In Case You Missed It: #84 - Busbee “Writer of H.O.L.Y. and producer for Keith Urban + Maren Morris”

00:00:00
Speaker 1: I want to put this up on the Bobby Cast. This was a really fantastic interview that Buzzby gave me. And if you guys hadn't heard, Buzby passed away earlier this week, I don't know when you're actually hearing this, but he passed away earlier this week after a fight with brain cancer. And so what I want to do is play it back for you. I thought this interview was so good that I referenced it in my last book. So we don't put a lot of these old ones back up on the list, but I felt like this was an appropriate time to play this and maybe you like it and have more respect for his music. But no doubt about it was that he was a great dude. So this is Buzzby back from episode eighty four of the Bobby Cast. Check it out, all right, Welcome to episode eighty four of the Bobby Cast, and Buzzby's here, which the first I heard from you is Buddy's with Keith Urban. That was the first I've ever heard of like you in the way of like wow, Because when Keith Urban says something, I'm like, let me listen, because I want He's really kind Yea, but when Keith Urban talks musically, I should listen because Keith Urban probably was the smartest guy to him musically. He's deep man, so deep, Like I've seen him take songs and just take it to like I have friends were gonna cut the songs and people We'll go in the studio with them and go my friends think they're good. They're like, oh, yeah, I'm terrible, Like I used to think I was good until Urban came in. So that's the first I'd heard of you when you did some tracks on Rip Chord with with Keith But and I was like, Buzzby, that's is that like buzz Buzzby like a b but it's really your last name. It was brutal growing up with that name. But would they do the Buzzby thing? Buzzby bugs me, buzz but all that stuff. But your name is Mike Buzzby exactly. So is that an artist thing where you like just coming Buzzby or is that just buddy of mine suggests I just go by that professionally. A lot of people would just call me Buzzby. You know. I'd introduced myself, Hey, Mike Buzby, nice to meet you, and everyone would just forget the mike and just call me Buzby. So I just kept going by Busby. And I have a lot to talk about with you because as I've been researching, I've become a bigger and bigger fan. And also I have friends that now that it worked, like Marin, I took Carly out with me on tour stand up, So I have a lot You and I have a lot of similar friendships and um. But as I started to look you up a bit and like go deep into it, and especially with the instruments in the jazz background, like I want to get into all that, but I always like to start with something that just makes people go. And I want to play this demo because you wrote Holy, yeah, and this is you singing Yeah. No, I didn't sing that one is singing. I don't know what I was like that whose Nate, by the way, Nate Sifer who wrote it. Okay, so but you wrote it this is Nate singing yeah, because that doesn't sound like you when you started talking talk like this, when I sing, you wrote Holy, You're not singing the demo? Okay, this is the demo Holy. I've often said there have been about two songs this year that I think have been really screwed by country radio. One of them was Holy and one of them was Body Like a back Road. Because they were so popular, people wouldn't let them stay popular. And I thought Florida, Georgia, Line and Sam both got screwed in the factory that is country radio and making number one. Get rid of it. And I thought this song should have been in a one for on the radio chart for five, six, seven weeks. It was that big of a song. Yeah, did you feel the same way. I mean, as a writer, you hope something like that would happen, and but you write a lot of you have a lot of hits. Did you feel different about this one? Yeah, No, it felt it felt very impactful and and um, it's interesting. The tricky thing is, um, it just went up really quick too, because of the momentum of them and then how big it was. So it was very impactful, but it kind of like came and then went, you know what I mean, and too quickly. Yeah, it has a life after that, like because of the type of song it is and the artists that they are. But yeah, I mean I think it should have been four or five weeks at least don't you think that it's killing the the culture of country music. And in fact, the songs come and go so fast that when we were kids, songs in general, because well you use countries the format, they would last for eight nine weeks and they became anthems. And we think of our life because of these songs that we remember where we were and now songs number one thing was gone. No, absolutely, I mean it seems like the disconnects. I mean, to be extreme about a buddy who is my mentor told me back in the day, the DJs would show up at their record collection and that's what you play, right and now obviously, and you you're one of the DJs who seems to play a lot of what you play. I remember driving probably a year and a half ago and hearing you play Marin early on and going, oh my gosh, you know, like before it was really catching, you were like really playing that, and thank you man. You've been such a supporter of artists early on. But it's a machine, and I understand, I understand both sides of it, understand how it sort of needs to be in this modern time, but it doesn't necessarily allow for the context of a the DJ helping decide those things sometimes and and more importantly, he truly is the fans fan response, and if the fans responding, let it go. You know, I agree so much. To me, the weird thing is is that a song can be number one and then the next day everybody starts to going The song doesn't go from being awesome to sucking in twelve hours, No, it just gets dropped off all of the playlists and so and because of that, I think inevitably it just we're not in ten years going to have and again we're never in teniers gonna have the same We've ever had in the history of the world. Ten years and never the same. It's never the same. But I think these songs that just remind like we had songs like I came hearing Indian Outlaw on the radio. I remember hearing it smells like teen Spirit on the radio. I know, I feel myself and know where they were. I don't know that that's gonna happen anymore. It's it's it's a similar thought if you want to go all the way back to like there will never be another Beatles, in part for many reasons, but in part that we live in a different world. Like part of what the Beatles the Beatles, besides the talent, was it was there was a mystery. You know. You couldn't just get on Instagram and go look at what Paul was doing this morning, you know, I could, I could be I didn't, but I could be on your Instagram and what was Bobby doing today and see that In vice versa and whatever, there's no mystery. And even though you got you and I are just meeting for the first time, some of it feels like we already know each other because of the friendships, but also social media and life and the overlap and the and the modernity as it were back then, there was just everything was like I heard I think that maybe. And so when the Beatles landed, man, it was like literally when they landed, people were there in mass freaking out because they didn't know what was going on. They didn't really know what they look like in person. They wanted to go see it and feel it, you know. So that kind of excitement is just you can't recreate it. I think options also create that. Listen, there were three TV channels totally, and you're on one of the three TV channels. You have at worst, you know, twenty five percent of the audience period where we have five hundred channels now totally, I mean we're looking at just as an example, a TV network cand to me and say, hey, I want to do the show, like, hey, you should come to the show. And I was like, the show doesn't feel right. I didn't want to do this particular TV show. And they were like, we don't understand, Like, you'll do this show and you'll have two and fifty thousand people watching, and I was like, guys, not to be a dick, but I have three million people that listen to my show live and another three million that listen on podcast digitally every day, and back in the day it was ten times that totally like we're all losing are it's it's it's such a world of fly like an interstate and cars driving by, and like do you like the right by and by right car? Totally you have to like it while it was there. Yeah, it's interesting amount of turnover rate for everything just seems a lot quicker. And that's um. You know, it's not just the business and marketing conversation, as you know, it's also a creative conversation. Do you think it's killing art? Do you think it's killing art? Or is it making it better? Because I do see arguing on both sides. I'm asking you do you think I think. I'm not trying to cop out. I think it's a bit of both. Like it depends on you know, everything evolves, right, so art has to evolve and it has to be able to function in that new society. I mean it's like, did the computer kill art music making? I don't know. It depends if you're a tape machine purist. I love the sound of a great tape machine record, but I also love the things that I can do in a computer and manipulate something. Do you ever see Jim Morrison talk about the computer? You ever see? It was probably seventies, you know, obviously before he died, uh, and he was doing an interview and he was like, you know what the future and it blew me away, like you know what the future music is? I think you're talking about in the seventies and he's by the way, for those listening, Jim Morris leaked into the doors, very famous man. He died. Wait wait earl um, and he was like, it's going to be it's the computers. In the seventies he was saying this, and he was probably more spot on than he could have ever imagined, because, as you well know, there's a sector of music that is almost specific everything is the computer. You know. It's not like country music typically involves lie live instrumentation still and it's becoming more prevalent again in pop, but with a lot of dance music, it's like everything is literally in the computer. And to me, that's not a better or worser, it's just a different way of doing it. It's like, do you can you still be creative within those confines? You know, so where we would have songs predict what these thirteen year olds will have, what will they'd be able to look at in the art world and go, you know, this really reminds their snapchat story. Well, that's the interesting thing about it, that that that train of thought, even though it's logical and I