September 21, 2025 • 47 mins
Brett James, the Grammy Award-winning songwriter behind some of country music’s biggest hits, including “Jesus Take the Wheel” and “I Hold On,” was killed in a plane crash in North Carolina on Thursday. We wanted to take a look back on when Brett stopped by the BobbyCast in 2022. Brett was a Grammy award-winning songwriter, has had more than 500 cuts, appearing on albums with combined sales of over 110 million copies, and 27 No. 1 hits. Brett had a fascinating journey to Nashville. He talked to Bobby about how he went from medical school to pursuing a career as a solo country artist in the 90’s. Brett shared how it all started with him writing one song that led to him getting major cuts for Carrie Underwood, Kenny Chesney, Rascal Flatts, Dierks Bentley and more. RIP Brett James.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, guys, Bobby here, We're going to do a Brett
James replay of an episode we did a few years ago,
and so it's a remembering episode of Brett James. A
lot of people had messaged me going, hey, did you
do a podcast with them?
Speaker 2 (00:11):
And or they didn't know how to find it.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
So we're just going to repost it back up at
the top and just talk for a second before we
get back into it. This episode is remembering Brett James,
who I'd done this podcast with him. I'd worked with
him a couple times after we had recently done.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
The movie theater show.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
I was Brett and a couple other writers, myself and
from Nashville. We had a bunch of accomplished songwriters playing
songs and it was going into movie theaters all over
the country. Kind of an experimental deal. But Brett was
super kind, obviously super successful, very well loved. He had
released a handful of country songs before it really took
(00:50):
on the I mean, so successful songwriting career that people
know him for now. Brett James dinged a plane crash.
According to reports, a small plane went down in Macon
County near Franklin, North Carolina. Around three pm on Thursday.
Brett was flying with his wife and his twenty eight
year old daughter, who had just celebrated her birthday, and
(01:10):
the plane crash and killed them. Brett James was a
Grammy Award winner and a member of the Nashville Songwriters
Hall of Fame. He was credited on nearly five hundred
songs recorded by artists from way different genres, massive hits.
He was a writer for Jesus Take the Will and
Cowboy Casanova, for Carrie Underwood, When the Sun Goes Down,
(01:33):
for Kenny Chesney, The Truth for Al Dean, so many more,
you know, even songs for non country artists like Kelly Clarkson,
the Backstreet Boys, bon Jovi, and others. Brett James was
fifty seven years old, so it had been three years
or so since he was in with me. He stopped
by in twenty twenty two, and I had heard that
Brett was super cool, super nice, but also like super cool,
(01:55):
like perfect hair, leather jacket, but like once you met him,
like you understood that's why you liked him, Like it
wasn't some fake persona that he put on. And he
showed up in a motorcycle to my house, and he
literally drove up boom boom boom by himself, parked right outside,
and he came in and we talked about at the
(02:16):
time he had twenty seven number ones hit six in
one year back in two thousand and nine, and you're
gonna hear all this, but we talked about how he
went from medical school to pursuing a career as a
solo country artist in the nineties, winning a Grammy. So
I want to take a look back and remember Brett James.
This is from episode three seventy. Rest in Peace of
(02:37):
Brett James, super super loved, wildly beloved in Nashville, and
not just the songwriters but the artists. You could see
everybody posting very heart felt messages after Brett had passed away.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
So here he is Brett James.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Hey, Brett's So when Mike reached out, he said, and
what he often does with folks, they said, hey, what
are the number ones that you know? And you were like,
hold on a minute, because I looked at your lesson
number one you have twenty seven in counting.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Something like that. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
I mean, what a what a life that you have
so many massive songs that you get to forget some
of them.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
You know, it's you know, I just leave the listening
to somebody else, So I don't I don't try to
keep you know, I don't keep score.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
What does encounting mean? Is there anything right now that's.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
I don't have anything climbing right now. I my last
number one.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Was knowing you you're a real loser.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Then I I gotta get busy. We don't have.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Anything going for it at all.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
You had a solo deal way before you turned into
the great writer.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
I had a miserably failed solo dealer.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
But was it a miserably failed deal?
Speaker 4 (03:42):
Though?
Speaker 1 (03:42):
I mean, I would say otherwise, I mean to get
a deal first of all? Period incredibly different?
Speaker 3 (03:47):
Sure, yeah, so.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Was that deal in Nashville based deal?
Speaker 3 (03:51):
It was? It was? It was Arista Nashville based back
in nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
That's all was Arista, and obviously Arista as an imprint
outside of just country music. Sure, did you move to town
and then pursue a like a decrobed be a singer?
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Was out the idea?
Speaker 3 (04:06):
That was the idea? You know, it's it's a really
long story, but we have all the time for it.
There you go, well, I was in medical school. Just
like all good country.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Song, you're in medical school.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
I was to do what I was going to be
at an er doc. That was my kind of plan
for life. My dad and granddad were both docs, so
that's kind of grew up in that world. Wow. Yeah,
I just you know, that just seemed like the natural thing.
And and uh, my freshman year of med school in Oklahoma,
where I'm from, I go and I see it. You know,
I went to college in Texas and I grew up
in Oklahoma, so you know, I loved country music anyway.
(04:38):
But I went and saw Steve Warner concert one night.
Who's getting in the song right, A whole fame in
a month. I'm so excited because he's awesome. I go
see a Steve Warner show and kind of watched him
one night, and he's an amazing player. And I was like, Okay,
I'll never play guitar like that, but I think the
rest of it I might be able to do. And
so I kind of, you know, cause everybody that kind
of has that moment, I'm sure you had your moment
where you're like, this is what I can do. I
(05:00):
could be pretty good at it. And you know. That
was kind of my little moment where maybe I should
start writing songs in my free time. And so that's
what I did. I started writing songs my free time.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
And did you sing though? In high school? Like fifteen,
were you singing?
Speaker 3 (05:13):
You know, in church? Yeah? And I was in a
group that even traveled from church, we sing in other churches.
So I grew up singing in church, and that's how
I learned this thing. So I kind of knew I
could sing, But were you a celebrated singer at church?
Speaker 2 (05:24):
When the group would go on with it'd be like this,
this is a little breat little bread can sing.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Yeah, it was a little bit I was. I was
the guy who got most of the solos and stuff
like that. So yeah, a little bit I knew I
could sort of, you know, I was singing at high
school graduation and stuff like that, like a lot of
kids in high school. But I never you know where
I'm from, you don't. It's not on the list of
things you think you can do for a job. It's
not really one of those things in high school they say, yeah,
you should, you can do.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
This, you know, right, But your grandfather's a doctor, your
dad's doctor. Those are pretty practical jobs as far as
jobs that if you go to school and you study
and you get the right grades and you perform, you
get the job.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
You get the job. That's right.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
This industry is not that no in any way whatsoever.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
And so what did they say about when you finally
expressed to your dad even, Hey, I think I want
to not do medicine, right?
Speaker 3 (06:11):
You know? He was all about it, interestingly enough, because
he was kind of a frustrated singer himself, and in
you know, he'd been a doctor for a long time
by that time, and it had kind of changed, the
job description had changed. He was kind of like one
of these small town doctors who just you know, takes
care of the grandparents and delivers the grand babies and
everything in between. And he and just medicine had changed.
So he was a little like, go chase your dream.
(06:33):
That's what he was about. And that's what happened to me.
I came out here. I'd written, like, you know, ten songs,
and I put five of them. I literally took, you know,
my summer job money and paid for a little studio
in Oklahoma City and sent it to my one contact
in the music business. Who was my friend Deb from
college who was an intern in college radio promotion in
(06:54):
ann Arbor. So that was my you know, that was
my big end. But fortunately she gave it to her bab.
Her boss had been a big deal, and her boss says, well,
I'd like to manage you. When can you come to Nashville?
Speaker 2 (07:05):
So let me get this straight. So ann arbora Michigan.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
Right?
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Is that where?
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Right? That's where she was based.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Okay, that's not really that close to Nashville. No, So
who's her boss?
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Her boss is I think still lives here. A lady
named Marien Nally and Rereen had been a big A
and R person. She actually started the at CO record
label for Atlantic in New York.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
But did you live here?
Speaker 3 (07:25):
No? But she'd actually had some contacts here and she'd
done some really cool stuff with some bands from Nashville,
like she discovered in Excess and she she had had
some had a big career, and then gone back home,
moved back home to ann Arbor, and so she was like,
can I meet you in Nashville? I want to introduce
you some people. And anyway, long story shorts. I came
in here on spring break of my sophomore year, and
it was my third day. We met with a couple
(07:46):
labels and they kind of patted me on the head
and you know, sent me back and from that demo,
like they heard the demo, they met with you. Yeah,
mainly they met with me because they knew her. You know,
she got the meeting. So we go in, we play
the music and they're like, nice to meet you. We
have lunch, and you know, again sometime and then randomly
we're in another guy's office that she knows, and I
play some music for got him. Cliff aldwritch she might
(08:07):
know Cliff or his son Cliffy, And we're in his
office and I play some songs for him and on
this kid in a cowboy hat from Oklahoma, and he says,
I think you're pretty good. And this is the way
Nashville kind of worked back then. He literally got on
his landline, called up Tim Dubois and said, Tim, I
think I got a guy over here that's pretty good,
and Tim said bring him over. So literally ten minutes later,
(08:30):
I'm in the you know, the president of Arista's office,
Tim Dubois at the time, and they were crushing it,
you know, Alan Jackson and Brooks and Dunn and all
these acts. And I'm sitting in his office playing playing
music for him, And twenty minutes later he's like, mister,
I've never told anybody this, but if you moved to Nashville,
I'll give you a record deal.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Did you know how heavy it was the room?
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Not really. I don't think I had a clue how
big a deal he was at the time. You know,
I learned later, did you get.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
And I guess do you think your performance when per
forming in that room for Tim Dagwaw do you feel
like because you didn't really know, you were allowed to
just perform as you normally would.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
And if you did, actually knowing.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
You were educated on the process, maybe you would have
you'd been a little tight because.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Like I'm with the president of probably so exactly.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
It was probably nice that I didn't kind of, you know,
kind of gather how how important he was. You got
to deal that quick.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
I mean you weren't even living here.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Right, It was nuts? It was nuts. He and but
what was you know? I said, you know, he offered
me a deal, and I was like, well, I'm in
med school. I'm gonna have to think about it a
little bit. And he said, well, you're gonna have to
move here if you want to do this, you know,
And he gave me his, you know, home phone number
because nobody even had cell phones back then, said here's
my number, call me if you if you want to
do this. And what happened was I decided to take
(09:42):
a year off med school. I finished that year, I
took my medical board exams all that stuff, and the
day after I took my board exams, I moved to Nashville.
But I knew, like instinctively, I wasn't ready, you know,
to do this to I just you know, I'd written
ten songs and I just knew I wasn't ready. So
I got a job waiting tables and town Cafe, and so.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
You moved here, but you didn't take I.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
Didn't call him for nine months.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
So you moved here, I did.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
You went through with that part, the part that kind
of is hard, but the part that's kind of cool.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
He just died not to do yet.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Yeah, I just I just didn't think I was ready,
you know. I was like, I don't know who I am,
I don't know what I'm doing. I don't have a
clue about this business. And so I just started playing
you know, open mic nights, just like everybody else. And
and I you know, got like I said, waited tables.
And fortunately, you know, it was the early nineties. It
was a little different town back then. If you could
(10:35):
like play three cords and sing and he at all,
somebody'd give you a publishing deal. So I got lucky
that I got a publishing deal. About three months later.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Tim de Ball never walked into a restaurant like that's.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
He did not.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
He did not, And so I called him, like, you know,
finally I'd recorded some demos and kind of felt like
I was comfortable playing him some new music and called
him nine months later, said it had been a year
since I met with him and had that meeting, and
he I was like, I don't even know if you
remember who I am, But a year ago you told
me if i'd move here, you'd give me a deal,
is said, I remember you. So I came in and
he signed me, and that's the way that got started.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
So what happens then? So you have a deal, put
out a couple of songs. I'm gonna have them here.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
Failed miserably, Yes, just everything takes.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Fail because I can tell you from just a personal experience.
Like I had a show we were we had tried
to pilot for it, the networks about to pick it up.
Then they changed all of the executives. Sure, so they went, ah,
this wasn't our show, so we're not going to go
through with it.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
So I can go, well, that failed miserably, or I
can go, well, the reason I.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
Never got a shot is because it's not It's not
anybody's fault exactly, And you know, that whole thing just
wasn't meant to be looking back, you know, I was trying.
