:47):
Yeah? I do too, Yeah I do. I get local
stuff like I get crema when I can, or ethan roast.
None of these are dads, but if they want to be,
that'd be fine. I love the song, I think, I mean, obviously,
(42:07):
so many people do. What did it? What? What was
it like when y'all did you have anything to do
with the pitching of the song? And then what did
it feel like when you landed it?
Speaker 2 (42:20):
Well, believe it or not. Faith Hill had it on
Hold year and a half.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
Wow. I can see her doing that too, though.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
And Dan Huff was her producer who was also producing Shane.
But so Shane got it to Dan and he loved it,
put it on hold for her, but it was it
seemed like it was never going to happen, so my
producer played the bad guy and gave it to Diamond
Rio even though it was, you know, technically still we
(42:50):
just had to say to Faith like, it's been a
year and a.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
Half, Yeah we got to eat. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
Shane and I had not had any hits, so Sonny
had already had a bunch.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
Is this your first number one? Yeah? Oh I didn't
know that. Yeah, okay, so that even broadens the question out,
like what did that feel like? So it hits number one?
Speaker 2 (43:10):
So for about seven years of writing in Nashville. It
took seven for me. I kept getting these calls back
from people in New York going, you should come back
to New York, get a real job, you know, trying.
Friends were meaning well, trying to get me to move
back and do what I was doing before. But I
(43:32):
was had the blinder zone. And the day that it
went number one, I remember I had like twelve or
fifteen messages on my answering machine. Back then, we had
these machines that answered the phone, and they all said, man,
we knew you'd make it, you know.
Speaker 1 (43:52):
I was like, no, you did. All the people that
were calling me to come back, all the.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
People that were telling me, what are you doing with
your life? They were like, so, I like to kid
him now, but yeah, it was. It was a good feeling.
It was like vindication because I had been here for
seven years, nothing kept getting fired. Yeah, and you know,
even when we turned the song in, one of our
(44:17):
publishers did not like it. He just like, guys, this
is not a very good song.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
And you know, it's the one time I got really
mad at somebody's feedback because I just knew that song
was special and you don't always know that, but I
knew that and so and then when it went number one,
he called and apologized and he was like, man, I
was so wrong about it.
Speaker 1 (44:42):
Isn't that interesting. It's it's like he's apologizing about a
song he doesn't like. Yeah, it's okay if you don't
like it. I mean, but it's part of the business.
Like I was just talking to another guest on a
previous episode about the same thing, like if you if
you the writer loved this song and you feel like
(45:03):
you it makes you see something like you can feel
a thing about it, like this has some kind of
special energy behind it. This is going to do something.
You've got to fight for it even if it doesn't land, yeah,
because if it does, then your your vision is you
can still love it even if it doesn't land and
get you know number one, It might get picked up
(45:24):
and who knows. Yeah, songs get you know, songs get
recut out over the years, and you never know what's
going to happen.
Speaker 2 (45:31):
And I've learned that I never know because there are
songs that I had no idea whatever get cut that
ended up doing good things, and then other songs I
felt sure about didn't see the light of day.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
So you just you never know. I was talking to
our mutual friend Tia Seller's about that very thing, like
she did Blue on Black Kenny Wayne Sheppard, and then
it got recut by a metal band, yes, and then
went to number one again, I know, which is so
fast to me. And it's one of the things I
love about songwriting. And this whole business is like there
(46:07):
there kind of are some rule books, like on the
business side of it, but there really are no rules.
You know, if the right person cuts the right song
at the right time, twice or five times whatever. You
never know what's going to happen. I love that. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:23):
Somebody told me early on the music business is like
someone gives you a chisel and points to a mountain
and says, go carve Mount Rushmore. Yeah, it's there's where
do you start?
Speaker 1 (46:34):
Yeah? Yeah, Well, which is a good lead into talking
about like, you've been in this industry for a long time,
you've had great success, where do you see it going
for songwriters? For things like AI, which we briefly discussed
(46:55):
before we hit record, for streaming. These are big topics
right now that not just industry people are talking about.
What does it look like like? Is AI going to
take take songwriting away from humans? Is streaming really screwing
(47:17):
the business or the writers?
Speaker 2 (47:20):
Yes, streaming is definitely hurting right now. I do think.
I'm positive. I think eventually it'll get sorted out. But
just because the history, songwriters have always had to fight
every time there's a new technology, we got paid nothing
and then we had to fight to get paid. So
(47:41):
I think that'll get straightened out. AI.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
Here's the thing.
Speaker 2 (47:47):
Tech companies want to convince you that AI can do
what you're doing just as good or better. And to me,
that is the worst thing you can do to human
being is to take away their individual voice and tell
them that there's something else that does it better than
they do it. Like to me, that's just a depressing thought.
(48:10):
Like yes, And so I spend a lot of time
with Songtown because I want to teach songwriting. I want
to keep the craft going. There's a craft to writing
great songs, and I want people to keep their creative
voices alive because all that AI has done is raise.
Speaker 1 (48:33):
The bar of average.
Speaker 2 (48:36):
You know, if you if you can't spell, great, it'll
correct your spelling. You know who cares you can write?
I know brilliant writers that that don't proofread their stuff
very well, right, but they're brilliant writers and can write
a novel that would amaze you. So, as writers I
think we have we're looking for that magic beyond the perfection.
(48:59):
And if the computer wants to spit out a perfectly
good sounding song, okay, let me let me ask you this.
Would you we could go on YouTube and find a
video of a robot hitting a fifty foot golf put
every time? Would you keep watching it? Over and over
and over. So I don't think it's boring. Yeah, I
(49:23):
don't think is boring. Yes, yes, we're looking for the
magic that is beyond the perfection, and that's where good
writers live, you know. And I hear lyricists will say, well,
I don't write music, So I put it into Suno
and they take my lyrics and they spit back, and
I'm like, yeah, but the song comes back sounding average,
(49:47):
and nobody's going to want to record that because it
just sounds average.
Speaker 1 (49:52):
Right, you know. Yeah, there's a there's a part, there's
a humanness in writing and recording. All the machinery, all
the all the gear is great because it it, but
if we can't put our humanness into it, then it
takes away the mess, the messy part, the beautiful, the
(50:13):
beautiful mess that we need to have because, like I said,
if it's perfect, it's boring. It doesn't it's not going
to translate because none of us are perfect. There's no
emotive resonance. I don't know if that's a term, but
that it's got to be able to connect. And AI
(50:36):
is getting good at tricking people. Yes, it's good at
tricking eyeballs. I don't know, and I guess it's good
at tricking ears. I haven't heard enough of it to
really know that.
Speaker 2 (50:48):
But right now I can tell every time because there's
a certain amount of phasing.
Speaker 1 (50:52):
That goes right.
Speaker 2 (50:53):
Yeah, it just has a sound that you can hear.
I'm sure eventually though clean that up.
Speaker 1 (50:58):
Oh even the tool that I use to take out
background noise on this podcast, on the audio, you can
sometimes you hear the phasing. So there's never like a
perfect thing, and I think that that's okay. Like some
of my favorite music is the demo, is the work tape.
That's why I started this show, because you get to
hear the passion that you don't always hear in the
(51:23):
production version because there's so much production. Right, Well, when
I can listen to someone's voice memo of them on
a piano and a vocal, that's all you got. They
just finished writing that song, they just laid it down.
That's incredible to me. I don't care how good it sounds.
I could care less about any of that. I want
(51:44):
the raw thing. And I think that's what we're kind
of all after, is like take the raw thing, make
it a little more beautiful in the studio or whatever
you want to do and then put it out, but.
