Episode 66 - Anthony Smith - Tomorrow

Anthony Smith is a versatile songwriter, producer and arranger who has achieved great success in many genres, including Country, Pop, R&B, and Jazz. His songs have been recorded by Bucky Covington, Lonestar, Clay Walker, Rodney Atkins, Chris Young, Reba McIntire, Vince Gill, Emerson Drive, Heartland, Donna Summer, Kenny Rogers to name a few. In this episode we discuss a smash #1 hit song nominated at the 2012 ACM Awards for single of the year, “Tomorrow” by Chris Young and we will listen to the original worktape of that song.

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Listen to Tomorrow

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Worktapes is Produced by Brandon 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**

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
You've heard him, you love him, a voice that has
peppered your memories. For two nights, July eleventh and twelfth,
Dave Barnes, Please lovether bring the sun the eleventh and
what we want when we get on the twelfth in
their entirety with the band, come experience joy, laughter and

(00:23):
the beauty of music. We'll see you there.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Welcome to Work Tapes. This is a podcast where we
tear up our songs. Why with a 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 a songwriting and how songs are

(00:58):
built from the ground up.

Speaker 3 (01:00):
It's easy to.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Hear a full production song on the radio and dismiss
its origin story. I want to hear the rough raft
of the song, where the work take. I want to
explore the very beginning, how songs that move us and
make us move are born.

Speaker 4 (01:36):
Tomorrow, I'm gonna leave here. I'm gonna let you go
and walk away like every day I said O Tomorrow,
I'm gonna listen to that force reason inside my head telling.

Speaker 5 (02:00):
Me the weird o good put down again in one
last time, Rocky Strong in these songs and mine forget all.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Work Tapes.
I'm Brandon Carswell as always, today I'm joined by a
friend of mine who's a super versatile songwriter, producer, a ranger,
music industry professional. He's had super great success in country pop,
R and B, and jazz. His songs have been recorded

(02:34):
by Lone Star, klay Walker, Rodney Atkins, Chris Young, Reba McIntyre,
Vince Gill, and Donna Summer to name a few. Today,
we're going to discuss a number one hit song that
was nominated in twenty twelve as Single of the Year
at the ACM Awards. It's called Tomorrow by Chris Young.

(02:56):
This is one of my favorite dudes to hang out
with and get a beer with, smoke a cigar with. Welcome,
Anthony Smith, Thank you for having me back. Absolutely, thanks
for being here. I'm so glad we could get this
worked out and figured out. I wanted to start with you.
I know a little bit about your background, but I

(03:16):
want for our listeners you have a pretty unconventional background
as it pertains to songwriting and how you got into songwriting,
especially like in the country music world. So take us back,
what kind of music did you grow up on? When
did you catch the bug?

Speaker 6 (03:38):
I grew up mainly on R and B pop side
of things, and I, you know, like most people actually thought, oh,
the artists wrote their own songs. And I remember, you know,
trying to write songs or just making up is what
I call it, things as early as like the ninth grade,

(03:58):
and from from that point own, it was just something.

Speaker 7 (04:02):
That I did.

Speaker 6 (04:02):
I really never thought of but as a career or
you know, I would just sit down and write stuff
just because it was popping in my head and I
liked making it up, you know, and so it just
never stopped popping in my head.

Speaker 7 (04:17):
I guess, right.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
So you're in ninth grade and you start writing songs.
Before that, what what was music to you before you
started writing? Like when you were a.

Speaker 7 (04:26):
Kid, it was listening to stuff.

Speaker 6 (04:29):
I played trumpet and you know, high school and would
you know favorite thing. I played in a little band
somewhere along in there. So I was always making music.

Speaker 7 (04:43):
You know.

Speaker 6 (04:43):
Our church had a big choir there was all those
things around, so I was always around it somewhat. You know,
my mother, she played piano and gave the kids piano lessons,
but when they got to me, they hated it so much,
didn't make me take She sold the piano. So and
I was the one that ended up going into the

(05:04):
music industry.

Speaker 2 (05:05):
So how did you get into trumpet? What was that about?

Speaker 7 (05:07):
Trumpet?

Speaker 6 (05:08):
Was just a joining the marching band, and actually I
doubt I remember the first day that I would play
drums and they had too many drummers, so they suggested trumpet.
So I ended up doing that and I ended up
getting pretty good at it, and I had music scholarships

(05:31):
going into college major and as a performance major in
the beginning with the trumpet.

Speaker 2 (05:37):
Yeah, so okay, it's it's funny because I played trumpet
in junior high school also in band because they didn't
have any room. Yeah yeah, and percussion. Yeah, I didn't
stick with it. I wasn't very good. But I'm interested
how trumpet and you got really good at that? But

(05:59):
how did lead into or inform you as a songwriter?
Like what where was the connector where was like there
was a pivot in Again, I'm going to go from
trumpet jazz or whatever you were doing right to writing
songs for people.

Speaker 6 (06:17):
Well, that happened. I wanted to be a jazz trumpet
player in a big band. That's what I thought, Okay,
so that was my goal, and writing songs just came
in between. I switched when I switched my major to
composition and arranging, So writing songs just came in between
having the right things for say, the nineteen piece jazz

(06:40):
band or an orchestra piece for you know, sixty three
piece orchestra or chamber orchestra in the style of different
composers like Box, Ravensky, Beethoven, and you would do that
and they would have to have these particular styles. So
when I made up stuff, I liked it because I
didn't have to follow those boundaries and those rules.

Speaker 7 (07:02):
I could just play anything and sing anything.

Speaker 6 (07:05):
And the pivots came when I was going to graduate school,
gonna go to Eastman School of Music, and we had
a scholarship, but we needed more money. So we go,
where do we get more money from? And my friends says, oh,
I know, we'll go sell some songs, some of these
songs we've been writing, So sell some songs is what
I thought we were doing to get to graduate school.

(07:28):
And I got a song recorded when I was, you know,
singing in college, and so I never got to graduate
school and I wound up the I kept thinking I
was going to quit and go, you know, but I
kept getting more writing opportunities and you know, got the bug.
And I had the bug from that. The Muscle shows Horns,

(07:50):
they did a record and they cut that song, and
they were also playing on a lot of sessions in Nashville.
So when they would come to town, I'd go to the
studios and hang out with them. And that's what I
really just fell in love with production and seeing now
all that was put together, and you know, getting when
I got a song recorded, that changed it to I know,

(08:12):
there is something to do with these songs. Up until then,
I was just writing them.

Speaker 2 (08:16):
What did that feel like? So you you had been
arranging and you've been working with Muscle Shoals sound Horns. Yeah,
and you were just taking jobs doing that. And then explain,
explain the first time you wrote for somebody, like, what
was that like? What did it feel like? Was it
odd to you?

Speaker 6 (08:37):
Well, when I got the song recorded, it came through
a publishing company Combine EMI, and so I could drive
back up and they started, you know, asking me to
bring in songs to play. So I would drive up
from shoot Hooky in college about every six weeks two months,
come up and bring some songs to this publishing company,

(09:00):
and they would they'd always like one or two of them.
You know, it never be one and.

Speaker 7 (09:05):
Two or three.

Speaker 6 (09:06):
It would be like four and six or five and seven,
the odd ones that you thought weren't very good, and
the first ones would generally, looking back on it be
too complicated because you've just got a lot more you're
overthinking or what you just put too much music in.
You come from that scene where you know, they say,

(09:26):
you know you play music.

Speaker 7 (09:28):
You play three chords and four chords.