I mean, we were doing radio tours. We're going to
see all the stations and they're all telling me they're
going to play the records, and then they don't, you know,
and that happened to lots of artists.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Were heartbroken when that deal didn't work out.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
You know, it wasn't heartbroken. It was more like, because
it didn't, it kind of drug out. It was about
a five year period of it not working because put
out a couple singles, they don't work. Then you go
back in and make another album, you change producers. You're
kind of you know how that that game works with artists.
You're just trying to figure it out. And when it
finally went away, it was literally five years later, and
(12:14):
I was not heartbroken, but I was, honestly, I'd be embarrassed.
It was sort of like, you know, weren't you the
guy that was supposed to you have your You had
a ceed in Walmart for a minute, you know, And
I remember being on music row and walking into like
publishing Coveing just being like embarrassed, like kind of feeling
like that's the guy that didn't work and he's washed
up now, you know. It was real, It was a
real thing.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Was there ever a time that you purposefully said, well,
I'm going to pivot because because you had to also
decide not to pursue it anymore, even if you don't
have a deal. Like I've had friends who have had
deals and they've gone away or they've lost it, or
and they go, Okay, well I can do it independent,
I can go sign somewhere else. I cannot do it.
Some of them have become wonderful songwriters. Sure, Like, what
(12:56):
was that moment for you and how did you make
that decision?
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Well, it was a little different. It was a little
different pivot for me. I was it was nineteen ninety nine,
I'd been in Nashville for seven years and had lost
my record deal and my publishing deal had gotten cut
by like two thirds. You know, when I was the
early twenties, I'm making great money because everybody thought I
was going to be Tim was telling everybody's gonna be
Garth Brooks. So I had this, you know, some some
good money and all that stuff happening, and all of
(13:19):
a sudden, it's nineteen ninety nine and I'm like, I
think I'm almost thirty years old, and I have two
little babies. And I literally walked into Target one day
and almost if I've ever had a panic attack, this
was it. I was standing in Target and I'm in
the like the kid's clothing, and I see this little
pair of, you know, one year old tennis shoes, and
I looked at him. I was like, and I'd really
(13:41):
like to buy those for my kid, but I can't
afford them. And I'm not going to live like this.
And so I decided then and there that I was
going to figure something out. But all I'd ever done
was go to med school and be a songwriter. And
so I literally snail mailed to med school a letter
and said, you're only supposed to get one year off.
(14:01):
I've been out for seven Is there any chance I
can get back in? You know? And the Dean Snail
mailed me back and she said, well, you've been out
a long time, but yes you can come back, but
you got to start. You have to repeat your sophomore year.
Oh wow. And so I did that. I went back
to med school after being in town for seven years
in nineteen ninety nine. And you know, my ex wife
(14:24):
now and kids stayed here in Nashville to sell the house.
So I just went back. I moved in with my
parents who lived there, and started back to med school,
you know, at thirty as a sophomore, you know, just
and it was it was a huge relief. I was like, man,
you know, I gave Nashville a shot. But at least
I know I'm going to be able to feed my kids,
(14:44):
and that that's you know, at some point when you're dead,
that's all that matters in the world, and that's all
that mattered to me, you know. And but what happened
was God sort of had another plan. I went back
to med school in September first, still had a I
had a year left on a publishing deal and they
were really cool. I said, well, just keep writing, maybe
something will happen. I go back to med school in
September first, and Faith Hill cuts one of my songs
on September fourth on her Breathe album, and then ended
(15:06):
up getting thirty three cuts in the next nine months, Wow,
and had five top ten singles.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
So thirty three cuts of songs you'd already written mostly
and some had written.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Somebody was writing in med school. I had a dear
friend who's a huge hit songwriter named Troy Vergess, and
he was a kid like twenty three or four at
the time, and he decided we started to get hot
as a as kind of a writing team, and so
he would come out to Oklahoma and we'd write songs
out there. So a lot of those were new songs
that I'd go to Med school till two and he'd
be waking up, you know, and then we'd write until
(15:36):
we write songs, and I'd come I'd fly back into
Nashville and we'd demo them up and that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
So you were hustling pretty hard.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Yeah, I was hustling pretty hard.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
So what was the Faith Hill song?
Speaker 3 (15:44):
It was a song called love the Sweet Thing. It
was not a single, but it was on that album
that her Breathe record.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
But that's probably I mean, really, when you think about
the songs, I mean I could list every number one
of the ten million you have, that's probably, when you
look back, one of the most important songs to your
entire career.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
Oh. Absolutely. It kind of started opening doors and I
kind of found the right publishing situation. I worked with
a girl named Kelly King who was my song plow
and Mark Bright who but Kelly was my song plugger.
She's still around Nashville as well. And uh, you know,
it was just amazing because I was kind of her
only writer, and so I'd write songs and she'd kind
of get them out there, and you know, I'd be
It was a it was a crazy time because I'd
(16:18):
be literally studying for a pathologies and examine the library
and I'd get a call on my flip phone, Hey, Brett,
you know Tim McGrath, just cut tell your rider Martine
and provide, just cut blessed or whatever. And I was like,
you know, there's there's nobody around a high five with
I'd just kind of like do a little dance in
the in the library.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
And call it so is my assumption that you didn't
finish medical school.
Speaker 4 (16:37):
I didn't you and quit again, which was more years
out of your belt exactly, and took exams and then
I had an interesting conversation with that Dean. No, that
was an interesting So because the legal rules, we can
only play five seconds of music at this point, but
we're gonna hit five seconds hard, Mike, are you ready?
Speaker 3 (16:52):
Okay?
Speaker 1 (16:53):
This was your first number one. This is Jess Andrews
Who I Am. That's a song that still today is
played as what they call a recurrent because it was
such a big song from those early two thousand years.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
And that's your first number one.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
It was the first number one. Yeah, it was you
know what a blessing it was? It was.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
It was awesome when you wrote the song.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Was it just one in a mix or did you go, Man,
if somebody just gets that's always my question because some
songs like you know, it's just another one. We just
wrote it and thought what about?
Speaker 3 (17:27):
We thought that one was special. Quite honestly, you know,
I wrote that back to med school. I wrote that
in my parents' kitchen with Troy Urgis after I'd gone
to class one day and we had heard there was
a new artist, nam Jessic Anders, who was looking for
a you know, a kind of a female anthem. And
I remember I spit out, like what about we wrote
(17:47):
it just called who I Am and like I am
And literally the first thing I said was Rosemary's granddaughter,
and and Troy said spitting image of my father, and
were like on our way and and uh, Troy's girlfriend
at the time, who's now a Hall of Fame songwriter,
Hillary Lindsay, she wasn't even writing, but she she was
kind of enough to sing the demo for us on
(18:08):
that song. And so after Hillary saying it, we knew
there was something special about it. And then Jessica did
an amazing jump.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Did you feel.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
When you weren't focusing strictly on performance and your vocal
and your just you know, your record deal, when you
just focused on writing that you became a better writer.
Did you always feel like you were a really good ride?
Like when did you start to feel like, Okay, I'm
actually competitive and if I focus this right, I'm great.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
I don't think. I don't think I still feel that way,
Thank you. I'm still working on that one. But you
know what, what Troy and I kind of what what
what going back to med school did for me was
free me up a lot. You know. It was sort
of like a creative thing where it was, Okay, now
(19:02):
my kids are gonna get fed. I'm not I'm not
just struggling trying to I'm not dying to try to
get the next George Straight cut so that you know,
I can feed the family anymore. I have a job,
I have a plan, and so I'm gonna kind of say,
you know, screw it, you got to play loose, got
to play loose. I said, screw it, and let's just
write what we love. And that's really what happened that year.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
I mean that, that's a bizarrely remarkable story. That one
you go to med school, you quit med school, you come,
you get a deal, you go back to med school,
you quit med school after and.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
Got another record deal. By the way, I signed another
record deal with Arista again after that year of med school.
And it's like that one failed miserably too. So here
we go.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
This is a wild story.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
It's like you keep not the same, but you keep
marrying your ex wife over and over again.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
A different one.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
It's like different different X wives, but you keep marrying. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
just looking at some of the accolades, like the big accolades,
like you hit. Yeah, it's six number ones in two
thousand and nine. And I had to look again three
times to make sure I'm not reading all the numbers
wrong because six and nine are upside down. But I
think you had six number ones in two thousand and nine.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
I think I did.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
That's I can't believe that, and I can because I'm
looking at it. But when I read it, I was like,
am I looking at this right?
Speaker 3 (20:14):
Six?
Speaker 2 (20:15):
I turned the screen nine.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
I want to roll through these quickly in this year
of two thousand and nine, all six of these number ones.
Rodney Atkins, It's America, Kenny Chesney Out Last Night, Carrie Underwood, Cowboy, Casanova,
Chris Young, the Man I want to be masking, Jason Aldean,
(20:41):
The Truth, Rascal Flats, Summer Nights.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
And I'm tired of reading them all there like that
in a row.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
So whenever you have this many number ones in a row,
is it's so hard to write because everybody wants to
write with you.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
Oh that's never that's never a bad thing. If everybody
wants to write with it.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
It's like, and I've had brief parts of my career
where you're the shiny toy for a second, everybody wants
to play with the shiny toy. Sure, when you start
to have this unparalleled success writing two thousand and nine,
two thousand and eight, I mean, and even go backward,
I mean, is it people constantly calling going, Hey, I
just love to get on your calendar some point, even
if it's six months from now.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
Yeah, I mean, yeah, that's what happens. And that's a
fun place to be, you know, because you kind of
get to pick and choose who you want to work
with and get to, you know, you know, do do
the days you love and not not do as many
as of the days that you don't. And it's it's
a pretty cool, you know thing. But you know, I
always say that, you know, in the music business, it's
like most businesses, it's you know, it's who's Brett James,
(21:38):
Get me Brett James, Give me the next Brett James.
Who's Brett James. Yeah, that's kind of the that's the
arc of most careers, you know, and I think you
have to kind of I always tell the writers that
I work with. I've had a publishing company for like
fifteen years, so I get to be around young writers
and I'm like, you're never as hot as you think
you are when you're hot, and you're never as not
when you're not, you know, And I think you kind
of have to learn to have some thick skin and
(21:59):
not to not to think you're so cool when things
are working, so that when things aren't working, you don't
get in the dumps either, you know. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (22:06):
And I tell new artists or just as an example,
we had a group that was in a Cohen. I
was talking to them and they'd had some success on television,
and it's like, when you get to be shiny for
a second, make all the relationships that you can. Yeah,
make all the relationships to you because it's not going
to change your life just to be cool for a second.
(22:28):
But the relationships that you make and that you keep
will actually help you through your career for a long time.
So just don't go like I'm cool now, who wants
to work with me? It's like dig in. Find your
spots that you're finally allowed to get. They're very important.
Make a few real strong connections, Like I was like
with the opry, you're doing with the opry now?
Speaker 2 (22:45):
Yeah, like really value.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
That connection because maybe they wouldn't have got to look.
We don't ever get a look any of us until
we have some sort of success. Sure, but it's like,
what do you grab onto and really develop out from
this moment that you're successful?
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Cool?
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Whatever word you want to use there, And that's exactly
and that's what I was telling them too. It's like,
you know, you're you feel everybody on social mediaelling you
they love you. Probably not that cool right now, but
when you were, when you're not cool again, you're probably
not that not cool again exactly because are a lot
of people that still think you're awesome. Sure, it's the
never too high and never too low, you know what.
I try to My therapist though, tells me that I
am on a straight line, regardless of all the time
(23:19):
I've never hired, all never live, I never really.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
Yeah, yeah, sometimes I'm going to get to interview you
about that.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
I don't go up or down, And I think it's
I always want because you can't really experience like true
happiness if you can't feel some sadness, right it's almost
it's almost an equal scale, like if you can let
yourself feel, you get to feel way down.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
Or way up.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Sure, and so I have trouble feeling the sad I
think probably from childhood trauma.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
So I don't ever feel.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
Good about I'm a lot that same way. Yeah, I
think I'm very much the same way. I think you
just kind of find your I think, and I think
men are more likely to be that way than I'm
a straight lined I don't go up. Yeah, I'm kind
of that same way, and I do think that in
maybe especially actually on the songwriting side of things and
the artist's side of things, you have to be that
way because you know, there's always another single that you're
(24:07):
either it's either winning or it's losing, or there's always
another you know, cut that you're either getting or you're
not getting, and you know you have to come there.