get it, it goes to the thing of where people literally thought we'd be flying in cars right now, you know, when conceptually it's possible we could go buy a hundred fifty allar car that flies right, but it's not the it's not commonplace. So even though technology is evolving, really quickly. There's still what people want to accept as normal formats is moving way less quickly. So songs will exist, I think forever, they really will. What what kind of songs? How what length of time is acceptable? You know? Where they when they go shorter? Is there gonna be two minutes? And they're already going shorter? Are they telling you? Is it? Because again, I'm lucky enough to be in the high level, I get to see research. I you know, I what happens is with music is we'll take it. And I say we I don't pay for it, but I get to see the results of it. We'll take it and have thousands of people listening to these songs and them songs are on the radio, songs they haven't heard. And you get scores from m scores too. I mean it's it's sometimes you overdad it yourself. And I've seen some really great songs not be scored highly, not in the opposite. But it's data. And what we're seeing is that people get bored with anything over about three minutes and twenty seconds. Totally. Yeah. I mean it was pointed out to me that they're speeding things up, you know, and not only are they shorting, but they're speeding them up, meaning they'll take a song and I'm totally doing industry secrets here, but they'll take it and speed up three percent, so the song even moves faster. And if you ever hear a song on the radio, you're like, and then you play it back you know your computer, You're like, but does it seems a little slower. It's because radio plays them a little faster and they want them shorter. Yeah, it's interesting, man. As a writer, I mean, I still write stuff that I feel right that that hopefully goes without saying that it's truly the case. But I'm also I have a um, I like business, I have an inclination towards it, and and it's there to me, those aren't necessarily at odds, And so I've had this understanding of the reality that in a business sense, as songwriters, we're selling ads on a radio station we are with, and so is your morning show in this sense of like they want to either hear you and then hear the ad and come back to hear you, or they're gonna hear our song and we're gonna keep them on there so they can ultimately hear the ad and I'm okay with that. It is what it is. I've chosen to be in the billboard business, not Billboard magazine, but selling billboards, right, I did not choose to be in the I'm not trying to paint them Onna Lisa and not not degrading our art. I think you can make amazing art in that context. But it's just a different thing. It's like we're not we're not just sitting on our bedrooms writing songs, because we're writing is act with what we want to say and maybe someone will listen to it. Once. We're trying to write, to write stuff that means something to us and it makes us feel stuff, but that will reach the masses. And so that's the format. That's that we're allowed, is to be able to put it on radio or to put it in Spotify. And we're basically either selling a scription subscription of Spotify or keeping someone on the radio station so that they listened to the ad. And it's of course needed because you've got to have the money to do the thing, And I'm okay with that. It's just a funny thing when you think about it, you know, you can agree a songwriter that right now, it's kind of the wild West, and you guys are not getting paid what you should be getting with streaming services because it's it's it's very complex situation and very frustrating, truly, and I've been constantly trying to be engaged as much as I can different different ways. And I had an interesting conversation with someone the other day who represents a very well known, established old school producer in l A. And they both had invested in Spotify, and um, we were talking about some of that stuff, and it was like, you know, I don't fault Spotify specifically, like if I was gonna fault anybody. More than anything. It's it's truly the legislation that we let the government putting the legislation on us as writers that we have. I mean we're literally imagine going, hey, um, you know, can you come to a show in New York and you sign a new contract or whatever it is, and they go, you want to charge X amount of dollars, But the government says, no, you can only charge a quarter of that. That We're going to regulate that right because we think DJs make too much or it's a monopoly or whatever it is. No, when you go do a show, if you're playing with your band or anything, you negotiate your rate or whatever that is. You know, it's like it's it's it's fair market. I can't do that as a writer with two thirds of my income one part of it I can to sink. When you get something placed on film and TV, we go, we'll negotiate that rate. And and they've also through that process realized that half of it should be for the records, half of it should be for the song. Right, So if someone gives you a ten tholl placement to have your song on some movie or something, half of it goes to the recorded side, half goes to the song. But when it comes to mechanical rates, when it comes to performance, all of that is dictated. It's very complexly so, but dictated by different legislations that effectively does not allow me to go here, here's this water. I want to sell it to you for a hundred dollars, and you know I'm not paying a hundred dollars. I'll pay ten and I go twenty, you go fifteen. Okay, cool, we can't do it. That's the main issue to me. And you know some people want to get mad at Spotify. Some people want to get mad at pendor or whatever. I think. I think that's the future, and I think Spotify is and Pandoras and apples are actually in large trying to do the best they can for the most part um. But we aren't even allowed to come to the table and negotiate fairly for what we want to be represented by financially. The weird part of it is too is again I'm with you. I don't think the Spotify's apples are doing anything wrong. They're not breaking any laws because there are no laws. Well, the only laws are the ones that we keep us, you know, from negotiating to go back to the forties. When I say no laws, there are no current there's there is no law reflective as to what's happening right now. It's the back. I'll give you an example. Who came in and um, she stanging background. I love her as a writer, I can't she She told me that she when when she Spotify she sings, she sings backing tracks, she gets paid more than when she writes the songs Jesse Alexander. She was like, I get paid more for her. And she's had millions and millions of streams the client from Miley, I drop your truck from Lee Brance She's like, I get paid more to sing background vocals than to stream. But the laws are antiquated. I mean they're they're so old. And when I say no laws, why what's beeping by the way to blow up the chair to sit still? No? No, no, there's like a beep. There's like a bomb or something about the house. Uh. Let me. My point was, I thought, Holy got screwed. Back to the whole thing. I really think that you know in this song, and you know here in the story with a song, and you can set the record straight. Stid someone because biber passed had it and you thought he was gonna cut it. But was there someone before biber No. By almost simultaneously, Bieber was interested in it, and we did a deal for the song, like as producers because I co produced that demo that effectively was going to be the master. And then there was another artist who I don't want to specify who it was. You probably wouldn't. It was a new artist. So it's not a thing that's out there, no, not at all. And I'm only not specifying because I want to be cool to him. There's nothing wrong, but like you know, he was an artist who UM was on a TV show and got signed by a prominent record person UM and that person did a really aggressive deal to try to sway us from giving it to Beaver, which we still we we agreed to the terms that we said, but we're still not giving it to you until we know what's up with Beaver, because of course that would have been of the options we had. That was the best option just business wise, and Bieber wanna passing on it, so we cut it on that other artist. So and they paid this producer, so it was already locked in. We couldn't just go and say, hey, we want our song back in a in a normal situation. And Um, about a month before we had been told it was going to be released, my publisher, Sarah from BMG hits me up and goes, hey, what's going on with that song? Holy, I think it's what f GL is looking for? And my head was like what like? Because I wrote it with Nate, who at the time hadn't written anything in Nashville to my knowledge, pop writer, this guy Will Larson, who's pop producer like total in l a thinking for a pop pitch that whole thing and the fact that they resonated like like they did. So I had to call Seth up, their manager and just be like, man, these are some of the business complications we're facing and I'm not sure what's going on with this artist, but I can't necessarily easily get the song, but of course would love you guys to cut it. So we we discussed it, and then we went back to the label and said, Yo, you're not gonna release the song. You're gonna drop this artist. ARGI can we have the song back? And they basically just gave us a song back. At said that he got dropped, not because of that, but he was planning to get dropped. Is it almost a thing where and maybe it's not where if you say, hey, we'd like to have this song back, do they kind of feel like, Okay, yeah, you can have the song, but you o s one. Is that ever a thing, even if it's not stated. I would think so, depending on the person, it's It's a little more complicated in this case because they paid us a lot of money as the producers on a particular check because of how how badly they wanted a song, and it's in the pop world is a bit more wild West with all that stuff. You know, it's like how much you charge as the producer is whatever whatever you can get basically, and it can it can be large numbers, and it depends on how much somebody wants a song and if someone else wants it and literally yeah, and and this particular label person who wrote the check for the second artist, he um, he's known for liking to write checks like and if you really want something to help put his money where his mouth is. It wouldn't even a step further. Which this is just a little bit of a behind the scenes into that world. So we did something called um a kill fee. It's not even an advance, but