Speaker 6 (09:31):
You know to tens of thousands of people in jazz
you paid played tens of thousands of notes to twenty
five people. So you were just used to a lot
of music and you did it, and you know, just
learning to simplify it. And then that's when you know,
just I started making a lot of traction on the

(09:52):
songwriting side, which is what I was still trying to
do because that was going to be to help fund
me going into graduate school, that was still on my mind.
That's the reason I was doing it. And once I
was in a publishing company at least had a relationship
with them where I could bring songs to them, you know,
and then s having one recorded and whoever you're writing with,

(10:12):
they're trying to get him recorded, and that kind of thing.
So that brought in another high or something I was
completely unaware of, you know, a feeling that you could
get something done and completely unaware of it. And then
with a competitive spirit, you know, you want to try
to win. Sure, you want to try to do that.
And so I got really kind of caught up and

(10:36):
you know, in that and trying to you know, meeting
other songwriters and people that had written great songs that
I knew and loved. You meet them and it humanized
it for you, like, hey man, you know these guys
did it, so they're human, so it would make it
like that, you know, and you're around them, and you know,
you start getting like, I would like to do that too.

(10:58):
Can I write a song that good to get you know,
to be a hit, to get something done with it,
or just to work among the people that you admired
and thought were really great. Yeah, you know, and you
could see the level of talent that they had. So,
you know, that really gets you going because if you're
gonna even if you're gonna make it to graduate school,

(11:20):
you would have to write some good songs to make
any money. And so you just got caught up in
that dynamic.

Speaker 2 (11:26):
Okay, so you said you didn't make it to graduate
school because is that because you got so immersed in
the songwriting world.

Speaker 7 (11:32):
Totally?

Speaker 6 (11:33):
Yeah, totally, absolutely, you know, And little did I know
the struggle was going to take up all my time.

Speaker 7 (11:39):
I had no idea.

Speaker 6 (11:40):
I thought it'd be like, you know, picking them up,
easy going. I mean, between you know, the starving, driving
back home to get stuff, and you know all those things.
You know, the songwriting once you jump over there, unless
you have a hit, it's a struggle.

Speaker 2 (11:55):
Let's talk about that struggle for a second. So sometimes
people on the outside will look at a song or
hear a song on the radio and go, I could
write that that's a neat that sounds easy. Some of
the best songs in the world sound easy. Sound easy.
Maybe explain to some of those people the process of

(12:17):
writing a song and how how long did it take
you in that struggle to finally me got some cuts
and whatever earth beyond. But cuts don't there's a level
of success with cuts. Of course, you're like stepping stones. Well,

(12:37):
once you hear a song on the radio that you
had something to do with, that probably feels different and
the struggle is then realized and offloaded, you know, but
you continue on. So maybe explain to people in a
way that they can understand. Songwriting is not easy.

Speaker 6 (12:57):
Oh, it's definitely not easy. And one of the hardest
things to do is what you just said, is writing
something that seems simple but it's brilliant. You have to
figure out what to leave out, what to put in,
and it takes a lot of discipline to edit yourself
and edit it in such a way that the message

(13:17):
still comes through. But you only have three minutes to
do it, you know, or less, and so you really
got to do a lot of editing. And what I
love about it is a lot of times in songwriting
and in things their words, you leave out of phrases
that if it was a complete sentence, they would have
to be there, but you can leave them out because

(13:39):
it seems better and everybody gets the line and everybody
gets the message the idea, and you have to you
have to know how to do that. They don't even
miss it unless you were trying to recite it, sure,
and so you wouldn't even miss it when it's done right.
And so you have to learn those type of things
in addition to, you know, work on your craft. You said,
let's just say you have the talent, but then the

(14:00):
craft comes into play and you have to learn the
craft as well as the competition the people that are
crafting them. You know, not comparing yourself to anybody or
anything like that, except for comparing yourself to people that
get cuts, get publishing deals, get hits, and people that don't. Right,
so that's a comparison. You want to be as good

(14:21):
as a person who is doing that.

Speaker 2 (14:23):
What does the talent look like like? I know it's
changed over the years, but generally speaking, so you got
to you start with the talent and then you move
into crafting. So without the craft, what does the talent
look like? Just on a general.

Speaker 6 (14:36):
Level, Well, the songs I was writing, I was writing
them all by myself, so I didn't even know about
co writing of course, until you get to around co
writers and things like that.

Speaker 7 (14:47):
But that was there.

Speaker 6 (14:49):
And what happened with the first song is occasionally, you know,
you hear people say a lot they wrote some they
got stuck, you know, And in writing, there's probably going
to be a certain part that'll pop in your head
the moment you're inspired by an idea or whatever, and
then you will need the craft to make that better
and to finish it out, or it stuck. You don't know,

(15:12):
you know, you may have to dig around over here.
This just flowed out and made sense. And that was
the first song that flowed out in its entirety that
got recorded right, so, you know, and instead of just
it's the difference in knowing doing something, knowing how to
do it, and just stumbling up on it right. And
in the beginning, I think we all stumble up on it,

(15:34):
you know. We practice till we get something right, and
when we do, then we try to learn what we did.
Because creatives tend to like their stuff, so you have
to get past that and learn that.

Speaker 7 (15:47):
You can like it.

Speaker 6 (15:49):
Just because you like it doesn't mean it can't be approved,
improved upon. You can like a great song just as
much as you can like a not great song.

Speaker 2 (15:57):
Can you write a song that you don't like.

Speaker 6 (15:59):
Yeah, yes you can, And I don't mean I don't
mean that you. I think you can write them and
listen back a get and realize you didn't get that right,
you didn't nail it, and.

Speaker 2 (16:16):
We think, I think what I mean I'm going for,
like in a co write for example, or sometimes you'll
get you know, once you get into the business part
of it. Sometimes you'll get like prompted by your publisher
or somebody who says, hey, we need a song like this,
especially in the sink world, like we need a song
like Willie Nelson on the road again, right, but it

(16:37):
can't be too on the nose. Yeah, can you write
as that feels like work?

Speaker 1 (16:45):
To me?

Speaker 2 (16:45):
That feels like I don't want to do that. Some
people are really good at that. I'm not good at that,
but so can I guess my question is more geared
that way. Can you write a song you don't like
for work?

Speaker 6 (16:59):
I think I think you can. And I wouldn't say
like you don't like, but it might be you might
not love it, or it might not relate to you
at all. Put it that way, and that's what I mean.
I mean, like, just like if you crafted something for
a sink. Well, writing songs, I've had songs hit by

(17:23):
people that are never doing around because I don't like
the way I sound doing it for one thing. And secondly,
it was just a manufactured idea, not anything that had
happened at all.

Speaker 7 (17:35):
So you always have that difference, you know.

Speaker 6 (17:37):
I always think of songwriters as being in three categories,
and one is a you write about what you know,
of what you've been through and experienced. The other one
could be like that one plus you write about things
you've observed. Say you never been married or went through
a divorce, but you've observed that. You can write a
song with a certain kind of emotions that people who

(18:00):
have been will relate to that and you but you
personally have not been through that. And the third kind
can just sit at the kitchen table with a couple
of coffee and fulluffeet house shoes and write a song
about falling in love in Mexico and never been to Mexico.

Speaker 2 (18:16):
Yeah you know, yeah, and that's a that's a mark
of a great storyteller.

Speaker 6 (18:19):
Yeah, that's you ever experience, right, That's those those kind
of things, And in doing some of that, you know
you will have some songs. And I've talked to a
lot of people about this. Sometimes what you think is
your best song doesn't get recorded or doesn't become a hit,
and sometimes what you think is just okay ends up
being recorded. And as a friend and I said, you know, well,

(18:42):
when you get one of those lighthearted or ditties as
they called him, recorded, what are you supposed to say, Hey,
don't put that one out, put this one out. Yeah,
you let them do it, fits, they do it, you
have it. So there's a certain amount of that in there,
just coming along with the craft of learning how to
really craft an idea and you know, let it go
where it's taken itself, and you can guide that, but

(19:04):
you don't have to put in things that you would
say if I was in that situation, I'd do this.
You can say this song is in this situation, what's
best for this song?

Speaker 7 (19:14):
Right?

Speaker 6 (19:14):
And you can you know, you do that kind of
thing like that. So there's always a certain amount of that.

Speaker 2 (19:19):
Is that how you came into country music or was
country music kind of always on your radar?