And in the songwriting side, it most of the time
it's not Most of the time it's disappointment, you know,
And so you have to kind of just just learn
to to love what you do and not not feel
too high too low. I don't think because if I
(24:29):
if I felt it all, I'd go crazy.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Oh, I mean, in a creative world, if you let
the low's dominate you, because it's it's low eighty five to.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Ninety percent of the time.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
If you're if you're succeeding, if you're if you're crushing
it exactly.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
If you're sixty, if you know, and I think you'll
understand this probably better than even I do.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
But it's like at times people will be like, man,
you're really killing it.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
But I'm like, if you guys had any idea how
much how many no's I get, or or what I
wanted and didn't get, or how glamorous it looks and
it ain't.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
You know, that's a lot of what we do.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Absolutely, it's getting beat up most of the.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Time, and it's getting back up when you get beat up, course,
and staying up just long enough to finally get a
bite the worms exactly, you know, finally bite the one exactly.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
What was that in your mind? What was the more well,
I can't believe this just happened moment.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
Was it that year two thousand and nine or was
it one of the grammy with carried back a few
years before that?
Speaker 3 (25:22):
Man? You know, all of those are great. You know,
I don't think we knew when Jesus Take the Wheels happened,
and how you know what a big deal it was,
you know, Quite honestly, I don't think it kind of
hit me that, well, this is I'm gonna be talking
about that song in twenty twenty two. You know, seventeen
years later, you still play that one. If you play
usually almost I'm almost always. I feel like if I don't,
it's somebody's gonna throw something at me. But yeah, I
(25:46):
think both us both those moments were great, and both
those years were great.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
Yeah, but if you had to, if we had to
eliminate one, somebody shows up with the old men in
black thing that goes, all right, I'm gonna make you
forget one of them, which you know, I.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
Got to be songwrit of your twice and that's that's
a really fun cool thing because it's kind of based
on more body of work than just one song, you know,
And I think that was Those Those are pretty special
trophies to me.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Where do you have the Grammy at your house?
Speaker 3 (26:10):
It's in my office. Actually, yeah, it's my office.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Do you pet it?
Speaker 3 (26:15):
I kiss it? I do not. I do not. I
wish I had more than one let's put it that way.
But you know there's people that have lots. I got
to work at Alison Kraus's house the other day with
her son, and you know Alison, you know, she's so sweet.
She just brings his coffee. You know, I'm just like
someone with twenty eight Grammy's just gave me coffee. And
that's That's just a cool thing.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
What is it for you?
Speaker 1 (26:42):
You go, Wow, this is cool where most people maybe
wouldn't think that.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
You think it's the coolest thing.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
And now I give you an example as you think
about the answer, because it's a tough one. I got
on an airplane once and Barry Switzer was on and
from Arkansas and he was a played at Arkansas, you know,
coach the Cowboys, coach Oklahoma, and I was like, just
the freaking coolest thing ever. And I would tell my
friends that'd be like, I don't I don't really fall sports.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
I don't care right that kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
But I'm like, this is so cool and that's not
even something that I like earned or deserve. I interviewed
Dan Patrick am I Sports show the other day and
I'm like, this is the coolest thing. And I tell
people like, yeah, I don't know, but to me that's
like legit, Like that's the coolest thing.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
What for you?
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Who is it or what happened where You're like, this
is like different world and never thought i'd be here,
But most people probably won't even think it's as coolest
I do.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
Well, it's funny because the one that pops in my
head is not about a superstar. You know, it's a
because you know, like you said, I've gotten to be
around Garth and Sting and some pretty you know Taylor
and people like that. He's just like that's just insane,
you know, you'd even think about it. Like literally, I'm
at the NSCA, I think two weeks ago, and I
hadn't I was Taylor's you know, producer when she was
(27:51):
like thirteen, you know, you know, before she came back
and had their success, and and I'm walking down the
back hall and Taylor just steps out of her saying
and sees me. She's like Brett, you know, it's like
old home with you know, Taylor Swift, which is pretty
crazy because I have a daughter who worships everything everything
Taylor Swift. But for me, the moment that strikes me,
he's like, you know, I'm convinced that whoever your superstar
(28:12):
superhero was when you're like in fourth or fifth grade,
is that person forever. And for me, it's a Christian
singer named Russ Taff and you probably never heard of him,
but he was a big deal around like in Christian music.
And I'll never forget the only time I ever got
superstarstruck I was I was writing a song with Marcus
Hummon at his house in like the nineties, and I
(28:32):
didn't know Russ Taff was his next door neighbor, or
I would have stalked him. And so I'm sitting there
with Marcus when we're writing a song and Russ Taff
walks in. They're best friends. He goes, hey, your dog's
in the yard again. He's like, you got any coffee made?
You know, kind of kind of like that, and Mark say,
he's like this coffee in the kitchen and Russ, this
is Brett And I literally just cried. He didn't know
(28:53):
what I'm doing. It's like a Tuesday afternoon. Who was
And I literally tears just came to my eyes And
all I could say was like, you're my hero, you know?
And I think that it's those moments that kind of
you know, catch you off guarden and that make me go, wow,
I can't believe I've gotten to do this.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
Yeah, that stuff to me, it's like what a Like
that's for example, I get to go and I'm a
big Arkansas guy.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Grew up in Arkansas.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
We didn't have a lot of money, and so I
maybe would get to go to one game a year.
But now it's like when I get to go back
and even just get to go in the locker room,
I'm just like, I cannot believe.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
This isn't cool.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
But my friend's like, but you get to like it
doesn't matter all that other stuff I do all the time.
Like this to me is like there's a lot of
value in this because when I was nine, this is
what I dreamed of was being here at this place
looking at these lockers, and for you it was Russtaft.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
Well and very Swiss. Would be it for me too.
I mean, I grew up in the in the seventies
in Oklahoma. Man, there's nothing nothing, There was nothing bigger
than Barry Switzer a sports guy.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Huge, Yeah, what what what's your sport and team?
Speaker 3 (29:50):
And I'm a college football free you know. That's really
what I come back to as always college football. Baylor
and I went to Baylor undergrad and went to O
you two, and I grew up in Oklahoma, So Baylor,
I know you were my two two main teams. But
I've adopted a few mothers. Might got a son at
Auburn now, so I'm rooting for Auburn. And but yeah, Baylor,
know you.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
Yeah, I see you drove up on a motorcycle.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
I did, and I'm scared to death of a lot
of things, including motorcycles. You have to watch out for
so many things when riding a motorcycle. Yes, and there
and so many of those things are idiots. Oh and
there's an unlimited amount of idiots.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
Yeah, it's it's I just pretend like every car is
gonna kill me. That's the way I ride a motorcycle. Literally,
I just as I'm driving, I'm playing this game like
like that one's gonna swerve into me, and this one's
gonna swear and the person behind me is not going
to know that I'm turning. So I just need to
expect that all the time. I mean, I think, and
I think, you know, and I ride it around town
at forty miles an hour. I don't I don't do
(30:43):
anything crazy on a motorcycle, but I like to put
around town. But you know that could be the most
dangerous time because you're right, there's so many stupid people.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
It's it's all the time.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
Everybody's on their phones now too, which is worse.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
You know, you know what the phones. That's a that's
a whole new last five year wrinkle, isn't it right?
Speaker 2 (30:58):
When did you start riding a motorcycle.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
About ten or twelve years ago something like that?
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Yeah, I bet the phones made it a lot more dangerous.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
Yeah, they have for sure, for sure.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
For sure you have the radio? Do you each o
the radio? Real out? I don't turn about, and you
got to have it that lad to hear it while
you're riding.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
But it's also like when you're slowing down, there should
almost be a that the volume turns itself down automatically.
Speaker 3 (31:19):
Wouldn't that be nice?
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Isn't that?
Speaker 3 (31:21):
Because I don't know because you pull up next to mo.
I don't turn my radio on everyone I ride because
I like to hear the other car that's about to
swerve into me and kill me. But as they all
will and I'm planning on it right, but yeah, I don't.
I don't turn it up at all.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
I want to play.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
I was looking through your entire catalog here and I
was trying to find the song because you have again
so many.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
The one that I.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Love, I think the most is one of your more
recent number ones. Is that Kenny Chesney knowing you because
I love Emo Kenny. I'm not really big into beach
Kenny because I don't like the beach that much. I
grew up in Arkansas, so I know I don't have
this affinity for the beach and we never went on vacation,
so I never went to the beach.
Speaker 3 (31:57):
I never thought. I never heard it called Emo Kenny,
but I get it.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
My favorite Kenny is Emo Kenny when he's singing sad
songs or slow songs. Yeah, and so knowing you, Mike,
if you're play some of this, but dude, it all.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
Damn was good.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
And how do you get a song to Kenny?
Speaker 3 (32:16):
Well, I'm lucky because I know Kenny pretty well. I
just texted to him, you know, I just texted to
his phone and he just says yes or no.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
If you send Kenny ten songs, how many yes? His
nos or and no responses.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
Oh wow. Well Kenny never says no. It's always a
no response, like he never says I don't like that one,
and I kind of I love that about him. You
just don't get anything bad. You know, you never go
You never hear that that totally sucks. Would you leave
me alone? That's good that he doesn't do that. It's
usually no response and out of you know, I would
say it's one out of twenty really that you get Yeah,
(32:50):
I'm into that or I'm not into that. But Kenny
has He's such a song guy. He texted me day
before yesterday about a song that I'd played for him
seven or eight years ago, and he's like, you still
have that version? That's a duet and blah blah blah
blah blah. He never forgets a song. It's incredible.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
And did you still have the version?
Speaker 3 (33:06):
I did?
Speaker 2 (33:07):
And had anyone cut it?
Speaker 3 (33:08):
Nobody's cut it, so I'm hoping he will. Yeah, Caitlyn
Smith sing though, do wet on it. It's amazing.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
That'll sell it on the fence. That'll sell it pretty good.
Oldest song that was ever cut.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
Meaning you mentioned that six or seven years you wrote
a song X amount of years later it finally gets
cut and becomes a hit.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
What comes to your mind?
Speaker 3 (33:27):
There? The Truth pops into my head. We had written
I wrote that with Ashley Monroe, who I just love too.
We're actually getting ready to go to Brazil together the
writing trip.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Saw her three four days ago.
Speaker 3 (33:36):
Oh did you? Yeah? We had I love her, She's
the best, yeah, And I've known her since she was fifteen. Somehow.
I started working on her when she was really young,
and I think we wrote that song when she was
about sixteen or seventeen in my living room. And uh,
but you know, the Truth is kind of a weird song.
You don't really really know what it's about until the
very end of the song, the last two lines, which is,
you know, breaks every songwriting rule there is. And so
(33:59):
we wrote it and just said on shelves, and we
just thought it was never going to pop up, you know,
And all of a sudden, you know, like six or
seven years later, I don't even know how I was.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Gonna ask, how does this? I don't know long enough
to get around no clue.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
I have no idea how Jason ever heard that song,
but I'm glad he did. And he's sure, he sure
crushed it. And there was another one called You Saved Me.
There was a Kenny song that just got happened in
the same kind of deal. It was probably ten years old.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
What's in Brazil?
Speaker 3 (34:23):
You're going to going to a writing camp to write
Brazilian music in Portuguese? Of course we are. Why wouldn't
we be doing?
Speaker 1 (34:29):
You know, I thought you would go to Brazil to
write country music song for the country music people who
wanted to fly to Brazil.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
But I'm way wrong on that. So yeah, what how
and what why?
Speaker 3 (34:37):
It's a really long story. But we both write work
with a company called Warner Chapel here in town, big publisher,
and they have offices all over the world. And you know,
I get this email one day, Hey, do you want
to go to South Paulo to write this new kind
of Brazilian music that is apparently huge? Apparently this new
genre of Brazilian music is taking over the world or something.
(34:59):
And it's gonna be a little camp with like five
Nashville Riders and and studios, and you're gonna it's all
gonna be in Portuguese and you're gonna have translators. Wow,
I have no idea we're getting into.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
But so you haven't done this yet.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
I haven't done it yet. We're leaving a We're leaving Sunday, actually,
Ashley Monroe, Liz Rose, me and a couple other people
are gonna go down.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Because I's see what happens. Does it excite you a lot?