it was like, if it's not released as the first single by such and such a date, you have to give us another check that was actually overdouble of what the producer fee was. And it just guaranteed that we would actually have the first single because if we were going to give it to this artist who was a new artist who had no track record, which we we'd love for him to have a hit with it, because a hit would be a hit, but it was a bigger risk for us. So their commitment was demonstrated to do that thing. So they had already paid us as producers and the kill fee was coming up in a few weeks, and that's when I called Seth and I explained the whole situation. He's like, dude, we can't do a kill fee, and I'm like, yeah, I know, man, I know how Nashville works and it's a totally different way how I work here. Um, And I was like, well, can you can? Can it be a single? He's like, I can't guarantee it, but it probably will be. We're gonna go five deep and you know it's a great song or whatever. It hits me a month later he's like it's the first single, here's the video, and we're like whoa and the rest of his history. I mean, it was literally like ju ju ju. Is there a bit of you that when Beaver passes on it? Because that's a money making machine, I mean, crazy money make well, you're like more than a bit. I mean, quite frankly, it's you know, and for me it's you know, I I have a family to feed, and you know, I've been very very fortunate to have hits and a career and all those things. But every one of our situations is that it's like, you know, even if you get the Biber cut, will it be a single? You know, if, of course, right now it will be a hit. But there was a time where it was like he's a big artist, but will it be a hit at radio? You know? Or this new kid who cut it, like we have the single, but is he gonna break through? And all of those things are just this emotional roller coaster because not only do you write the song with all this emotion and then send it out into the world, but when that star stuff starts playing out, man, it's just like because you at first it is Bieber wants it. I mean it was it was Bieber wanted it so much quote unquote meaning that was so legitimately happening that I remember being out there. It was in Nashville at the time. They're like, can you fly back immediately? Want to cut his vocal tomorrow supposed to go to Rick Rubin's house and cut the vocal with Rick on Bieber, And then that literally last minute the night before didn't happen, with no explanation other than he'll cut it in a couple of weeks and whatever. Oh and then when that starts to happen, you just honestly, you never know, because that could totally happen, and then it could be That's the weirdest part about what we do. It's like you can't you can't get too attached to all those things. I've had songs that literally I was told would not even be on the album, then made the album and I was told, well, they won't be a single, and then they were a second single. Like my first hit was that two Questions, and I want to forget other one of the first record, and but I want to go to the talk about album cuts. So we'll talk to writers say, hey, you know, I get album cute, you know much money. Maybe if they get album cut, they'll play some of their guarantee back exactly. And then the pop world is it different if you get album cut. Is there more money in the pop world or does it? Basically it depends who it is. I mean, it's it's all obviously based on sales and so worldwide artist like Bieber. That's that's the main difference. Is these artists can be worldwide, and so even if you quote unquote only sell a million records in the US, you can catch another one to three worldwide sometimes and that's that's pretty pretty rad. So it's basically you can sell worldwide as an album cut what a single would sell in the country genre. It would be hard to get that far because basically it's it's for every song. It's a complex conversation because a lot of popcuts. There's very few popcuts that are even three writers. So let's let's assume it's a popcut that's two writers, just for be conservative. Every song is worth about let's say nineties nine cents per album, So every million records is ninety dollars for mechanicals roughly, right, And then of course in that is your publisher and everybody. So most of that money goes back to to recoup your draw which you said, so if you if you so, if you have half of that, it's forty five. And then if you have four million, that's gonna be a hundred and eighty thousand dollars. And then a country hit three way would be maybe three something about a million all told. So it's mechanicals are tricky, man, but it does pay more to get a cut, and it does makes sit I never thought about the worldwide yes, the worldwide thing. That's the big difference between pop and country. Very little worldwide with um with what country is doing right now. But that's changing and I'm stoked about it. We're talking about Express Pros for a second. For just one corporate job, only four to six people will get interviewed for a twinter and fifty resumes, So I can think about that, they get resumes, they're only picking like four to six to even talk to. That's not good odds. So if you're counting on getting a job when you're uploading your resume, you probably shouldn't because again, not good odds. The fact that you need a real person talking to a real employer that has a real job, and that's where Express Employment professionals come in. Express is your local resource to help you get a new job. So they have more than eighteen thousand jobs available weekly. That's eighteen thousand jobs that you need to get filled, that you can fill right now. They have jobs. Find the nearest office at Express pros dot com and Express never charges a job secret to find employment, so you're locally owned. Express office can help connect you with available jobs in your community. Express pros dot Com manufacturing jobs accounting jobs, customer service, information technology, you name it, visit the nearest Express oppous today speak with hiring professionals that can connect you to a job in your community. Express pros dot com to find a location near you. All right, I mentioned Rick Rubin, who will go down to history is one of the greatest of all time. Everything from you know, for me, like the Beastie Boys, like that's my music, like my license to ill. When I discovered that, it opened my eyes to Wow, you can look and sound and all this is certainly when none of it has to match anymore? Does that opened my eyes to anybody can do anything musically? Um? Have you spent time with Rick Ruben? Do you know Rick Reuben? You talk about going to his house and have you ever met Rick Ruben? I have not. Um, I was excited about that. That's when you said that. I was like, holy crap, just I mean even I mean he's done from you know Rick, Rick, He's getting skinny, Yes, absolutely vegan now right, Well, the funny part not funny, part of the interesting part was when he was heavy, he was he's still a vegan, but he actually is gave that up and I think he's probably still has a lot of energies, but introduced meat into his diet. Well, I don't know what the correlation how it works with me. Well he I mean the other interesting thing about him, as you know, also not only a wildly successful record producer, but like the label side, you know, it's like, I mean, come on, you know, deaf jam really and an American. He's one of the guys that if if you're listening to this and you just Wikipedia Rick Rubin and you look at it. By the way, so when you look at and you go, oh, for sure, this dude's death metal, but then you look at everything that he's been able to do in all formats and all genres. I would recommend people listen to this, to just the Wikipedia Rick roup and look at what he's done in his catalog. There's an interesting aside to me, which is that, um, some some people who want to be critical, we'll talk about how like he's not always in the studio, or he's not like a hands on producer or whatever, And to me, there's just different ways of making records and different ways of making music. But what he is that is such an important thing in my opinion and something that we should all strive to be. Is he's a fan of music like he's From what I understand, he's a basically a professional fan of music because he's not a self proclaim musician. He's not a recording engineer, none of that sort of technical stuff or whatever. He's somebody who listens to music and knows how to communicate to artists based upon what his He's a curator basically and like a professional fan. But he's turned that into a career as a record guy and as a producer. It's incredible. It's it's firing in that regard. I want to play. There's a lot here. I don't know where to start, but why don't we do this? I'm talking about Keith a minute ago. So here's a fight. Yeah, I'm talking about this on our second It was we wrote this in London actually because Keith was living over there for a little bit. Um I think the polls on a uh play and so the family was over there and he was like, Hey, you want to come over to London and Ryan and I was like, heck, yeah, so we go? Does he pay? Yeah? He yeah, he did absolutely. I Mean it was one of those things where I would I would have done it either way. But like he's just like he's the best man. He just um, he's such a thoughtful and gracious person, you know. But yeah, we went over there and um, we hold up at this this studio, Martin Trefe Studio. It's just gorgeous, like on the fourth floor of this kind of like old school English industrial complex from probably hundred fifth years ago. It's this massive a frame in these huge windows. It's not even really sound proof. You can hear cars riding by and stuff. And the second day he comes in, he'd been working out in the morning. He comes in and he goes, I have this idea for a duet, and he he starts singing and he's showing me that a couple of parts, and within like ten minutes were like, I've learned the parts we've talked about, and we're kind of like sort of singing it to each other. I was singing Carrie's part, you know, and I was like, oh, wow, this was great. And then we just started building a track and it wasn't really talked about, but I think our mutual um fascination with the new radicals really influenced that, you know, the way that sounds and yeah, yeah, and uh it just that song happened in just a few hours literally, and then we did a little bit of stuff after the fact, and then um, once he locked in on having carry do it, it was like, well, how where where are we gonna get the vocal done? How's that's going to happen? And she had a day off, she