#79 - Forest Whitehead - Wrote Peter Pan, Love Me Like You Mean It and Produced Kelsea Ballerini

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Speaker 1: All right, welcome episode seventy nine and with Forest. Hey, let me ask you a question because I was. And by the way, you're like twelve, which is fun. How old are you really? Twenty seven? Alrighty six something good? Yeah, we have twenty seven win soon November here. I mean, if you're a girl like I wonder if you're that a like, yeah, it's still good for me. Let me my girlfriend's twenty eight. Let's say eight. We think we hope, so a fourth wide it's here and you are your twenty eight young guy and you've and we'll kind of really quick roll through what you've done and they come back around to it. But you've written list off list off to the songs that people would know that you've written, um most familiar with with Kelsey Ballerini, let me like you mean it, Peter Pan, Yeah, boy unapologetically um legends. So all those you do pretty good for twenty seven year old. You've been pretty good for twenty seven year old day. So let's see what I want to talk about first is I was at the a c M Honor show. I presented one of the awards at the a c M Honors and you were there were you there when you're playing, right, I said it was you and Hillary. You're looking at me like it wasn't me. I was like, oh, well, I got the wrong dude. This is the reason that I was like, hey, we should reach out to him, because what happened was I was presenting probably a couple of awards after Kelsey played, but you were playing acoustic. Kelsey was singing and Hillary Lindsay was singing, backing up vocals, and there's a three piece and you guys did legends on stage, and so I'm watching you and I don't know you're right. I only know of you because we used to work at the same at the same place. I knew of you. And I was like, man, all the pressure is on Forest here because he's the only guy with the guitar. They're playing this raw and stripped down like he can't suck, like you're on natural. This is being tape for CBS. You can't suck. It gets real? Is there is that more of a pressure felt situation when it's just you're the only instrument and there are millions of people? Man, I love that. I almost I would love playing a more acoustic style show than more of an overproduced show um because all was on you. Well, you know, I just love hearing an acoustic guitar felling room like that rather than kind of be in the mix, so I can play a different way and almost more confident in a way in that situation because I'm trying to feel so much space, you know. I thought the acoustic version of that song was awesome, So I like it for the radio, but it's it's it's produced for the radio. It's produced big and for it to sound big and for it to be full and production. I loved it stripped down, and it wouldn't work on the radio. Like every everybody, it would work. I think it would work anyway, but people that don't think like me would go, well, this isn't big enough. We can't play it. Actually, I think it's not a better like I loved. I loved that song stripped down like that. And I was with my manager and we were sitting there were watching because we were like right there next the stage, and I was like, man, that's legend sounded probably better acoustic with just YouTube and Hillary lends these things like crazy too, So so you wrote this and you produce this too. I co produced that no offense to you're producing, because I think the producing is good too, But I know that's you know, it's there's so many different ways you can take a song like that, so I love doing the contrast at acoustic situation that it always brings a different light too. I thought it was really good. It's crazy. It's it's crazy that you were with Kelsey on that first album, because well, we'll just start with love Me like you mean. This song to me, even in my life of being here in Nashville, is a big song for me because it was like the first song that I just stood out on and for weeks fought for. It was like the first time that I was a real jackass about music, and I mean, and now everything comes full circle again and here you and I've never met. You wrote produced the song We've never met, And for that song for me was a big deal because I actually got to prove people hate relax like I kind of can hear some good things sometimes. So that was a big thing for me. It was a huge thing for Kelsey. It was a big thing for you. Obviously it's huge and so was this your first number one? It was have you been paid fully for this song at this point, I guess. I mean, I don't know. I'm still hopefully it'll keep trickling, but it's just trickles at this point, right, Yeah, alright, So tell me about this. So you meet this girl named Kelsey Ware. So I met Kelsey as she came into Black River. UM my publisher at the time, Robert Carlton, had to set her up to come cut some vocals in the studio and over to the studio and she was just doing a couple of songs that I think she wrote by herself, was tracking the vocal and m you know, I think one of our first times that I met her, she like, she's, hey, come come check this song out. You know, just pure excitement, pure the same person you meet today, but just so on fire with what she was doing. And you know, we we went in one of those sad writer rooms and she played this song. I couldn't even tell you what it was at the time. It just blew me away, you know. And I remember walking out of that room into my publisher's office, like, what's going on with her? Is she? How are y'all thinking about sign or what? You know? What's the deal? You know? And just immediately had that excitement of there's definitely something here, you know. Um. So it didn't take long for her to her to get signed and we were in a room together, um not long after that and just writing. I mean, how did you get to be? Because I remember Kelsey getting signed to the Christmas party at their party. Uh, because she was I had a publishing deal, which means she was paid to write, and then they gave an artist deal, which means they're gonna invest money in her. And here you are another not those kids that they're gonna pay money to produce. Okay, yeah, interesting stories. So as we were writing from the very beginning, how it was just doing demos of not necessarily thinking, oh, we're making a record on this girl. We were just I was trying my best to make these songs that I was writing with her sound the best they could be, you know. So I was spending people totally, I mean, just just for anybody to get interested in whatever this is, you know, because at those stages, you don't know what it is. You're