Speaker 2 (51:56):
It comes from a real place. For instance, the first
time I showed up to write with Darius Rucker, climbed
on his tour bus in Kentucky. We sat down to
write and he's like, what do you want to write today?
And I go, don't ever do this. I go, I
don't feel like writing. But I knew enough about writing
(52:17):
that you have to you have to say and express yourself.
You have to go with the emotion in the room.
They say, write the song in the room. So he
was like, well, what's up, and I'm like, well, the
night before I'd just broken up with this girl that
I had dated for a year. I was second guessing
myself and he was like, man, we all do that.
And I'm like okay, and he's like yeah, he goes
(52:40):
sometimes I still think about a girl back in grade school,
and I was like wow, really, He's like yeah, he said,
don't think I don't and I was like, oh okay,
and I put that into my phone. The next morning,
I woke up before he got up, and I banged
out a chorus I don't think, I don't think about it,
played it for him.
Speaker 1 (53:00):
He loved it.
Speaker 2 (53:00):
We finished the song became his first number one. But
it all came from a real place. I mean, what's
a computer gonna do? Like, well, the I tried to
you know, my creator tried to find some seed money
to fund my development, and yeah, it's.
Speaker 1 (53:17):
Gonna What it's gonna do is it's gonna scan and
analyze songs like don't think, I don't think about it,
and then spit something else out with with some with
like a it'll take beautiful mess in that song and
mesh them together and it'll do a great job. But
it won't be real.
Speaker 2 (53:33):
But it'll never be Nirvana before Nirvana, right, It'll always
be Nirvana after Nirvana, like it takes when you look
at the great artist over the years that came out
and just changed everything. Ye, that that's what a computer is.
Speaker 1 (53:51):
Just not those artists have a boldness to them. Yes,
they have a almost a rebellious spirit about them with
h it's not it's not all about or at all
about the industry. Yes, and that passion comes across and
(54:11):
the music and if you if you're lucky enough like
Nirvana was, to capture that with the right producer, Sky's limit.
Speaker 2 (54:23):
Yeah, I mean, name any artists from Led Zeppelin too,
Bruce Springsteen to Nirvana to even Drake or whoever, people
that come along that just have their own sound. Yeah,
and that is the thing that I don't see AI ever. Hey,
I doesn't have any boldness, Like its whole concept is
(54:45):
to analyze what's out there and do an approximation like that.
Speaker 1 (54:49):
Might hear this episode and remove it. It's like we're
bold here. Yeah, that's that's really good insights. And I
think I think you're right. I tend to think that
before AI, you know, quote unquote takes over humans, get
ahead of it, hopefully and not allow it to take
(55:13):
away all of the humanness. Yes, you know, hopefully that's
and I think enough, that's what its goal is ultimately, right,
and enough of us for us, enough of us will
fight for that.
Speaker 2 (55:26):
I think we'll all be living underground in this dystopian world,
like the drones that are outside are searching for us,
because we're the free thinkers who are going to create.
Speaker 1 (55:37):
Yeah. Well, it's like my brother said before we started
filming today, you know, we might just have to go
that the tech might get so big and invasive that
we go back to the eighties. Yeah, you know, we
cancel social media, we start making tapes or records again.
Mechanical sales are back, you know, like artists are already
(55:57):
doing that. I talked to one recently. You know, they're
not putting it up on streaming platforms. They're selling it
for what they think it's worth, because they believe in
themselves and their music. Love that, and it's it's big,
it's it's a big, bold, risky move and I don't
think the business knows what to do with that yet.
Speaker 2 (56:18):
And Vinyl sells a good bit still.
Speaker 1 (56:21):
Oh yeah, if it didn't target wouldn't happen exactly. They
have like five CDs and you know, twenty five Vinyl
records on the shelf at targets. Still. Oh it's wild. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (56:31):
I learned my lesson when I sold my record collection
and looked up on my wall and I had like
five thousand CDs and I'm like, oh, yeah, what am
I going to do with these CD sounds.
Speaker 1 (56:42):
So good though, I still have a bunch and I
listened to him. They sound you know, they don't have
the compression of Bluetooth and streaming and all this stuff.
They sound great. If you're an audio nerd like me.
But thank you for being here. I wanted I want
you to give us like an elevator for Songtown. Yeah,
what does that make your own ad right here? Because
(57:06):
I think it's an important I love when songwriters who
I mean, you don't have to have notoriety for me
to love this, but I think it's really cool when
successful songwriters are giving back, like you mentioned, teaching people
like my kids or me. I'm not too old to
(57:31):
learn either mine. Yeah, and saying here's some dudes and
don'ts here's some ideas for you to create and do
what you're passionate about. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (57:42):
So Songtown is community connections and coaching for songwriters. So
we believe, and I know this firsthand that no matter
what your dreams are, if you just want to have
fun writing songs, or if you want a career in songwriting,
writing better songs will get you there fastest. No, there's
(58:04):
no way to do it without writing great songs. You're
not going to break into the music business without writing
that killer song that just turns heads. You're not going
to have the most fun you can have if you
don't write a great song. So we teach people first
to write their best songs. Once they're ready, we hook
them up with people in the industry to hear their music,
(58:26):
to work with publishers. We've had students go on like
Sarah Davis and the artist Gail to write the biggest
song in.
Speaker 1 (58:34):
The world a couple of years ago.
Speaker 2 (58:36):
So we've seen people go from point A to point
Z and we just believe it's because we focus on
writing the best song and learning how to write great songs.
Speaker 1 (58:50):
First, are you like vetting people or anybody can come
do this?
Speaker 2 (58:54):
Yeah, I mean anyone can join at any level. But
in order to get into our programs that work with
publishers and stuff, those are you know, you have to
reply and be ready for that.
Speaker 1 (59:06):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (59:06):
The worst thing is to put somebody in a program
like that when they're not ready for it, because it'll
just be frustrating.
Speaker 1 (59:14):
Yeah. Is there any like age limits on this or
what are you looking on?
Speaker 2 (59:18):
No? No, Sarah Davis she joined when she was fifteen.
We've had Aaron Kinsey she joined when she was twelve.
I taught her five alternate guitar tunings. She went out
and bought five guitars and tuned them all to their
own tuning. It's amazing and learned it and she's been
(59:40):
doing great.
Speaker 1 (59:42):
Yeah. No, I love all ages.
Speaker 2 (59:44):
We have people in their seventies that are getting Indy
cuts every week, you know, and it's crazy.
Speaker 1 (59:50):
And so will you take people that are like, they're interested,
but they don't know how to they don't even know
where to start, they don't know how to write.
Speaker 2 (59:59):
Yeah, we have of courses, over eight hundred videos and courses.
Speaker 1 (01:00:04):
On the website. That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (01:00:07):
Yeah, we're set up to handle and help anyone.
Speaker 1 (01:00:10):
That's amazing. What's where do people go to find that?
Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
Songtown dot com? You can email me personally Clay atsongtown
dot com and I will get back to you.
Speaker 1 (01:00:20):
Great. What do you have coming up other than Songtown?
Do you have any writers rounds in town? Anything happening?
Speaker 2 (01:00:26):
Well, we are doing a songwriter around for Songtown.
Speaker 1 (01:00:29):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (01:00:30):
We're taking over the Nashville tour stop in late March,
March twenty eighth, so you can look for that on
our social media.
Speaker 1 (01:00:38):
Cool. Yeah, that's great. Well, songtown dot com. Everybody go
check it out. If you haven't heard Beautiful Mess in
a while, or you haven't heard it at all, go
look it up and listen, it's such a great song. Yeah.