Speaker 1 (19:24):
Is it?

Speaker 2 (19:24):
Were you a fan? Cause you you came up in
like R and B.

Speaker 6 (19:29):
I did, I did, and that first song was really
more R and B, but the publishing company that they
were doing the deal with was country.

Speaker 2 (19:36):
Okay, So.

Speaker 6 (19:38):
You know, I got the song cut and I had
the the guy who was producing the record, he had
called the e owned part of the publishing company as well,
and he had called the president of the publishing company
and told him I was gonna, you know, gonna come
over and play some songs. I don't know what all
they told him, but I do know when I got there,
it said I got this talking to which is hey,

(20:03):
sound so and so called me, you know him. Yeah,
I just want you to know something around here, somebody's
got to be in charge. I run things, and while
with the published company, I run this. And if you
that song you wrote was good. If you can learn
how to do a country song as well as you
can learn how to do that, I think you can
make a living in this business.

Speaker 7 (20:22):
All right, thank you dismissed. So it was like, wow,
what was that?

Speaker 6 (20:27):
So you know, and I really felt like I had
gotten like I had made a terrible mistake moving to Nashville.
By this point, I moved and it's still going to
take a year before graduates. Room, I'm still going to
be that trump player, you know. But like I said,
you get you get caught up in the fight. You know,
you gotta fight, you gotta win. So I realized, for me,

(20:49):
there were country songs that I liked and others that
I did not relate to. And I said, you know, okay,
I'm not going to be a great guy to write
a song about farm because I don't know anything about
a farm. But if we're writing about love or heartbreak
or you know, falling in love, falling out of love, beers, alcohol,

(21:12):
people getting drunk, all the things there were. There were
subjects that I realized that you could you could do,
and I could got to the point where I could
do those about as good as anybody.

Speaker 7 (21:24):
And there were other ones, you know that I didn't.

Speaker 6 (21:26):
I one of my first collaborators, we had I wrote
a song and he had a line in there not
much to look at my work shirt and cat hat.
And I said, what's a cat hat? He was like, oh,
see a ten caterpillar. I go, man, you know, did
we just put that in the song? I had no idea,
but it sounded like a good line to me, and
we did it. So you would have moments like that.

(21:47):
But if you were coming, because either you bring the
idea or once you collaborate with somebody else wings the idea,
and if somebody else would bring it either way, I would.

Speaker 7 (21:56):
I could always start with the music.

Speaker 6 (21:58):
I could always hear an idea and animelody will popping
my head, and so I would just do it, play it,
get it, and see if the room like they didn't
if they did. Now we have a road map of
what we're doing right, and we're creating with the same
melodic thing and that so I think just once I'd
got here, and I remember getting on the phone to

(22:21):
a New York publisher, I talked my way into another
one using EMI's long distance mind you, and so I
told him. I said, man, I have screwed up. So
I have moved into this town. This guy don't listen
to number of country music and they call his name,
and I go, do you know him? And I go,
oh my god, I'm going to lose this damn job.
I can't believe it. I said, do you know him?

Speaker 7 (22:42):
And so you know?

Speaker 6 (22:45):
He said no, but I know of him, and I
hung up. He said, send me songs. I didn't because
I realized that was something that I was missing, and
now we know what it is.

Speaker 7 (22:56):
It was.

Speaker 6 (22:56):
You know, these people are achieving men to success and
in that community, when you do that, whether you met
the person or not, they have a reputation of doing that.
And this guy knew him from that, and so and
I didn't, you know, I hadn't put it together, and
I thought I should probably just keep working and keep
thinking and trying to figure this out. So and that's

(23:20):
what I did.

Speaker 2 (23:21):
So, you mean you didn't have like an immediate connection
as far as co running goes. It was a struggle
to get in there and get something done.

Speaker 6 (23:31):
Or well, you know, a guy passed the guy in
the hall one day says, man, what do you do lyrics?

Speaker 7 (23:36):
Melics?

Speaker 6 (23:36):
I said, I do them both, but Melodie's usually come faster.
And he says, well, I'm just a lyricist. Let's let's
get together.

Speaker 7 (23:43):
And we did. He became a first collaborator. We had
some cuts.

Speaker 6 (23:46):
And the thing I remember, you know, and we'd have
you know, arguments, emotional fights and everything.

Speaker 3 (23:55):
You know.

Speaker 7 (23:55):
He was a fast writer.

Speaker 6 (23:57):
So if you were writing something, he just give you
a whole verse and then if you liked it, if
you didn't by the time he'd have another one, and
one day our biggest fight came when he goes, hey,
i've written six verses pick two, and we were, you know,
laughing about that kind of stuff. And also you become
a better lyricist just in the fact that once you've

(24:17):
established a melody, you're at the second verse. You it
helps to be able to chime in and take the
second verse to another place, as opposed to just sit
there going well, I've already written melody, so you learn better,
and second verses generally are tougher than first verses to
keep the interest going and get the listener back to
the chorus. So you know, it just one thing and

(24:38):
then the other, and you know, start seeing the songwriting
get somewhere and that bug once that, you know, it
became well, you were so caught up in the challenge
of trying to do it for all kinds of reasons
that you realize actually, you know, I it was good

(25:00):
at it and I didn't even know that part, and
I'm way better. I was a good trumpet player, but
there's probably ones that would have, you know, eat my lunch.
And with songwriting, I could, you know, I could compete
and get things in the publishing company right along with
the guys that were getting the cuts.

Speaker 2 (25:18):
Yeah. Yeah, can you tell pretty quick if you have
chemistry and a co write or not?

Speaker 7 (25:24):
I can, you can.

Speaker 2 (25:27):
It's kind of like I feel like sometimes it's like
it's kind of like a first date versus a second date,
like maybe you should give it another try, we should
do one more and see if it clicks.

Speaker 7 (25:37):
Yeah, there, you know, and the techniques, the approaches.

Speaker 6 (25:41):
People have different techniques, different approaches, but you can tell
sort of if it's going to be one that you
guys can do things together because you can both be
excellent track record guys. But he sees this idea as
a break home. You see it as a log cabin,
so you won't be coming at it from the same
place until you get mature enough to pick the best

(26:02):
one to see what happens, you know, and after you
get you know, a few hits under your belt, things
like that you know what the other person knows it,
and you're also open to Wow, that's fresher. I never
looked at it like that, or then vice versa. Wow, man,
that's cool.

Speaker 7 (26:17):
You see that.

Speaker 6 (26:18):
You know, you get you get developed enough to where
you can hear an idea and you and you've already
seen exact straight or straight ahead way to do it,
but you are also starting to experiment with experiment with okay,
I have done that, or okay that's what could be
make this fresh? What's another angle? And you find other

(26:40):
ways to do it and that becomes really great, you know,
just that. And so if you're in there with somebody
that can help you do that, you will know because
your things will be exciting them and they will be
exciting you as the song goes on down the road.

Speaker 1 (26:56):
Right.

Speaker 7 (26:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (26:57):
One thing I want to ask you about is someone
who has been doing this for a long time, is when,
as an established writer, let's say you're an established writer
or the pub deal, yeah, you've got a couple of
heads whatever, At what point, if at all, do you
take a chance on a writer who's up and coming,

(27:20):
who doesn't have anything to offer you but their talent.
Does that happen?

Speaker 3 (27:27):
Well?

Speaker 5 (27:29):
You know?