just creating. Um. And so a lot of the demos that we made turned into the master record. Um. So it was I owe everything for her kind of going to bat for me with the label, Um, I'm sure they had other ideas of producers and things that they thought would be a better fit. And she's the one that went to bat for me and was like, no, I want him to do it. He's been doing the demos. I like the sound that we're creating. We have a vibe writing. It feels right to do it this way. And so her kind of being confident enough to say that she wanted to do it that way enabled me the opportunity. And that's cute. No, but she doesn't have any power unless you didn't unless you were doing a really good job. She's a brand new artists. She has no elaboration, she has no power. They're just going okay, our new artists and telling us what to do. Unless you're production those demos, as the kids would say, fire right, they're not looking at it a second way. So when you're producing these demos, are you producing them a little bit as a resume? Like, look what I can do? So to anybody who hears it, even people are plugging songs, are you are you doing? Is that in your mind? Well, you know it's it's I'm inspired differently with every artist that I work with, so that it takes the demo in a different land. When I was with Kelsey early on, I was inspired to put more pop elements. It's not like I was doing that to all my demos, so really, in a way, she kind of helped me find the sound too. It's not like that's what I did, and I just messed it with her. That's what inspired in the room. The things that she got excited about, the things that we would right just lended towards a more pop vibe. And I kind of started exploring that and involving my co producer Jason Massey, who brings us a ton as far as the pop side of things into that. And I feel like where me and him kind of meet in the middle was the sweet spot for that sound that you hear in that sound that and it was really I would say, probably of course love me like you mean. It was the the initial sound that kind of throwing the wake for everything else on that record. Um that kind of fell behind that. But Peter Pan was the track even on the demo that I remember she just freaked out about and I was like, there's something special about this combination of of of you know sonic landscape that were given on her record. That's getting exciting, you know. Um So, I mean we just kind of found a certain lane and and war it out. Tried to write every song and a part of that record in that similar lane of love Me Like You Mean It and Peter Pan to give it an identity. Really, it also shows that everything is important here you are giving an identity early. But again, even Kelsey said, the people weren't they were shopping love Me Like You Mean It to other people. A lot of people passed on this, and a lot of people are like, that's not for me. And you know what, it probably was up for a lot of people, and a lot of people couldn't have made it work. And Kelsey created her own different type of lane that I don't think other people would have been able to do because of her voice, her age, her she's a female. It's so a lot of perfect things came to get at the right time. But it's a testament that you put so much work into something that you don't even really know it's gonna be something. And there's a lot to be said about that too. Yeah, even we play ball and it's like a practice. Perfect makes you perfect perfect. So here you are working on a demo, making a perfect demo lack of a better term, that's so good. They're like, Okay, we think this is good enough for you to do it. Anyway, from a whole point is you didn't have to probably have to produce it like you did. You did well. Like I said, whenever you're inspired by something, it's it's not work at all at that point. Whenever you know you lose hours on the clock very quickly when you find you land on a song that you're excited about, be didn't even know that you were just put in a demo that you didn't even for money. Now, well that's the thing. I've never done any of this necessarily for for money at first, in this sense of where you know, uh, if you're if you're looking for a pub deal and you don't have much going on, you're not getting paid a lot of money. So it definitely was not about that. It was more about discovering something that we felt like UM was was different and and we felt that there was a different quality to the lane that we were entertaining than UM what was going on at country radio at the time. And I felt like that was more exciting to us than than worrying about, you know, trying to get paid for the demo. It was just like, dude, this is cool. I feel like this is different. Um let's just roll with it. And and you know, thank God, like I said, she kind of went aback for me when it came to the label and that really enabled the opportunity. What's like, what your deal musical? You play a bunch of instruments away. I grew up playing drums, I uh, you know, learned guitar and piano self all. I took a little bit of drum lessons earlier on. I think that helped me rhythmically for a lot of things. But I mean self taught, self taught, meaning listen to Brad Hasley records, trying to figure out what the hell he was doing, repelling it over and over and over until I could get those licks like he played them. And I still can't do it like he played them. But it was really more of a listening to the radio than necessarily having a teacher sit down and say hey do this. Um. So self taught was just I learned the things that I loved. I listened to popular music in a sense where it didn't matter if it was wrapped reggae, um whatever. I wanted to know what was making a popular song. Can you read music? I can't? I can. I can do the Nashville numbers system. You can or can't? You can't, cannot And a lot of people who are self taught can't read music, Like I don't think Paul Shaffer can read music, and he is. He's a genius. He's back in the I mean before I was born, before about the born, he was, you know, leading the SNL band and and uh did Letterman forever? Are some of these guys that are self taught and they never learned to read music, because that's like, why do I I've learned this system my way, but it's have you ever thought that it would help you if you learn to read music? You know? Um, I know that it might help me in a situation if I were trying to map an arrangement out for another person to play. But I can honestly find people to do that. You can translate and just go hey I need this, and they can yeah. Um. So you know, I feel like most people that are traditionally taught, they can't sit down or maybe