And look look up, you have a website for your yourself. Yeah,
(01:00:58):
Claymills dot com. Yeah. So go to Claymills dot com
and look up his whole catalog, because man, there's some
great songs. The great Songs
Speaker 3 (01:02:00):
Eight
Welcome to Work Tapes. This is a podcast where we
tear up our songs. Why with the song written? What's
it about, what's the context and emotion behind it? Where
were you at the time, what were you going through?
How did certain lines come to you? What's the inspiration?
How long did it take to write? I'm Brandon Carswell
and I'm fascinated with songwriting and how songs are built
(00:29):
from the ground up. It's easy to hear a full
production song on the radio and dismiss its origin story.
I want to hear the rough draft of the song
or the work tape. I want to explore the very beginning,
how songs that move us and make us move our more.
Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Work Tapes.
(00:50):
I'm Brandon Carswell. Today we're joined by a Grammy nominated
songwriter who is cranking out hits in the early two
thousand's for sure, Between Darius Rutger, Kimberly Locke, Clay Walker,
Trisha Yearwood, Lady A Little Big Town Reba and Diamond Rio. Welcome, Welcome,
(01:14):
Clay Mills, good to be here, Thanks for coming. Yeah,
I was excited when you said you would be on this.
I looked up your catalog and I was just like, Yes,
there are so many great songs we could talk about.
It was I I always will send a message out
(01:36):
to my guests and kind of let them choose the song.
Sometimes I'll go in and I'll be like, let's let's
talk about this one though, because I like it the
best or whatever. So I just say all that to
say it's it's It was a hard choice to go
(01:57):
look at everything you've written and side the song we're
going to talk about today, but I think we chose
a good one. We're going to talk about a Diamond
Rio song that is widely known called Beautiful Mess. We're
going to go through the original work tape of that
and so fans of that song will be able to
hear something that they haven't heard. And it's a really
(02:21):
cool work tape. So in addition to all of these
other things that I just mentioned, you have a really
cool thing called Songtown, where your mentor writers, which you
co found with your partner Marty Dotson, who's another hit
songwriter in town, which I do want to discuss that
(02:41):
as we get into it, because I think it's really cool.
You have a podcast that goes with it, and so
let's just dive right in with who are you? How
did you start in music?
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Wow, that's existential, Like who am I?
Speaker 1 (02:57):
It's a big quote? Am I doing here for our listener?
Is that? Don't know? Because you know, like one thing
that's interesting about talking to songwriters, especially really huge songs
like this is you're not the artist on this song
and so.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Well, the heart and soul comes from the writers and
it kind of gets transferred into the body of the
artist that sings it. Yeah, but there is an essence
there that only comes from the songwriter, but it's they're
not the artist on stage exactly.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
But the general public kind of overlooks the name of
the writer. Yes, the majority of the time. Then are
they think the artist wrote it themselves? Right, which is
when I was a kid, that's what I thought you did,
Like you write your own songs and you put it
on the radio. I didn't know there was a business
behind it. So, like I said, introduce yourself, where did
(03:50):
you come from? And kind of like what got you
into music in the first place?
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Yeah, So literally, I grew up on a farm in Mississippi.
When I remember being eleven years old on a tractor
by myself out in the middle of this three thousand
acre farm that my grandfather had, and I get this flash.
This is gonna sound weird, but I saw myself on
(04:17):
stage singing with the band, the Carpenters. Okay, the next
year in school, they came and picked kids from our
school to go sing in concert with them, and I
was one of the kids.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
That got chosen.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
So it just felt like weird to me, like this
was meant to happen. So I don't know if I've
ever told that story.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Yeah, that's really interesting even right off the bat, like
what okay, so what what would have produced that image
for you? Like that dream of were you listening to
them on the radio? Did you see on TV? Like
what was the deal?
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Yeah, just listening to their music. And I don't know
why I chose them, you know, but I remember seeing
on that tractor plow on a field and just singing
to pass the time. I didn't have a radio or anything,
so I'm singing and I just had this vision of
being on stage. I was imagining myself on stage singing
(05:16):
with the carpenter How old were about eleven or twelve?
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Okay, so really early on Were you playing guitar, writing songs,
or any of that?
Speaker 2 (05:24):
And you're not going to ask me why my grandfather
would let a eleven year old kid on a tractor.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
No, I assuming there's what he's doing. That's the way
we did it. Yeah, that's what you did back then.
That's you know, if I could trust my eleven year
old or my thirteen year old now with being on attractor,
I probably would, but I can't. Times have changed, they
have changed. Were you playing music then? Were you singing
writing that early on?
Speaker 2 (05:51):
I wasn't. I was just kind of singing. And my uncle,
who also lived on this farm, had a band, so
I would kind of sneak around their band rehearsal and
check them out. So it felt like something that was
appealing to me. It was literally the only excitement on
this farm was music, and so that you know, he
(06:12):
played in rock bands, played in clubs every night, and
I just thought that was so cool, and so I
just kind of got the bug for it back, you know,
when I was early and then when I got in school,
I was in choir and that kind of stuff, and
then high school I started playing and playing in clubs
and bands and kind of doing.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
That right, So when you got the bug for it,
was it more of like I want to write songs
or I want to perform songs.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
It was performing at the beginning. In fact, when I
got my first deal to Nashville in music, Mark Bright,
who was a producer, actually he used to have an
office in this building. He signed me to Nashville was
going to produce my first record.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
He went on to.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Produce Carrie Underwood and Black Cock, a bunch of acts.
But I've quickly found out I'd rather stay at home,
write songs, hang out with my buddies, and I have
to go on the road. I had a family, wife,
a son, and it just felt more right for me
to stay at home and not be on the road
(07:22):
three hundred days a year, you know. So once I
found out you could be just a songwriter, that's what
I went.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
For it all the way. Yeah, so let's go back
to Yeah, I'm jumping around, that's okay. Let's go back
to your year eleven and you're singing with the carpenters. Yes,
what did that look like? From that out on stage
Mississippi State University in Starkville in front of however many people,
ten thousand people. They trited a group of US kids
(07:50):
out on stage and we performed a song with them.
That's cool. Yeah, and after that what happened? You just
did that like the fire, I think so. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
And for me, like I said, it was just always
something that was a part of me. You know, Like
my brother used to get mad. He would go, well,
you always knew what you wanted to do, and I
had to try to struggle to figure it out. But
I just always knew.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Yeah, that's a really interesting thing where some people know
exactly what they want to do in life and that's
and they just put their head down and go do it, yeah,
or figure out how to do it.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
So from that point, going into junior high and high school,
I played in bands. You know we in high school,
our band rehearsal space was the Hell's Angels.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Oh wow, clubhouse. That's insane.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
So not only did I grow up fast on a tractor,
but I grew up fast practicing with the Hells Angels
at their clubhouse.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
They gave us.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Free beer and we gave them free music. Perfect for
a high school.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
I'm sure you have a lot of stories from that time.
It was awesome.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
And then so after I got out of high school,
I decided, nineteen years old, I was going to move
to New York City, and so I moved to New
York and got in the music business there, writing jingles
of all things. Somebody said, hey, my friend does jingles,
and they're looking for people that write songs, and I'm like,
I can do that, and so I submitted a tape.
(09:26):
And that was back in the days where they didn't
want you to write like a jingle jingle. They wanted
it to sound like a record. So I got into
that and did that for about ten years and did
quite well, had national TV commercials, did all the music.
It was excellent and it really was a good training
(09:49):
ground for me because every day I would get an assignment.
They'd be like, well, today we want something like a
dance song. Tomorrow we want something like classical music. It
was like literally covering every kind of music I could do.