Speaker 6 (27:29):
I I usually I used to and still do for
the most part, based that on if they're coming from
a publisher that I know, sign a new person or
one of the pros call you about a new person,
somebody you know, or if you just happen to see it,
but generally speaking, it was a new person if that
they You know, when a person's finally caught their attention

(27:51):
and gotten a pub deal doesn't mean that they're a
successful writer yet, right, So if they've gotten in and
gotten that far and somebody goes, hey, man, you need
to check this out. I was usually open at checking
it out. And another thing I've always done was, you know,
when you get on that psych your treadmill, you're laying
doing stuff, you tend to do a lot of things,

(28:13):
you know, a certain way, or get real focused so
that you can finish the task or whatever it is,
if you're producing, whatever it is. And if if things
get really stagnant, I open myself up and my new
answer becomes, yes, somebody called Anthony, do you want Yes, Anthony,
I'll try yes, you want to go to this? Yes,

(28:35):
I'll just say yes till I extract enough things that
I have to do, and then now you work in
and you got it again, and now you've got a
workload that you have to do and you got to
you know, things already happening with co writers, collaborators, situations.
So I would do that, but I would always I
would laugh because in my head, every time I needed

(28:56):
to turn a corner, my new answer would become yes,
because we get smart and we think we know all
these things, and you do, you improve your skill set.
But the more you learn, the more you realize there
is to know. And you don't know new as much
as you think you do, but you do know a lot.

Speaker 7 (29:11):
And also there's.

Speaker 6 (29:12):
Room in there always for trying different things, you know.
So I just had that conversation last night with Chris Young.
How about, Hey, what you think you know and you
do versus you know, I might not be the smartest
guy I made, you know, mistakes, but your wins, when

(29:33):
they out way outpaced the failures.

Speaker 7 (29:37):
Your instincts.

Speaker 6 (29:38):
Right, nobody's going to get it totally one hundred percent
of the time, but they are. It's worked more than that, sure.

Speaker 7 (29:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:44):
Yeah, And the world is changing fast.

Speaker 6 (29:47):
World is changing fast, you know. The industry is changing fast.
Has changed completely to a different model, and it's incredible.
It's like the wild West, you know, because things can
happen out of nowhere.

Speaker 2 (30:02):
And that's why I asked that question, is because just
to lean into it a little bit more if I'm
if I'm a new writer, but I have talent, I
don't have a deal yet, I'm trying to get in
the door. I meet Anthony Smith at the bar or whatever.
What do you say to that writer?

Speaker 6 (30:22):
Well, for the most part, I'm probably not going to
write with them. It's too many why, That's what I'm
getting it. It's too many, too too many people, too
many people in that situation. And you can't do that,
you know, anymore than you could let me pick your
brain and sit around and talk to all of them.
You just don't have the time to do that and
earn a living. And you you know, it's so many

(30:45):
people too. Even now that publishers run the calendar of
the writers, they won't even let things like that be
on your book. You can, you can do it in
the evenings if you don't have anything you really into
them with the weekend or something like that.

Speaker 7 (31:01):
But at the same time, they will if they if
they really are truly talented, you'll see something starting to
pop off for them. People will start talking about them.
You'll hear a song that blows your mind, you know,
something like that.

Speaker 2 (31:14):
But they've got to be busy, they've got to be
doing it.

Speaker 6 (31:16):
Yeah, it's you know, because they if they do, it
will be great. Otherwise you're just writing in there watching you.
But they can't contribute to the level that they need
to contribute. Now, if they can, that's a whole other deal.
And also they're going to be getting noticed by not
just you, other writers that you know, publishing companies, pros.

(31:39):
You know, before they get some they're going to be
getting somebody's gonna be hearing and go, this guy has
an edge, this guy has something, or this girl has
something that's very unique and special about it. The way
they do, and then they listen to see what else
they they're doing is keeping them coming. Are they putting
themselves in business or they putting themselves out there? Because

(32:00):
all of that makes the difference between getting in rooms.
If you get in a room and you don't know
what you're doing yet, say you know, with an established
artist and you know two other great writers, that room
is going to move so fast to everybody can tell
right away if the line is right, move on, or

(32:22):
hear the great ideas, or throw the other ones out
or improve them. And if you don't have a person
in the room that can do that, they can't they
can't stay on the train like that, you know.

Speaker 2 (32:31):
Yeah, it sounds like you've had experience in that.

Speaker 6 (32:34):
Yeah, yeah, I mean if they can't, you know, they
just can't. And actually sure, yeah, and actually you know
you understand now. I used to do the same thing
as ask anybody all the time, and I didn't know why.
But then as I started getting them as to start
getting some somebody would take a chance on you, and
you start getting you know, some cuts something you could
talk about.

Speaker 2 (32:54):
It's kind of like if you're a real estate agent
and you book a showing of a house you need
to sell to someone who has no interest in selling.
That's we're buying it rather.

Speaker 6 (33:04):
Yeah, you know, and some people, you know, I've heard
it put so many ways. They don't know what they
don't know sure, or you know, they'll be dragging the
process down thinking they need to be looking at two
lines in the first verse and you're down to the
last two lines in the bridge and they're still stuck

(33:24):
up there. And it goes like, hey, man, if we
two other hit songwriters and yourself, you know, sometimes you
have to trust the other side. They have to learn
to trust you. Yeah, maybe you're on fire that day
and they have to let that happen. Maybe somebody else
is on fire, or maybe all three of y'all is
in equal contribution. It could be any number of those things,
you know. And when somebody else is your roll in

(33:47):
the room switches to each you know, grabbing making it better,
or add on down here, or do that. But if
somebody gets on fire with one, whatever it is, you know,
I call it every once in a while, our ultimate
co writer, God just touches us on the on the
shoulders and he's in the room with you. Yeah, and
this song is falling out, And you know the difference

(34:09):
when they're great following that versus not, because we've all
had both of those experiences and sitting there like we
didn't know what we were doing. Words, I can't think
of any words. Well, I supposed to fam here you go.
So yeah, yeah, which kind of leads me. I do
want to talk to about this song tomorrow, but I
want to mention this real fast. So there's the difference

(34:32):
between the songwriting craft and having success as a songwriter
and then it being a business. Rw does the business
interrupt the craft? Does the business interrupt the craft? The
business can interrupt the craft.

Speaker 2 (34:53):
Which is so it's just like this little seesaw thing
or balancing act of like which one is better, which
one is more important? You, as someone who's making your
living on songwriting, how does the craft inform that? And
then does the business take away from that? Do you
know what I'm saying?

Speaker 7 (35:11):
Yes?

Speaker 6 (35:12):
And I think you know it's a couple of different
ways to look at that. Yes, the business can take
away from it in the beginning. But if you're going
to get anywhere, it is the business you're in, so
it behooves you to understand it and start getting good
at that. And then you have to compartmentalize that when

(35:34):
you go in and start creating and just not you know,
because you might be trying to write specifically down one
road and this song may not go down that road,
and you have to trust that and go to down
the road you're going. But you're going to have to
deal with the business one way or the other to
get anywhere, so you might as well embrace it and

(35:56):
try to figure it out sooner than later. Now you
don't have to spend all of your time doing that.
You have to spend time doing that balance of here
I am completely free created.

Speaker 7 (36:08):
Let's do this, or.

Speaker 6 (36:11):
Man, I need to do this because some one says looking,
or I need to do this because this is that,
or I need to go have another meeting with the
publisher or label or whatever. It's all kind of in there.
It's it all kind of starts to run together, because
it particularly now more than ever, because there's so many
camps and you have to know politically how to be

(36:33):
in them, how to get there. These are the conduits
between you and success. You know, even if you have
a hit song, and how are you gonna know that.
Let's it gets put out and become a hit song,
or if the song is no good, it's still those
same conduits exist.

Speaker 7 (36:53):
So the sooner you realize it's.

Speaker 6 (36:56):
Not going anywhere and you embrace it, I think the
better off you will be.

Speaker 2 (37:01):
Did you ever get in your head about I've got
to make this right. I've got to make this so
correct so that it can sell versus like your artistry,
you know what I mean?

Speaker 7 (37:14):
Uh, well, you know.

Speaker 6 (37:18):
It's a couple of ways to think about that. You know,
as a person writing and producing, you know, art gives
way to As my wife said, the last three letters
in chart that's art. And so once you're in the charts,
art becomes the last three letters in chart. Nobody wants
to talk about art anymore. Art becomes chart, your publisher,

(37:38):
you know, your paychecks, your house, you know, food on
the table. So as art sort of goes art, you know,
alone out the window. But I even think if you're
thinking art, it still has to be. A guy said
this to me the first time about publishing, and I didn't.