some of them can. But the people that I've I've been around most of them, if they're traditionally read sheet music, they can't sit down and improvise to a song. And I've always come at any instrument that I've sat down with from the base of how does it serve the song? So if i'm anything that I play, I'm always thinking that lane of a thought, like how can I make this sound like a song? Rather than learning piece that's already arranged. I don't know. That just came to me early on, so I never really worried about learning, uh, properly how to play things. I probably don't even you know, put my fingers on the right places on the keyboard. But it just sounds good to me. You know. It's like news anchor versus we'll say radio personality. News anchor can't talk normal. They have to read from a prompter, but they're fantastic at it. Me. I don't like read it from prompter, but I can talk and talk like a human and and actually communicate better than they can, right unless it's it needed to be prompt. It's just two different styles. And now the one I was gonna do, the other I'm gonna do a commercially real quick. I'm talking about sleep number real quick. I have a sleep in her bed and so my sleep and we're setting a thirty going to the store at sleep number and there's a screen over the top of you, and well, I guess it depends what the store. The one I get to, there's a screen to the top of you and it shows your back and your neck and they say, okay, look here's you're like, your back, your your neck, and here's why maybe not sleeping right, and they give you a sleep number. The sleep number bed lets you choose the comfort of the support that's right for you. It adjusts on each side, even if it's the perfect bet for couples. Now there's the three three sixty. It's the sleep number three sixty. It is so smart. It actually senses your moves and adjusts to you while you're sleeping, so you can stay comfortably to the night sleeping. So if you're it also warms you. The bed pre warms as well. The sleep number three sixty can pre warm each side of the bed and so you get in you're all warm and ready to go. Especially in the winter. Man, if you live in like one of the up States and it's cold. My sleep number setting is thirty and right now, big sale the Queen c two matches six nine in Sunday. You gotta sleep number dot com and find a store near you sleep number dot com and they're like five stores and you can only get it at those stores right there. See like that's me, I'm doing a commercial. I'm kind of talking. Give me a news anchor. They can do that. They can't do that. Have you seen that Instagram count? I think it's called the Music City Memes Love. It's so like I was laughing out loud at them and it's such an inside thing, but I think it's it. I'm gonna pull it up because it's the last account that I followed, and so what it is is a lot of things from I think it's a songwriter who's doing it right, and they've actually said I read an article who it is. It's called music City Memes. And for example, when your friend introduces you as a great songwriter and you don't know how to take compliments and it shows a picture of awkward ted cruise and they're so inside. Here's one when you're when you are Taylor Swift and you have to listen to songwriters who have never had a hit, tweet about how bad your new single is, and it's hurt holding all the Grammys. It's funny the songwriter. And even doing this, I've got to meet and hang out and befriends some good songwriters in town. But it's very competitive. It's almost like high school clicks, like people liking each other and they're facing the not behind there. But I guess that's that's any industry, any entertainment industry. How did you end up down here? Man? I just I moved to Nashville from Louisiana when I was eighteen. I graduated high school and I just had to be around music. Um, that's that's lost so much money. The boats. We really waited to drive straightport out in college. I went to college in Arkansas, Southern Arkansas every weekend, so which one Henderson State? Okay, So we drove. We drove to the boats all the time. Yeah, man, And that was home. H Yeah it was. And and you know, only until only long enough for me to to kind of get my footing and raise enough money where I could I could buy a travel trailer and pull it to Nashville. Because that's what happened and two thousand nine, and you know I never looked back really, So you moved here to thousand nine and what happens? Uh? Part my travel trailer at the k o A off Music Valley Drive. So you were living in it. You were running a spot and living in a camper. Can you believe it was eight hundred dollars a month? I'm like, dude, that's like legit. That could be like an apartment. Especially five years ago, that definitely could have been an apartment. I didn't know. For some reason, I thought, well, if I have a travel trailer, I could move it anywhere I wanted whenever I figure out what the landscape Isn't that I find travel because I know a camper Yeah yeah, yeah, okay, it's the same thing as a camper, So I mean just same thing. You would you know about to hook it behind the truck, you know. So you were living and basically camper. You bought it, you rented a spot, and you lived in the camper at age nineteen for how long? Um So if you remember the flood in two ten, right up two weeks before that flood, I sold that camper and the crazy thing about that is everything at the opery and that Music Valley Drive was submerged. So had I not sold that right before that, man, I would have lost everything. Um. So it was just one of those crazy times. Uh. But I met a friend. Um, I guess I was about six months in town where I met a friend at a pawn shop that I got a job at to kind of make ends meet and um, and and he had a roommate that was moving out and he offered me a room. So I was so ready by that time, just six months in Nashville and experiencing the trailer. I was so ready just to have some space and you know, uh, just have a legit place to sleep at night. So you moved up here and living in a camper for six months off? Yeah, Man, do you ever hear about the Parma guys in their story? I don't. I'm familiar with them. I don't know the story though. So they moved up here, all of them together, and they were living in a camper and they would driving around the shows too that they lived. Yeah, they just had a camper and they have it off of Music Row. I believe. I don't know how much of our spot was Bucks I think crazy. So I always say that because I moved up here with the roommate, um, and he hung out for about I would say, six seven weeks and then in the camper we get a roommate. Yeah