[SPEAKER_02]: I've never been good at aiming towards someone.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've tried aiming towards the market and I'm just, I'm not good at that.
[SPEAKER_02]: My publisher was pitching his up demo as mine where I did that.
[SPEAKER_02]: If it's a song that's very much aimed towards whatever this has been in this past 10, 15 years.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I hate her person said, what is she doing?
[SPEAKER_02]: I was so busted.
[SPEAKER_00]: We often define artists by their output, their records, books, movies, and the times they're on stage.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the art is made in the quiet, the struggle, and the mundane, the hours that no one sees.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm McKinna Ann.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm Erin Kray for Hayes.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the other 22 hours.
[SPEAKER_00]: An exploration of the creative life, lived in the in-between.
[SPEAKER_00]: Today we have the honor of featuring our conversation with the Grammy-nominated member of the songwriter Hall of Fame, Matrice Burke, who, if you don't know her name, you know her songs.
[SPEAKER_00]: She has had over 11 number ones, including being the first woman to have five different number ones in one year.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's insane.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wild.
[SPEAKER_00]: She, on top of writing, may be her most famous song, Strawberry One, which is cut by Dina Carter.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's written songs that have been cut by Trisha Yearwood, Kenny Chesney, Randy Travis, Reba McIntyre, Ray Price, tying to tuck her to the chicks with a linder on-stats here.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been Susie Boggis.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's just a few.
[SPEAKER_00]: I did brand out of breath.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Trisha is an incredible talent and creator.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is really interesting because Matrice is someone who achieved her childhood dream.
[SPEAKER_01]: She became a hit songwriter, but we got to talk about now in her 60s, what it's like to be pursuing that dream, be sidetracked by someone else's dream, see how it all feeds itself, and to still have that drive for writing the best song that she can write and pursuing success to this day.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're watching us on YouTube, you'll recognize a familiar background on this episode.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's because Matrice is longtime partner and husband is Jeff Hanna, a previous guest of ours and founding member of Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.
[SPEAKER_00]: So with that, please enjoy our conversation with Matrice Burk.
[SPEAKER_01]: How are you today and that's a how are you really not a small talk.
[SPEAKER_01]: How are you and where are you physically and creatively.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm doing well.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm enjoying a little time at home.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've been jetting around doing these songwriter things playing these private shows is kind of a thing now with songwriters and it's decently welcome, you know, we're streaming is sort of cutting into my very old catalog.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I've been jetting around doing that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I feel like, dang, I feel like I'm on the road.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I've got a record out or something.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm 11 being here for a few days.
[SPEAKER_02]: Where I am creatively is in that and a liminal space between buzzing around playing my songs to quiet before I write some more songs.
[SPEAKER_02]: And where I am physically, what do you mean physically?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, where am I right now?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, in my office, in Nashville, in Nashville, for the listeners who don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: She's like, well, my lower back is.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that's honestly the first time that's been interpreted and it's a very valid response.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Especially as musicians who travel, it's like our physical well-being is impacted a lot more than I think people understand.
[SPEAKER_02]: I put my guitar in a road case because I just up trust the airlines and it's heavy, yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: It really is.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's heavy and I'm a little girl, you know, and the luggage and horrible airplane seats that I think a comedian said, do they use somebody with scoliosis to do these seats because you
[SPEAKER_02]: You're the weirdest positions.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have skull ears, but not that kind.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the American flight really wrecked my knees because there was no knee work, then I kind of, my legs are kind of long.
[SPEAKER_02]: And my neck was in a weird position because the seats were like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, it's tough on you.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it interrupted sleeps and the bad food.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, then you throw allergy season in Nashville on top of
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and if you're taking merchandise as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, oh, Merlot.
[SPEAKER_01]: Flying with merch is the bane of my existence.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just had a panic this morning because I'm about to go teach at a songwriting camp and then go on tour for just three shows after.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, first I was reveling in the fact that I'm not bringing our baby, which I've been doing for the last year, traveling alone with the baby and my guitar and everything, had to do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then I was like, oh shit, but I still have to figure out how to travel with the merch and my clothes and Southwest now.
[SPEAKER_01]: All the airlines have changed their policies.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're now you're getting charged for everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: So then you're like, is it even worth it?
[SPEAKER_01]: How many records am I going to sell to pay for the bag fees?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, they're getting us coming and going for sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't do merch anymore.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just don't.