Speaker 7 (37:58):
Understand what he was saying.

Speaker 6 (37:59):
You know, he was critiquing some songs and I was
first starting to bring them up and I had a cut.
So he was like, well, either you can hang on
your out you know, Eiffel Tower, and just do it
your way, or you can learn to take constructive criticism
and make these other ones and you know, get on
track with that. And I didn't know what he was saying,
but he was exactly right. Because the business model today,

(38:23):
let's just fast forward to today. A lot of people
think they need to write the songs that they're putting now,
so they come to town. They want to be a
singer and a songwriter because they say everybody else doing it,
and also they have all the social media stuff to
keep up with and so they're you know, big things
coming soon in the post, or here's a song I
wrote yesterday, Should I put it out?

Speaker 7 (38:43):
Should I drop it?

Speaker 6 (38:44):
They'd be a lot better off to just learn how
to write great songs or learn how to be a
great singer, which everyone that you really need to you
need to you know, once you get in the door,
you actually really need to be able to deliver. I mean,
if you're going to be on the football team, you
got to catch the football, or you can't be on
the team.

Speaker 7 (39:01):
Like this, if I throw it to you, you got.

Speaker 6 (39:03):
To catch it, right, you know, you got to punch
it in from to your artline if you're running back,
or you can't. You can't be on my team, right,
you know. So you get like that, you know the
things that you want to do. It will tell you
what you have to do to get there or to
be a part of those those kinds of things.

Speaker 3 (39:18):
You know.

Speaker 6 (39:19):
And I think and once for me, once it all
sort of keeps trading places from when you're first creating
man and then you got one that people liked, or
then you get one that was published, one that was recorded.
Once you get one that's a hit that becomes your
new standard, say, and you want to feel that again,

(39:43):
So immediately that's what you're going for because you know,
if you do this right, somebody's going to record it.
You need those vehicles for it to get out, So
you start riding on that vehicle. Not necessarily I got
to make it so perfect or anything, but you really
need to feel like when you leave that room, you
guys nailed it. And then that will go all the

(40:05):
way down the line. If you're tracking it with live guys,
you'll hear them talking about it this, talking about other
publishers talking about it, that from their writer who's on it.
You know, if people we hear a lot of things,
we see a lot of things, but when something starts
to turn your head or keep your attention, that's when
you start to know that one has something going for

(40:26):
it and you don't know what it is, but it does.

Speaker 2 (40:29):
Yeah, would you continue writing songs if it wasn't paying you?
Do you love it that much?

Speaker 6 (40:35):
Would I continue writing songs if it wasn't paying me? Well,
I like, now I produce.

Speaker 2 (40:44):
Right, that's a loaded question, And well, I was just
going to.

Speaker 6 (40:47):
Say this being a producer, being a guy who's running
public run company's being a guy who manages a band
and do you know, got his hands in a lot
of things. I just switch them around so that on
this particular day, all the things I do may not
have anything to do with the song or writing a song,

(41:08):
or if I'm going to the studio studio days even
though you're recording songs you wrote, but that doesn't really
have anything to do with songwriting. But it's another energy
and you just try to do that. You know, I'm
so conditioned to working in an environment where there's an endgame.

(41:29):
Whether I would sit around and do that or not,
I don't know, because I have other things that could
take over. You know, you might want to enjoy managing
more full time. You might want to, you know, start
back producing more. Or maybe you sign two or three
writers and you like them, and now you're the guy
with the skill set and with the knowledge and you
have these new writers on fire. You can guide their

(41:51):
careers and you have a company, and you could do
things with that.

Speaker 7 (41:55):
Your energy might pour more into that. You know that,
just do it.

Speaker 6 (41:59):
But I think at the end of the day, I
would write, I would write some I mean, things have
to happen and inspire you. I think to write because
I hear guys that you know, didn't do the business
that or don't do it. And some of them were
super successful songwriters and not doing excellent financially, and they
just write for themselves. Sure, they like to still write,

(42:19):
and they'll do things just to keep them busy. But
the ones that were this and had a hand in business,
they tend to expand one or the other, you know,
they tend to If this is doing it, you've always
got something to work on, to expand, to grow, to
adapt to. And then this over here so that you
you've got other things to do. If you don't feel

(42:42):
like writing, or if it's you not writing for something specifically,
you've got other things to do.

Speaker 2 (42:47):
Right, Yeah, that's a great answer. Let's talk about you
mentioned Chris Young a few months ago. Right, let's talk
about the song that we're going to talk about. It's
called Tomorrow. Yeah. I wrote it with Chris Young and
Frank Myers. Right, maybe you can give us, like paint
a picture of the room that day. What did it
look like, what ideas were popping off?

Speaker 7 (43:10):
Well, this is a I'll try to make it short.
It's funny.

Speaker 6 (43:13):
Frank and I were sitting at Loser's Bar of course,
having a beer, of course, and Gary Allen had a
song called Today, and we're just sitting there, you know,
being smart, you know ourselves, and laughing and joking going
that was a somebody yes and something, but tell it'll
be a song about tomorrow. And we're just laughing and

(43:34):
being silly about it. And the next day Frank and
I were writing with Chris Young, so you know, he
gets up and he starts noodling with it and he
calls me, and I'm at the gym and I said, man,
I can't you know, I can't.

Speaker 7 (43:50):
I can't hear you.

Speaker 6 (43:51):
So I leave the gym, go get my shower early,
and roll on into town and we just start kicking
around the idea before Chris got there, and try to
find some shape to that one and another song. And
he dug right in that song and we you know,
finished it off. But that's where the idea came from,
as sitting around, you know, jaded, talking smack at a bar,

(44:15):
you know, a drinking a beer and just having fun. Yeah,
and then we go, hey, you know this can really
be something I do that a lot, you know, think
it stupid stuff. Think it's stupid. If you go, hey,
that could be something. We better write this down. We
do that sometimes, you know.

Speaker 2 (44:30):
Yeah, well, let's take a second and listen to the
original work tape that you brought and we'll kind of
unpack it a little bit. This episode of work Tapes
is brought to you by east Side Music Supply. East
Side Music Supply is a music shop in Nashville, Tennessee.
It's my go to spot for all things gear related,
whether it's guitars, bass guitars, if I need work on
my gear, if I need to buy a pedal that's

(44:50):
really cool and awesome, that's super unique. They've got that
kind of stuff there. They've got cool merch audio gear,
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they care about your experience. Go to Eastside Music Supply
dot com. If you're not local in Nashville, they will
hook you up. Tell them when you go that Brandon

(45:12):
from Work Tape sent you.

Speaker 8 (45:30):
Borrow, I'm gonna leave him.

Speaker 4 (45:35):
I'm gonna let you go and walk away like every day, set.

Speaker 8 (45:41):
Up borrow, I'm gonna listen.

Speaker 4 (45:49):
That was the reason inside of me telling me the
weird Ogirt'm got.

Speaker 3 (45:58):
Again in one last time Trum getting strong and these.

Speaker 5 (46:02):
Are the man forget all the regrets that are bound
to follow.

Speaker 1 (46:11):
You.

Speaker 3 (46:11):
Like fire Gastlene, I know good for you, You're no
good for me. We only bring each other.

Speaker 8 (46:20):
Tears and sorrow. Good tonight.

Speaker 3 (46:26):
I'm gonna love you like there's no.

Speaker 8 (46:31):
Tomorrow. I'll be stronger. I'm not gonna break down and
call you ho with my heart rhyns out for you,
and tomorrow you won't believe it because when I pass

(46:53):
your half, solve and stop. No matter how man I
want to.

Speaker 5 (47:00):
I do, I'm gonna give in one last time, Rocky
strong and these are too bad to.