yeah, yeah, he moved from from Louisiana with me and you were living with someone in the camper. Dude, he was trying to help me play in man. I couldn't pay the rent by myself, you know. Wow. So when he left the actually the dude the ended up renting me my room. His name is Ryan Griffin. UM. But early on he helped me pull that camper when my roommate left out to Lebanon. So I pulled it thirty minutes outside of town, and so I would make the thirty minute drive to Nashville every day. But I had a hundred all runt out there, so that was better. So when you're living, I'm gonna go back to the campra because I live in the camper. I never had a bedroom growing up. We had a like five people in the nine square foot house, and so I never had a bedroom. And then finally I was like, I'm gonna go live in the camper because I was like it just sucks. I just slept on the couch in my closet was underneath the couch, and I was like, I'm not doing this anymore. We had a camper and I'm just moved into it. But there was no air and it was Arkansas heat. It was summer, and it was miserable. But I had to go like inside take a shower. Had like this is when phones had like cords, said of like pulled the phone cord through the window to actually have a phone. Are you taking showers? Okay? So that's an interesting question because that was one of those winners that there's a ton of snow and a ton of ice, so um, your pipe would freeze and you you wouldn't have running water sometimes. Uh, And so that my dad was like, well, if you leave it dripping a little bit, then maybe it'll it'll it'll you know, not freeze up. So I did that one day and I come home to about like three or four inches of water cover my whole camper where it froze even though it was dripping, but it kept feeling. The tank came through the bathtub and just flooded the whole thing. Um that was the day my roommate left when he came home to that because I can't do this, man, I yeah, so yeah, yeah, so like since it was just frozen all that. Man, it was a mess. Really, So you're asking about where did I take a shower? There was a bath house, you know, in in the community that we had there at k o A uh that that I used every day. You know, I would walk to the bath house in the snow or whatever. But you don't think of it at that time. You're just happy to be in Nashville. You know, you're not thinking and this sucks. You're just like you. No, I would still think it sucked that, but I'd still be like this natural bay, like, man, this sucks. Like what didn't make it? I don't know when I look back on it, I don't really remember dreading that much. Part of there's more of just the excitement of like being in a new place, which if you understand, like the kind of place I'm from, like Nashville just seems like culture shock. Just like all the interstates, all the exits, all the energy, it's just a completely different place. So I was more excited at the thought of just being there than the situation I had to be in Nashville interstates, lights, showers, I would think all that together, Well, that's what I'm saying. I love it, like I love that story, because that's that's just you wanting to make it sure. And you know what, That's what I was saying. When I finally moved into the roommate. The appreciation that I had that I could sit on the edge of my bed and not have the guitar neck hit the wall, or that I could just walk across the hall and take a shower and not have to, you know, go outside of where it was. It was a huge thing to me. So I had a different appreciation for little things like that all of a sudden, that's awesome. Yeah. So okay, let's how in the world if you move here in your nineteen living in a camper, Like, how do you date somebody and be like, hey, well, you know, honestly, uh yeah, I wasn't even worried about that when I got here, But but you're still always worried about that. I know you're not worried about that, but it's still always a thing. Like we're human beings. Sure you're worried about that at all. Like I'll just you'd be like I just go to your place in my mansion being renovated, like how do how do you? Man? You know, it was more about just trying to be around music, and I was so busy by trying to just stay afloat here, Like I was taking so many gigs, whether it be with a blues band, whether it be you know, cutting grass, whether it wasn't always music. I was just so busy trying to survive here. There was no time to do anything but goals. Man, And you move here and you start, okay, that's that's what do you start doing? Man? I was so naive. I was walking up down Music Road just knocking on doors. The whole story. Really yeah you literally are you literally with cold calling buildings? I wouldn't even call on them. I was just showing up, I guess, like it's just a cold and they answered the door. Like publishing companies and some of them, and a lot of them, you can't even like, you know, get to the door. They have gates or whatever that you gotta buzz in or whatever. What do you say you're knocking someone answers or what do you say? Man? What did I say? I probably just almost song writers, you know, I don't even know what it was, but it was. It was very green, and I don't I didn't even realize. It took me months of doing that to figure out, Okay, this ship is not gonna work. You gotta come at it from a different perspective, uh, and a different angle. And it took me years of kind of going to writers nights and finding my own community of writers that um kind of helped me grind on some songs before I could get the attention of somebody who can kind of give you that green light to make it in those doors and make it in those buildings to where they can take you serious. And it took me a minute to really understand what I needed to to have that stamp up approval to go on these places. So you would go to a writer's night, let's say restaurant, and they have three or four songwriters probably just watching at first and and saying, hey the forest, Yeah, uh can I be a friend? I mean, same thing like a cold call to like, hey can I can I hang out? Like? What what's so? I mean? I was at the Douglas Corner, it was at the Commodore, it was at you know, the Bluebird, even um, you know when they had their open runners nights. Uh, and you would just have a couple of people that would play that you know, would stand out more than the rest, and maybe you try to write a song with that person or make connection there. I mean it literally was you know that whole thought of start from the bottom. You're just going out trying to figure out who you want to be creative with. I have no idea where to start. So anybody and everybody that I thought, you