[SPEAKER_01]: What kind of motivated that?
[SPEAKER_02]: Just what you were talking about.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just a pain in the ass.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was just like, is this really worth the amount of money I'm taking out?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: I like traveling as a lot as I can.
[SPEAKER_02]: Probably because my precious guitar, you know, needs to be in a big ass road case.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you choose your battles.
[SPEAKER_02]: The baby.
[SPEAKER_02]: How do you do a baby?
[SPEAKER_02]: I just can't.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't.
[SPEAKER_02]: I can't run like it around that.
[SPEAKER_01]: For me, I just give over to like, I'm not operating at full capacity.
[SPEAKER_01]: In a way, though, I feel like when I perform, it feels even more free because I'm so excited to just be on stage, unencumbered.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I've gone through so much to get there, taking my child on a flight and all that stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it has made performing more enjoyable for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: But,
[SPEAKER_01]: physically and also mentally because there's so many other logistics that you're keeping track of of not just where do I have to be I'm going on stage like okay did he nurse is he okay is he if he's crying backstage like can't deal with it somebody's got like so it's a it's a big practice and multitasking and I'm surrendering I feel like
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: I can see where the stage would be kind of like, when you lock yourself in the bathroom and take that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's mommy time here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Totally.
[SPEAKER_01]: It feels.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, this is when I get to go hang out with some friends.
[SPEAKER_01]: nobody interrupting me and yelling mama which is I think before the stage was like a little more nerve-racking and more tied to like how am I doing are they approving of me the audience that type of stuff and I think that has lessened as my responsibilities have increased with children around us.
[SPEAKER_02]: what really matters?
[SPEAKER_02]: No, what do you think of me?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, which is so easy to get caught up in.
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm curious what your relationship is to that, especially given you've had a solo career and you perform and also have been a massively successful hip songwriter for Big Axe through the years.
[SPEAKER_02]: I had a very fraught relationship with performing and making records because I wanted to be a hit songwriter more than anything.
[SPEAKER_02]: My mother's family was in the music business.
[SPEAKER_02]: My aunt, Sudi, Sudi Calaway, he was a backup singer here and sang on tons of records, tons of records through the
[SPEAKER_02]: 60s and 70s and 80s.
[SPEAKER_02]: And Michael Jim played still guitar with Mel Tillis.
[SPEAKER_02]: And there was just this group of people, you know, their peers, this group of songwriters that became like family to us.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they were all feature Hall of Fame songwriters.
[SPEAKER_02]: They were broke in that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I grew up around that and that's all I wanted to be, you know, I didn't want to be a backup singer.
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't want any of that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just wanted to write songs.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I wanted to write great hit songs.
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't come from a journey Mitchell perspectives.
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe because we didn't have any money growing up.
[SPEAKER_02]: I loved the dazzling lifestyle of hit song writers.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was like, that would be nice.
[SPEAKER_02]: Have that nice house.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I was, I wouldn't call it mercenary, but I was just a little more successful oriented.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's how I started out.
[SPEAKER_02]: And obviously a group loving music and obviously a group loving journey, mental health.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, back there, but I wanted to write hit country songs and down the one I am, Joe Galoni heard a demo of mine and offered me a record deal.
[SPEAKER_02]: Playing the blue bird was a nightmare for me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I would just get so nervous and cheeky and it was just torture playing in public.
[SPEAKER_02]: But everybody was so excited about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just felt that I would let them down if I didn't take it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I made my first record and was basically terrified for six years.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, no, RCA.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I just,
[SPEAKER_02]: I wasn't on enjoying myself, you know, I put on a good face, not all the app that I just love being in my room, grinding songs, that's what I love doing.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the stage fright was just too much.
[SPEAKER_02]: It just felt like the universe was resisting me or at least protecting me knowing that was not where my heart was and things failed and they failed.
[SPEAKER_02]: And finally, I just said, I can't do it anymore.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm just done.
[SPEAKER_02]: And all the girls, all the young women back then, who ended up recording my songs, had my first record.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the one thing I didn't realize.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it was the best thing I could have done for my songwriting career.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's the big surprise.
[SPEAKER_02]: Every song on that record has been covered by somebody.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's amazing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: The entire record.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that was my little launching pad.