Speaker 3 (47:07):
Get all the regress at a bead on the follow.
We're like fire Gasline. I'm no good you know good
for me. We only bring e other jeers and summer.
Good tonight. Come look you like there's no farro Babe.

(47:48):
When we're good, you know it's great, But there's too
much bad.

Speaker 5 (47:53):
Girls to think there's anything we're trying to say.

Speaker 8 (48:02):
But that I'm gonna give any one last time rock
you strongly knees as and then you all the regrets
at a bound the following.

Speaker 3 (48:16):
We like fi gas Selene, no good forgive, You don't
good for me.

Speaker 8 (48:23):
We only bring to other je sorrow good tonight.

Speaker 3 (48:31):
I'm gonna love you like there's lomorrow.

Speaker 8 (48:39):
I'm gonna leave you. I'm gonna let you go and
walk away.

Speaker 3 (48:47):
Like her be.

Speaker 2 (48:48):
I said, up, okay, cool. I here's what I took
from this work tape, which I didn't realize because I'm not,
you know, like I'm not someone who goes real deep
into modern country, right. But I realized Chris Young can

(49:11):
sing like he's a real singer, right, because you can
hear it in the work tape.

Speaker 7 (49:15):
Right.

Speaker 2 (49:15):
A lot of times in production, you don't really know
if they can, if some if an artist can really
pull their you know, yeah, Chris vocally right.

Speaker 6 (49:22):
And you know the funniest thing when we were laying
that song down and he was just kind of we
ran it through a couple of times and he sang
the last chorus because his vocal was a little tired
of whatever. So he was singing it down and octave
just to sing it. And I said, man, you ought
to do that. He said, what I said, you ought
to sing start this third chorus and octave lower and

(49:45):
then go back up. I said, you've got the range
to do it.

Speaker 7 (49:47):
You can do it.

Speaker 6 (49:47):
He goes you think, I said, man, that was really cool,
and that's what we did. Yeah, but it was just
him kind of mumbling through it and set of screaming
in the room, just singing a low chorus. And we
ended up being that on the for for his record.

Speaker 2 (50:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (50:01):
Yeah, because he could do it. Yeah, but I used
to do it.

Speaker 2 (50:04):
He kills it.

Speaker 7 (50:05):
Yeah, he kills it.

Speaker 2 (50:06):
And it just made me realize, like, oh, he's a
great vocalist.

Speaker 7 (50:09):
He is, he's chops, Yes, he does.

Speaker 2 (50:12):
You mentioned that this idea came kind of playfully.

Speaker 7 (50:15):
It did.

Speaker 2 (50:16):
Was any of it from experience once you got down
to like.

Speaker 7 (50:20):
The once we got down to it, we could all
relate to that scenario.

Speaker 6 (50:24):
Yeah, and you know we could tap into that emotion
or all relating it to that particular scenario. Here's this thing,
and you try to get the right lines in there
that really carry it through the song.

Speaker 7 (50:36):
And in that case we did.

Speaker 2 (50:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (50:38):
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (50:40):
You mentioned to me earlier when we were prepping for
this that you were invited to go work on the
recording of the song full production, right. Do a lot
of writers get that opportunity?

Speaker 3 (50:52):
No?

Speaker 6 (50:54):
But you know, one of the things that got me
cuts was I was real good in the studio and
that's demo will sound a lot like the record. And
I've got that. I've gotten that call a few times.
I've gotten calls say, hey man, who did those backgrounds?

Speaker 7 (51:10):
Hey man?

Speaker 4 (51:11):
Was that?

Speaker 6 (51:11):
I've gotten those calls? And to do that, because man,
you make it sound like a hit for him, But no,
and I was honored to do it. And the funny
thing when I got there, you know, James Stroud, the
guys were running it down and they were changing the
intro tremendously all around, which I wasn't gonna say a word,
you know. I mean, hey, you got him running there
and they brought me in. So the last thing I'm

(51:33):
gonna do is screw up my own song. If he
thinks it's school, I think it's cool. But he would
kept saying, now, boys, that way, demo sounds pretty big,
goes Anthony, what's that's an ebo?

Speaker 7 (51:45):
I say, yeah, it goes, Get to ebo out, Get
the ebo out.

Speaker 6 (51:48):
Sitting up there a cigare and they were too listening
to it good, and they just get up there they
want to it's a master scale now and some of
them getting double trip or whatever they want to do
all this stuff for him.

Speaker 7 (51:58):
Sure, my creative they are. And they was like, no, man,
we're gonna do this just like this.

Speaker 6 (52:03):
They sped it up a click and went back to
the snaire side stick and the second verse. And on
my demo, I stayed on the snare because I usually
am more aggressive, and you know, put one extra pause
in for the breakdown course, which we just roll right
through it in time, because the main difference between demos

(52:23):
and records is budget, So you're time. You have time
to sit there and go like, oh man, we can
do this, and everybody just count a couple extra beats,
you know, you go like, hey man, you got like
thirty five minutes to whip these babies out, and you
got to make sure you get it. And being good
at that and being able to communicate that That's where
my arranging and composition really came in because I could
communicate with the players. I can tell them what to do,

(52:45):
I can read music, I can read the number system,
I can write music, you know, write the number system.
But they love that because you can articulate what you
want and they could play anything, but it helps when
you articulate where you're going and what you're doing.

Speaker 7 (53:00):
So yeah, they did.

Speaker 2 (53:02):
The other cool thing about this work tape is, as
you all just heard, like, it starts off with just
the guitar, but as the verses come in, I could
immediately tell. And I've heard the song of time or
two like the full production over the years. But when
I really focused on the work tape you sent, I

(53:23):
was like, oh, this is definitely a song. Like if
I had never heard it before, it felt like, oh,
this song has mass appeal. Whether it ever made it
or not, it would have still been the same.

Speaker 7 (53:37):
Yeah, you know.

Speaker 6 (53:37):
The two things about that that's really funny is when
we were doing it did the work tape that we
just got them on the downbeat with the guitar strum,
And when I got to the studio, I thought it'd
be better to drumming.

Speaker 7 (53:49):
So and Chris we didn't know each other then that
very much.

Speaker 6 (53:51):
That's I first write on things, and he goes, man,
I'm sure you're glad you took the chunk Junks at
you know, and just because you had other support from
the from a band, so we just didn't have to
go chunk junk. And Frank was out of town. But
I demoted after the flood that we had. I had
this session on a Tuesday with three different artists on there,
him being one, Loving Theft was another, and I can't

(54:12):
remember who the other one was. I had a song
on there were Dean Dylan, so it you know, they
were telling us we couldn't get back to Nashville. So
I rented a car from Key West, drove up to Miami.
That all the planes were delayed. So I bought a ticket,
another ticket, and my wife said, I said, what do
I just go buy a ticket? So I bought another ticket.
I got to Atlanta. I couldn't get out of Atlanta

(54:34):
and I was over that state. And then I bought
another ticket for a crop dust or you know. I
just needed to get home because my car was at
the airport and I was afraid that maybe it was
flooded or whatever. So you know, and the while waiting
on this little little plane to take off, that one
of the big jets came in and said, oh, you
guys want to run around here with your guitars. We

(54:56):
got forty seats open, but it's at like gate two
and I'm wandering around over that four forty.

Speaker 7 (55:00):
Six, So hoof that got home?

Speaker 6 (55:03):
Rode through the studio to see if the car was fine,
to see if it was open. You know, am I
gonna be able to track this thing? With all these
songs with these artists? You know, it was really important
session to me to get home to you. And everything
was cool. Everybody could make it except for one guy.
Chris could make it. Frank was in Florida on vacation

(55:24):
and we went in and fortunately, you know, it was
the first top of the demo, so that we did it.
I had two songs with them on that demo, and
we did those and moved on. And but the studio
was small, so I couldn't do any intro. You know,
you couldn't get We'd learn you couldn't get six or
seven musicians. You have to do it with five and
then do their overdubs. So I did it with five,

(55:45):
and then I cut his vocals. And Chris is such
a great singer. He used to ask me like, do
you think I need to do? And go like whatever,
you know, it goes. You know, I gonna tell me,
are you I'll tell you to try things different things,
But it's not like I need to beat you in
the ground. I mean, you say it from the get go.