know, kind of halfway had a cool song. I was writing with them. Did you see anybody early on, because we are if you moved to early, I mean you've been how long tho plus eight years years? Anybody early on that you saw it was really earlier, like man, that there's something there and and now we kind of know who they are, Like anybody you saw even as maybe we don't know there are, but they're a writer now and they've written a bunch and you're like, and I was watching that like before they even started, like cracking the egg. Okay. Um, A cool story is um, you know one of the first artists that I met that had a deal, um we related because he was also from Louisiana. It was Dylan Scott Um whenever he moved uh here. You know, I met him very early on and you know, we were writing together. He was the first person that I knew that had a record deal. So there was a new excitement whenever you're right with someone with a record deal as a young writer, you know, because you sure you know. And so I was like, man, this is you know, this could this could really be an awesome opportunity for for you know, for production or whatever. I was even that early on thinking that lane and you know, um, it took some years for you know, Dylan has been grinding it out, man, and he just celebrated that number one song and that's been a crazy thing to kind of watch the whole thing of how that happened and see how hard he's worked, um, you know, just from from years back. Uh. And so that those are those are the moment is that you know, you're just like, man, I've been here a minute now to see that they see people moved to town, get the record deal, go through the ropes of trying different songs with different producers, whatever, and then finally land on something that connects um And you know, I just couldn't be more happy for him. You know, see moved town. You're pounding away, just trying to get anybody to write with you. You start writing, when does someone go, hey, you're actually pretty good. We might start paying you to write. Sure? How many years? It was about two and a half three years from me. Um, And like I said, a lot of that probably could have been Um, you know, cut back, had I've been spending my time in the right places. As far as meeting the right people, we never meet the people right. Half of learning is spending time in the wrong places. You're right, that's so true. And and so whenever you're writing with these songwriters who might not necessarily be associated with a publisher, you know, it's really up to you and make sure the songs get heard, you know. Um. So it took um a co writer of mine who passed a CD along to another writer who got it to an ask Cap rep. That's ultimately how the door opened for me. So when that ask Cap rep reached out, UM, very excited about what I was doing. Uh, we we met, and then like a week later he had meetings set up and then all of a sudden, with the same songs, Um, that I was toting around for the years prior or whatever had a different light on them in a different kind of you know, appreciation when I walked into the buildings, just because you have the stamp of approval from somebody reputable, you know. And there's the goal I should say, is is it still to be an artist? I'm not interested in being an artist. I'm more interested in creating records for other people. Where are you interested being an artist? At eighteen? Maybe at some point, But it took me really realizing what my strength was, uh in in the writer room and so where there have been times where I thought, well, I would like to sing this demo or whatever and like put it on CD from my own artist project. I couldn't get near as excited about those things. That's when I did whenever I get in the room with somebody like Kelsey or Dylan who can deliver that vocal a totally different way than I can um and they are the true artist where it doesn't take much. You just put a mic in front of him and with a great song and you capture something. I feel like for me personally, I have to work way too hard to make it sound good to consider myself an artist, but me being in the studio uh land of things, I know how to kind of you know, make records sound cool. But I would much rather do that for somebody else than to try to do it for myself in a sense where I feel like when you involve other people and have a lot of of of the people involved to get excited about it, it brings a whole different life to it, to where if I were just to kind of cut a record for myself, you know, so that's where your heart is, yeah, man, I would I want to produce, uh for for anybody that you know, connects with when we're in the writing room. If if I do a demo up and they're inspired by and they want me to take it on and do a full production on it, that's what excites me the most. I'm not the kind of person that will be like, hey, let me produce your record, Like I would rather get in the room and you spend some time try to figure out who that artist is as a person, And really I do rely on a lot of their personalities to kind of dictate where I take it musically. So hopefully whenever you hear Kelsey Vallerini song. You know that it's a Kelsey Valerini song for she even says a lyric, because you hear it. You hear it in the sounds, you hear it in the tempo, the way that everything is kind of delivered on those records. So if I were to work with, you know, an artist that was um just completely pulled it opposite of that. You know, I don't want that same sonic characteristic to that album. You know, I want it to be true to that artist. UM. So that's what I get fired up about. Um. I would rather wake up every day knowing that I have the opportunity to create something fresh with a new artist that maybe hasn't maybe they haven't experienced before. So that, I mean, that's what I get fired up. Well, you give me a line you wrote that you remember because that we jokes that. I'm like, I remember that one. I remember coming up with that line. Give me a line and let me like you mean it where you're like, I was gonna give you a Peter Pan line. I'll take one from where you're like. So when I hear the song, I'm like many people in the room and who knows, you know, Uh, this is gonna sound weird, but I feel like, you know, throwing stuff out early on, trying to get the song rolling. I think it was, you know, the very first line, hey boy, where you ha back? Just because I feel like I was trying to pull out a really confident personality in Kelsey early on, and we were throwing out a couple of lines that just were just you know, that felt true and authentic to what she would just say. Um. So I remember influencing that very first line. I'll