I was programming tracks, I was playing guitar, I was singing,
I was writing, and I mean this was the eighties,
(10:11):
so I was literally one of the first people in
New York to start using a computer to do music.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Wow, yeah, you know.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
So we'd sync up our keyboards to the computer and
program tracks that way.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
So it was a lot of fun.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
But after about ten years, I was like, I need
to get back down south to Nashville and become a songwriter.
And that's when I met Mark Bright at E and
my music. He flew up to New York, saw me
do a showcase, offered me a deal on the spot,
and I just said goodbye to everything and moved to Nashville.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Wow, what is it like running Jingles? I was, this
is an unprepared question, is it. That's a topic that
we've never discussed on Yeah, show.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Well, before we get to that, I meant to finish
my thought. It trained me so when I got to
Nashville one day, if I'm writing with Little Big Town
or Lady Annabellam or whoever, I could go in any
direction that I felt was right for you know. It's
like you couldn't stump me. I could write with a
(11:22):
hardcore country person. I could write with a progressive act.
Even Beautiful Mess that we'll talk about later when it
came out, was a progressive song for that time. We
wrote it with drum loops. I mean it was, you know,
very different than what was going on in Nashville. So
I just felt fortunate that the training I got in
(11:44):
New York prepared me to pretty much go and write
with anyone once I got to Nashville.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Yeah, that makes sense because you're having to pivot every
day writing jingles and do something. Like you said earlier,
you've got a different assignment every day, a different kind,
different genre, whatever the client wants, right would be.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Yeah, that would give you a direction, and you know,
it's It was a very similar pace to what's going
on now with track guys in Nashville. You show up,
you write a song in a couple hours, and pretty
much the whole production's done that day.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
You know.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
It was that kind of thing. You would write something
and produce it every day. It was something different. So
it was a good pace and I learned a lot.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Was it difficult? I think that people. The reason I
asked that is just because I say, I think people
think this. I think I probably thought this somewhere along
the lines where you hear like a jingle like let's
say it's like a McDonald's thing. I think Rod Stewart
did those right. He did a ton of big ones.
(12:52):
Was it?
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Rod Stewart very very Mantal Berry Man the Hare.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Very very different artists, Yeah, very different. Barry Manilow did
so many jingles. But it's easy to think, like because
it sticks in your head, it's easy to think it's
easy to produce that. Yeah. What And this was a
question I was going to ask you anyway, It's like, what,
what is the thing that happens when you find or
(13:22):
is there a thing that happens when you find the
right hook? Because that's it's the same for a jingle.
You have to make something stick for it to be
a hit song. Yeah, or it's not. It's not going
to work right. It's got to be able to stick
in people's heads. Same with a jingle. So do you
think that the jingle work for you informed your a
(13:47):
more adult songwriting as a career writing hit songs? Does
that question make sense?
Speaker 2 (13:52):
I think to a certain extent it possibly did. I
think more so the music I grew up listening to, Okay,
I was able to just keep drawing from that because
growing up, you know, in the seventies and eighties, there
was so much variety out there of music that even
on the radio, I mean it was not so you know,
(14:15):
today everything gets into these little niches, but it was
wide open then, so I just loved hooky melodies.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
You know.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
I would have my cassette recorder and Casey Cason would
play the American Top forty. I would record it. I
would learn those songs, you know, I would. It was
just a great period to learn how to write hooky
songs because there was a lot of them, right, you know.
And today it's more about vibe a lot of times
(14:46):
rather than like the the hooky part. The vibe is
almost a hook and that's equally as important. But back then,
I don't think.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
What do you mean by vibe? What is that?
Speaker 2 (14:58):
The attitude of the singer? Okay, the phrasing of the
singer is often I feel like more important sometimes than
the actual what's going on in the songwriting side of it,
Like the vibe of the track, the vibe of the singer,
What is the singer? You know, the mood they're creating.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
You know.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
It goes in phases, you know when it And I
think people are starting to come around right now to
using different chord changes, and they're coming around to writing
little stronger lyric lines, and so I've seen it go
in cycles so many times. Because I've been doing this
so long. But yeah, I just think for a while,
(15:45):
vibe and sound and attitude kind of took over and
now it's coming back. I think with the song, would
you would you inform? Would you or would you tell
kind of up and coming songwriters to do what you did?
As as far as you were studying top forty radio
without calling it studying, that's what you were doing. You
(16:07):
were recording that stuff to tape and learning and playing
it in bands. Yeah, you know cover bands people people
talk about, well, you know the Beatles. They hold these
groups up to highest, you know, esteem as artists. But
(16:27):
the Beatles were the world's best cover band before they
started writing their own songs. They studied popular music and
they wanted to emulate the best writers. So you start
out emulating, then you got to put your own sound.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
To it, you know, right.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Yeah, And even even when they were famous, they were
you know, they liked the Beach Boys, So they write
a song back in the USSR that sounds like the
Beach Boys.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
They like Bob Dylon, so.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
They write Norwegian wood that and produce it to sound
like Bob Dylan. So they were very influenced by everything
around them, and a lot of people think to be
an artist you have to hate everything and shut everything
out and just do you, right, And I don't.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
I don't think that's there's no doing you without anyone,
without everything else. You've been informed by exac right, Like, Yeah,
it's kind of like a muscle memory. So you you're
taking those top forty songs and learning them and playing
them in your bands. You're just training yourself and then
when you get into a room to write, that stuff
starts coming out. Yeah, and you have to be careful
(17:33):
not to be a rip off. Oh never, Yeah, but
it's gonna it's gonna come out and it's gonna land
like that. Right. Uh, what do you think, like how
important to you is reading to writing reading books? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Okay, because I came from went to Berkeley in Boston
for a year of music's and reading was like reading
music off a page.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Yeah, and playing. No, I don't mean reading music. I
mean we could talk about that for sure, but I
don't read music, so I always feel like out of
place with those that do. But it is what No,
I just meant like reading in general, Like that's a
question I've I've wanted to dive into that I haven't yet.
(18:25):
Just how much reading informs your songwriting lyrically.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Yeah, I was a crazy reader as a kid. As
an adult, I've just been so busy creating music that
that gets put. I wish I could read more, but
I haven't had the chance. But you would be surprised
how far you can get just pulling off of influences
(18:50):
from years ago, as far as like the words.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Going around in my head.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
And I think once you establish a vocabulary then you
can take that and.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Move forward with it. I don't sure.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
But the other side of it, yeah, I would love
to read more if I had the time, But between
writing full time, teaching online full time with this songtown community,
is just I have no time for reading.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Yeah. Well, let's talk about Songtown for a second, because
that's part of the part of how I found out
about who you are as your podcast, which is called
Songtown as well. Right, songtown is songwriting, right, And what's
(19:39):
an example maybe of something that you're teaching through that
to songwriters? YEA.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Well, first, let me say that many years ago I
did read a book and I wish I could remember
the author who talked about the first part of a
person's life. You're basically it's all about you. You're trying
to have this career in music, and you've got to
be self centered. And he was talked about once you
(20:09):
hit the age of fifty, how you want to start
giving back, and so that for some reason, even when
I was in my twenties, that made an impression on me.
And when I turned fifty, I decided with Marty Dottson,
I was like, let's start teaching songwriting, you know. So
we started online. We started doing Facebook posts about how
(20:33):
the music business really works, how the songwriting craft works.