[SPEAKER_02]: says, oh, that's great.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now I'm going to say home and ride.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then it it took me a long time to get off of the road.
[SPEAKER_00]: You said that you kind of took the record deal and stepped into that because you didn't want to let other people down.
[SPEAKER_00]: And my hearing you say that basically their dream then became your dream.
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you kind of take that on?
[SPEAKER_00]: You're like, oh, I do want this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Actually, I do want to be a front woman.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to be a star in that sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or was it always kind of square peg round hole?
[SPEAKER_02]: always, always, but my grandma was so excited and I mean everybody was so excited.
[SPEAKER_02]: I thought I'm pretty tough.
[SPEAKER_02]: I had kind of the tumultuous childhood and it toughed me up.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was like, thank you till you make it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I guess it was character building.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's the reason I got with Jeff really, because we were both opening for coin black, and that's when we started hanging out.
[SPEAKER_02]: So good things in my life came from that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't regret it, but it was it was very difficult.
[SPEAKER_02]: And performing, I didn't get comfortable and I still have those moments.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I'm pretty comfortable with it now.
[SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't terrify me.
[SPEAKER_02]: and that took, I think, just years of no pressure of making another record.
[SPEAKER_02]: If I want to, I can, but right now I don't want to, and it's been very freeing.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, in a way, because I'm at home all the time, usually.
[SPEAKER_02]: now playing these shows when I go out and do them is an outlet for me and I enjoy it a lot now, but it took a long time.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I'm 62 years old.
[SPEAKER_02]: You think I get a grip a little younger, but you know, that are like the never having some of it now.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I've continually realized, like, we learn or get to the places we're supposed to get in the time that it takes.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not a race, and it takes us as long as it takes us, but I mean, I'm happy for you that it's enjoyable now or less frightening.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I do think it's interesting of like sometimes that things we have to go through or we choose to go through that aren't enjoyable or are scary or frightening or pushes out of our comfort zone that maybe we wouldn't want to do again, but that leads us to a lot of fruitful growth or relationships.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's something I think about a lot and it feels like in a culture where we're always chasing the I only want to do what I want to do type path.
[SPEAKER_01]: Which I think is difficult to live fully when we do that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, life is character building.
[SPEAKER_02]: The relationship.
[SPEAKER_02]: are to me this we just part about doing what we do.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like we were talking about, what is our life?
[SPEAKER_02]: We know all these wonderful people, this wonderful music family.
[SPEAKER_02]: Even though I wanted to be a big hit, country songwriter, I kind of got put in this group that was more Nancy Griffiths in that sort of alt country world which surprised the hell out of me.
[SPEAKER_02]: but getting to know these artists and getting to know other artists through these artists as far as their works because I had that pretty narrow, top 40 kid music library and I got turned on this so much wonderful music, so many incredible songwriters and it enriched my work.
[SPEAKER_02]: and I probably would know about them if I hadn't been out there and doing shows with Nancy or whoever and talking about music and talking about your record collection amazing songs.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was school.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's interesting too because
[SPEAKER_01]: you know we had Jeff your husband on and he was telling us that like the plane part is the part that he loves the most that it's harder for him to want to sit down and write songs that he just wants to be playing guitar on stage and I I love that you guys have those kind of opposite creative desires.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's so interesting to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, Aaron and I have very different relationships to music and creativity, and I think sometimes that's such a great pairing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even if you're not like working together musically all the time, I don't remember.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you and Jeff work together very often?
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: No.
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll ride a song a year, baby.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love singing with him when he can go be with me on some of my little songwriter gigs.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love him getting anthem playing a song or two with me.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's about as far as it goes.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, he'll have me on a record.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've sung lots of the records now, but
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's really interesting and people are like, isn't it hard for you, those being in the same business, but I'm like, it doesn't dev tell a whole lot.
[SPEAKER_02]: The cool thing is that we understand what each other does a lot more than some couples.
[SPEAKER_02]: But what we do, it's a different mindset completely.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: That kind of is like the same with ours.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm much more in a supportive role behind the scenes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like this podcast is the most front-man thing I've ever done.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what?
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd spend years on the road playing the drums, like as far in the back of the stage as I could possibly be.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, McKellen, I worked together a lot, but as always for 20 years since we met, it's always been that she's hiring me.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, and I'm certainly her and her artists thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's because this is the most collaborative, co-equal thing that we've ever done.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's working out, okay?