say that one all right to Peter pan Okay, in the bridge of Peter pan Um, I was so stoked. It was one of those moments where you get chills, um whenever I can't even remember how it goes now, but in the bridge change where you're just a lost boy and you don't know what you lost, Comma boy, you know, I love that those kind of lyrical plays, And whenever we landed on that in the session, I just got chills and I was like, man, it couldn't have been better. You gave yourself chills. That's well. You know, I feel like as creative, it's not like you're almost there just to accept what's going on, Like I really can't take credit for that's just the right moment. It could have been inspired by what somebody else said, but it did come through me saying it. But I'm listen. I don't think you should say that. But yeah, I gave myself chills, like when I was like, this is the greatest ever and it happens, and when you get those are like God, because it's so rare that it is. And even as a writer, there's been very I could probably count on you know, one hand, the times that that that's happened and you don't know what it is. You can't bottle it up, uh, and you can't really explain it. You just know when something feels right. Um, And I feel like that's what that's what songwriting is about. It's all on that gut feeling of I don't know why, it just feels right. I have a couple of jokes and in my set that when I wrote then I was like, oh man, this is funny and this is gonna be funny for a long time. And then I have some you know, but there are a couple you just know and you're like, oh man, this is the feeling. It's like hitting and I don't have up like golf in years. I don't know if you play golf, but I haven't played golf in year. That kind of stopped playing. But when you would hit that perfect golf shot, it was rare, but it made you, made you remember why you loved doing it. It was so rare, but you needed one occasionally to remind you that I can actually do this, you know what I feel like. That's a really a lot of what a lot of song writers deal with. Like we're in the grind of writing songs every single day, but every now and then you'll get that perfect swing, you know, and you just knock it out, and it's one of those things where those of the moments you live for. You could write six months and not be, you know, totally excited about a song that you wrote yesterday that you just know that's why you're writing songs, and it makes the six months, last six months of writing, you know, songs that didn't necessarily excite you as much, totally worth it, just to say, hold out for that one song. You know, is that a wedding ring? It is? I am I've been happily married for three years. Yeah. Man, we back in the campus show. No No, No, No, wait, we actually have a nicer place these days. I don't. So you're twenty eight, you got, you're married three. I mean she kind of got into a good time, right right, I mean like she literally she moved up as loved me like I mean, it was clouding the charge there inside her trading like perfect you wonder Man music. She's actually a nurse at Vanderbilt. That's I say that my girlf's gonna kill me. But because she's in the best too, and this I don't ever see her like it's difficult. I'm on the road all time. I'm doing the show on the road. She's on the road all time. You got, you have, and you have somebody like nurses are awesome like camel, empathetic and sympathetic and giving, to be able to do to be able to wipe poop off somebody, right and not even joking, like I know the word poop's funny, but to be able to do that and take care of somebody that's a different kind of human, you know. And she's definitely done that. She but she's now in the operating room at Vanderbilt. I might have, yeah, I might have, like you know, uh not so good day going on, and I come home and she tells me about somebody's jaw or nose completely being on the table, and I'm like, man, okay, you know it's not near as bad as whatever you had to face today, you know. So yeah, how about if you another big before you huh produced? That didn't right? That doesn't matter. Yeah, it's still you're it's still a song you're associated. Yeah, I thought it's still talking about song lyrics. I was like, I can't we just talking about your wife? We've yeah, we're talking about all right, so here. So I wonder about co producing because there's no way that I'm sitting with someone and fighting about what happened on my radio show. There's no worry. I'm not just not doing it like I'm going to win. I might be wrong, but I'm gonna win. You're co producing, you're both picking what ends up being the sound of the song. There's gotta be time. But you just don't agree. Sure, And I feel like most of finding a good co producers finding the contrast. So if you know, I'm sure we'd have more disagreements if we kind of did the same thing. But you know the difference and what Jason and I do is he brings a more pop element to it, and he programs DRAMs a certain way that I can't, and I, you know, early on, you know, recognized the value that he brought to that whole whole thing, you know, because Um, I can of course go off and produce tracks by myself, but honestly, I get I get more exciting whenever you collab with somebody because you can have that extra ear to run things by um and sometimes I mean ultimately it comes down. There was actually an unapologetically there's a sound that we use in intro that me and Jason were stoked about, like, man, that's cool, and we sent it to Kelsey's like I don't know what y'are doing that, you know intro, but it's gotta change, you know, uh. And so we ended up trying some new things and so just even though we were on board with it, um, you know, she kind of influenced us to try different things that now we're even more happier with it and we feel like it's in a different spot. So I feel like as many ears, um that you trust involved with something, the better, you know. On Kelsey State Record and you know, these podcasts live forever. So if you're hearing this now after the Kelsey's records out, that, uh, this will kind of just be not it. But I have legends, which is you know played earlier, and so you wrote and produced this, and did you produced it by yourself produced? So you wrote and co produced this. But like I, there are only a few artists that I have music from that hasn't been like I couldn't put unapologetically up because it's I mean, I guess I could have because I have it, but it's not out. I don't think to download, is it. Oh that's one of the yah So like if you order the album, get that already have it. I just don't know what she puts out. It's like, yeah, I could have