was on tour, she had a day off in St. Louis. So I flew out there with my engineer and he was actually Keith was actually cutting a video to a wasted time in l A at the time, so he faced time in. It was like this whole technology being our friend again, you know, and she just nailed him and she's singing like thirty minutes. You know. It was the whole thing was pretty effortless, which not every song is like that, and doesn't mean it's better or worser. It's just I feel like those are the gifts when when it's not only seemingly as a quality song but one that people are responding to. And then the process wasn't a huge rigg and roll, but then most days it's a big rigg and roll. It's so advanced music, like, but it got like you who Yeah, I assume he try to playing the piano as a young young kid. Yeah, you went to school on a jazz scholarship. Yeah, one of the trumpet or trombone, trombone, trombone, what are you like, declared greatest in the world. I don't know about that. There there is an award college age jazz tramone award which that sent it to loan Is. It's a pretty small demographic, but it's still again, data is still data. It is true data, but it by definition of what it is. It basically it's like it's available to all college age jazz tramone players in the world, and you apply in your audition and I won that award is the Frank Rosalina Memorial Scholarship, which to your point is the greatest trombone player in the world of that age. I guess there's dot dot but I was, well, the only reason I actually feel comfortable talking about that in any with any candors because it's not really what I'm doing anymore. But it's also just to demonstrate like how serious I was about it. This wasn't like I kind of played trombone in high school, like all the way up until I was about twenty one, maybe twenty two. All I listened to is jazz, like I wasn't. Everything else was peripheral, like my sister was listening to hair metal. My dad was listening to some like some old country and black gospel and oldies, and my mom was listening to like hot a c version of country or of Christian music like Evie, have you heard this? Or like this very um I forgot some of the other names, but like super hot a see just like vocalist but Christian music. So it's like this, you know, on one hand, you have like poison and and guns and Roses and Deaf Leopard and all this stuff, and then you have like Hank and Willie and Rock around the Clock and black gospel music, and then my mom listening to like not even that progressive yeah, like like yeah and and and more hot a see more sort of church mom kind of vibe. You know. So you had all these influences and you were playing jazz were they were they musical? My parents love music, but no, but they weren't. They didn't sit down and and so you were not in the band in high school, did you? I was, Yeah, they made us parents made a piano lessons from second grade through eighth grade, so that's six year window. We all we all had to take them, no choice, and it wasn't it was it was almost just like understood. It wasn't like the stories where you hear your parents like forcing you. But we didn't have a choice, so we just did it. Were you really good? Like we're meaning there are things that I know. I'm like, I'm pretty good at and I can't always get better, but I'm pretty witty, and I can try myself to be a better comic. But I know that I feel comfortable and I feel I see there's something there. Did you feel that way about the piano when you were young, Like, Wow, I'm actually special in this. It became evident over time because you know so much of that is your context, right, Like you know you're witty because we respond to that, right you. You aren't gonna be witty in a vacuum like and I'm not gonna like know that I can play piano well in a vacuum like it. Once I realized, I would go to some of these recitals and I was like, oh, I was placing in or the higher part of it or every teacher I had was like, WHOA, what's going on that kind of vibe. It just that made it more evident, and you know, and then it became sort of through. It was interesting. We joined we were We joined band in fourth grade and I played baritone horn, which is a kin to a trombone, for a couple of years, and then I got bored and switched to tuba and then played Barry Sacks and like, I just kept doing all these different instruments, and to me it felt like just normal. It wasn't like this weird thing. But as I look back, it was like a kid that age just going okay, and I want to play tuba now and tired of this, let me play Barry. And the fact that my band director was cool about that, and not only cool about it, but helped foster that love for music really early on, you know, as a kid, like you want to do but I just want to make music. I didn't even know specifically. I learned jazz in in high school. That became across my radar and I was just like, oh wow, I just got the bug and started. I had a couple of friends in high school we just totally hit it off. And we had a little jazz trio and we just play and our and our high school band director was amazing Mr Ernest. Mr Vigas was the middle school one and Mr Ernest was a high school and he really helped foster love for jazz. He's a great trumpet player. And I was able to take jazz courses in the evenings at the community college at a near my house where I grew up, which also quote unquote happened to have a world class tenor saxophonist fro New York who became an educator and moved to Bay to the Bay Area and then taught in part at this community college. So it's like all this crazy like obvious, Yeah, totally. They talk about how Bill Gates just happened to be in the right brilliant guys totally, but happened to have a computer tons of that town. Yeah. Well, and also the demographic of parents that he happened to be born to were upper middle class, which means he had the resources to be able to access the computer at the college. And in my own way, it's all that stuff like, and especially because there's so many different chapters of it that musically and all of these people like quote unquote happened to run into, Like when I first moved to town or I first started coming to town, excuse me, um. I met through a friend of mine, Greg Becker. I met Darryl Franklin, who was Dan Hoff's business partner at the time and still really good friends with both of them. And that's the world I fell into quote unquote fell into or was introduced to, was those guys. Those are my first publishers, Dan huff Arre Frankly Like, it was just like, how does that happen? Well, because my buddy who I met through, my other buddy who met through everybody, introduced me to a couple of people, and one of them was Darrow. Like, it's just when you look back on your life, when I look back on my life, let me say that it's insane to look at those key moments, which there there have been hundreds of them, at different little moments that have really affected where I am and who I am. Super grateful for it, man, and I feel like some of his divine intervention, you know, I can't explain the wise of it. But similarly to like how how was I born with a unique ability? Like I'm like pretty okay at most things, and then in music it just goes the spike and then it's like okay, I'm back to being And then how did that work? I didn't choose that. I mean, i've I've I've I've worked hard to develop it. But I know a lot of people who were carded don't have a unique gifting in a specific area and don't get to do it. You know, when you come to town and Dan how by the way, I spent time with him a couple of weekends ago and there are a lot of us there and Dan I was like, Dan, listen, I know there are a lot of artists here, but you're the only to take a picture with it. Because Dan have I mean, just his guitar. Oh yeah, he's a he's a guitar hero literally hero. Yeah. I love I love talking. I'm not a guitar player. Um so do you play guitar? Not a guitar player? No? I mean I could play acoustic, but is it like somebody going on a golfer but then they go out and they know I probably No. No, that's straight up, like I know ish how to play guitar, and I could play some my songs on acoustic. But I'm not a guitar player, which I'm for many reasons. I'm grateful for it. I wish I was at times, but when I hang with Dan, it's like I just gotta hang and I don't have the guitar nerd out. But I love talking to guitar players about him because they just like start shaking. And I know how amazing he is because I'm a musician and he's like insane. I asked him. We were sitting beside each other and we were shooting a thing and I said, Hey, we're talking about tr record and because Dan producing the tracks on it, I was like, really, though, Dan, like, how many times are you in there when you're producing and there's a studio and listen, to be a studio player in Nashville, you have to be phenomenal and you just want to go let me do it. Yeah, And he was like, you know, sometimes I would go home and I'll be myself and I would think I would be like, I'm just going to do it with you. Musically, do you face the same struggle sometimes where you're like, man, I could really nail this, I can nail this keys part. I know it will. It's funny because I probably am strongest on piano, Like I play bass on a lot of the records I produce, UM, but I'm definitely strongest on piano. That's an instrument I I would actually potentially have played professionally, but I'm I'm happy to not play. And I actually really enjoy as a producer sort of utilizing different colors because I play the piano like I played the piano, and I know what that is, I know what it sounds like, I know what I'm gonna do because I do it and it's and it's not always the same, but there's the similar colors that I go for if I hire somebody else, Like this week, I'm tomorrow, I'm cutting some tracks and Ian Fitchuck is playing keys, and he's a brilliant multi instrumentalist. UM. He's he plays piano in a way that's different to the way I play piano, and he plays B three in certain ways. He kills me on B three like he just crushes me. Certain things I do, I'd rather have me do it. But more more important than all of that, I like the variation. So it's amazing to be able to go give me your version of blue. Gimme this other color that you do that I've never heard of, and then how can I use that to help paint. I mean it sounds lucy goosely, but that's the way I think about it. How About I got a whole catalog here, and once I started going, you know what, I want to switch it up a little bit. You know that some one I love is this one right here. I love this song. I like Pink a lot, and back when I was working pop because that, Yeah, it's been a lot, that's