Speaker 3 (35:19):
Are you like it's just it's just you know, I
look at it like it's a cultural experience. I've never
been to Brazil and I've you know, don't know a
thing about the music. But I'm gonna do a lot
of I'm gonna educate myself before Sunday. Hopefully.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
Are you doing Rosetta Stone Portuguese?
Speaker 3 (35:32):
I am not at all knows I am not. I'm
doing dual lingo frends right now. I'm trying to learn. Friends.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
We had Dan Huff, and we've talked to Dan a
couple of times, and you know, he would talk about
how he'd be at an airport and hear a song
like I guess I dang, I really like that guitar part,
and later he'd later realized I was him who played it.
So you've had five hundred plus songs cut you ever
hear a song and not realize that it was yours.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
I have. I did it recently. I was with Drew Green,
an artists that I love and work with read he
was actually playing a wedding and we're at this wedding
somewhere in nowhere. They'd want they'd won the you know,
the one they'd won a contest, and so Drew's up
there singing and I heard this song. I was like, man,
I kind of like that, I kind of you know,
I think it's pretty cool, and somehow it was familiar
(36:16):
and it ended up being a Larry Fleet song that
I'd written just a few months ago, and I was like, oh,
that's why that's.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
You spent a bunch of years on the board for
the CMAS. So I have a heart hitting question here
is why have I been black bald so long to
be the host of the CMAS.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
You know, we've had discussions about you and it just
never goes the right way. I have no idea, and
I'm not on that board anymore now. Yeah, I don't
know have they ever? Have they talked to you about it?
Speaker 1 (36:45):
Because all I hear like through certain channels you've been
blackballed And I can't get down to the bottom.
Speaker 3 (36:50):
I don't can't believe that.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
Listen, I've had some pretty prominent folks there tell me off.
You said, like, you know, there's the systems holding you down,
and they won't exactly tell me who the system is.
Is it you on the spot?
Speaker 3 (37:05):
Yeah? No, you know it's funny, Mane may is like,
I have been on the board for a long time,
and I hear so many things about that board, and
yet they're all you know them all, they're all the
sweetest people.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Exactly who do I know?
Speaker 3 (37:19):
Somebody? Right, I don't know, I don't know. I'm sure
that's going to happen. Something has to happen somewhere.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
You just send me a little carrier pigeon and you
let me know. I'm going to get to the bottom.
I'm going to get to the bottom of desk. When
you're at the Grammys, did you get to sit by
anybody cool?
Speaker 3 (37:32):
Yes? Well the one time I ever got nominated for
the big like to get in the big room was
just amazing. That was for Jesus take to will We
won country song, but we were up for a real song,
and you know we got to sit like on the
fifth row and I was like in front of John
Mayer and behind John Legend, and you know it was
pretty heavy stuff, you know, and I would literally like breaks.
(37:53):
I would just get up and act like I was
just stretching my legs and just just to walk around
my section just to like just to see people.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
You know what I'm saying, You're everyone right now.
Speaker 3 (38:02):
You're I literally like, you know, you're not staring at them,
but you're getting to walk past, you know. I mean,
I remember justin Timberlake played twice that nine and stuff
like that. You're just like, Okay, I just gotta I
just gotta walk around a little bit, just to just
to see these people.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
Did you prepare a speech? No, you didn't, even just
a case.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
I didn't. I'm not a preparer, and I knew, honestly.
I wrote that song with Hillary Lindsay and Gordy Sampson,
and I knew I'd have to let Hillary do the
talking anyway, so it was all good.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
You say you're not a preparer, then let me put
this into your everyday practical life, when your professional practical life,
do you prepare notes for songs and ideas that you
have at this point?
Speaker 3 (38:38):
Absolutely not as much as I should And I think
that's one. I think that's that's a lesson for all
songwriters that I need to do better at because you
get old and you get lazy. You know. I always
I keep titles and concepts and you know, I'm always
putting them on my phone. But the really great writers,
the ones that everybody wants to write with, are the
ones that write walk in with something that's great and
(39:00):
it's you know, got a verse or got it's got,
it's got, it's got some real form to it. And
I can just say that that the young writers that
I know that are being super successful in Nashville right now,
they walk in the rooms really prepared, and I think
that's I think that's half the battle.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
Do you ever accidentally rewrite or have the same melody
of a previous song of yours because it is your
brain that had it initially?
Speaker 2 (39:29):
Does it ever come up again?
Speaker 1 (39:30):
You're like, oh, that I already do, because you have
so I said five hundred it's been cut.
Speaker 3 (39:34):
But I've written over four.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
That's what I'm saying, that's just been cut.
Speaker 3 (39:37):
It's kind of impossible not to to be honest with you,
especially because it's you know, but what what what you
try to do, having done it as long as I've
been doing, is try to find new lanes, you know,
new lanes that make your brain go different places so
you're not falling into the same you know, melodies that
that you have written before, and you know, so I
think that's the sort of the challenge I have, you know,
(39:58):
after you've written a lot.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
So you're this event we're talking about specifically, but just
when you go when you play a show with great
songwriters and you're showcasing the songs that have become hits
for you and you get four?
Speaker 2 (40:12):
What four do you play more than not?
Speaker 1 (40:15):
Are you? What are your mount rushmore of songs that
you play when you play.
Speaker 3 (40:20):
I almost always do Out Last Night because it's got
a fun story to it, and that's you know, you
know those shows, those stories are you know, those songs
are just as much about the stories.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
What's the story? Uh?
Speaker 3 (40:30):
The stories Out last Night was you know, it started
in my kitchen. I was standing in my kitchen on
Christmas Eve and my cell phone rang and you know,
the voice on the other end of the line, which
was Kenny, was like, hey man, you know, what are
you doing day after tomorrow? You know, and so I had,
you know, four children under the age of twelve at
the time, you know, and it's Christmas Eve, you know,
(40:51):
so the joke is well, of course, I said, well
nothing man, you know what you got in mind? Because
and he said, why don't we go down the islands
and write some songs? And so we did, you know,
because those four children know what pays for Christmas presents
around my house. I ended up in you know, the
Islands on December twenty sixth, and Kenny and I have
you know, we have we always have a good time together.
In this particular night, we made a night of it,
(41:13):
you know. And so I woke up the next morning
and I was I woke up way before he did.
I remember I just playing guitar and sipping coffee, and
a couple hours later, the sliding glass door to his bedroom,
you know, he kind of sticks his head out and
he's like, Brett, we went out last night, and I said, yeah,
we did, and that's the song we had to write today.
(41:33):
So that's how kind of out. We kind of wrote
it about the night before a little bit, and we
actually wrote two number ones that day. We wrote a
song called Reality that afternoon. Same day same day, it
was you guys should go out more greatest. I know, Kenny,
if you're listening act you need to go out more
and do this again.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
Okay, that's song number one. What's song number two?
Speaker 3 (41:52):
I almost always play mister Noah All by Kelly Clarkson
just because it's fun to sing and you know, no one.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
Maybe people don't expect you to sing.
Speaker 3 (41:59):
Anarks me to sing at Kelly Clay you wrote.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
I mean, I guess that's it.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
People don't expect you to have written a Kelly Clarkson
songs because you're a massive country music songwriter.
Speaker 3 (42:09):
I guess. So that's probably part of the reason I
played it is because you never know there's there may
be somebody in that audience. It's not a coutry music fan,
but they might have listened to Kelly Clarkson on pop
radio and so and it's just a fun really, you know,
it's such a weird song to sing because you know,
you write these songs as a middle aged dude and
then you're singing I Am Rosemary's Granddaughter in front of strangers,
(42:29):
or you know, mister Noah All in front of strangers.
But it's still fun, you know, and it's fun to
kind of be in character for that one and play that.
I almost always play the truth, just because I do
love that song. That's one of my one I'm most
proud of. And then I almost always and when Jesus
Take the Wheels, those are the four. That's probably about
about the four.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
Can you hit that when you're singing Jesus?
Speaker 3 (42:50):
Same? Not in her key? I can't gotta change the key. Yes,
it's fun. Yeah, Kerry songs are wow. You know, you know,
they're they're hard to they're hard to do live, you know,
but they're also really fun and challenging. Stefano and I
wrote one with her together called the Something in the
Water that's always really fun.
Speaker 1 (43:10):
I heard him, no, he played that next to me
once and then I just went, I'm gonna tap out
of this round and he had like.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
A drum under his foot.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
Yeah, And it came to me there and I had
this little funny comedy song I was and I was like, all.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
Right, let's just go ahead and skip me and go
over and I was just like, do you expect anyone
to play after that?
Speaker 3 (43:28):
No one likes?
Speaker 2 (43:29):
And why what's the junctaposition? In Chris and me.
Speaker 3 (43:31):
I'm the worst.
Speaker 2 (43:32):
I'm there for the last.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
You were so not.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
I'm just there to.
Speaker 3 (43:35):
Make people all different kind of entertainment.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
My friend, which song came back to you so different
sonically than you expected that we would know, like you
write it, you know, so we'll just John Smith has
cut the song. I thought, it's really cool. John spits
a great artist. They're probably gonna and you get it
back and you're like, wow, that is not my interpretation,
but it's amazing.
Speaker 3 (43:57):
What is that? You know? It's It's funny mentioned that
when when the first time I heard Jessica Andrews version
of of Who I Am? It was so different, and
I had such demo love for Hilary Lindsay's demo that
first time I heard it. I heard it on the
radio and I was like, I don't know, I don't
know if that's I don't know if they did that right.
(44:18):
Of course, it's Byron Gallimore. He's a freaking genius, so
of course they did it right, you know. But the
first time I heard that song, I was I was
kind of like just disappointed or just confused. I was like,
I don't know if this is going to work now,
And sure enough.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
It did, Sure enough, it did.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (44:33):
Uh spoiler alert, I was very wrong about Yeah, yeah,
yeah that did.
Speaker 2 (44:36):
Okay, look, let me promo the event again.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
It's a nonprofit aerial recovery, which is a really that's great,
that's you know, there's so much there that these men
and women invest so much of their time in life
to have the skill set that it's like they come
out of the military and then what did how do
they use it now?
Speaker 3 (44:54):
Yeah, you know, and they also do a lot of
other things. They have They have a center, it's it's there.
The two people that are head of it. One girl's
named Brittany Murphy. She's from Nashville and she's an amazingly
successful real estate developer. So she also has an island
in the bbis that is turned into like a therapy
center and they take you know, the one. That's just
(45:15):
one of the things they do is do all the
rescue missions. The other thing they do is a lot
of recovery for uh, you know, guys who are getting
out of the military not knowing what to do next,
or they're depressed or suicidal or whatever, and they go
down to this island and have counselors and all this
stuff and kind of you know, lots of training for
these guys, and it's just amazing what they're doing. I'm
I'm all in on this one. It's cool.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
November tenth, six thirty pm at the Bell Tower in
Nashville and there's a cocktail reception.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
It says heavy or darbs. I don't know the difference
the trades, just.
Speaker 3 (45:43):
Yeah, they got some put lead balls in. Yeah, I think.
Speaker 2 (45:48):
Listen.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
I hope people go check it out. But mostly I
hope people can appreciate just your story. I mean, it's
the if this isn't the story of how you never
really know and you have the liberty to pivot and
change engine figure it out.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
I don't know what is because I mean that's what
you did.
Speaker 3 (46:03):
We'll all learning, still still trying to pivot and change,
you know. I think that's an ongoing, ongoing thing for
all of us.
Speaker 1 (46:08):
At Brett James songs, Well, I only change because people
tell me I suck at one thing.
Speaker 2 (46:12):
I've never changed on purpose.
Speaker 1 (46:13):
I only change because it's like, you ain't good at
this anymore, and I'm like, God.
Speaker 3 (46:16):
That's usually that. I think the ticket for me has
been finding out that I suck at something soon enough,
you know, not wasting so much more time. I waste
a lot of time.
Speaker 2 (46:23):
And I'll be honest with you to me too at
Brett James songs. It's Brett. It's been a pleasure man.
Speaker 3 (46:27):
Thank you, Bob. I really appreciate the time, and congrats
on everything. I mean, your career is just insane. I
want to flip the switch sometime and do this interview
with you.
Speaker 2 (46:35):
Do you do you do a podcast?
Speaker 3 (46:37):
You have a podcast?
Speaker 1 (46:38):
Okay, all right, well we're just gonna interview and at
your house with no microphone.
Speaker 3 (46:42):
That's it. Just really no one.
Speaker 1 (46:48):
Brett. Good to see you, and thank you for the time.