put that out. That's check it out. I remember her sending these songs for this next record a year ago, like working on it. There's there's a song I'm gonna get that the Thomas right Umm has a song called grave. She has a song called Graveyard. I know I have it. I've had it. I've had it. I don't have the first of all, I have the right to play the cut, but I have the work tape. When did you write that with her you So she sent that to me. I'm assuming you guys wrote that just by the remembering eight months nine months ago, that's been along. Well, that's probably one of the earlier songs for this next album. So yes, and she was like, dude, we're writing for the next record. And she said it to me, and I was like, because I had, Yeah, that's cool. So you know that, huh play right now because it's such a jam. Man, I can't wait for you to hear the fully produced version. What what's the deal with the new record? Like, what are you on on the new record? So? Uh legends unapologetically? Um, and I don't know. I don't even have in front of me. Um. There's a song called funny Games I'm so excited about. It's not on the uh, you know, the original twelve tracks, but I think it'll come out as like a deluxe or something, right, some kind of thing. We can produced the full record with the exception of a think two songs songs, yes, I mean, I don't I don't know if that's the exact number, but but yeah, yeah, so, I mean in the same in the same way we kind of did. I mean, me and Jason did the whole first record, so, um, you know, it's it's been awesome to hear the songs that she's written over the last couple of years and bring a whole different life to them, you know, because I feel like we've done deeper on the production. There's a lot more I would say, even like thematic, it's not the cinematic is what I'm looking for. Elements even Kelsey. And it's hard for me to go what I know and then what she said because I know Kelsey privately, and there are things that I'm like, oh, did she said to me like a private conversation or in like this is stuff you can talk about. But I think she said where it's like she put the tracks in order like to tell a story, right, You're saying cinematic Like that's right, yeah, man. Even and whenever you track one, whenever you press play, it sounds like a projector's coming on if you looked listen really clock and that's on Graveyard too, that's the very first track. Um, so there's a lot of elements. There's song called high School on there where you know, we have clips of you know, an actual high school uh you know, football game, going on, and and the sights and scenes that you would hopefully here and see in those situations. We tried to put it um the audio in these tracks so um, and I'm specifically excited about that track because the drums and that are a full high school drum line. So it's not like your standard you know, Nashville drummer session that comes to play on a you know, a song. It's it's it was more like if you walked into your band room, what instruments would you have access to? And that's what we put on that track. So coming at production from that standpoint of just trying to make it unique. Um, working with the artists like her, she gets fired up about that stuff, you know, and it gives a whole different live to the record because there's really no rules. Do you play instruments of these things? Yes, look at this guy instead of paying a session player, or because you're you feel like you know the sound better than anyone could come in. Well, I do both, so like I'll hire. But when you do it okay, when you feel like you know what the sound needs to be and as great as they are, because they're the best, the players are the best. They are but do you feel like because you know it, you can play it better. I feel like I'm gonna play things more simplistic um and in a way that UM is true to me to where I think that it influences the whole sound of the record, and you know that it's not a Snashville player, uh, because I mean, I don't play the most flashiest things. It's very simple things. If you if you've been playing guitar for three or four much, you could probably play most of the things on her first record for sure. UM. And that comes from you know, I feel like that's part of the sound. It's just having you know, if you listen to the loving like COMMUNI like bound up, bound up, but up Onuh, it's just like everything is so ABC like that for licks. That's the way I hear them, uh, to where you know there's sometimes you know, you probably won't hear like a lot of ripping, crazy solos on her her records because most most of the time they're just very we try to keep it very simple and melodic. And I feel like I play things in a way that I hear Kelsey. So where a session player may play things similar to on a session that they did yesterday or the day before. I try to make sure when I sit down with the Kelsey session that it does sound different and true to that song. You know, what do you do today? What do I do today? Yeah? Um, well I woke up. I cut some vocals today or de Yeah it was a demo. Um, you know at my house. Um, now you can afford a studio. I went from a camper. I wish I had a studio, and yeah, it's actually in my living room. I had a studio. I'm in between finding studio spots. So um right now I'm in my living room. But you know, I wrote with Brendi Clark all last week. So we were finishing up some demos and dude, like, she's one of my favorite people like her and I could have talked. She came up and we did this. We could talked for three hours. And I have all and not the sidetrack. I just Brandy is one of my favorites. I'm with you as a person, as an artist, as a writer, like all of it. And when her live record, to just put the live record and I'm just such a fan and so you and Brandy wrote But yeah, so I used to play on the road with her for about two and a half years. I didn't know. Yeah, so that was right after I finished I was literally cutting guitars for Kelsey Ballerini's album on her bus, you know, on on Brandy's bus as I was a tour musician with her for a while, and through that, um, I learned so much just being around her, being in the writing room with her. You can't help but be influenced by her awesomeness. You know. Yeah, she's a good one. She makes you feel like a human. Yeah, you know, I was. I was so nervous the first time I got in a riding room with her, and you know that she made me comfortable very quick. Just the way that she responded. She really showed me how a writer of of that you know, kind of talent can can really bring the best out of everybody else in the room. You know, because you know where I've been in other