[SPEAKER_01]: We're better, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's nice.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's nice to visit, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: We started dating when we were 21 years old and in music's fall in.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think about it's taking us a long time to also just evolve and develop and become confident in our own musical and also career paths.
[SPEAKER_01]: It feels like we're in a kind of a sweet spot of like we can really support each other in each of our separate endeavors and our collective things without any of the like, well, what about me type thing?
[SPEAKER_00]: Or we've been there.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would definitely get jealous when he was like playing with some other band or girl or, you know, spending more time and now that never comes up.
[SPEAKER_00]: I learned if I just don't play with other bands, then we're cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't have a... Now I love when I get hired to come sing on the record, she's producing.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, just a quick pause from this conversation.
[SPEAKER_00]: The other 22 hours is an independent production built entirely on the idea that he's quiet on his conversation's matter.
[SPEAKER_00]: The best way to support our work is simply to share it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you can think of one person who would appreciate this show, please pass it along.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you haven't yet, please follow our show on your listening platform of choice or subscribe to our channel on YouTube.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a small action that may save massive difference for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for being here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's get back to our conversation.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm super curious for your specific career path and you having hit songs during like what I kind of think of as the golden era of country music, of the 90s and you had songs with
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you choose me?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like the list is very long.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm curious what it is like financially as well to see the shift in the music industry and what it has done to songwriters, getting a cut in today's songwriting world, maybe not even a number one, but you know, having number one compared to having that in the 90s, how that impacts your life differently.
[SPEAKER_01]: financially and career achievement-wise.
[SPEAKER_01]: We talked about this all the time of like, I've been critically acclaimed in the New York Times multiple times and that did not change my life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, we, I hear you.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have countless friends who've performed on late night television and it did not change their career.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the impact is so different.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm wondering if you feel comfortable speaking to that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Jeff and I often talk about, we got, well, the getting was good because people don't sell records anymore.
[SPEAKER_02]: You have to have such a hit for you to actual sell records.
[SPEAKER_02]: My royalties on album cuts were almost as much as my radio because I was on multi-platten records and everybody was going platinum back down.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_02]: in multi-platinent.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's not the case anymore.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that little chunk is drastically gone down.
[SPEAKER_02]: The streaming has picked up this last six, seven years.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's starting to ease up there a little bit.
[SPEAKER_02]: But at first it was kind of a shop.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't like paying super close attention to it because there's nothing I can do about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I can just adapt.
[SPEAKER_02]: on the older now and I got what I got and we don't live the very extra elegant lifestyle.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're still in the same little ranchery dude.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's good to live simply and just do your work and not worry so much.
[SPEAKER_02]: Those days of aspiring are kind of behind me now.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just want to do good work.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the songwriter things that I go play had the count like,
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll take that so I need some carpet, but it's definitely a different frame of mind than it was back in the day.
[SPEAKER_02]: At first I was very upset with what it was doing to people's livelihoods.
[SPEAKER_02]: But now I just don't watch too carefully because I can't let it mess with my head.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just go and do what I can.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but there's been a drastic decline, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Young writers are barely getting by.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, like, you know, you hear stories.
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like I've saw like an interview.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, Laura McKenna's saying like one of her first hits.
[SPEAKER_01]: She was able to buy a nice house with it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's like, does that happen for people anymore?
[SPEAKER_01]: All I hear is constantly like there's just no money and songwriting or music anymore.
[SPEAKER_01]: and we piece together, I livelihood, lonely through music, but not from streaming royalties, but also I don't write for other people intentionally, so I don't have like cuts, but when people ask me about it, I'm like, I don't even know what it is to be pursuing a hit songwriting today, because also it seems like a lot of the...
[SPEAKER_01]: bigger acts are on all of their songs.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think part of that is coming from management and labels.
[SPEAKER_02]: The deals are structured very differently now because nobody sells workers.
[SPEAKER_02]: They want to piece of the publishing or they want to have credit on the songs.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, there are many really good songwriters making records now in the country music scene.
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, there aren't as many
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: How has that changed your relationship to your writing?
[SPEAKER_01]: Back when you were feeling that success and landing cuts and striving, as you said, and really working in that way, how does that impact your creativity versus now?