been a lot. Uh. People are always really cool with me because she was like human. Oh dude, she's really cool, like in in the land of the non human, which she was always really human. You know the thing that I won't pretend to know her super well. I've I've written with her four or five times. Um. The thing that strikes me about her is that she's she's an eminent professional, you know, in a world that is um. It's not like our world is unprofessional, but it's so um it just permeates all of all aspects of so many people's lives. She is a professional in the sense of, like when it's time to get on the road. She prepares herself mentally physically for all that stuff. And you know, if you've seen her show, she does all this like yeah, it's insane. So she gets like she gets back to her weight training and all those things because she needs all those muscles for all of that. Throughout normal day life, you don't need it. And then and and you know, mentally and whatever, and she goes and does that thing. And then you know, I think her family is still around and they travel with her. But when when she's not doing that, she's chilling. Man, she's at home doing what she wants to be doing. Apparently I'm making some assumptions here, but it's like this this balance that is really inspiring. You know, when we wrote she wanted to ride in Venice because I think they have a house there and she wanted to um be able to ride her bike to the studio, so it was like this is the best. You know, she literally would like ride her bike down the main street of Venice, l a down the sidewalk or whatever not in a spectacle kind of way, just her path where she was going, and she would show up at the studio and it was super low key. There was no bodyguards. There was no just her and so it was that like, uh too, yeah, everything we've written his minute two way. She feel special about that one when you wrote it? Um, that one idea that actually I wrote with my buddy Ben West, that was so so you've read with pick a bunch ties, but you didn't write that one with no That one. That one actually has an interesting story because she doesn't really take outside songs. You know, she's a brilliant songwriter and a huge hit songwriter. Um. But I had written that song with my buddy Ben, who was literally just with before I came here. He stand in my place here. He was a great writer, producer, lives in Detroit, comes to Nashville a lot as well. Um, And we just wrote it literally outside of Detroit for like we had a band we were doing for film and TV projects. We just made a band name and started writing songs and we're going to pitch them for film and TV placements. And uh, that was a song that I literally woke up with the chorus in my head and then Ben and I got together and like flushed the whole thing out, and we didn't know what it would be. We weren't thinking like this is gonna be a top forty hit. We were just thinking, like, this song feels amazing to us. Turning into my publisher, I'd be getting all these emails like, you know, everybody's playing it in the Berlin office. My buddy Thomas to be like, I'm walking down the office. Three months later, he'd hear coming out of multiple offices. It was like, what a trip. So my publisher then sent it to our friend Rainey at our CIA and we had cut that one again on another artist. Wasn't the right fit. After the fact, I've had a couple of other artists tell me, oh, I wanted that song, but they wouldn't you know. And then I called Rainy to tell her, hey, this first startist were cutting it on Super Talented, but it's not the right fit. I kind of need to take the song back. She was like, well, can I keep it and play it for Pink And I was like, yes, please, And then we got word that she loved it, that she was cutting it, and then eventually it was gonna be your second single in all all the stuff that they told us was gonna happen actually happened, which I really respected about her team. They're very like, this is what it is. Did it help that you had a relationship with her a bit, because again I assumed short with you because she hadn't take a lot out of that song. No, I didn't know her at the time, so this is before you guys did that didn't make the bridge to know her and to start writing totally. So, like you know, a couple of years later, Um, she had been taken time off or whatever, and I was like, man, I wonder if she's writing again. So I literally just hit her. We hit her up and we're like, hey, we have this other song. There's another song in my catalog, but I feel a special in a similar way to this song. And she immediately responded to him put it on hold, and we're like. I was like, oh man, here we go again. It's gonna be amazing. Unfortunately, that song then came off old like a year later. I would have kept it for her for years because she's the right artist for it. But as a result of that, I got a call three weeks later, hey can you go right with her for a film? And so when I went out to Malibu where she wanted to write, and it was for this song. This movie Suffragettes. That's an incredible movie. It's about the women's movement in England in the early turn of the century. And I sat there. This is the only time I've done something like this. I sat there at her request and watched the film start to finish. She showed up about halfway through because she had already seen it, and you know, big hug, and then we pushed pushed play on the film. We finished watching and at the end we're both literally crying. It's like this emotional film. And then I as she went to the restaurant, I took on my phone and like pulled up the garage band apt to see what key the end of the score was in, because because we were going for the entitle and I wanted to write in the same key. Fortunately, it was in the key of C, which is like the best piano Kaude's so easy to play. So I just sit down on the piano and I started like playing chords and just trying to create emotions that reflected what the film made me feel. And she had, dude, she's like the again professional. She had pages of versus. She was reading me all these lyrical versus. They was like poetry, but they were actual verses, and it was verse after verse. I was just going, oh my god, these are amazing. But then I'm as a writer, I'm thinking, I don't know what the hook's going to be. I'm waiting for the hook. Where's the hook? And just in passing sheets, she was reading just like in Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken. And then and I was like, that's our hook. So we wrote this song and then we just started playing the chorus and put it all together and it's actually on her current album that comes out shortly. That's a cool story, dude, she is. I like it that you watched the credits and trying to figure out what key it is, what can fit? Well, I wanted to be cohesive because I wanted just seamless. I wanted to go from the score right into her amazing voice. And that that movie is not out yet, right or is it that? Actually that movie came and went Sadly it was. It should have been a bigger hit than it was. It's amazing Carrie Mulligan, Meryl Streep. Meryl Streep is in a movie. And it came and went, well, I don't mean came and went. It did its thing, but it wasn't as big as it really should have been. It's incredible. Man, what's it called Suffragette? I played this in right here. I think Thomas had it first. It's funny to tell because I love this song, and you know, how do you find out stuff like that's not a lot of friends, I know, but all right, so you know I go frownd right songs and people yeah, you know, we had to do stuff, and so they're always like yeah, yeah, yeah, they all And then also song I was coming here and to spill our guts totally, but they forget it's being broadcast to millions of people. It's almost though, like you're so disarming. That's that that damn it Bill. For me, I think if you make it a thing, it's a thing, and if you're open and honest about it, but there's no stick. It really wasn't a thing, and and and and for me as a writer and professionally, you know the things that it's always funny when people make you sign India's like, which hasn't happened that often. But it's like, by nature of the fact that I want to work in this industry, I'm not going to talk smack about somebody in a public capacity. Ever, Like, why would you do that? Right? It just doesn't make any sense. But anyways, with to the point with that song, it was on hold with t R and UM. I had gotten word that Charles really dug and this was before he had called and they had asked me to work on their album. I got word that he dug and he wanted to get the demo track to put his voice on, just to see how that worked. And I don't think that ever happened, but I knew he was into it. And then when they asked me to come work with him, I kind of thought, let me put this in the back pocket because he asked, like, let's he was like, let's do maybe six songs and just see how what evolves. And I wanted to be very respectful of their creative process and not come in and just go, yeah, I know you guys want to write a lot of this, but here's a song you should cut. Just see what happens. And and the first half, you know, that first six would turned into the eight songs just went really well. I've known them for years. It was just this big family vibe basically in a great way. Did you go down to the House of Florida. No. Just after that is when I got the call um. But I had asked them to come to l A if they wanted to, and they were willing, and so they came out and they stayed at a place in um Hollywood Hills, and we worked at a buddy's home studio. It's like multimillion dollar, gorgeous studio in Too Luca Lake, beautiful home. He's got this like feral cat in the cage and like like this beautiful swimming pool. It was. It was a great vibe. But so we did. We did the first half and then come to the second half of the album and I just was like, you know what, I'm gonna play this for him. I think they need to hear this song. I think it'd be good for fit for what's going on. And in the meantime, I had been in communication with Virginia seeing what TRS was. Yeah, Thomas manager, she's awesome, And ultimately it was like, you know what, he loves it, but it's just not right for what he's want to do or whatever. So it's like no problem. And then and soon and then while up playing it for for them and they were like, is it is our first single? I mean, Charles, as you know, is so energetic and so in the moment something I really admire and um appreciate about him. And in the context of them, they all have their superpowers. One of his is that like, I'm gonna tell you what I'm thinking. It's gonna be real, it's gonna be