And I hope, I hope this event goes wonderfully.
Speaker 2 (46:52):
And I don't know.
Speaker 1 (46:53):
If I see on the on the street, I'll block
for you. If I'm a car and I see you driving,
I'm gonna get beside sure nobody gets.
Speaker 3 (46:58):
Please, thank you. I need it, alright, thanks back, thank you. Mhmm.
Hey, guys, Bobby here, We're going to do a Brett
James replay of an episode we did a few years ago,
and so it's a remembering episode of Brett James. A
lot of people had messaged me going, hey, did you
do a podcast with them?
Speaker 2 (00:11):
And or they didn't know how to find it.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
So we're just going to repost it back up at
the top and just talk for a second before we
get back into it. This episode is remembering Brett James,
who I'd done this podcast with him. I'd worked with
him a couple times after we had recently done.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
The movie theater show.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
I was Brett and a couple other writers, myself and
from Nashville. We had a bunch of accomplished songwriters playing
songs and it was going into movie theaters all over
the country. Kind of an experimental deal. But Brett was
super kind, obviously super successful, very well loved. He had
released a handful of country songs before it really took
(00:50):
on the I mean, so successful songwriting career that people
know him for now. Brett James dinged a plane crash.
According to reports, a small plane went down in Macon
County near Franklin, North Carolina. Around three pm on Thursday.
Brett was flying with his wife and his twenty eight
year old daughter, who had just celebrated her birthday, and
(01:10):
the plane crash and killed them. Brett James was a
Grammy Award winner and a member of the Nashville Songwriters
Hall of Fame. He was credited on nearly five hundred
songs recorded by artists from way different genres, massive hits.
He was a writer for Jesus Take the Will and
Cowboy Casanova, for Carrie Underwood, When the Sun Goes Down,
(01:33):
for Kenny Chesney, The Truth for Al Dean, so many more,
you know, even songs for non country artists like Kelly Clarkson,
the Backstreet Boys, bon Jovi, and others. Brett James was
fifty seven years old, so it had been three years
or so since he was in with me. He stopped
by in twenty twenty two, and I had heard that
Brett was super cool, super nice, but also like super cool,
(01:55):
like perfect hair, leather jacket, but like once you met him,
like you understood that's why you liked him, Like it
wasn't some fake persona that he put on. And he
showed up in a motorcycle to my house, and he
literally drove up boom boom boom by himself, parked right outside,
and he came in and we talked about at the
(02:16):
time he had twenty seven number ones hit six in
one year back in two thousand and nine, and you're
gonna hear all this, but we talked about how he
went from medical school to pursuing a career as a
solo country artist in the nineties, winning a Grammy. So
I want to take a look back and remember Brett James.
This is from episode three seventy. Rest in Peace of
(02:37):
Brett James, super super loved, wildly beloved in Nashville, and
not just the songwriters but the artists. You could see
everybody posting very heart felt messages after Brett had passed away.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
So here he is Brett James.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Hey, Brett's So when Mike reached out, he said, and
what he often does with folks, they said, hey, what
are the number ones that you know? And you were like,
hold on a minute, because I looked at your lesson
number one you have twenty seven in counting.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
Something like that. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
I mean, what a what a life that you have
so many massive songs that you get to forget some
of them.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
You know, it's you know, I just leave the listening
to somebody else, So I don't I don't try to
keep you know, I don't keep score.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
What does encounting mean? Is there anything right now that's.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
I don't have anything climbing right now. I my last
number one.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Was knowing you you're a real loser.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Then I I gotta get busy. We don't have.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Anything going for it at all.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
You had a solo deal way before you turned into
the great writer.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
I had a miserably failed solo dealer.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
But was it a miserably failed deal?
Speaker 4 (03:42):
Though?
Speaker 1 (03:42):
I mean, I would say otherwise, I mean to get
a deal first of all? Period incredibly different?
Speaker 3 (03:47):
Sure, yeah, so.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Was that deal in Nashville based deal?
Speaker 3 (03:51):
It was? It was? It was Arista Nashville based back
in nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
That's all was Arista, and obviously Arista as an imprint
outside of just country music. Sure, did you move to town
and then pursue a like a decrobed be a singer?
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Was out the idea?
Speaker 3 (04:06):
That was the idea? You know, it's it's a really
long story, but we have all the time for it.
There you go, well, I was in medical school. Just
like all good country.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Song, you're in medical school.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
I was to do what I was going to be
at an er doc. That was my kind of plan
for life. My dad and granddad were both docs, so
that's kind of grew up in that world. Wow. Yeah,
I just you know, that just seemed like the natural thing.
And and uh, my freshman year of med school in Oklahoma,
where I'm from, I go and I see it. You know,
I went to college in Texas and I grew up
in Oklahoma, so you know, I loved country music anyway.
(04:38):
But I went and saw Steve Warner concert one night.
Who's getting in the song right, A whole fame in
a month. I'm so excited because he's awesome. I go
see a Steve Warner show and kind of watched him
one night, and he's an amazing player. And I was like, Okay,
I'll never play guitar like that, but I think the
rest of it I might be able to do. And
so I kind of, you know, cause everybody that kind
of has that moment, I'm sure you had your moment
where you're like, this is what I can do. I
(05:00):
could be pretty good at it. And you know. That
was kind of my little moment where maybe I should
start writing songs in my free time. And so that's
what I did. I started writing songs my free time.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
And did you sing though? In high school? Like fifteen,
were you singing?
Speaker 3 (05:13):
You know, in church? Yeah? And I was in a
group that even traveled from church, we sing in other churches.
So I grew up singing in church, and that's how
I learned this thing. So I kind of knew I
could sing, But were you a celebrated singer at church?
Speaker 2 (05:24):
When the group would go on with it'd be like this,
this is a little breat little bread can sing.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Yeah, it was a little bit I was. I was
the guy who got most of the solos and stuff
like that. So yeah, a little bit I knew I
could sort of, you know, I was singing at high
school graduation and stuff like that, like a lot of
kids in high school. But I never you know where
I'm from, you don't. It's not on the list of
things you think you can do for a job. It's
not really one of those things in high school they say, yeah,
you should, you can do.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
This, you know, right, But your grandfather's a doctor, your
dad's doctor. Those are pretty practical jobs as far as
jobs that if you go to school and you study
and you get the right grades and you perform, you
get the job.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
You get the job. That's right.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
This industry is not that no in any way whatsoever.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
And so what did they say about when you finally
expressed to your dad even, Hey, I think I want
to not do medicine, right?
Speaker 3 (06:11):
You know? He was all about it, interestingly enough, because
he was kind of a frustrated singer himself, and in
you know, he'd been a doctor for a long time
by that time, and it had kind of changed, the
job description had changed. He was kind of like one
of these small town doctors who just you know, takes
care of the grandparents and delivers the grand babies and
everything in between. And he and just medicine had changed.
So he was a little like, go chase your dream.
(06:33):
That's what he was about. And that's what happened to me.
I came out here. I'd written, like, you know, ten songs,
and I put five of them. I literally took, you know,
my summer job money and paid for a little studio
in Oklahoma City and sent it to my one contact
in the music business. Who was my friend Deb from
college who was an intern in college radio promotion in
(06:54):
ann Arbor. So that was my you know, that was
my big end. But fortunately she gave it to her bab.
Her boss had been a big deal, and her boss says, well,
I'd like to manage you. When can you come to Nashville?
Speaker 2 (07:05):
So let me get this straight. So ann arbora Michigan.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
Right?
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Is that where?
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Right? That's where she was based.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Okay, that's not really that close to Nashville. No, So
who's her boss?
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Her boss is I think still lives here. A lady
named Marien Nally and Rereen had been a big A
and R person. She actually started the at CO record
label for Atlantic in New York.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
But did you live here?
Speaker 3 (07:25):
No? But she'd actually had some contacts here and she'd
done some really cool stuff with some bands from Nashville,
like she discovered in Excess and she she had had
some had a big career, and then gone back home,
moved back home to ann Arbor, and so she was like,
can I meet you in Nashville? I want to introduce
you some people. And anyway, long story shorts. I came
in here on spring break of my sophomore year, and
it was my third day. We met with a couple
(07:46):
labels and they kind of patted me on the head
and you know, sent me back and from that demo,
like they heard the demo, they met with you. Yeah,
mainly they met with me because they knew her. You know,
she got the meeting. So we go in, we play
the music and they're like, nice to meet you. We
have lunch, and you know, again sometime and then randomly
we're in another guy's office that she knows, and I
play some music for got him. Cliff aldwritch she might
(08:07):
know Cliff or his son Cliffy, And we're in his
office and I play some songs for him and on
this kid in a cowboy hat from Oklahoma, and he says,
I think you're pretty good. And this is the way
Nashville kind of worked back then. He literally got on
his landline, called up Tim Dubois and said, Tim, I
think I got a guy over here that's pretty good,
and Tim said bring him over. So literally ten minutes later,
(08:30):
I'm in the you know, the president of Arista's office,
Tim Dubois at the time, and they were crushing it,
you know, Alan Jackson and Brooks and Dunn and all
these acts. And I'm sitting in his office playing playing
music for him, And twenty minutes later he's like, mister,
I've never told anybody this, but if you moved to Nashville,
I'll give you a record deal.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Did you know how heavy it was the room?
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Not really. I don't think I had a clue how
big a deal he was at the time. You know,
I learned later, did you get.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
And I guess do you think your performance when per
forming in that room for Tim Dagwaw do you feel
like because you didn't really know, you were allowed to
just perform as you normally would.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
And if you did, actually knowing.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
You were educated on the process, maybe you would have
you'd been a little tight because.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Like I'm with the president of probably so exactly.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
It was probably nice that I didn't kind of, you know,
kind of gather how how important he was. You got
to deal that quick.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
I mean you weren't even living here.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Right, It was nuts? It was nuts. He and but
what was you know? I said, you know, he offered
me a deal, and I was like, well, I'm in
med school. I'm gonna have to think about it a
little bit. And he said, well, you're gonna have to
move here if you want to do this, you know,
And he gave me his, you know, home phone number
because nobody even had cell phones back then, said here's
my number, call me if you if you want to
do this. And what happened was I decided to take
(09:42):
a year off med school. I finished that year, I
took my medical board exams all that stuff, and the
day after I took my board exams, I moved to Nashville.
But I knew, like instinctively, I wasn't ready, you know,
to do this to I just you know, I'd written
ten songs and I just knew I wasn't ready. So
I got a job waiting tables and town Cafe, and so.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
You moved here, but you didn't take I.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
Didn't call him for nine months.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
So you moved here, I did.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
You went through with that part, the part that kind
of is hard, but the part that's kind of cool.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
He just died not to do yet.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Yeah, I just I just didn't think I was ready,
you know. I was like, I don't know who I am,
I don't know what I'm doing. I don't have a
clue about this business. And so I just started playing
you know, open mic nights, just like everybody else. And
and I you know, got like I said, waited tables.
And fortunately, you know, it was the early nineties. It
was a little different town back then. If you could
(10:35):
like play three cords and sing and he at all,
somebody'd give you a publishing deal. So I got lucky
that I got a publishing deal. About three months later.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Tim de Ball never walked into a restaurant like that's.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
He did not.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
He did not, And so I called him, like, you know,
finally I'd recorded some demos and kind of felt like
I was comfortable playing him some new music and called
him nine months later, said it had been a year
since I met with him and had that meeting, and
he I was like, I don't even know if you
remember who I am, But a year ago you told
me if i'd move here, you'd give me a deal,
is said, I remember you. So I came in and
he signed me, and that's the way that got started.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
So what happens then? So you have a deal, put
out a couple of songs. I'm gonna have them here.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
Failed miserably, Yes, just everything takes.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Fail because I can tell you from just a personal experience.
Like I had a show we were we had tried
to pilot for it, the networks about to pick it up.
Then they changed all of the executives. Sure, so they went, ah,
this wasn't our show, so we're not going to go
through with it.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
So I can go, well, that failed miserably, or I
can go, well, the reason I.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
Never got a shot is because it's not It's not
anybody's fault exactly, And you know, that whole thing just
wasn't meant to be looking back, you know, I was trying.
I mean, we were doing radio tours. We're going to
see all the stations and they're all telling me they're
going to play the records, and then they don't, you know,
and that happened to lots of artists.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Were heartbroken when that deal didn't work out.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
You know, it wasn't heartbroken. It was more like, because
it didn't, it kind of drug out. It was about
a five year period of it not working because put
out a couple singles, they don't work. Then you go
back in and make another album, you change producers. You're
kind of you know how that that game works with artists.