[SPEAKER_01]: When you sit down to write, are you writing just because you feel like writing, because you love writing, or do you have that kind of career purpose drive still?
[SPEAKER_02]: Bobby Braddock, he was a mentor of mine and to the listeners out there, he stopped live in her today, you know, D.I.B.O.R.C.E.
[SPEAKER_02]: He wrote those things and he still pitching songs.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow, yeah, he's in my dad's age and he's going strong, you know?
[SPEAKER_02]: And we're still writing great and still in the studio all the time doing demos in Harlan Howard up to the very end was like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's very much who I am.
[SPEAKER_02]: I really love hearing a song of mine recorded by somebody else.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just a thrill for me, and it will never stop being at the Astronomic bride.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have something on her new record.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's just so cool.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll never get tired of this.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's kind of my what I started out loving and wanting.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'll end with it like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't like hearing myself sing my songs.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I would assume it can be difficult as a songwriter when that mark of success and achievement for you is hearing somebody else record your song Which is in my judgment really beautiful.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's decoupled from like any financial goal I love being able to bring in these songs to life if it becomes a financial success great I also love the act of this but much like me in producing records.
[SPEAKER_00]: It takes somebody else to cut your song So I can imagine that
[SPEAKER_00]: probably way less so now with the cataloging the history that you have, but I would assume that there is some frustration for not having that control that you have to grapple with.
[SPEAKER_00]: Somebody has to pick your song, whether it's a publisher or an artist or something like that, wondering if you ever had to grapple with that and how you did kind of navigate that lack of agency really.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh yeah, we all go through it.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's kind of like the peaks in the valley.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're going to have those valleys and you're like, why doesn't anybody let this song and should I start producing records or just so I can get a little in because it's become a lot more like little camps.
[SPEAKER_02]: with each artist.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like a little club.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a little clubier than it used to be.
[SPEAKER_02]: That can be frustrating.
[SPEAKER_02]: I come for myself and knowing that there was a time when I was in my 20s where I felt the same way.
[SPEAKER_02]: And like you felt this before and you just have to write the best something you possibly can and you did and they recorded it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's where I'm at right now.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like
[SPEAKER_02]: I have to write a better song than what their camp came up with, and to me, because I'm competitive.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I love at least shooting for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what is that on a purely kind of metric ratio?
[SPEAKER_00]: What does that look like for you?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like how many songs do you write that then end up actually being cut by somebody nowadays or overall both?
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah, the ratio is lower, but songwriters have if your blessed was success, some songwriters get on a hot streak.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it becomes whatever you write is going to get recorded back in the day when it felt like they were counting my songs every week.
[SPEAKER_02]: I would hear like,
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, you know, songs I didn't really like.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's like I didn't even think about pitching that.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's sort of a brand-directing mission.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, oh, this name equals number one song.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot of cruising on that that goes on.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's very, it's a lot of fun.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's going to stop your ratio of song.
[SPEAKER_02]: She ride to somebody recording it gets a lot wider.
[SPEAKER_02]: I do a lot of co-writing with young writers right now.
[SPEAKER_02]: I guess it would be a wouldn't call it a mentorship really because they're perfectly good writers and they don't need me, but it's been a lot of fun because they grew up with different music.
[SPEAKER_02]: They just have a different record collection.
[SPEAKER_02]: Some of them have bows like mine and theirs, but they bring a different phrasing and different little melody lines.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've just been enjoying that, writing with the kids.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we've had a few younger writers on here, and I've asked the question like, how do you handle how do you mentally prepare?
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you show up fully as yourself when you're writing with one of your heroes?
[SPEAKER_00]: How is it for you writing with these younger writers?
[SPEAKER_00]: They grew up on your songs and learned to write by studying your songs.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now you're writing with them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is that something that you're conscious of in these rights?
[SPEAKER_02]: No, because the writers that I worshiped and tried to emulate when I was first starting out, it's hard for me to see myself in that place.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I know that songs are important to some people, but everybody feels pretty comfortable.
[SPEAKER_02]: And there've been a couple of
[SPEAKER_02]: Young writers that were a little bit shy, but Jeff fortunately has been here and he's such a person-able guy and he puts them at ease.
[SPEAKER_02]: I kind of get down to business really quick and I probably shouldn't.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm sorry, and just kind of dick around more, you know, and go off on tangents and let everything just be back in the day.