energetic, it's gonna be right now. And immediately it was like, this is gonna be our first single, and I was like, that would be awesome. Sure enough it was so. I mean when the record gets nominated for Record of the Year, I mean, that's it. That's the thing. Yeah, that felt Really it's gratifying. Man. I was talking to my publisher today. I'm I'm grateful for recognition of our art. You know, I don't I don't live for awards. They actually all I put them all in my closet, besides the ones I've given to a few family members. I'm grateful for them. I'm not trying to diminish them, but I just put them there because it's it's kind of a reminder of what happened, and I'm looking for what's going to happen next, you know, And I don't want to ever like rest on any accolades or any of those types of things, but those types of awards where it's like, of all the albums that happened, we're gonna nominate this is one of them. And especially for them in that process, they were they were taking a chance and a lot of things that they were doing and wanting to turn a page and and uncover some new Earth. And and when that's recognized in a way that feels impactful, it's like, Okay, we weren't out of our minds. You know, well listen, they took a chance at just sonically, horns of horns. That's a chance. But it's funny, man, the other side of that story. You know, I didn't even put horns on that song because I'm a trauma player. Like I don't walk around thinking that I'm a horn player. Like I haven't been. You donna understand, man, I'm I haven't been a trauma player in any professional or really I mean I haven't literally proactively played the trauma for probably eighteen years or something like that. Like I literally just set it down. It's like being a track star. You have to work at it every day or or and it's that frustrating. If you don't work out, you're not going to run fast, so would lose it. So I didn't put horns on there because I'm a trauma player. I put horns on there because I was like, this would be rad to have horns. And we wrote it with Ryan Hurd and Hillary thinking it would be for Ryan at the time. And Ryan had played a show, Um, Derek Wells does these nights over I think it's the Basement Niece where their themed nights, and this was the nineties night and and I don't want to specify what song it was, just in case there's any weird connections, but he had played a song and with a band it had a certain feel that had really nothing to do with the original version, but it just felt like, oh my gosh. And we felt inspired by that, and I was like, we should have a song that feels like that for you, you know, And so um, we wrote it with Hillary and and then ultimately, for whatever reason, it wasn't right for Ryan. And then you're like, but then everything lands where it's supposed to land. Man, it's hard to it's hard to believe that when things aren't connecting. But it's always true. You know this one here, I'm going one. I mean, you wrote this one. This is how early in the national process was this for you? It was early maybe well four or five years maybe something like that. Okay, see you've been here because I've been coming to Nashville for eleven years. Like when I say coming to Nashville, I mean a week a month for eleven years. That's a grind, like just trying to regardless of the world, that's a week. That's a that's a good publisher gave me a private jet. So it's been can you imagine? Not amazing? It's Southwest Man every literally every month and list right at this point like stay list with a companion exactly, dude with a buddy too. The best is the best. So you talk about morning Yeah Hunter Hunter was, um, you know, this is his first album, so there wasn't I mean, first album in Nashville proper and on a label and all that stuff. But you know, and it was I was given the prep of like, yeah, he's like this, he was a boy wonder you know, zydeco multi instrumentalists whatever. He comes in and he's just like this, super energetic, really nice dude who's obviously multifacetedly talented, and we just had that idea came up and it was with Gordy and Hunter. I remember we wrote in that shack where Gordy's written a lot of great songs over the years, and uh, it just came out. It was just one of those you know, you never know, man, not never, but like try. I wrote Try and my Buddies Buddies Studio an hour and a half outside of Detroit, thinking it was this and it becomes this, and like you just try to show up and write the best song you can and hope it lands. How about this one? See if there's an emotion where it's almost like I read this book called I'm Okay, You're Okay, and I'll go a little cycle battle on your for a second because I enjoy cycle battle. But they talk about when you hear a song, your brain reacts, even for a split second, it puts you back to the place that you were whenever you heard it for the first time, you created it, whatever it is like for it just a split second, you feel that again. And I watched your face and your head turn when you heard it again, even though you've heard it ten thousand times. Tell me about this never gets old to me, Like it's just it's special for a lot of reasons, like Marin was the first artist. I do artist development as a profession, right, it's signed people to me, Carly's part of that process. Marin was prior to that in this in a professional sense, but being there so early on it emotionally had a lot of that same connection, you know, and seeing her in those early days I remember. I mean, I've told people when I first heard Marin's sing it was Lucy Silvis's house. It's a long story, but let me tell you the quick version. My friend Nadine, who is day to day with Shakira is like a manager, came to town and I wanted her to experience Nashville. It's full that she's a wonderful person. I wanted to like pull out all the stops for her. So I was like, you gotta go see a writer's round. But none of the rounds that I saw for that week where people I had known, or things or whatever. So I was like, we'll just put one together, which I don't even know why I thought to do that, It just seems to make sense. So I hit up Lucy, John Green, Barry Dean, all of whom are very soulful singers, great songwriters. And we decided to do Lucy's house, Lucy and John's and East Nashville's tall ceilings like this with brick walls, very reverberant old house. And she and I were talking a little bit about it and Lucy and she goes, you shouldn't I had that girl, Maren. You know you wrote with her a couple of weeks ago. She's great, you should hear her, you know. I was like, okay, great. So I called Maren and was like, hey, I know we only wrote once, but you want to come do this thing? And and the five of us with my friend Nadine and her friend, John's manager, and my wife, nine of us were in the house just going around and it felt like we're at either Bluebird or anywhere. I mean, it was that awesome for all of us there. We were such fans of each other. But when I heard Maren sing her songs with her lyrics, it was I mean, I wasn't there when chery Crow was discovered. I wasn't there when Adel was discovered, but it felt like that urgency and that importance, like straight up. I remember telling my wife. I called Derek Wells the next day. It was like, dude, I've never heard anything like that. I've never heard somebody sing like this. I've never heard somebody communicy like I have to be a part of this, you know, I don't know. And then I called her up. I'm like, what what's going on? Are you doing the artist thing? Like and can I produce? I'll do anything, like I'll pay for the players. I don't get like whatever if the money is an issue, let me help, Like I just want to be involved. And she's like, let's write and see what happens. And we did and that evolved. In long story short, it turned out that I produced the project, most of the projects. Some of it we co produced with Brad Hill, who was amazing, and she co produced it and it it's so much of our hearts were put into it because it was like, you know, when you there was no clear path. We didn't know what it was gonna be. It took you know, she didn't have a label deal at the time. You know she got signed to the deal. It took people like you playing that song like all that stuff happened to then make it the hit commercially that it was. But I'm still connected back to the beginning of it and it all came together, do you know what I'm saying? And I wonder the emotion like, well, when I played it again, I saw emotion for a split second. Well, what's the give me? Give me the word gratitude. Truly, man, that that song helped solidify some stuff for me. You know, it's it. I came up as a record producer and a songwriter, and I'm not I don't own either one of those things. I don't. It's not like their mind to own. And I made a conscious decision to focus on writing because I like the lifestyle better. I like um, if I had to choose one of the two, I would choose songwriting. And I decided if I would ever be able to produce again, that it would flow out of the songs. And that was the first song that I produced that had a huge impact, truly, I mean that was That was the first hit I had as a producer, but even as a song like being there when she walked in the studio that day, it was at my place in Glendale in l A. She had been driving up the pch and she comes in and she goes, I want to write a song called my Church. And I was thinking, Oh, that's cool. What's that about. She said, when I drive in the car and on listening to music, I I love I feel like I'm connected to God. It feels like church to me. And if I remember correctly, I literally picked up a guitar and was like, can I get all because that's a that's a phrase, you know, Can I get an amen? And she just starts singing the rest of the chorus and we worked on in a bit and then she writes the verses while I'm working on a track and take an hour and a half later we had finished it and she sacal sing a vocal in thirty minutes and it was just and because another beauty of it is like and I like all sides of it. Man, It's not that I only like staying under the radar and stay away from our creative process. I enjoy also when it's pressurizing. Is it's a new challenge, right. But that was so under the radar. There was no label deal in place, there was no specific expectation outside of us other than those who knew what was going on. We wanted to be great her thing, you know, but there was no like has to sell this, manure has to do this. It was just we're doing what we think is her and what's going to resonate. You know, you talk about Marin, let's talking about Carly for a second. With her same kind of thing. You wrote it, then you produced it. This song