You're just trying to figure it out. And when it
finally went away, it was literally five years later, and
(12:14):
I was not heartbroken, but I was, honestly, I'd be embarrassed.
It was sort of like, you know, weren't you the
guy that was supposed to you have your You had
a ceed in Walmart for a minute, you know, And
I remember being on music row and walking into like
publishing Coveing just being like embarrassed, like kind of feeling
like that's the guy that didn't work and he's washed
up now, you know. It was real, It was a
real thing.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Was there ever a time that you purposefully said, well,
I'm going to pivot because because you had to also
decide not to pursue it anymore, even if you don't
have a deal. Like I've had friends who have had
deals and they've gone away or they've lost it, or
and they go, Okay, well I can do it independent,
I can go sign somewhere else. I cannot do it.
Some of them have become wonderful songwriters. Sure, Like, what
(12:56):
was that moment for you and how did you make
that decision?
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Well, it was a little different. It was a little
different pivot for me. I was it was nineteen ninety nine,
I'd been in Nashville for seven years and had lost
my record deal and my publishing deal had gotten cut
by like two thirds. You know, when I was the
early twenties, I'm making great money because everybody thought I
was going to be Tim was telling everybody's gonna be
Garth Brooks. So I had this, you know, some some
good money and all that stuff happening, and all of
(13:19):
a sudden, it's nineteen ninety nine and I'm like, I
think I'm almost thirty years old, and I have two
little babies. And I literally walked into Target one day
and almost if I've ever had a panic attack, this
was it. I was standing in Target and I'm in
the like the kid's clothing, and I see this little
pair of, you know, one year old tennis shoes, and
I looked at him. I was like, and I'd really
(13:41):
like to buy those for my kid, but I can't
afford them. And I'm not going to live like this.
And so I decided then and there that I was
going to figure something out. But all I'd ever done
was go to med school and be a songwriter. And
so I literally snail mailed to med school a letter
and said, you're only supposed to get one year off.
(14:01):
I've been out for seven Is there any chance I
can get back in? You know? And the Dean Snail
mailed me back and she said, well, you've been out
a long time, but yes you can come back, but
you got to start. You have to repeat your sophomore year.
Oh wow. And so I did that. I went back
to med school after being in town for seven years
in nineteen ninety nine. And you know, my ex wife
(14:24):
now and kids stayed here in Nashville to sell the house.
So I just went back. I moved in with my
parents who lived there, and started back to med school,
you know, at thirty as a sophomore, you know, just
and it was it was a huge relief. I was like, man,
you know, I gave Nashville a shot. But at least
I know I'm going to be able to feed my kids,
(14:44):
and that that's you know, at some point when you're dead,
that's all that matters in the world, and that's all
that mattered to me, you know. And but what happened
was God sort of had another plan. I went back
to med school in September first, still had a I
had a year left on a publishing deal and they
were really cool. I said, well, just keep writing, maybe
something will happen. I go back to med school in
September first, and Faith Hill cuts one of my songs
on September fourth on her Breathe album, and then ended
(15:06):
up getting thirty three cuts in the next nine months, Wow,
and had five top ten singles.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
So thirty three cuts of songs you'd already written mostly
and some had written.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Somebody was writing in med school. I had a dear
friend who's a huge hit songwriter named Troy Vergess, and
he was a kid like twenty three or four at
the time, and he decided we started to get hot
as a as kind of a writing team, and so
he would come out to Oklahoma and we'd write songs
out there. So a lot of those were new songs
that I'd go to Med school till two and he'd
be waking up, you know, and then we'd write until
(15:36):
we write songs, and I'd come I'd fly back into
Nashville and we'd demo them up and that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
So you were hustling pretty hard.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Yeah, I was hustling pretty hard.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
So what was the Faith Hill song?
Speaker 3 (15:44):
It was a song called love the Sweet Thing. It
was not a single, but it was on that album
that her Breathe record.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
But that's probably I mean, really, when you think about
the songs, I mean I could list every number one
of the ten million you have, that's probably, when you
look back, one of the most important songs to your
entire career.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
Oh. Absolutely. It kind of started opening doors and I
kind of found the right publishing situation. I worked with
a girl named Kelly King who was my song plow
and Mark Bright who but Kelly was my song plugger.
She's still around Nashville as well. And uh, you know,
it was just amazing because I was kind of her
only writer, and so I'd write songs and she'd kind
of get them out there, and you know, I'd be
It was a it was a crazy time because I'd
(16:18):
be literally studying for a pathologies and examine the library
and I'd get a call on my flip phone, Hey, Brett,
you know Tim McGrath, just cut tell your rider Martine
and provide, just cut blessed or whatever. And I was like,
you know, there's there's nobody around a high five with
I'd just kind of like do a little dance in
the in the library.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
And call it so is my assumption that you didn't
finish medical school.
Speaker 4 (16:37):
I didn't you and quit again, which was more years
out of your belt exactly, and took exams and then
I had an interesting conversation with that Dean. No, that
was an interesting So because the legal rules, we can
only play five seconds of music at this point, but
we're gonna hit five seconds hard, Mike, are you ready?
Speaker 3 (16:52):
Okay?
Speaker 1 (16:53):
This was your first number one. This is Jess Andrews
Who I Am. That's a song that still today is
played as what they call a recurrent because it was
such a big song from those early two thousand years.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
And that's your first number one.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
It was the first number one. Yeah, it was you
know what a blessing it was? It was.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
It was awesome when you wrote the song.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Was it just one in a mix or did you go, Man,
if somebody just gets that's always my question because some
songs like you know, it's just another one. We just
wrote it and thought what about?
Speaker 3 (17:27):
We thought that one was special. Quite honestly, you know,
I wrote that back to med school. I wrote that
in my parents' kitchen with Troy Urgis after I'd gone
to class one day and we had heard there was
a new artist, nam Jessic Anders, who was looking for
a you know, a kind of a female anthem. And
I remember I spit out, like what about we wrote
(17:47):
it just called who I Am and like I am
And literally the first thing I said was Rosemary's granddaughter,
and and Troy said spitting image of my father, and
were like on our way and and uh, Troy's girlfriend
at the time, who's now a Hall of Fame songwriter,
Hillary Lindsay, she wasn't even writing, but she she was
kind of enough to sing the demo for us on
(18:08):
that song. And so after Hillary saying it, we knew
there was something special about it. And then Jessica did
an amazing jump.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Did you feel.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
When you weren't focusing strictly on performance and your vocal
and your just you know, your record deal, when you
just focused on writing that you became a better writer.
Did you always feel like you were a really good ride?
Like when did you start to feel like, Okay, I'm
actually competitive and if I focus this right, I'm great.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
I don't think. I don't think I still feel that way,
Thank you. I'm still working on that one. But you
know what, what Troy and I kind of what what
what going back to med school did for me was
free me up a lot. You know. It was sort
of like a creative thing where it was, Okay, now
(19:02):
my kids are gonna get fed. I'm not I'm not
just struggling trying to I'm not dying to try to
get the next George Straight cut so that you know,
I can feed the family anymore. I have a job,
I have a plan, and so I'm gonna kind of say,
you know, screw it, you got to play loose, got
to play loose. I said, screw it, and let's just
write what we love. And that's really what happened that year.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
I mean that, that's a bizarrely remarkable story. That one
you go to med school, you quit med school, you come,
you get a deal, you go back to med school,
you quit med school after and.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
Got another record deal. By the way, I signed another
record deal with Arista again after that year of med school.
And it's like that one failed miserably too. So here
we go.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
This is a wild story.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
It's like you keep not the same, but you keep
marrying your ex wife over and over again.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
A different one.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
It's like different different X wives, but you keep marrying. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
just looking at some of the accolades, like the big accolades,
like you hit. Yeah, it's six number ones in two
thousand and nine. And I had to look again three
times to make sure I'm not reading all the numbers
wrong because six and nine are upside down. But I
think you had six number ones in two thousand and nine.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
I think I did.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
That's I can't believe that, and I can because I'm
looking at it. But when I read it, I was like,
am I looking at this right?
Speaker 3 (20:14):
Six?
Speaker 2 (20:15):
I turned the screen nine.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
I want to roll through these quickly in this year
of two thousand and nine, all six of these number ones.
Rodney Atkins, It's America, Kenny Chesney Out Last Night, Carrie Underwood, Cowboy, Casanova,
Chris Young, the Man I want to be masking, Jason Aldean,
(20:41):
The Truth, Rascal Flats, Summer Nights.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
And I'm tired of reading them all there like that
in a row.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
So whenever you have this many number ones in a row,
is it's so hard to write because everybody wants to
write with you.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
Oh that's never that's never a bad thing. If everybody
wants to write with it.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
It's like, and I've had brief parts of my career
where you're the shiny toy for a second, everybody wants
to play with the shiny toy. Sure, when you start
to have this unparalleled success writing two thousand and nine,
two thousand and eight, I mean, and even go backward,
I mean, is it people constantly calling going, Hey, I
just love to get on your calendar some point, even
if it's six months from now.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
Yeah, I mean, yeah, that's what happens. And that's a
fun place to be, you know, because you kind of
get to pick and choose who you want to work
with and get to, you know, you know, do do
the days you love and not not do as many
as of the days that you don't. And it's it's
a pretty cool, you know thing. But you know, I
always say that, you know, in the music business, it's
like most businesses, it's you know, it's who's Brett James,
(21:38):
Get me Brett James, Give me the next Brett James.
Who's Brett James. Yeah, that's kind of the that's the
arc of most careers, you know, and I think you
have to kind of I always tell the writers that
I work with. I've had a publishing company for like
fifteen years, so I get to be around young writers
and I'm like, you're never as hot as you think
you are when you're hot, and you're never as not
when you're not, you know, And I think you kind
of have to learn to have some thick skin and
(21:59):
not to not to think you're so cool when things
are working, so that when things aren't working, you don't
get in the dumps either, you know. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (22:06):
And I tell new artists or just as an example,
we had a group that was in a Cohen. I
was talking to them and they'd had some success on television,
and it's like, when you get to be shiny for
a second, make all the relationships that you can. Yeah,
make all the relationships to you because it's not going
to change your life just to be cool for a second.
(22:28):
But the relationships that you make and that you keep
will actually help you through your career for a long time.
So just don't go like I'm cool now, who wants
to work with me? It's like dig in. Find your
spots that you're finally allowed to get. They're very important.
Make a few real strong connections, Like I was like
with the opry, you're doing with the opry now?
Speaker 2 (22:45):
Yeah, like really value.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
That connection because maybe they wouldn't have got to look.
We don't ever get a look any of us until
we have some sort of success. Sure, but it's like,
what do you grab onto and really develop out from
this moment that you're successful?
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Cool?
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Whatever word you want to use there, And that's exactly
and that's what I was telling them too. It's like,
you know, you're you feel everybody on social mediaelling you
they love you. Probably not that cool right now, but
when you were, when you're not cool again, you're probably
not that not cool again exactly because are a lot
of people that still think you're awesome. Sure, it's the
never too high and never too low, you know what.
I try to My therapist though, tells me that I
am on a straight line, regardless of all the time
(23:19):
I've never hired, all never live, I never really.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
Yeah, yeah, sometimes I'm going to get to interview you
about that.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
I don't go up or down, And I think it's
I always want because you can't really experience like true
happiness if you can't feel some sadness, right it's almost
it's almost an equal scale, like if you can let
yourself feel, you get to feel way down.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
Or way up.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Sure, and so I have trouble feeling the sad I
think probably from childhood trauma.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
So I don't ever feel.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
Good about I'm a lot that same way. Yeah, I
think I'm very much the same way. I think you
just kind of find your I think, and I think
men are more likely to be that way than I'm
a straight lined I don't go up. Yeah, I'm kind
of that same way, and I do think that in
maybe especially actually on the songwriting side of things and
the artist's side of things, you have to be that
way because you know, there's always another single that you're
(24:07):
either it's either winning or it's losing, or there's always
another you know, cut that you're either getting or you're
not getting, and you know you have to come there.