[SPEAKER_02]: writing songs on music row.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was almost all men.
[SPEAKER_02]: And there was a very kind of a lunch pal going to work for the family and it was different back then.
[SPEAKER_02]: I still run across that, but not as frequently in these young kids or just loose earth.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, they don't have families yet.
[SPEAKER_02]: They don't have to pick up the kids at three and all.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so time we're straight of like I remember one of early of Georgia's life a friend Robbie Hect came over to write and we ended up talking the whole time and I was like I can't do this I was like I have to write a song if we're writing a song, but we've redeemed ourselves with that and we're more but
[SPEAKER_01]: it's tricky of like, wait, we want to build rapport and comfort and find our common ground of like where we would be inspired to write, but also we need to work.
[SPEAKER_01]: Kim Richie and I have done that too.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've tried to write together twice and we've just talked shit the whole time and then like, all right, we didn't do anything.
[SPEAKER_02]: Stay me and Kim Richie suck together.
[SPEAKER_02]: We have fun.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah, a lot of fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love I love can so much because she really tells it like it is so upon meeting her.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, Oh, this is going to be hard to get to business with you Is looking at me.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's like, let me go for a ride man.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, sure
[SPEAKER_01]: you need someone to keep it on track.
[SPEAKER_01]: Co-writing is so fascinating to me because the chemistry, it doesn't always mean that you like love each other in non-writing life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes the chemistry is best with people that you don't know about each other's lives and there's like almost this
[SPEAKER_01]: comfort that can come from not having personal perceptions of each other.
[SPEAKER_01]: And sometimes deep friendships mean that you write really well together and sometimes it doesn't.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a really interesting relationship to me and like not getting too emotional about being like, I guess we just don't write well together.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or for some reason, we write really well together.
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't know why.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Gary Harrison, guy I wrote strawberry wine with.
[SPEAKER_02]: We could not be more different people.
[SPEAKER_02]: He is like golfie guy, checking in with Merrill Lynch, golfie guy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Interesting.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Given that song, oh my god, I'm thinking about the bridge and like he wrote that with you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, he has a poet's heart.
[SPEAKER_02]: He really does.
[SPEAKER_02]: But he's very much the manly man, you know, clarinetist, right on a well, you know, it's hilarious.
[SPEAKER_02]: The two of us, you know, people would just, what, but we both worship Bob McDill.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, we both come from that school.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that's part of why we work so well together.
[SPEAKER_02]: We still write, Dante was frequently because he's had some family things, he's had to tend to, and some health things he's had to tend to.
[SPEAKER_02]: But when you find him, I mean, it's just gold.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's pure gold.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I'm putting out a record in May, and I couldn't write for the first two years of having our daughter.
[SPEAKER_01]: And my mom had a stroke when I was pregnant.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it was all this massive life upheaval.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was also the pandemic.
[SPEAKER_01]: So all of a sudden, I felt like I lost my career.
[SPEAKER_01]: I lost my mom for all intents of purposes.
[SPEAKER_01]: She survived.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then all of a sudden, I was a mom.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was just like, I don't even know who I am.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I could not write a song at all for two years.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was too raw and scary to try to write about life.
[SPEAKER_01]: That had happened like all of her would.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was on tour with the Wood Brothers and I was telling them about the last couple of years of my life and everything that had happened and Oliver was like, man, I'm so sorry.
[SPEAKER_01]: But also like, oh, you must have so many songs out of this.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, not a one.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Air and Wright's for sync and he was writing a lot with this guy, Zach Berkman and he was like, I just have this feeling that you should write with Zach.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's really fast and he's like a really deep thinker.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just for some reason I think you guys would resonate on writing, which he writes with a ton of different writers.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he never has suggested that to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Zach and I knew each other very casually of mutual friends, but it never spent time together.
[SPEAKER_01]: and we started writing together and we wrote I think six songs or something for this record and he is so interesting to me because he got me to write about our daughter and motherhood and things that I was afraid to touch also music career-wise I felt like
[SPEAKER_01]: I faced consequences for becoming a mother, so it didn't feel like a safe thing to pursue writing-wise.
[SPEAKER_01]: It didn't feel celebrated.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Zach, who is not married, not partnered with anybody, has no children.