is special for a lot of reasons. To me. We wrote this with Emily Shackleton, who's an amazing songwriter. I mean, this is fun not mistake in her first top ten as well as Carl's. And you know Daniel my my publisher, Daniel Lee, who's brilliant. He brought her to me because we've made a conscious decision to invest in developing an artist. After the marinthing happened. It was like, wow, I loved that process. I hadn't done much artist development in that pacity or I hate to say it about Marion like that she is an artist, but I was involved early on. That's all I'm saying. With Carly. Okay, with Carly, it was it was um, you know, she had so many things in place, but there was you know, the music wasn't quite right yet. You know when she knew that. She came to us going, this is what I want to be doing, this is what I have, and we played she played it for us, and I was like, well, there's a discrepancy here, let's figure out how we can figure that out. But she had also at the time, Um and man, it's it's it's it sounds like I'm gushing. I'm not trying to gush. You have been so helpful too with female artists, man, Like that is that's near and dear to my heart, because I love all kinds of artists, but I love amazing singers, and historically a lot of the amazing singers are females. Not that there's not great male singers, but like you think of all the way back El Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Whitney, you know, like I mean, go on and on and on, there's you know those types of voice type singers, you know, big voices, Um and Carly everyone. It said, No, basically she'd been here since she was eighteen, busting her ass, like not sitting on her but kind of going, kind of working and kind of hoping it's gonna happen and who's gonna win? As you know, only fully Bobby could play my independent song and I'll become There was none of that. It was literally like busting her ass doing the thing, and that, more than anything is what drew Daniel and myself to her as the work ethic, you know, and that because that's that's really what separates the men from the boys. You and I were talking earlier about our schedules. It's insane, you know that, man, we have to work crazy pants did to do this thing. Um, But for her, the key was really unlocking the mutic the music, and that song was a song that we had written where it was like I remember her coming over and Emily was coming over, and I was like, we don't have any ballads, which is never the case, right, I went up tempos and I was like and and quite frankly, we were inspired by the fact that Cam was working and that beautiful and I was like, of course it's working. You have a great voice, you have an amazing, haunting, beautiful song. Why would it not work Conceptually? I know it's not that easy, but it was like, all right, let's try to do that that descriptor haunting, beautiful, amazing song ballad with an amazing voice, and that song is the song that came out that day, and it just I mean, anybody who has worked hard and had success deserves it. But that girl, that girl deserves it. Man. It's been amazing to be a part of that story. And Emily too. I mean, it's like that stuff. It just I remember having my first hit that was amazing. I was driving up to to introduce my then fiance girlfriend shortly to become a fiance to my parents. Now she's my wife, and on the way up, Darryl called and said, hey, Rascal Flats is Summer Night's the next single. And I was like, oh man, And that was one of the best feelings as a career wise, you know, but better than that, bro, And you probably know this. Seeing someone you care about or involved and invest in them having a hit. That's just like anyways, it all the first hit period. Yeah, first single, let's say Radiohead, you know it was. And it was the first first radio single I had in a commercial sense. I had other songs that were released independent radio or that kind of thing, but the first like you know, commercial record label going to any sort of sort of proper commercial radio. People in the city can be like, I heard your song, first time that Pittsburgh call, You'll be like, yeah, it's funny. I always think of that song people talk about the Eagle Cooler. You know that line's he's saying iglue cooler, but it sounds like eagle cooler. A lot of people have like, what's the eagle Cooler? I'm like, what are you talking about? We wrote that on Gary's back porch with Brett James. That was a fun day at Lavox's house. Yeah. Yeah, Gary's funny. Huh oh, he is one of the funniest people ever. Yeah. I would see him. We used to live about four houses down from each other before I moved, and he would go work out in full camouflage, like long sleeve, here's go. Wait. He would go work and and the first time I was and I've told this part of the story, there's some kind of actors like to keep way but at me and for Camo, when I was like, who's working out for me? And it was Gary? And but then I would see him there again working out with full camo and like, what are you like, Oh, it's just the clothes that laying around, So I put them on and now it's like he disappeared, like when they're not working. Oh dude, Gary disappears into the woods and it's like, good luck finding them totally. Man. He actually, yeah he is. He's a big hunter. He's a yeah, he's he's a really good guy. Man. They I gotta say they they were the first artist in talent to really believe and invest in me, like um Jodon had heard some stuff I had written and sung the demos too. Back then I was seeing a lot of my own songs demos because Dan had played him a song or whatever. However that worked, and so he reached out to ride with me, and then Jay and then Gary and written with every combination of them, and my first song, my first cut was with them, commercial cut. It was a song called Better Now that with Greg Becker and Daryl Brown. And then first single was with him. Literally, I mean sort of happens stantially in that regard. But they've they've been amazing to me. Man, They're just we're talking about singers, and I know you produced this song here and I did that. I was on the radio is talking over the last couple of weeks. And I just like to make lists and I like less to be controversial sometimes, you know, I like people talking at the point of it. But I did this whole list of underrated artists, and it's subjective, comply subjective. I think I just saw this today, whoever I want, you know, and it's my opinion. It doesn't it's not right, it's my right. But I put Lauren on there because when she's listen, there are in the landa fantastic singers. Then there's Lauren Atlanta, and there's the other one percent of the one percent, and she's in that, and so you're producing and I didn't know what I saw the whole eyeballs. Yeah, you know, she's I was with Keith the other day and he's a car guy and he, you know, we were talking about a Bugatti that's some friend of his hat or whatever, and it's like, she's that a voice is like she is the the elite race car of voices. You know. It's like, and there are a lot of awesome race cars that costs a lot of money, but then there's that. Yeah, this particular Bugatti I think sold for like eight million pounds. It was so rare. But she, yeah, she has so few limits to what she could do vocally. It's insane, Like it is literally insane, and that was an interesting part of our process. You know. Of course, when you're making a record as an aside, you it's like being in camp, you know, like you go to camp, you all become this family for a period of time, and then someone blows the whistle and goes camps over and you're like, crap, man, we have to go home. And then you miss each other and then and you're like, what happened? We had so much fun at camp, you know. But anyways, when we were making that record with her, um, she'd come out to l A to record some vocals, and you know, again to keep the analogy going, it was like I had taken the Bugatti out to the track and the engine was sputtering, and I'm like, what the heck is going on? This is a finally tuned machine. And she was having vocal challenges and what ultimately want up being she had a vocal surgery, which understandably, she was super freaked out about that because that's like, that's not only her livelihood, but it's her passion, like and you know, she that's who she is, and I you know, I couldn't guarantee her of anything. I'm not a doctor, but I was like, I've had multiple friends go through that. I bet you anything, it'll actually be better on the back side, not just back to where you were, but even better. And yeah, and she's got more control even and more and how do you improve on what she had? But it's crazy, man, her her naturally born and obviously she's worked on it too, but naturally gifted ability is just like out of control. She would the throat inside, the throat was like a vagina, and she would send me pictures of her throat and I would for a second, and I knew she wasn't sending any picture of vagina. Whenever someone sent you that picture. And I haven't even seen that many vagina. You're like, I've gained She's like, I'm able to sing places now that I wasn't able to say. And she already these kids and she's she was definitely kid what you want the talent show to go on these talent shows, and you gave right, people of the talent show culturapy. You have to be able to sing to go on these live talent shows and be successful. And so it's like when the Daniel Bradberry is the Lauren Elena Is and Kelly Picker blow the roof off the place singing, and so Lauren is that and then plus yeah, no, she it was. The amazing part about working with her is that there was so I don't think there was anything I could ask her to sing that she couldn't do. That's and Mary would probably say the same thing in the sense of like I'm always telling them there's things they can do that they don't think they can do, not because I'm trying to be silly, because I feel like I understand how far they can go and try to push that in a sense usually hitting a particular note or whatever. But then some of the trick too is learning how to go because I mean Lauren's Lauren could do anything like vocally, so she'll be like she'll be listening back to her takes and like singing riffs over the top of them that she could. And so it's almost like also knowing like when to to do to restrain yourself, because just because you can go a hundred eighty miles an hour doesn't mean that's what you should do on you know, if you're gonna drive your Bugatti down to the road, you know what I mean, so it's as a producer. That's part of the trick is being not the governor like it's my call, but like helping her know where those parameters should be, you know, and