It built up to a big community. We launched a website,
started teaching classes online and it's just taken off. We
have thousands of members around the world. And basically we
just teach the craft of songwriting. I want to keep
(20:55):
that alive, especially with AI coming And you know, I
think that our voice as writers, there's nothing more important.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Right like the human aspect of it.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Yes, So on our podcast, we will talk about songwriting techniques,
will talk about the business, just whatever a songwriter needs
to know to mentally be prepared to write your best songs.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Yeah, was there a moment in your career before this,
before the Songtown teachings. Was there a moment where you
went like why am I doing this? Why am I writing?
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Or oh no, no, you always knew why. Yeah, I
just love writing.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
That's the why. It's just that simple.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
I mean my first year of college. I worked construction
between my first and second year of college, and I'm
on a construction site and I'm just writing songs in
my head all day as I'm working, Like it's just
I can't stop it, I can't turn it on.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
And I don't know where.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
It came from. Like I said, it wasn't a decision.
It just was something inside of me that always had
to come out. So I've never gone why am I
doing this? Or And in fact, even when things were
awful and I was broke, I remember, so I moved
to Nashville with a deal. I lost that deal, got
(22:26):
another deal, lost that deal. I got a pink slip
on Christmas Eve and.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
The mail from one parishion.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
Company with a six year a six month old baby
and a new house, and I get a pink slip.
And so through it all, I never there was never
a thought to quit. Like it was just I had
blinders on and there was no going back my buddy
from exile and Sunny Lamaire. We used to say, you know,
(22:56):
no bridges, no retreat. That was our mantra, and there
was no way. There was no way I could go back.
It was just so what did What did you do?
Speaker 1 (23:05):
Though? When you got those it sounds like four or
five deals you were let go from, and then there's
obviously some kind of discouragement, but you just press on
and keep going. Where did that confidence come from? Like,
did you ever have a moment and those losses for
(23:28):
lack of a better word, where you were thinking, well,
I must not be good at this.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
I don't know if it was just total fear of
failure or I don't know what made.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Me keep going, But.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
It wasn't like even though I would lose my job
at a publishing company, I had a recording studio and
I was still producing people and paying the bills, so
I was able to pay the bill kind of renting
out my studio or producing custom projects for indie artists
(24:07):
and that kind of thing. So I was able to
at least pay the bills, yep, you know, and so
that that kept me going. I mean I wasn't rich
and wasn't eaten out every night, but sure.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
I could pay my bills. The reason I asked that
is because I think it would get into a writer's
mind or a creative's mind, just with anything. Really, it
doesn't have to be songwriting that but specifically for songwriting.
When when somebody, when a publisher or whatever let you go,
or you you miss a deal, or they end it
(24:39):
for whatever reasons, it's not always a personal attack on
your giftedness or how good you are or aren't. I
would say a lot of the times it's probably not
even a factor of how good you are or whatever.
It's a business, right, And so you can't What I'm
getting at is like, how can how can people just
(25:05):
know I just need to keep doing this. I need
to keep going. That doesn't matter what this company thought
or did. This is a business. I know who I am.
I know I've got a thing, and I'm passionate about
that thing. And we were just talking about, you know,
Nashville's a ten year town, meaning it takes ten years
to break in. Yeah, so keep after it.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Yeah, And I don't think it was never part of
my personality for me to be confident and just go,
you know, I'm great like I was not one of
those people. Sure, so what I did I had all
the self doubts you're talking about, But what I was
good at was putting blinders on and not paying attention
(25:49):
to that and just doing the work.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Right.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Someone told me, just put blinders on, keep your head down,
keep grinding, And.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
That's what I did. All those self doubts.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
I'm sure we're back there, but I just didn't give
them any power, right, you know, And so I was
just stubborn, Like you know, I was not going to
fail at it.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
You know, a lot of songwriters are stubborn. I've learned
that much in my time hanging out with songwriters and
being one. But I love that. I think that that's
encouraging even now, Like you came up in a time
without social media and all of that stuff, and putting
blinders on right now is so difficult.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Oh man, I can't imagine it.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
And to watch the perception of everyone else doing it
and you're having to put on blinders, which literally means
don't look at your phone, don't pull up socials.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Like because everyone is presenting a highlight reel of their
best moments or their best pretend moments, right, no one's
putting you know. Well, some people will put real stuff
up there, you know, but for the most part, you're
watching your scrolling and you're watching highlight reels and going, well,
(27:08):
why is everyone else's life great?
Speaker 1 (27:10):
Right? Well, that happens with any content you produced, which
I find myself just like on a personal note, being
like what am I doing? Like? Am I just adding
to the noise by having this podcast or writing this
song or doing whatever?
Speaker 2 (27:24):
What gives you the right to be successful at it
or as opposed to someone else? I just can't think
about that. I just think we have to do what
we do and just I don't know.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Yeah, I don't ever want to pretend like anything that
looks successful a was easy or actually is successful, because
I have no I don't know what does that mean?
Does that mean I'm making a ton of money on
this podcast? Because I'm not, you know, Like, I don't
mind being real about it, but I think that I
(28:00):
know how I am, how my brain works. Personally speaking,
I have to put blinders on for almost all of
the creative things I do, or I will get in
a loop and be like how can I do this?
Or why does it deepn matter?
Speaker 2 (28:17):
Because and then when you start having some successes and
two hundred thousand people watch one of your podcast episodes
and you start getting the trolls. Yeah, so five people
will say, this is amazing. Where has this show been
all my life? And then another guys, this totally sucks.
These guys are you know? It's just so funny. So
(28:41):
then you got to get you know, over that, and like, yeah,
and tune all that.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
I would say the easiest way to get over that
would be, you know, everything you do is not for everyone. Yeah,
and that's okay. Yeah, and you gotta let it.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Even writing hit songs, Oh you're a hit songwriter. That
crap on the radio. Yeah, I would never write that stuff.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Yeah, you're right.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
And I want to come back and say you couldn't
write that stuff, but I don't because I'm civil and
I would never want to say that.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
But it's true.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Also, Yeah, and there's a high level of craft that
goes into writing for a simple song.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Yes, and it's not simple, which is a really good
segue into beautiful mess because it it sounds like a
simple song, but the listener has to know that's on purpose. Yeah,
you know.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
They try playing I've tried to get up with bands
that go we want to play beautiful mess. You know,
you'll be in Vegas at a club and they're like,
we want to play beautiful mess, and you get up.
The song has so many chord changes they can't even
play it. Yeah, it's deceptively you sound simple, but there's
a lot of stuff going on in it.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Well, let's talk about how that song came about. Luckily,
an insanely talented band picked it up and could play it. Yeah,
Diamond Rio is incredible. Take us through kind of some
of the beginning of you co wrote the co writers
(30:10):
on it. What did that day or that session look like.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Yeah, well we didn't write the entire song that day,
but we show up. Had a little office on sixteenth
Avenue here in Music Row, trying to recreate the day
in my head. So a tiny, tiny office. I mean
imagine the tiniest office, like this is a mansion compared
to this little writing office. Had one little sofa in there,
(30:37):
and I had my computer set up to record, and
I put on this drum loop and we were all
into like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and so Shane
Minor me, Sonny Lemaire and I put on this drum
loop and just start playing on my acoustic guitar, and
Shane goes going out a man man these days, and
(31:00):
he was trying to emulate life does sound like Red
Hot Chilis the way he was just rapping, and we
just started laughing. We were like this. We didn't know
if it was crazy or what, but we just started
going with it because we just wrote That's the other thing.
A lot of times, we're just having a good time,
right we write, you know. And so we were writing
(31:23):
and we're like, what is the song going to be about?
Speaker 1 (31:25):
You know?
Speaker 2 (31:25):
And Sonny had just watched a movie where they used
the phrase beautiful mess, and I had been reading a
book and that used the phrase beautiful mess, and we.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
Important, well at that time, yeah, not anymore.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
But so we both say the title beautiful mess at
the same time. It's like a weird kind of thing.