[SPEAKER_01]: He really got to the core of what some of my experiences were.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think it's so interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's such a beautiful surprise.
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: People are surprising.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they are.
[SPEAKER_01]: They certainly are.
[SPEAKER_01]: The magic of songwriting is it synthesizes experiences and stories in a different way than just talking about something.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, when I'm in the middle of something, I can't ride about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: When everything's just, well, I can't, I have to get some distance from it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I ride best when I'm happy and I can ride up sad songs when I'm happy.
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, it's interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: There was no in the middle.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: When it was like, this is your time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's an awful, that you've been dreaming of.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, let's know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm binging Tiger King.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: I forgot about that show.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I have like a whole console full of photos that I was I can get these photos organized.
[SPEAKER_02]: I did not organize one dancing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was learning new things to cook.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, equally valuable, you know, it's the age old saying of like don't ask somebody with a lot of free time to do anything for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm way less, if I have free time, I'm way less productive, you know, but if you stack my schedule, I will get more done.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: I believe that, I mean, my mom used to tell us that my brother and I, like when we went to college, she was like, get a job because if you have too much free time, you're going to fill out your classes, like, get a schedule going.
[SPEAKER_01]: And especially now having two kids, our lives are like every minute of every day is scheduled and packed, and I'm like, we get a lot done.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jerry's still out on our mental health.
[SPEAKER_02]: that comes later.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we're productive.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we're just casually sprinting a marathon at the moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: That'll be done.
[SPEAKER_01]: With writing, I know we're nearing the end, but I really want to ask you this question as someone who has had success in the commercial realm.
[SPEAKER_01]: When you write, is your mind thinking, okay, I want to write for what I think singers right now are looking for or topics or are you writing?
[SPEAKER_01]: From, oh, I have this story inside me that I really feel compelled to put on the page.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it a mix?
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you have to like compartmentalize?
[SPEAKER_01]: What is that like for you?
[SPEAKER_02]: I've never been good at aiming towards someone.
[SPEAKER_02]: They always said in the recording, something I never would have picked for them.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just, I'm not good at that.
[SPEAKER_02]: It just has to be something that's come over me that I just have to write or a melody that I just love and a chase at.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's always then what has my attention right now?
[SPEAKER_02]: I've tried it before.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've tried aiming towards the market and
[SPEAKER_02]: My publisher was pitching his abdemo as mine where I did that.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was the song that was very much aimed towards whatever this has been in this past ten fifteen years and you know, our person said, what is she doing?
[SPEAKER_02]: I was so busted.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was like, what is she doing?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's very embarrassing, writing like a bro country song, matrice, a bro song of the back road with the Daisy Duke, you know, Dennis Chettos.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know, it's for Chris Stapleton, just say God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they're so good.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like half aware of what's happening in the pop country realm mostly only whatever women are out there Putting stuff out.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's getting good.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ellingley songs are stuck in my head all the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, this is I just want to be her song I'm like that lives rent for you in my head right now I love it.
[SPEAKER_02]: She's very like 80s
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and her whole vibe, I mean, she's got the Jessie culture thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep, exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jessie culture.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was about to say Whalen Jennings wife and I didn't want to say that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well done.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, she was so much more than that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that was so cool because I wanted to be Jessie culture when I was a little girl.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, it's such a good vibe.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, we like to be wary of our guests' time that you guys give to us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, because we wrap up with the same question and it's really a choose your own adventure.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it would be either like a nugget of wisdom that somebody has shared with you or that you've read or picked up over time that continues to inspire you and keep your tank full, or conversely something that you wish you knew when you're first starting to make a career out of your creativity.
[SPEAKER_02]: Ooh, I wish you would have forwarded me this question.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't on purpose.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know, you're bad.
[SPEAKER_02]: What's yours?
[SPEAKER_02]: Ooh, I'm touched.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, but it's turned it on us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, mine shifts in it changes.
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, when you ask me, my head just goes, because I don't really like.
[SPEAKER_02]: Fair play.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: One thing that has been predominantly for me, relating it specifically to creativity and from like a production standpoint and a mixed standpoint and it can, you know, also fit for something, if it sounds good, it is good.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's going to be a thousand people that tell you what the rules are and you can get really stuck in following the rules and checking these boxes.
[SPEAKER_00]: But at the end of the day, who cares?