really gunning it so to speak at those right times. Keep taking on the batmobile. You gotta go drive. He let you drive it. You know. It's it's kind of embarrassing. I can't fit in that thing that he has, that butt. If you're talking about the bigott, yeah it is. It's it's like tiny. I'm six ft four, two fifty pounds, Like I'm a big dude. Man. Did you try to get it? Literally? I mean when I say I can't fit in it, I can fit it, but I couldn't drive it comfortably to drive it right? He would have probably let me. He's the best man. Like, it's just what's the goal? Like that? What's the goal? To stay married to the same woman and be a good husband and father? Truly? That's it, Like all this other stuff I'm grateful for and I get obsess over. I love what we do. It's not that it's not important. It's stupidly important. But if if you're gonna ask me that, I think as big picture as I can, and that's what I come up with, like I want I want to be there at seventy when you know, Bobby Bones doesn't call me and going hey, be on my podcast because I'm seventy and no one cares who I am with that woman with those kids thriving, you know, and um hopefully living a life where people go that dude impacted me. He cared, you know, because it's like all this other stuff is amazing. Man. I get I get a produced, I gotta write songs and people pay me to write songs and produced records. It's incredible. That's what I was made to do. I'm so grateful. But it's not even just a conversation of like how quick does a song go off the radio? Like who who was the Grammy Award winning a song of I would take me hours of asking people without googling it. No one would know though it was the biggest thing, and it was huge and impactful and it matters to everybody. I'm not saying it's no longer important, but what's important in that regard comes and goes. I'm curious, now, let's see if let's let's just take a guess my google it with the Grammy Award when I might have my years off. But I do know what I think the song. Let me let let me see what I can do that nine Now I gotta think aware. Yeah, but I would go to where the is just something that I can that I know? Yeah it is? Can you show me? I want to make sure I've looked before. Yeah, I'll wait for you. Yeah, I want to work backwards. Kiss from a Rose that's not early nineties, that's like yeah, that's like I guess it's like three maybe, yeah, Okay, eighty nine was pre I'm gonna go with the Bodyguard. That's nineties. It's early Yeah, it is. It's tricky. And you know what's another tricky. What's all theo tricky about that time is the songs that we tend to remember are like the rack ish leaning ones that weren't the grand typically the Grammy Award winning songs of the year. This song, if it's the one, I'm thinking it was a huge song, but it sounds like it should have come out before that. I don't even know what is it? What do you think it is? If it's the right one as Women in My Wings, But I might have the wrong year. What is it? Oh, that's a bad example, the example that happens, because we do still love it. But it's like, you know, the point remains the stuff that I mean that is just pre eminently important in our work comes, it goes. And I don't mean that flippantly. Man, It's not like nothing matters because you can go you can go all lamentations on it, which truly in the grand scheme of things, what is anything, you know, But it's not actually just the work that matters, you know. It's the relationships. It's the the heart, you know, and that's something that it's it's tricky to remember that stuff. I struggle with that because it's if if, like you did ask me, that's what's really the most important to me. But sometimes my life only reflects the business part of it, you know, as opposed to the relational part of not that the relationships don't matter, but like prioritizing and taking the moment and going like how are you doing? Man? Like what's really going on? Like are you are you good? Like is everything cool? Do you need to talk? I'm here? You know, Because that stuff matters, man, that really does, and it's not again that's the stuff that happens behind closed doors, in secret you're never applauded for, you know, but those are the things that echo echo heaven, so to speak. You know, that's that's the stuff that matters when it's like I'm stuck or I'm in trouble with the law, but like, yeah, creatively I'm in trouble. Like I don't I don't really know who's your who's your guy, who's your girl? Um, I mean I talked to my wife about that stuff. I talked to my publisher, my pastor, my best friends. You know, I'm just all of its one big conversation truly, and and several other several writer friends, you know. Um. The thing I've learned or been learning is whatever I struggle, typically it's not unique to me. Just because we don't talk about it in normal conversation doesn't mean other people aren't going through the same things. You say that, And so I wrote this book, right, And I wrote a book and it did well, it was the best seller for a while. But I was really nervous and putting it out because I felt very alone in my story because I grew up a kid and my I didn't have a dad, and my mom was a drug addict and she died in your forties and I was and we went through some very tough times, and I thought, I'm going to tell the story. And I felt very alone in my entire life. I felt very like nobody knew what I had been through. And it created this humongous chip on my shoulder because nobody knew what I had been through. I put this book out, and first of all, I was like, man, nobody's gonna do you. I will go do show stand up tells people come up to me and go, you told this story. I had this same story. Anyway, blows my mind. I spent my whole life thinking I was alone. And then when I put this out and people people would consume it, the amount of people that come and go, hey, you're not alone liked. I was like that what you said there is what I experience now with something. And even the radio show where I'm talking, I'm vulnerable and I say things and I think God and no one, Yeah, same thing, and what you said there is the other part of it. Even if like your exact story is not my story, but when you throw the vulnerable card on the table, it creates an environment where oh, I can be vulnerable, you know, And I'm learning that myself. Like often we have to lead, we have to go no one's being vulnerable, but I'm feeling what I'm gonna just say it. Hey, are you guys struggled? Do you think that you're never gonna have hits song again? Or that everyone thinks what you do as a joke or whatever it is, you know, and everyone starts to go, wait, you're you feel that too, I feel like, and we start you able to talk about those things and just sort of like, um, put the pen in a little bit, so to speak, because you know, we're all creatives and as such, our brains are a little like extra walky, and it comes with the tax, the emotional tax, right of having to deal with some of these extra insecurities and extra fears. I mean, we all have insecurities and fears, but it's just seems somewhat heightened with creatives. I always say it, to be different, you really have to be different, Meaning if you want to be different than the rest, you don't just go and be different, then you're the same with the rest of you, like totally, like I'm a weird human, but that weirdness allows me to do different types of things and where I can flourish in certain areas, I really struggle in others totally. But that's what makes me different. Like for me to be different, I am different, and something that's tricky about that, or let me just speak for myself. It's been tricky because being this dude is like I was a gazz dramon player and I write pop songs and country songs and produced and publishing business and music and altogether it's like there's not it's not like you can just go, oh, I'm gonna build a career just like this person, which you can't do that to begin with. But when you're sort of doing you, the path isn't laid out, and it's sort it's scary, it really is, because everything and me constantly wants to go like who can I look to who's done the thing? And I definitely have mentors and people I admire like Dan and other people like that who I can call and have these real types of conversations with, and but Dan Hus's career is totally different than the career I'm working on and where that's headed. And even if I try to replicate his career. It's not possible. You know, his just unique to him, and mut Langs is unique to him, and Quincy's to him, and Da da da da da. It's everybody. You know. I'm not saying I'm in that I'm but you can't hear on the podcast. My hand is going up because those are the super producers you know, that you look up to, and like those you just have you do you, you know, because this is the other way I started to look at It's the cheesest thing to say, but like, I'm the best Buzzby that's ever existed. I'm a horrible Bobby Bones. You're the best Bobby Bones that's ever existed. You'd be a horrible me. And vice versa Mike, Like, it's you gotta be you, you know, and we need that everyone. I need you to be you, you need me to be me. I need you to be you. I appreciate the conversation. Man, you're way smarter than I am. Some times, to sit beside somebody, I was hoping you're gonna say way smarter than I thought I was gonna. I was gonna hug you. And it was just like sit with people and there are times where I talk and there are times where I shut up because I feel like I can learn. It's definitely one of those times if I just shut up and just just just took some notes, like I really appreciate the time. I know you're a busy dude. I know you got so I appreciate you stopped by and shedding the knowledge like I felt like I didn't went to a match, like I paid a hundred bucks for a Steve Martin master class. I love Steve Martin creatively and in so many forms. He was selling out stadiums doing stand up when it just didn't make sense to you because you couldn't see him and you couldn't hear him. You can just a p a literally, I mean yes literally. So you know I bought the master class and I enjoyed it, but I paid a hundred bucks for it, right, I love Steve Martin but a lot. I just got a free Buzby master class here. Hi, thanks man, thanks for having me, Thanks for coming in my episode This Mine eighty four. That's Buzzby or is I call him Mike? Does anybody call you what? Your Dan huff insists on trying to call me Michael Michael, and he's trying to make as many people call me that. So Keith's been calling me Michael, and anyone Dan can influence to call me Michael. He thinks it bothers me. It doesn't. But thanks Dan, Thanks everybody, Thanks for thank you,