And so we just started building the song from there.
But it literally started out as just goofing around, like
rapping like the Red Hot Chili Peppers and to a
drum loop, you know. And in fact, when we got
into the recording studio, I'm playing it on my acoustic
(32:06):
guitar for the band to cut the demo, and Paul
Lyine was playing drums, brilliant drummer, playing everything from Lionel
Ritchie to Kenny Rogers, just legendary tunes. Well, he's in
there and I give him this CD. I say, there's
a drum loop on here. Can you use this loop
and play along to it? So he listens to it
(32:27):
and he goes, well, I'm just going to incorporate that loop.
I'm just going to play what the loop is doing
and put my own part and play them both at
the same time, and I'm just going to play it live.
And he created this drum part and it's like halfway
made the song just that that part. I mean, the
drummer in Diamond Rio pretty much recreated the same drum part.
(32:51):
It was so cool.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
Yeah, And so you wrote the song based kind of
off the title. Yes, So the rest of the rest
of the song kind of trickled down from what the
title was.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
But what was that like? Because you beautiful mess could
mean a couple of different things, I assume, So what
was the conversation Because a lot of times when you're songwriting,
you're building a story. You're sitting in the room and
you're going the person is going through this, or or
whatever the subject matter is. You're creating a whole narrative
(33:28):
behind the scenes to get one lyric, right, So what
was the story?
Speaker 2 (33:34):
It really wasn't like that was, And like, I've written
a thousand songs like that. So Shane throughout that line,
going out of my mind these days and I go
walking around in a haze, and we were just kind
of joking, and then somebody said, can't think straight, can't concentrate.
(33:56):
And then Shane, who always had this ability to come
up with these kind of I call him color lines,
he goes and I need a shave, and it was like, well,
that was so wacky, you know, And so we just
kind of built it line by line, hit the chorus,
what beautiful mess I'm in, and then by that time
(34:17):
we're like, once we had the line, what a beautiful
mess I'm in, spending all my time with you, There's
nothing else I'd rather do. Once we had that, we're like, okay,
well she's she's the one that's got him crazy.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
He's distracted.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
But we literally were just kind of feeling around in
the dark to see where it was going to go,
and just spitballing crazy lines, and then it once we
had that, then now I can remember another story. The
second verse. Sonny goes, this morning, put salt in my coffee.
(34:54):
And that morning I was getting my son ready for
school put on his shoes, and he looks down. He goes, Dad,
you put my shoes on the wrong feet. So Sonny goes,
this morning, puts salt in my coffee, And I remember
what my son said, and then I go, I put
my shoes on the wrong feet. And it just fit perfectly.
So it was like just a lot of random things
(35:17):
that kind of came together in the moment.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
That's fun. How long did it take to write? You
said it took a couple of days.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
It took a couple of sessions. We probably had a
verse and a chorus and then came back. Typically with
those guys, we'd come back and write a second verse
another day. Okay, you know, actually I think we had
up into that put my shoes on the wrong feet.
We had the first two lines of the second verse,
and then we came back and finished it up. Yeah,
(35:43):
and it has a bridge. Back then we wrote bridges right.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
Oh, man, I've got a whole episode planned on bridges.
I'm trying to get a couple of guys to talk
about the importance of bridges or the non importance of bridges,
because you're right, these days we can talk about that
if you want, because these days they're just not It
doesn't seem like it's important anymore. But let's do this.
(36:08):
Let's because we're talking about beautiful mess. Let's uh, let's
listen to that work tape and then we'll talk about
the work tape and that song a little bit more.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
I'm going out of my mind these days, like I'm
walking around in a haze. I can't think straight, I
can't concentrate, and I.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Need a shoet. I go to work and dit oft time.
Speaker 3 (36:50):
The boss man says, son, you're gonna get fired.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
You say your style.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
And behind my coffee cut patches smile.
Speaker 3 (37:03):
What a beautiful mess, What a beautiful mess? I mas
spending all my time with you, nothing else I'd rather do.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
What a sweet addiction.
Speaker 3 (37:16):
That I'm caught up in, so I can't get enough
and stuff up hunger for your Look, what a beautifulood?
What a beautiful mess?
Speaker 4 (37:28):
I mean?
Speaker 3 (37:29):
And uh, this morning, put salt in my coffee. I
put my shoes on the wrong fee.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
I'm losing my mind that I swear it might be
the death.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
Of me, but I don't don't care.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
What a beautiful mess, What a beautiful mess I mean,
spending home, my time with you. There's nothing there side grandma, dude?
What a sweet addiction is that I'm called up in
so I can't get in the fist if.
Speaker 4 (38:16):
The hunger for your love? What the beautiful?
Speaker 3 (38:21):
What a beautiful mess?
Speaker 1 (38:22):
Someday?
Speaker 4 (38:23):
Is it your eyes?
Speaker 1 (38:33):
This is it's your smile.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
All I know is that you're.
Speaker 3 (38:44):
Driving me wild. What a beautiful mess. What a beautiful
mess I mean, spending home my time with you? There's
nothing there side rather, dude, what a sweet addiction that
I'm caught up in so I can't get in the
(39:05):
can't stop the hunger for your love?
Speaker 1 (39:09):
Vote the beautiful? What a beautiful mess?
Speaker 3 (39:12):
What a beautiful mess on me spending all my time
with you? There's nothing mess on grandpa?
Speaker 1 (39:20):
Dude?
Speaker 2 (39:21):
What a sweet addiction.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
That I'm called up in.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
Case I can't get.
Speaker 3 (39:27):
In the can't stop the hunger for your love?
Speaker 1 (39:32):
I WoT a beautifulol.
Speaker 3 (39:33):
What a beautiful mess on me?
Speaker 4 (39:35):
And uh okay, I like this work tape a lot.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
It doesn't really sound too far off from the record.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
Yeah, the vocal sounds different because Shane Shane has a
real cool vibe. Shane min Or, my co writer, saying
the demo and I remember he was on the couch
in the office and he laid back. I know, you
guys can't see me on the radio here. Yeah, well
we're not on the radio.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
We're on the podcast, right, We're on the podcast, but
it's audio and videos.
Speaker 2 (40:33):
But anyway, he's leaning back and just kind of laying
back and he's singing. It was the strangest thing, but
he he did a killer vocal on it.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
Yeah, it's super cool. Like I think in the produced
version there's like mandolin and things like that that kind
of give it a lot of color, a lot of country,
a lot of fun stuff in it. My favorite line
is the salt in the coffee line. Yeah, and now
that seems like it's normal. People put salt in their
(41:03):
coffee on purpose.
Speaker 2 (41:04):
Now they put mayonnaise in the coffee, do they really? Well,
the Titans quarterback he got a commercial, He got a
commercial deal because he said he put mayonnaise in his coffee.
So Hellman's gave him a that's a ma spostership.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
Oh that sounds kind of gross. I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
Yeah, he just made it up, but it paid all
for him.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
Oh that's fun. People put all kinds of stuff in there.
I'm kind of a coffee nut, so i'm me too,
but I don't put I've tried the salt in coffee.
I don't do that to mine. I don't mind.
Speaker 2 (41:34):
Unless it was salted caramel or something. But it does give.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
It a little more of a there's a thing to it.
I definitely see the appeal.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Do you like grind your own beans in it?
Speaker 1 (41:47):
Yeah? I do too, Yeah I do. I get local
stuff like I get crema when I can, or ethan roast.