[SPEAKER_00]: You could break every one of the rules and if it sounds good, it is good.
[SPEAKER_00]: Talk about writing for the market.
[SPEAKER_00]: Check these boxes I do this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I did this in the form and I wrote this way, and this was the imagery, and something's going to be like, what is she doing?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you write your own song.
[SPEAKER_00]: You break all those conventions that I want this.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then all of a sudden, everybody's like, I'm like, you're building, you want that?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, I'm starbury wine.
[SPEAKER_02]: You want to five minute walls about losing your virginity.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, written with a cold guy.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wait, I'll share mine.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nobody's, we've never shared ours.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's giving you time to trace it, I think.
[SPEAKER_01]: This sounds a name drop-y, but when I was in my 20s and we lived in New York City, I taught piano lessons to children, and one of my clients was Maggie Jillenhall and Peter Sarsgard, they're a little girl, and I went to their daughter's school play, they invited me to, and in that moment that I was there with them, I got an email, I was putting out my first record, and I got an email, that the New York Times was going to come and review my show at Hill Country
[SPEAKER_01]: the next night.
[SPEAKER_01]: Which is like a bar gig and I was like what?
[SPEAKER_01]: In that moment I was standing in like a elementary school classroom with this kids production.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was standing there with Maggie Gillen Hall, Peter Sarasgard, and Jake Gillen Hall.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like what?
[SPEAKER_01]: This is weird.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just blurred it out.
[SPEAKER_01]: The New York Times is going to come review me and Peter Sarasgard.
[SPEAKER_01]: and Maggie Gillin Hall where the kindest Peter was like so genuinely excited and Maggie told me and she prefaced it with, not that I should be giving performance advice, which isn't saying, but she said, if I can give you any advice going into it, it would be to be curious.
[SPEAKER_01]: Try not to get caught up in your expectations or your hopes of what it will turn into or what will happen, but be curious about the experience.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, whoa, and that was 10, 15 years ago, and I feel like anytime I get caught up and stuff, I go back to what if I could just be curious about this whole experience of what is happening, and that has helped me a lot, hold things lightly.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's my new one, right there.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't take that one.
[SPEAKER_01]: That'll be your next interview.
[SPEAKER_01]: They'll be like, Michaela and told me something that Maggie Jullin holds it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think the one thing that I didn't realize and Clint Black told me this.
[SPEAKER_02]: when I started on the tour, I think he noticed that I was pretty rattled all every night.
[SPEAKER_02]: I went from playing the blue word to 10,000 people and I, oh my god, I just, I'll have my book.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he just said, many pro-alt told him, love them and they'll love you right back.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was terrified of people.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was terrified that I was being judged and my voice sucked and everything sucked.
[SPEAKER_02]: What I have found, now that I've calmed the F down in my 60s, they're rooting for you.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're mostly mostly mostly rooting for you.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a safe place to be.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes it's not, but most of the time it is.
[SPEAKER_02]: That was such a profound, eye-opening thing to finally see that and let that end.
[SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, I wish I'd known that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think about that a lot on stage when I get caught up in oh my god am I sounding okay or they you know I think why am I up here?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm here to offer love through these songs not everybody's gonna want it but there are a lot of people out there who if they're open to it that is what I'm doing up here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah love them and they'll love you right back.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah it's communication.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_02]: Beautiful.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm a trace of thank you so much for spending time with us this morning and sharing your wisdom Thank you for having me all have a great day.
[SPEAKER_02]: You too.
[SPEAKER_02]: What?
[SPEAKER_00]: We know your time is valuable and we're grateful you chose to spend this hour with us.
[SPEAKER_01]: If this conversation resonated with you, know that it is just one of many.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have an archive of over 140 conversations.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you're looking for a way to go to next, you can find curated playlists by topic on our YouTube channel or simply scroll back in this feed to find our conversations with Rose and Cash.
[SPEAKER_01]: New York Times bestselling author Maggie Smith, Lucius, J.D.
[SPEAKER_01]: McCurson, and many others.
[SPEAKER_00]: This show is produced by me, Mary Chaffer-based, with help from the Kayla Anne.
[SPEAKER_00]: And all the music he hears written, performed and produced by me as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: Our show is edited and mixed by Leland Holden at Pod Punch, and we are proud numbers of the Bluegrass situation podcast network.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for being here.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll see you next time.