And in the songwriting side, it most of the time
it's not Most of the time it's disappointment, you know,
And so you have to kind of just just learn
to to love what you do and not not feel
too high too low. I don't think because if I
(24:29):
if I felt it all, I'd go crazy.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Oh, I mean, in a creative world, if you let
the low's dominate you, because it's it's low eighty five to.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Ninety percent of the time.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
If you're if you're succeeding, if you're if you're crushing
it exactly.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
If you're sixty, if you know, and I think you'll
understand this probably better than even I do.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
But it's like at times people will be like, man,
you're really killing it.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
But I'm like, if you guys had any idea how
much how many no's I get, or or what I
wanted and didn't get, or how glamorous it looks and
it ain't.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
You know, that's a lot of what we do.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Absolutely, it's getting beat up most of the.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Time, and it's getting back up when you get beat up, course,
and staying up just long enough to finally get a
bite the worms exactly, you know, finally bite the one exactly.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
What was that in your mind? What was the more well,
I can't believe this just happened moment.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
Was it that year two thousand and nine or was
it one of the grammy with carried back a few
years before that?
Speaker 3 (25:22):
Man? You know, all of those are great. You know,
I don't think we knew when Jesus Take the Wheels happened,
and how you know what a big deal it was,
you know, Quite honestly, I don't think it kind of
hit me that, well, this is I'm gonna be talking
about that song in twenty twenty two. You know, seventeen
years later, you still play that one. If you play
usually almost I'm almost always. I feel like if I don't,
it's somebody's gonna throw something at me. But yeah, I
(25:46):
think both us both those moments were great, and both
those years were great.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
Yeah, but if you had to, if we had to
eliminate one, somebody shows up with the old men in
black thing that goes, all right, I'm gonna make you
forget one of them, which you know, I.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
Got to be songwrit of your twice and that's that's
a really fun cool thing because it's kind of based
on more body of work than just one song, you know,
And I think that was Those Those are pretty special
trophies to me.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Where do you have the Grammy at your house?
Speaker 3 (26:10):
It's in my office. Actually, yeah, it's my office.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Do you pet it?
Speaker 3 (26:15):
I kiss it? I do not. I do not. I
wish I had more than one let's put it that way.
But you know there's people that have lots. I got
to work at Alison Kraus's house the other day with
her son, and you know Alison, you know, she's so sweet.
She just brings his coffee. You know, I'm just like
someone with twenty eight Grammy's just gave me coffee. And
that's That's just a cool thing.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
What is it for you?
Speaker 1 (26:42):
You go, Wow, this is cool where most people maybe
wouldn't think that.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
You think it's the coolest thing.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
And now I give you an example as you think
about the answer, because it's a tough one. I got
on an airplane once and Barry Switzer was on and
from Arkansas and he was a played at Arkansas, you know,
coach the Cowboys, coach Oklahoma, and I was like, just
the freaking coolest thing ever. And I would tell my
friends that'd be like, I don't I don't really fall sports.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
I don't care right that kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
But I'm like, this is so cool and that's not
even something that I like earned or deserve. I interviewed
Dan Patrick am I Sports show the other day and
I'm like, this is the coolest thing. And I tell
people like, yeah, I don't know, but to me that's
like legit, Like that's the coolest thing.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
What for you?
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Who is it or what happened where You're like, this
is like different world and never thought i'd be here,
But most people probably won't even think it's as coolest
I do.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
Well, it's funny because the one that pops in my
head is not about a superstar. You know, it's a
because you know, like you said, I've gotten to be
around Garth and Sting and some pretty you know Taylor
and people like that. He's just like that's just insane,
you know, you'd even think about it. Like literally, I'm
at the NSCA, I think two weeks ago, and I
hadn't I was Taylor's you know, producer when she was
(27:51):
like thirteen, you know, you know, before she came back
and had their success, and and I'm walking down the
back hall and Taylor just steps out of her saying
and sees me. She's like Brett, you know, it's like
old home with you know, Taylor Swift, which is pretty
crazy because I have a daughter who worships everything everything
Taylor Swift. But for me, the moment that strikes me,
he's like, you know, I'm convinced that whoever your superstar
(28:12):
superhero was when you're like in fourth or fifth grade,
is that person forever. And for me, it's a Christian
singer named Russ Taff and you probably never heard of him,
but he was a big deal around like in Christian music.
And I'll never forget the only time I ever got
superstarstruck I was I was writing a song with Marcus
Hummon at his house in like the nineties, and I
(28:32):
didn't know Russ Taff was his next door neighbor, or
I would have stalked him. And so I'm sitting there
with Marcus when we're writing a song and Russ Taff
walks in. They're best friends. He goes, hey, your dog's
in the yard again. He's like, you got any coffee made?
You know, kind of kind of like that, and Mark say,
he's like this coffee in the kitchen and Russ, this
is Brett And I literally just cried. He didn't know
(28:53):
what I'm doing. It's like a Tuesday afternoon. Who was
And I literally tears just came to my eyes And
all I could say was like, you're my hero, you know?
And I think that it's those moments that kind of
you know, catch you off guarden and that make me go, wow,
I can't believe I've gotten to do this.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
Yeah, that stuff to me, it's like what a Like
that's for example, I get to go and I'm a
big Arkansas guy.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Grew up in Arkansas.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
We didn't have a lot of money, and so I
maybe would get to go to one game a year.
But now it's like when I get to go back
and even just get to go in the locker room,
I'm just like, I cannot believe.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
This isn't cool.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
But my friend's like, but you get to like it
doesn't matter all that other stuff I do all the time.
Like this to me is like there's a lot of
value in this because when I was nine, this is
what I dreamed of was being here at this place
looking at these lockers, and for you it was Russtaft.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
Well and very Swiss. Would be it for me too.
I mean, I grew up in the in the seventies
in Oklahoma. Man, there's nothing nothing, There was nothing bigger
than Barry Switzer a sports guy.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Huge, Yeah, what what what's your sport and team?
Speaker 3 (29:50):
And I'm a college football free you know. That's really
what I come back to as always college football. Baylor
and I went to Baylor undergrad and went to O
you two, and I grew up in Oklahoma, So Baylor,
I know you were my two two main teams. But
I've adopted a few mothers. Might got a son at
Auburn now, so I'm rooting for Auburn. And but yeah, Baylor,
know you.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
Yeah, I see you drove up on a motorcycle.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
I did, and I'm scared to death of a lot
of things, including motorcycles. You have to watch out for
so many things when riding a motorcycle. Yes, and there
and so many of those things are idiots. Oh and
there's an unlimited amount of idiots.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
Yeah, it's it's I just pretend like every car is
gonna kill me. That's the way I ride a motorcycle. Literally,
I just as I'm driving, I'm playing this game like
like that one's gonna swerve into me, and this one's
gonna swear and the person behind me is not going
to know that I'm turning. So I just need to
expect that all the time. I mean, I think, and
I think, you know, and I ride it around town
at forty miles an hour. I don't I don't do
(30:43):
anything crazy on a motorcycle, but I like to put
around town. But you know that could be the most
dangerous time because you're right, there's so many stupid people.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
It's it's all the time.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
Everybody's on their phones now too, which is worse.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
You know, you know what the phones. That's a that's
a whole new last five year wrinkle, isn't it right?
Speaker 2 (30:58):
When did you start riding a motorcycle.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
About ten or twelve years ago something like that?
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Yeah, I bet the phones made it a lot more dangerous.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
Yeah, they have for sure, for sure.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
For sure you have the radio? Do you each o
the radio? Real out? I don't turn about, and you
got to have it that lad to hear it while
you're riding.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
But it's also like when you're slowing down, there should
almost be a that the volume turns itself down automatically.
Speaker 3 (31:19):
Wouldn't that be nice?
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Isn't that?
Speaker 3 (31:21):
Because I don't know because you pull up next to mo.
I don't turn my radio on everyone I ride because
I like to hear the other car that's about to
swerve into me and kill me. But as they all
will and I'm planning on it right, but yeah, I don't.
I don't turn it up at all.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
I want to play.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
I was looking through your entire catalog here and I
was trying to find the song because you have again
so many.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
The one that I.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Love, I think the most is one of your more
recent number ones. Is that Kenny Chesney knowing you because
I love Emo Kenny. I'm not really big into beach
Kenny because I don't like the beach that much. I
grew up in Arkansas, so I know I don't have
this affinity for the beach and we never went on vacation,
so I never went to the beach.
Speaker 3 (31:57):
I never thought. I never heard it called Emo Kenny,
but I get it.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
My favorite Kenny is Emo Kenny when he's singing sad
songs or slow songs. Yeah, and so knowing you, Mike,
if you're play some of this, but dude, it all.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
Damn was good.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
And how do you get a song to Kenny?
Speaker 3 (32:16):
Well, I'm lucky because I know Kenny pretty well. I
just texted to him, you know, I just texted to
his phone and he just says yes or no.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
If you send Kenny ten songs, how many yes? His
nos or and no responses.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
Oh wow. Well Kenny never says no. It's always a
no response, like he never says I don't like that one,
and I kind of I love that about him. You
just don't get anything bad. You know, you never go
You never hear that that totally sucks. Would you leave
me alone? That's good that he doesn't do that. It's
usually no response and out of you know, I would
say it's one out of twenty really that you get Yeah,
(32:50):
I'm into that or I'm not into that. But Kenny
has He's such a song guy. He texted me day
before yesterday about a song that I'd played for him
seven or eight years ago, and he's like, you still
have that version? That's a duet and blah blah blah
blah blah. He never forgets a song. It's incredible.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
And did you still have the version?
Speaker 3 (33:06):
I did?
Speaker 2 (33:07):
And had anyone cut it?
Speaker 3 (33:08):
Nobody's cut it, so I'm hoping he will. Yeah, Caitlyn
Smith sing though, do wet on it. It's amazing.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
That'll sell it on the fence. That'll sell it pretty good.
Oldest song that was ever cut.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
Meaning you mentioned that six or seven years you wrote
a song X amount of years later it finally gets
cut and becomes a hit.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
What comes to your mind?
Speaker 3 (33:27):
There? The Truth pops into my head. We had written
I wrote that with Ashley Monroe, who I just love too.
We're actually getting ready to go to Brazil together the
writing trip.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Saw her three four days ago.
Speaker 3 (33:36):
Oh did you? Yeah? We had I love her, She's
the best, yeah, And I've known her since she was fifteen. Somehow.
I started working on her when she was really young,
and I think we wrote that song when she was
about sixteen or seventeen in my living room. And uh,
but you know, the Truth is kind of a weird song.
You don't really really know what it's about until the
very end of the song, the last two lines, which is,
you know, breaks every songwriting rule there is. And so
(33:59):
we wrote it and just said on shelves, and we
just thought it was never going to pop up, you know,
And all of a sudden, you know, like six or
seven years later, I don't even know how I was.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Gonna ask, how does this? I don't know long enough
to get around no clue.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
I have no idea how Jason ever heard that song,
but I'm glad he did. And he's sure, he sure
crushed it. And there was another one called You Saved Me.
There was a Kenny song that just got happened in
the same kind of deal. It was probably ten years old.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
What's in Brazil?
Speaker 3 (34:23):
You're going to going to a writing camp to write
Brazilian music in Portuguese? Of course we are. Why wouldn't
we be doing?
Speaker 1 (34:29):
You know, I thought you would go to Brazil to
write country music song for the country music people who
wanted to fly to Brazil.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
But I'm way wrong on that. So yeah, what how
and what why?
Speaker 3 (34:37):
It's a really long story. But we both write work
with a company called Warner Chapel here in town, big publisher,
and they have offices all over the world. And you know,
I get this email one day, Hey, do you want
to go to South Paulo to write this new kind
of Brazilian music that is apparently huge? Apparently this new
genre of Brazilian music is taking over the world or something.
(34:59):
And it's gonna be a little camp with like five
Nashville Riders and and studios, and you're gonna it's all
gonna be in Portuguese and you're gonna have translators. Wow,
I have no idea we're getting into.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
But so you haven't done this yet.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
I haven't done it yet. We're leaving a We're leaving Sunday, actually,
Ashley Monroe, Liz Rose, me and a couple other people
are gonna go down.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Because I's see what happens. Does it excite you a lot?
Speaker 3 (35:19):
Are you like it's just it's just you know, I
look at it like it's a cultural experience. I've never
been to Brazil and I've you know, don't know a
thing about the music. But I'm gonna do a lot
of I'm gonna educate myself before Sunday. Hopefully.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
Are you doing Rosetta Stone Portuguese?
Speaker 3 (35:32):
I am not at all knows I am not. I'm
doing dual lingo frends right now. I'm trying to learn. Friends.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
We had Dan Huff, and we've talked to Dan a
couple of times, and you know, he would talk about
how he'd be at an airport and hear a song
like I guess I dang, I really like that guitar part,
and later he'd later realized I was him who played it.