None of these are dads, but if they want to be,
that'd be fine. I love the song, I think, I mean, obviously,
(42:07):
so many people do. What did it? What? What was
it like when y'all did you have anything to do
with the pitching of the song? And then what did
it feel like when you landed it?
Speaker 2 (42:20):
Well, believe it or not. Faith Hill had it on
Hold year and a half.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
Wow. I can see her doing that too, though.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
And Dan Huff was her producer who was also producing Shane.
But so Shane got it to Dan and he loved it,
put it on hold for her, but it was it
seemed like it was never going to happen, so my
producer played the bad guy and gave it to Diamond
Rio even though it was, you know, technically still we
(42:50):
just had to say to Faith like, it's been a
year and a.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
Half, Yeah we got to eat. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
Shane and I had not had any hits, so Sonny
had already had a bunch.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
Is this your first number one? Yeah? Oh I didn't
know that. Yeah, okay, so that even broadens the question out,
like what did that feel like? So it hits number one?
Speaker 2 (43:10):
So for about seven years of writing in Nashville. It
took seven for me. I kept getting these calls back
from people in New York going, you should come back
to New York, get a real job, you know, trying.
Friends were meaning well, trying to get me to move
back and do what I was doing before. But I
(43:32):
was had the blinder zone. And the day that it
went number one, I remember I had like twelve or
fifteen messages on my answering machine. Back then, we had
these machines that answered the phone, and they all said, man,
we knew you'd make it, you know.
Speaker 1 (43:52):
I was like, no, you did. All the people that
were calling me to come back, all the.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
People that were telling me, what are you doing with
your life? They were like, so, I like to kid
him now, but yeah, it was. It was a good feeling.
It was like vindication because I had been here for
seven years, nothing kept getting fired. Yeah, and you know,
even when we turned the song in, one of our
(44:17):
publishers did not like it. He just like, guys, this
is not a very good song.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
And you know, it's the one time I got really
mad at somebody's feedback because I just knew that song
was special and you don't always know that, but I
knew that and so and then when it went number one,
he called and apologized and he was like, man, I
was so wrong about it.
Speaker 1 (44:42):
Isn't that interesting. It's it's like he's apologizing about a
song he doesn't like. Yeah, it's okay if you don't
like it. I mean, but it's part of the business.
Like I was just talking to another guest on a
previous episode about the same thing, like if you if
you the writer loved this song and you feel like
(45:03):
you it makes you see something like you can feel
a thing about it, like this has some kind of
special energy behind it. This is going to do something.
You've got to fight for it even if it doesn't land, yeah,
because if it does, then your your vision is you
can still love it even if it doesn't land and
get you know number one, It might get picked up
(45:24):
and who knows. Yeah, songs get you know, songs get
recut out over the years, and you never know what's
going to happen.
Speaker 2 (45:31):
And I've learned that I never know because there are
songs that I had no idea whatever get cut that
ended up doing good things, and then other songs I
felt sure about didn't see the light of day.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
So you just you never know. I was talking to
our mutual friend Tia Seller's about that very thing, like
she did Blue on Black Kenny Wayne Sheppard, and then
it got recut by a metal band, yes, and then
went to number one again, I know, which is so
fast to me. And it's one of the things I
love about songwriting. And this whole business is like there
(46:07):
there kind of are some rule books, like on the
business side of it, but there really are no rules.
You know, if the right person cuts the right song
at the right time, twice or five times whatever. You
never know what's going to happen. I love that. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:23):
Somebody told me early on the music business is like
someone gives you a chisel and points to a mountain
and says, go carve Mount Rushmore. Yeah, it's there's where
do you start?
Speaker 1 (46:34):
Yeah? Yeah, Well, which is a good lead into talking
about like, you've been in this industry for a long time,
you've had great success, where do you see it going
for songwriters? For things like AI, which we briefly discussed
(46:55):
before we hit record, for streaming. These are big topics
right now that not just industry people are talking about.
What does it look like like? Is AI going to
take take songwriting away from humans? Is streaming really screwing
(47:17):
the business or the writers?
Speaker 2 (47:20):
Yes, streaming is definitely hurting right now. I do think.
I'm positive. I think eventually it'll get sorted out. But
just because the history, songwriters have always had to fight
every time there's a new technology, we got paid nothing
and then we had to fight to get paid. So
(47:41):
I think that'll get straightened out. AI.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
Here's the thing.
Speaker 2 (47:47):
Tech companies want to convince you that AI can do
what you're doing just as good or better. And to me,
that is the worst thing you can do to human
being is to take away their individual voice and tell
them that there's something else that does it better than
they do it. Like to me, that's just a depressing thought.
(48:10):
Like yes, And so I spend a lot of time
with Songtown because I want to teach songwriting. I want
to keep the craft going. There's a craft to writing
great songs, and I want people to keep their creative
voices alive because all that AI has done is raise.
Speaker 1 (48:33):
The bar of average.
Speaker 2 (48:36):
You know, if you if you can't spell, great, it'll
correct your spelling. You know who cares you can write?
I know brilliant writers that that don't proofread their stuff
very well, right, but they're brilliant writers and can write
a novel that would amaze you. So, as writers I
think we have we're looking for that magic beyond the perfection.
(48:59):
And if the computer wants to spit out a perfectly
good sounding song, okay, let me let me ask you this.
Would you we could go on YouTube and find a
video of a robot hitting a fifty foot golf put
every time? Would you keep watching it? Over and over
and over. So I don't think it's boring. Yeah, I
(49:23):
don't think is boring. Yes, yes, we're looking for the
magic that is beyond the perfection, and that's where good
writers live, you know. And I hear lyricists will say, well,
I don't write music, So I put it into Suno
and they take my lyrics and they spit back, and
I'm like, yeah, but the song comes back sounding average,
(49:47):
and nobody's going to want to record that because it
just sounds average.
Speaker 1 (49:52):
Right, you know. Yeah, there's a there's a part, there's
a humanness in writing and recording. All the machinery, all
the all the gear is great because it it, but
if we can't put our humanness into it, then it
takes away the mess, the messy part, the beautiful, the
(50:13):
beautiful mess that we need to have because, like I said,
if it's perfect, it's boring. It doesn't it's not going
to translate because none of us are perfect. There's no
emotive resonance. I don't know if that's a term, but
that it's got to be able to connect. And AI
(50:36):
is getting good at tricking people. Yes, it's good at
tricking eyeballs. I don't know, and I guess it's good
at tricking ears. I haven't heard enough of it to
really know that.
Speaker 2 (50:48):
But right now I can tell every time because there's
a certain amount of phasing.
Speaker 1 (50:52):
That goes right.
Speaker 2 (50:53):
Yeah, it just has a sound that you can hear.
I'm sure eventually though clean that up.
Speaker 1 (50:58):
Oh even the tool that I use to take out
background noise on this podcast, on the audio, you can
sometimes you hear the phasing. So there's never like a
perfect thing, and I think that that's okay. Like some
of my favorite music is the demo, is the work tape.
That's why I started this show, because you get to
hear the passion that you don't always hear in the
(51:23):
production version because there's so much production. Right, Well, when
I can listen to someone's voice memo of them on
a piano and a vocal, that's all you got. They
just finished writing that song, they just laid it down.
That's incredible to me. I don't care how good it sounds.
I could care less about any of that. I want
(51:44):
the raw thing. And I think that's what we're kind
of all after, is like take the raw thing, make
it a little more beautiful in the studio or whatever
you want to do and then put it out, but.
Speaker 2 (51:56):
It comes from a real place. For instance, the first
time I showed up to write with Darius Rucker, climbed
on his tour bus in Kentucky. We sat down to
write and he's like, what do you want to write today?