Speaker 7 (56:01):
And he was doing that.

Speaker 6 (56:02):
But when he left is the day after he had
to go out on tour and somebody was coming into
that studio.

Speaker 7 (56:11):
I had to move it.

Speaker 6 (56:11):
Also, a possum had crawled into the return and guy,
no nobody knew, so they were this studio was starting
to stink up. Nobody could figure out what's going on.
You know, it's had a floating floor there under their sponges.
It's what's going on. And somebody noticed that every time
the ate s kicked on, they.

Speaker 7 (56:29):
Got that smell.

Speaker 6 (56:30):
So this guy went out there and it was a
little crack and then he crawled up in there and
there was that was the cause of it. So I
went to another studio, did the overdubs, and nobody was there.
So I sent it off to Chris before I mixed
it on that Saturday night, you know, because I was
gonna mix that Monday.

Speaker 7 (56:49):
And so happened.

Speaker 6 (56:51):
When I sent it off and he listened to it,
he had one of the heads of like Clear Channel
on his bus out there at that time, and they said,
if you don't put this out next, you're you're stupid.

Speaker 7 (57:00):
And he calls me up.

Speaker 6 (57:01):
He goes, dude, you started a fire my label once,
but that's out. But the shout goes wait. So that's
how I got called in because they wanted to go
with that to do that. So that was an interesting turn.
I'm glad I got back home because some people were like, man,
you know, we're just gonna stay. I've been down here
a week. I don't want to stay in Key Wes anymore.

(57:21):
You know, I don't think I could even smell another
drop of alcohol much.

Speaker 7 (57:26):
Let's drink it. So it was, you know, it was
I was, you know, N word and getting home and
that was a good one to get home to.

Speaker 2 (57:34):
Yeah, well it's a great song. Obviously you guys killed it.
As we wrap up or right before we wrap up. Uh,
I just wanted to you've been doing this for a
long time, Uh huh, and you've this is an understatement
to say that you've seen this industry change over and

(57:55):
over again right in those amount of years. Yeah, where
do you think it's going is it. Is it going
in a good direction? Is it not going in a
good direction? What are your thoughts on it right now?

Speaker 6 (58:08):
Well, a couple of things. I think it's going in
a good direction. Creatively, I think so. I think we
have trouble with streaming actually paying what the song should
be worth, which is so minuscule compared to the RESTful radio.
But it's the only demand part that people can get
listening to different things. And I think that is a

(58:31):
thing that gets in the way of young artists trying
to develop because they think they should be putting something
out and recording and writing and you know, but what
they don't. What you don't have in that kind of
a thing is you know, there is no there's no
checks and balances. There's nobody to tell you this isn't
good enough to be put out. That like in a

(58:52):
publishing company, you have the publisher that you got to
get around except for when you and if you're when
you get to be great, just let you do whatever
you want to. But you figured out that they figured
out that you can edit things and take it out.
When you're out there independently, you're just putting things out.
Nobody told you it wasn't good enough. You liked it,
maybe your immediate friends liked it, so nobody told them.
But aside from the fact that streaming pays nothing near

(59:17):
what it should, and as when I was on the
board of the Nationale Songwriter Association, we fought we got
the Music Modernization Act, which increased what we were getting
by fifty percent over a five year period, and that
was great. I'm on the Songwriters Hall of Fame board
now and we're still fighting those same battles. But the
thing is, by the same token that a person can

(59:38):
put something down it's not good and they should spend
more time being better at their craft than doing it,
they also can put something out that could be good.
It's the same highways that the major people are using
and those things, and you know case and points we
were talking about earlier. I've been working with this band
out of Houston called Till You Ride and independent band.

(59:58):
I ended up going in cutting three sides on them,
and one of them got added to ninety three Q,
the largest radio station in Houston and the six that's
the sixth largest market, and a Billboard reporting station really
added it. So other stations are adding it because of
doing that and they came in to media base on

(01:00:18):
the charts, so some of those are going in addition
to promoters for just around there, and I didn't see
that happening.

Speaker 2 (01:00:26):
You know, radio is still a thing.

Speaker 6 (01:00:29):
Radio is still the thing radio, you know, I think
I think for me talking about radio totally going away,
it's kind of like when Nashville slowed way down and
they said that it was going to turn into Branson.
I think radio will still have its place. But radio

(01:00:51):
relies on the same most of the time, on the
same information or the same research being done at the
streaming level, and.

Speaker 7 (01:01:00):
All of it, all of it.

Speaker 6 (01:01:02):
All that actually really is is a loss leader to
get the artist booked. If an artist without radio can
go out and get an all, you know, get a
big audience, man, they could be playing anywhere because at
the end of the day, that's what your song really
does for an artist, is it's your leader to put

(01:01:24):
butts in the seats. That's where you really make money.
But without that they can't, you know, but your music
gets over there. And on an economic scale, the smallest
probably one of the smallest parts of their income compared
to the big things. But also there have been a
few that, you know, phenomenals that people have done without radio,

(01:01:46):
same thing, the streaming thing blew up Anthony Oliver. There's
been a few of those things where they it got
out there and did it. It brought him an audience,
and it's brought some people audiences that they couldn't have
if they were on a major label.

Speaker 7 (01:02:05):
No difference, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:02:06):
Yeah, there's a way to grow your audience now without.

Speaker 6 (01:02:09):
Zach Bryant would be a great example. Hundreds of millions
of streams playing stadiums without real real radio hit. But
but that's lightning in a bottle. But if you say
over catching lightning.

Speaker 7 (01:02:22):
In a bottle.

Speaker 2 (01:02:22):
I also think that some of the younger generation is
looking at getting attention versus money right now. They want
right they want the numbers instead of the dollars.

Speaker 6 (01:02:35):
Well, in the beginning, I just don't think you really
sort of know that much difference, because even if you
were just trying to get into a publishing company, you
you ain't gonna have no money anyway. Yeah, so I
think you just trying to figure out how to make
out to get well whether you do that, and the
way they've given them is, hey, man, let's look at

(01:02:57):
doing this, put these out, put the make an impact
over here, get on TikTok to. That seems to be
the way to some of them. And you know, as
a composed I mean as opposed to trying to get
a deal. But these days men deals work so great
and so differently to where there's collaborations. If you get

(01:03:18):
out and you got that backing, as Cody Johnson did,
you can come make a joint venture partnership with them.
If you do all that research and you happen to
put all those pieces in the place and prove yourself
as an act where you can do it. Labels can
come to the table and they'll just make you like
book high end book and agents. You know, if you
can sell fifty thousand copies Walmart can sell three million,

(01:03:41):
they could help push it that much further. But they
it's established that if people see you and hear your music,
they're drawn to it. It attracts people. You have an
audience out there, so they can push it and find it.
And you can have a lot of tools. I think
it's great. I think learning how to use them is
one thing. And when you I know a lot of people,

(01:04:01):
some I know as friends, some I don't. But then
you know, they come into town, say don't live here,
come in every you know, once a month or whatever,
and write up something recorded while they're here and release it.
And they've got, you know, minimal numbers of different things.
But they really haven't moved the doubt for themselves because
they have not gotten into higher collaborations or they have

(01:04:24):
not written anything that would be great. It's not to
say that they want the very next time, or it's
not to say that they wouldn't write it even by themselves.
That it jumps up, but somebody somewhere in there, A
lot of them don't have somebody to tell them that's
not good enough.

Speaker 2 (01:04:42):
And I think that's important. And it's interesting that I
think that some especially younger, like more maybe immature culturally speaking,
would take offense to that, what do you mean my
songs aren't good enough to write out? What does that mean?