So you've had five hundred plus songs cut you ever
hear a song and not realize that it was yours.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
I have. I did it recently. I was with Drew Green,
an artists that I love and work with read he
was actually playing a wedding and we're at this wedding
somewhere in nowhere. They'd want they'd won the you know,
the one they'd won a contest, and so Drew's up
there singing and I heard this song. I was like, man,
I kind of like that, I kind of you know,
I think it's pretty cool, and somehow it was familiar
(36:16):
and it ended up being a Larry Fleet song that
I'd written just a few months ago, and I was like, oh,
that's why that's.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
You spent a bunch of years on the board for
the CMAS. So I have a heart hitting question here
is why have I been black bald so long to
be the host of the CMAS.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
You know, we've had discussions about you and it just
never goes the right way. I have no idea, and
I'm not on that board anymore now. Yeah, I don't
know have they ever? Have they talked to you about it?
Speaker 1 (36:45):
Because all I hear like through certain channels you've been
blackballed And I can't get down to the bottom.
Speaker 3 (36:50):
I don't can't believe that.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
Listen, I've had some pretty prominent folks there tell me off.
You said, like, you know, there's the systems holding you down,
and they won't exactly tell me who the system is.
Is it you on the spot?
Speaker 3 (37:05):
Yeah? No, you know it's funny, Mane may is like,
I have been on the board for a long time,
and I hear so many things about that board, and
yet they're all you know them all, they're all the
sweetest people.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Exactly who do I know?
Speaker 3 (37:19):
Somebody? Right, I don't know, I don't know. I'm sure
that's going to happen. Something has to happen somewhere.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
You just send me a little carrier pigeon and you
let me know. I'm going to get to the bottom.
I'm going to get to the bottom of desk. When
you're at the Grammys, did you get to sit by
anybody cool?
Speaker 3 (37:32):
Yes? Well the one time I ever got nominated for
the big like to get in the big room was
just amazing. That was for Jesus take to will We
won country song, but we were up for a real song,
and you know we got to sit like on the
fifth row and I was like in front of John
Mayer and behind John Legend, and you know it was
pretty heavy stuff, you know, and I would literally like breaks.
(37:53):
I would just get up and act like I was
just stretching my legs and just just to walk around
my section just to like just to see people.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
You know what I'm saying, You're everyone right now.
Speaker 3 (38:02):
You're I literally like, you know, you're not staring at them,
but you're getting to walk past, you know. I mean,
I remember justin Timberlake played twice that nine and stuff
like that. You're just like, Okay, I just gotta I
just gotta walk around a little bit, just to just
to see these people.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
Did you prepare a speech? No, you didn't, even just
a case.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
I didn't. I'm not a preparer, and I knew, honestly.
I wrote that song with Hillary Lindsay and Gordy Sampson,
and I knew I'd have to let Hillary do the
talking anyway, so it was all good.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
You say you're not a preparer, then let me put
this into your everyday practical life, when your professional practical life,
do you prepare notes for songs and ideas that you
have at this point?
Speaker 3 (38:38):
Absolutely not as much as I should And I think
that's one. I think that's that's a lesson for all
songwriters that I need to do better at because you
get old and you get lazy. You know. I always
I keep titles and concepts and you know, I'm always
putting them on my phone. But the really great writers,
the ones that everybody wants to write with, are the
ones that write walk in with something that's great and
(39:00):
it's you know, got a verse or got it's got,
it's got, it's got some real form to it. And
I can just say that that the young writers that
I know that are being super successful in Nashville right now,
they walk in the rooms really prepared, and I think
that's I think that's half the battle.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
Do you ever accidentally rewrite or have the same melody
of a previous song of yours because it is your
brain that had it initially?
Speaker 2 (39:29):
Does it ever come up again?
Speaker 1 (39:30):
You're like, oh, that I already do, because you have
so I said five hundred it's been cut.
Speaker 3 (39:34):
But I've written over four.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
That's what I'm saying, that's just been cut.
Speaker 3 (39:37):
It's kind of impossible not to to be honest with you,
especially because it's you know, but what what what you
try to do, having done it as long as I've
been doing, is try to find new lanes, you know,
new lanes that make your brain go different places so
you're not falling into the same you know, melodies that
that you have written before, and you know, so I
think that's the sort of the challenge I have, you know,
(39:58):
after you've written a lot.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
So you're this event we're talking about specifically, but just
when you go when you play a show with great
songwriters and you're showcasing the songs that have become hits
for you and you get four?
Speaker 2 (40:12):
What four do you play more than not?
Speaker 1 (40:15):
Are you? What are your mount rushmore of songs that
you play when you play.
Speaker 3 (40:20):
I almost always do Out Last Night because it's got
a fun story to it, and that's you know, you
know those shows, those stories are you know, those songs
are just as much about the stories.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
What's the story? Uh?
Speaker 3 (40:30):
The stories Out last Night was you know, it started
in my kitchen. I was standing in my kitchen on
Christmas Eve and my cell phone rang and you know,
the voice on the other end of the line, which
was Kenny, was like, hey man, you know, what are
you doing day after tomorrow? You know, and so I had,
you know, four children under the age of twelve at
the time, you know, and it's Christmas Eve, you know,
(40:51):
so the joke is well, of course, I said, well
nothing man, you know what you got in mind? Because
and he said, why don't we go down the islands
and write some songs? And so we did, you know,
because those four children know what pays for Christmas presents
around my house. I ended up in you know, the
Islands on December twenty sixth, and Kenny and I have
you know, we have we always have a good time together.
In this particular night, we made a night of it,
(41:13):
you know. And so I woke up the next morning
and I was I woke up way before he did.
I remember I just playing guitar and sipping coffee, and
a couple hours later, the sliding glass door to his bedroom,
you know, he kind of sticks his head out and
he's like, Brett, we went out last night, and I said, yeah,
we did, and that's the song we had to write today.
(41:33):
So that's how kind of out. We kind of wrote
it about the night before a little bit, and we
actually wrote two number ones that day. We wrote a
song called Reality that afternoon. Same day same day, it
was you guys should go out more greatest. I know, Kenny,
if you're listening act you need to go out more
and do this again.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
Okay, that's song number one. What's song number two?
Speaker 3 (41:52):
I almost always play mister Noah All by Kelly Clarkson
just because it's fun to sing and you know, no one.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
Maybe people don't expect you to sing.
Speaker 3 (41:59):
Anarks me to sing at Kelly Clay you wrote.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
I mean, I guess that's it.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
People don't expect you to have written a Kelly Clarkson
songs because you're a massive country music songwriter.
Speaker 3 (42:09):
I guess. So that's probably part of the reason I
played it is because you never know there's there may
be somebody in that audience. It's not a coutry music fan,
but they might have listened to Kelly Clarkson on pop
radio and so and it's just a fun really, you know,
it's such a weird song to sing because you know,
you write these songs as a middle aged dude and
then you're singing I Am Rosemary's Granddaughter in front of strangers,
(42:29):
or you know, mister Noah All in front of strangers.
But it's still fun, you know, and it's fun to
kind of be in character for that one and play that.
I almost always play the truth, just because I do
love that song. That's one of my one I'm most
proud of. And then I almost always and when Jesus
Take the Wheels, those are the four. That's probably about
about the four.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
Can you hit that when you're singing Jesus?
Speaker 3 (42:50):
Same? Not in her key? I can't gotta change the key. Yes,
it's fun. Yeah, Kerry songs are wow. You know, you know,
they're they're hard to they're hard to do live, you know,
but they're also really fun and challenging. Stefano and I
wrote one with her together called the Something in the
Water that's always really fun.
Speaker 1 (43:10):
I heard him, no, he played that next to me
once and then I just went, I'm gonna tap out
of this round and he had like.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
A drum under his foot.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
Yeah, And it came to me there and I had
this little funny comedy song I was and I was like, all.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
Right, let's just go ahead and skip me and go
over and I was just like, do you expect anyone
to play after that?
Speaker 3 (43:28):
No one likes?
Speaker 2 (43:29):
And why what's the junctaposition? In Chris and me.
Speaker 3 (43:31):
I'm the worst.
Speaker 2 (43:32):
I'm there for the last.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
You were so not.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
I'm just there to.
Speaker 3 (43:35):
Make people all different kind of entertainment.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
My friend, which song came back to you so different
sonically than you expected that we would know, like you
write it, you know, so we'll just John Smith has
cut the song. I thought, it's really cool. John spits
a great artist. They're probably gonna and you get it
back and you're like, wow, that is not my interpretation,
but it's amazing.
Speaker 3 (43:57):
What is that? You know? It's It's funny mentioned that
when when the first time I heard Jessica Andrews version
of of Who I Am? It was so different, and
I had such demo love for Hilary Lindsay's demo that
first time I heard it. I heard it on the
radio and I was like, I don't know, I don't
know if that's I don't know if they did that right.
(44:18):
Of course, it's Byron Gallimore. He's a freaking genius, so
of course they did it right, you know. But the
first time I heard that song, I was I was
kind of like just disappointed or just confused. I was like,
I don't know if this is going to work now,
And sure enough.
Speaker 2 (44:31):
It did, Sure enough, it did.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (44:33):
Uh spoiler alert, I was very wrong about Yeah, yeah,
yeah that did.
Speaker 2 (44:36):
Okay, look, let me promo the event again.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
It's a nonprofit aerial recovery, which is a really that's great,
that's you know, there's so much there that these men
and women invest so much of their time in life
to have the skill set that it's like they come
out of the military and then what did how do
they use it now?
Speaker 3 (44:54):
Yeah, you know, and they also do a lot of
other things. They have They have a center, it's it's there.
The two people that are head of it. One girl's
named Brittany Murphy. She's from Nashville and she's an amazingly
successful real estate developer. So she also has an island
in the bbis that is turned into like a therapy
center and they take you know, the one. That's just
(45:15):
one of the things they do is do all the
rescue missions. The other thing they do is a lot
of recovery for uh, you know, guys who are getting
out of the military not knowing what to do next,
or they're depressed or suicidal or whatever, and they go
down to this island and have counselors and all this
stuff and kind of you know, lots of training for
these guys, and it's just amazing what they're doing. I'm
I'm all in on this one. It's cool.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
November tenth, six thirty pm at the Bell Tower in
Nashville and there's a cocktail reception.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
It says heavy or darbs. I don't know the difference
the trades, just.
Speaker 3 (45:43):
Yeah, they got some put lead balls in. Yeah, I think.
Speaker 2 (45:48):
Listen.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
I hope people go check it out. But mostly I
hope people can appreciate just your story. I mean, it's
the if this isn't the story of how you never
really know and you have the liberty to pivot and
change engine figure it out.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
I don't know what is because I mean that's what
you did.
Speaker 3 (46:03):
We'll all learning, still still trying to pivot and change,
you know. I think that's an ongoing, ongoing thing for
all of us.
Speaker 1 (46:08):
At Brett James songs, Well, I only change because people
tell me I suck at one thing.
Speaker 2 (46:12):
I've never changed on purpose.
Speaker 1 (46:13):
I only change because it's like, you ain't good at
this anymore, and I'm like, God.
Speaker 3 (46:16):
That's usually that. I think the ticket for me has
been finding out that I suck at something soon enough,
you know, not wasting so much more time. I waste
a lot of time.
Speaker 2 (46:23):
And I'll be honest with you to me too at
Brett James songs. It's Brett. It's been a pleasure man.
Speaker 3 (46:27):
Thank you, Bob. I really appreciate the time, and congrats
on everything. I mean, your career is just insane. I
want to flip the switch sometime and do this interview
with you.
Speaker 2 (46:35):
Do you do you do a podcast?
Speaker 3 (46:37):
You have a podcast?
Speaker 1 (46:38):
Okay, all right, well we're just gonna interview and at
your house with no microphone.
Speaker 3 (46:42):
That's it. Just really no one.
Speaker 1 (46:48):
Brett. Good to see you, and thank you for the time.
And I hope, I hope this event goes wonderfully.
Speaker 2 (46:52):
And I don't know.
Speaker 1 (46:53):
If I see on the on the street, I'll block
for you. If I'm a car and I see you driving,
I'm gonna get beside sure nobody gets.
Speaker 3 (46:58):
Please, thank you. I need it, alright, thanks back, thank you. Mhmm.
Host
Bobby Bones
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