And I go, don't ever do this. I go, I
don't feel like writing. But I knew enough about writing
(52:17):
that you have to you have to say and express yourself.
You have to go with the emotion in the room.
They say, write the song in the room. So he
was like, well, what's up, and I'm like, well, the
night before I'd just broken up with this girl that
I had dated for a year. I was second guessing
myself and he was like, man, we all do that.
And I'm like okay, and he's like yeah, he goes
(52:40):
sometimes I still think about a girl back in grade school,
and I was like wow, really, He's like yeah, he said,
don't think I don't and I was like, oh okay,
and I put that into my phone. The next morning,
I woke up before he got up, and I banged
out a chorus I don't think, I don't think about it,
played it for him.
Speaker 1 (53:00):
He loved it.
Speaker 2 (53:00):
We finished the song became his first number one. But
it all came from a real place. I mean, what's
a computer gonna do? Like, well, the I tried to
you know, my creator tried to find some seed money
to fund my development, and yeah, it's.
Speaker 1 (53:17):
Gonna What it's gonna do is it's gonna scan and
analyze songs like don't think, I don't think about it,
and then spit something else out with with some with
like a it'll take beautiful mess in that song and
mesh them together and it'll do a great job. But
it won't be real.
Speaker 2 (53:33):
But it'll never be Nirvana before Nirvana, right, It'll always
be Nirvana after Nirvana, like it takes when you look
at the great artist over the years that came out
and just changed everything. Ye, that that's what a computer is.
Speaker 1 (53:51):
Just not those artists have a boldness to them. Yes,
they have a almost a rebellious spirit about them with
h it's not it's not all about or at all
about the industry. Yes, and that passion comes across and
(54:11):
the music and if you if you're lucky enough like
Nirvana was, to capture that with the right producer, Sky's limit.
Speaker 2 (54:23):
Yeah, I mean, name any artists from Led Zeppelin too,
Bruce Springsteen to Nirvana to even Drake or whoever, people
that come along that just have their own sound. Yeah,
and that is the thing that I don't see AI ever. Hey,
I doesn't have any boldness, Like its whole concept is
(54:45):
to analyze what's out there and do an approximation like that.
Speaker 1 (54:49):
Might hear this episode and remove it. It's like we're
bold here. Yeah, that's that's really good insights. And I
think I think you're right. I tend to think that
before AI, you know, quote unquote takes over humans, get
ahead of it, hopefully and not allow it to take
(55:13):
away all of the humanness. Yes, you know, hopefully that's
and I think enough, that's what its goal is ultimately, right,
and enough of us for us, enough of us will
fight for that.
Speaker 2 (55:26):
I think we'll all be living underground in this dystopian world,
like the drones that are outside are searching for us,
because we're the free thinkers who are going to create.
Speaker 1 (55:37):
Yeah. Well, it's like my brother said before we started
filming today, you know, we might just have to go
that the tech might get so big and invasive that
we go back to the eighties. Yeah, you know, we
cancel social media, we start making tapes or records again.
Mechanical sales are back, you know, like artists are already
(55:57):
doing that. I talked to one recently. You know, they're
not putting it up on streaming platforms. They're selling it
for what they think it's worth, because they believe in
themselves and their music. Love that, and it's it's big,
it's it's a big, bold, risky move and I don't
think the business knows what to do with that yet.
Speaker 2 (56:18):
And Vinyl sells a good bit still.
Speaker 1 (56:21):
Oh yeah, if it didn't target wouldn't happen exactly. They
have like five CDs and you know, twenty five Vinyl
records on the shelf at targets. Still. Oh it's wild. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (56:31):
I learned my lesson when I sold my record collection
and looked up on my wall and I had like
five thousand CDs and I'm like, oh, yeah, what am
I going to do with these CD sounds.
Speaker 1 (56:42):
So good though, I still have a bunch and I
listened to him. They sound you know, they don't have
the compression of Bluetooth and streaming and all this stuff.
They sound great. If you're an audio nerd like me.
But thank you for being here. I wanted I want
you to give us like an elevator for Songtown. Yeah,
what does that make your own ad right here? Because
(57:06):
I think it's an important I love when songwriters who
I mean, you don't have to have notoriety for me
to love this, but I think it's really cool when
successful songwriters are giving back, like you mentioned, teaching people
like my kids or me. I'm not too old to
(57:31):
learn either mine. Yeah, and saying here's some dudes and
don'ts here's some ideas for you to create and do
what you're passionate about. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (57:42):
So Songtown is community connections and coaching for songwriters. So
we believe, and I know this firsthand that no matter
what your dreams are, if you just want to have
fun writing songs, or if you want a career in songwriting,
writing better songs will get you there fastest. No, there's
(58:04):
no way to do it without writing great songs. You're
not going to break into the music business without writing
that killer song that just turns heads. You're not going
to have the most fun you can have if you
don't write a great song. So we teach people first
to write their best songs. Once they're ready, we hook
them up with people in the industry to hear their music,
(58:26):
to work with publishers. We've had students go on like
Sarah Davis and the artist Gail to write the biggest
song in.
Speaker 1 (58:34):
The world a couple of years ago.
Speaker 2 (58:36):
So we've seen people go from point A to point
Z and we just believe it's because we focus on
writing the best song and learning how to write great songs.
Speaker 1 (58:50):
First, are you like vetting people or anybody can come
do this?
Speaker 2 (58:54):
Yeah, I mean anyone can join at any level. But
in order to get into our programs that work with
publishers and stuff, those are you know, you have to
reply and be ready for that.
Speaker 1 (59:06):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (59:06):
The worst thing is to put somebody in a program
like that when they're not ready for it, because it'll
just be frustrating.
Speaker 1 (59:14):
Yeah. Is there any like age limits on this or
what are you looking on?
Speaker 2 (59:18):
No? No, Sarah Davis she joined when she was fifteen.
We've had Aaron Kinsey she joined when she was twelve.
I taught her five alternate guitar tunings. She went out
and bought five guitars and tuned them all to their
own tuning. It's amazing and learned it and she's been
(59:40):
doing great.
Speaker 1 (59:42):
Yeah. No, I love all ages.
Speaker 2 (59:44):
We have people in their seventies that are getting Indy
cuts every week, you know, and it's crazy.
Speaker 1 (59:50):
And so will you take people that are like, they're interested,
but they don't know how to they don't even know
where to start, they don't know how to write.
Speaker 2 (59:59):
Yeah, we have of courses, over eight hundred videos and courses.
Speaker 1 (01:00:04):
On the website. That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (01:00:07):
Yeah, we're set up to handle and help anyone.
Speaker 1 (01:00:10):
That's amazing. What's where do people go to find that?
Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
Songtown dot com? You can email me personally Clay atsongtown
dot com and I will get back to you.
Speaker 1 (01:00:20):
Great. What do you have coming up other than Songtown?
Do you have any writers rounds in town? Anything happening?
Speaker 2 (01:00:26):
Well, we are doing a songwriter around for Songtown.
Speaker 1 (01:00:29):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (01:00:30):
We're taking over the Nashville tour stop in late March,
March twenty eighth, so you can look for that on
our social media.
Speaker 1 (01:00:38):
Cool. Yeah, that's great. Well, songtown dot com. Everybody go
check it out. If you haven't heard Beautiful Mess in
a while, or you haven't heard it at all, go
look it up and listen, it's such a great song. Yeah.
And look look up, you have a website for your yourself. Yeah,
(01:00:58):
Claymills dot com. Yeah. So go to Claymills dot com
and look up his whole catalog, because man, there's some
great songs. The great Songs
Speaker 3 (01:02:00):
Eight
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