Speaker 8 (01:05:04):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:05:05):
Well, we live in a society for the last twenty
years or whatever. That's like everyone gets a trophy for trying,
right And in real life, is your song's not gonna
hit if it's not good.

Speaker 6 (01:05:16):
It's just not good enough, And a lot of them
singing it aren't good enough, right, they're good. It's just okay.
It's so much talent around this pool toil you realize
you're just okay. But you know, it'd be like running
against somebody that can run a quarter of a mile,
you know, but before you can get halfway down the thing.

(01:05:38):
And professional athletes they're just way way better because they
were built for that and they have trained to that,
and you're not.

Speaker 7 (01:05:45):
Going to keep up that way. You know they can
do it.

Speaker 6 (01:05:48):
I mean, you know, I like playing golf, but nobody's
gonna pay me to play. I can guarantee that.

Speaker 2 (01:05:52):
Yeah. See, I mean you got to know where to
draw the line for yourself and is this something I
enjoy or is this going to be a job?

Speaker 7 (01:05:59):
Right?

Speaker 6 (01:05:59):
Because the thing about the job when people ask all
the time, I mean anything that becomes a job is yeah,
you will enjoy it, but you are going to be frustrated.
And then you're not going in every day just smiling
and being great because you realize by now, as a job,
you just can't go in and write what your dear
heart feels off the top of your head if it's
not great, and if you can't make it great, you

(01:06:21):
can't even get that job much, let's keep it.

Speaker 2 (01:06:23):
Yeah, and I'm sure you've had tons of code writes
where you wake up the day and you don't feel
like writing. Oh yeah, you know, just like any other job.

Speaker 7 (01:06:31):
Yes, my I think you know.

Speaker 6 (01:06:33):
The thing that really really pushed it over for me
is in the beginning, like people do, when you have
more time than connections or money, you sit around and
get a lot of starts and dig for ideas, and
then you get going and then they slap you on
a writing trip in La someplace where you're meeting people
you've never met, and you didn't have time to go
get all these ideas. And once you ever go in
a room and figure out, hey, man, I can go

(01:06:55):
in here basically unprepared and make it happen.

Speaker 7 (01:06:59):
Yep, that's the thing that.

Speaker 6 (01:07:01):
Really sets you free, because you're just freaked out up
until that point. It's like, dear god, I didn't even
just get an idea, my god, maybe much less a start,
and you just go and this is important, and you
just freaked out. And once you go into that and
pull that off, you realize that it's in you. You
know you could the well is deeper. You know you
wouldn't make that practice if you could. But you are

(01:07:23):
going to come in the situations where that's going to happen,
and you're going to do it. And as a matter
of fact, new writers, a good thing to know is
a lot of times when established writers are too busy
and they're you're doing this. If a guy's a lyricist
and they get win of the fact that he has
a lot of great ideas, they'll pull him into these
rights because they don't have one. That's his card for
getting in. They can write it and he can too,

(01:07:45):
but they have that skill set. But a lot of
people I know, you know friends that that was their
calling card when they got signed to a place like
Sony Tree and joint venture with another writer artist company
that that they got. He started getting the call when
the other guy who was the big guy, didn't we

(01:08:06):
call and go, hey, man.

Speaker 7 (01:08:06):
I got some one some money and got no ideas.

Speaker 6 (01:08:08):
You got any ideas once you come in and write
with us, And that became his calling card. But sit
around and get good ideas and good hooks. And he
was a great lyricist. But that becomes a calling card
because you're going to be moving fast when you go
same as artists after that first record there after, if
they're successful, they're moving fast. They don't they don't have
as much time as they had the right and so
when they show up, you need to have the goods

(01:08:30):
because the person right down the street is going to
have them.

Speaker 7 (01:08:32):
Somebody's going to have them.

Speaker 6 (01:08:34):
And you know, the natural law of attrition is, no
matter how you think of it, no matter how you
you know, love or don't whatever, it's got to work
or you have to move it into the hobby category.
You know, it's got to work or you can't do
it professionally for at make a living.

Speaker 2 (01:08:53):
Yeah, that's good advice. Thanks so much for being here. Yeah, man,
where can people find out about you? What do you
got coming up?

Speaker 7 (01:09:00):
Well, you know, I like to keep things close to
the best, but I'll share a few things.

Speaker 6 (01:09:04):
Like this band I'm working with out a Texas Till
you Rite loved those guys we just started. I was
introduced to them like glass Fall and listened to their
stuff and they'd cut a song that I've written like
ten years ago with a friend of mine and she said, hey,
this band cut this song. She sent it to me
and she said, what do you think about it. I said,
it's terrible. She said, oh, they need a producer they

(01:09:26):
could pay. I wish you'd take a meeting. And I
was like, I don't think. I dont know if I
have time to do this. But I met with him,
liked them. We went in cut and they weren't terrible.
It turns out that they were trying to record in
some studio down there where you know, nobody knew what
they were doing, including them trying to play on it themselves,
and taking you know, months to complete two songs and so,

(01:09:50):
but their song we cut it a guy on the
radio down there in Houston. Now it's popping on other
radio stations. And I managed the band and they're gigs
are just going crazy and that I really love. And
also working with another friend of mine on aipop artists
that way. He's got an artist that's signed to Atlantic

(01:10:11):
New York and we're meeting with his other artists on Thursday.
That I found that I think is great and I think,
you know, she's nineteen and great voice, right, she's written
all of our songs by herself, never collaborated yet. And
the talent that sent it to my friend, and it
was just like, hey man, Wow, let's dude, I think
this is really cool. And so as you listen to

(01:10:31):
all these new people, it's great when something does come
across that fires you up and excite to you. And
so also in my production company, another artist named Forty
Hayes from Mississippi, IRV Woolsey, George's great manager that passed
away last year, was working with him. So I got
brought in to produce some sites on him and we're

(01:10:53):
working on that.

Speaker 7 (01:10:54):
Very excited.

Speaker 6 (01:10:55):
Always excited with sitting down writing songs with signed artists,
you know, with Chris Young or Lee Brice or some
of the new ones. Mays is that I'm excited about
people that you do know, but that have deals. They've
already done the heavy list, and so that's always a
part of my workflow in addition to producing.

Speaker 7 (01:11:15):
In addition to the business side.

Speaker 6 (01:11:17):
You know, I'm talking to two other people about the
management company I have. It's just my set, but we're
thinking about two other people that structures it, and one
of them manage a great, big rap artist. He's got
toured down the other ones in Atlantic Atlanta. You know,
it's done stuff in the hip hop and the Christian world.

(01:11:37):
And it's won a couple of Grammys. So we bring
three different things to the table that we like and
we're in the process of structure in that as well.

Speaker 7 (01:11:46):
So it's always something. You got a lot going on,
always something.

Speaker 2 (01:11:49):
And then you got to make room for hanging out
with me at Red Door.

Speaker 7 (01:11:52):
I got to make room for hanging out with you
at Red Door. I got the wrong color cut, but
I got it.

Speaker 2 (01:11:56):
It's all right. At this point, I should have a sponsorship.

Speaker 6 (01:11:59):
Yeah, we should have a retirement fund that they should
be shaving off a little bit for us.

Speaker 2 (01:12:05):
Absolutely well, thanks so much, Anthony Smith. Everybody go check
them out. Look up his song kind of log It's insane.

Speaker 6 (01:12:12):
Oh Anthony Anthony L. Smith Music. There you go Instagram,
all right, go check that out. Thanks for having me,
Brandon oh Man, thank you for man.

Speaker 3 (01:12:20):
All we ache other geers.

Speaker 2 (01:12:24):
And song Pork Tapes is produced by Me Brandon Carswalk,
filming and editing by Sean Carswalk Special thanks to Anthony Smith.
You can find him on Instagram at Anthony L. Smith Music,
and thanks to Nick Autry and Soundstage Studios. Don't forget
to like and subscribe to work Tapes wherever you listen

(01:12:45):
to podcasts,