situations where I was with the writer that really admired and they kind of give off this intimidation thing or this you know whatever. That was totally not her. She you know, I don't know, I feel like she's just a great example for you know, just working hard and being great you know, yeah, and continue and like just again you have a great story of it too. Just working, yeah, man, just working and keeping and knowing what you want to do and working towards what you want to do and then if it pops, great, If it doesn't, okay, cool, I'm still gonna keep doing it. That's what it's about. Because if you love doing it, you work hard right at you work hard right at e. Actually it's gonna you're gonna be a more successful at it. That's what it's about. And like you know, talking about getting paid and so if I didn't get paid necessary for the demos I cranked out this morning on her, but it's like I'm I'm more inspired to try to give those demos a different sound. Um, you know that that gets her excited. So yeah, the songs, well, hopefully you know we've uh there they are I think you guys wrote together. That's being thrown out in the universe, like hopefully they're for her, man. That's that's that's the hope. I'm hoping she will be able to at least record a few of them. Um, But that being said, we never know. We just try to write the best song possible. And if she decides that it's not for her, hopefully does get pitched and play somewhere else. But um, you know, I mean I cranked out too this morning sing and my good singer, I sing backgrounds better than I do leads, so harmonies yeah, yeah, So back to the artist thing a lot. I used to be very self conscious about my voice because you know, I don't have the most deep, manly done whatever that a lot of country people relate to, and a lot of pitches do well. So a lot of um my sessions early on, I would kind of you know, get offended or whatever. One people say, Yeah, you just need another vocal and something that sounds a little more grid or whatever. But I learned that my talent was harmonizing with other singers, so I would rather put somebody else as a lead and knock out some harmonies on top of them that sounds, you know, really aligned with what they're doing. And I've spend more of my vocal time trying to accent what they do, and um, you know that works for me, um, because I do have a thinner voice and it kind of blends better with other lead vocals. Get fantastic voicetop listening to people where they got It's an amazing voice. I gotta listen to it best. I saw you, you wouldn't well. I heard you were you were singing with Kelsey and Hillary Lindsay, Yeah, I haven't heard you sings. Do you have any of them singing because you hide it black black from the internet. Oh you know what, I'll sing for you. I'd rather not. I would rather just imagine in my head voice that you talk about these memes. Let's see what's funny here. When you were the best singer in your hometown, you got to Nashville and find out everybody else was to That's that's man. Everybody comes here and they were their hometown heroes and they were the big music guy at home, and you come to the town where everybody else was the big It's like the NFL. Like you were the best high school player. You were one of the best players in your conference. But now you're in the NFL where you're playing with all the other best players in their conference, and everywhere you look, everybody's good, and there's always somebody new just just getting off the bus, ready to just come and crush it. You know, when a new rider in town asks if you have any advice, and it shows a guy praying so so six someone comes up to you, twenty two year old and say, hey, fores, what do I do? How do I start? Yeah? I would say, man, I would find people that, um, you believe get you as far as you know, understands what you want to say in your songs, and try to find people that will chase after that rather than chase after what they feel like it's popular or what they feel like will be successful. Um. What I love about working and producing artists is trying to you know, infuse their language and the way they talk into their songs and into you know, just their their their whole um you know, I don't know, just just the way that they deliver a lyric, trying to capture their personality in that. And I feel like to be true to your songs and to have something that's different, you gotta tap into that. You have to really find the way that you would say things, the perspective you have, because that's what's gonna help you stand out, you know, instead of trying to sound like you know, someone more successful or whatever. You know, like at you kids do the darnest things. This guy over here, Well, good luck on the next Kelsey record. Thanks man. You know, I know that you got a lot of other stuff kind of popping around too. Um yeah, big things, man, Yeah, dude, I'm excited big things. That makes us makes us hear what you got in your pocket, because it's just like I can tell that you. I gets your path. A lot of writers commit and they came to town to be artists and they found out they were also a good writer, and the artist thing didn't work out. So they were like, I'm gonna move all my chips over and I'm just I'm gonna be a writer, right. But I just felt like you'd love like the creation. I do. I love it all, man. I used to be so conflicted growing up. I would play, you know, in different bands, and one week I would be covering an eminem song, the next week I'll be playing a Christians song, and then I'll be playing a hardcore And I thought that that, like I was so scattering at the time. But that's been the most biggest asset for me um now as a producer, because I mean I've had a love for all kinds of music and even if you know, for me to decide to be an artist. I couldn't even decide what I wanted to do because I just love it all. Probably probably see you joke. But man, dude, I can wrap the hell out of a song in my truck, you know, I really can. If I ever can wrap along with time, No, man, I mean you my flow study man and I had a hip hop record deal for one song as Captain Caucasian. I'm you think I'm planning. I'm worry I'm gonna bring them back. Um, you you worry about getting sued? No, I don't do your music. You don't worry because it's it's awesome. There are only so many avenues to go down. Yeah. Um no, I've never actually I've never had I've never had a reason to think about that. So I'm just trying to all adding on the For example, I'll give an example, the Taylor song that just came out. They had to add rights it Fred to the song because it was to me it sounded more like my humps than it did I'm too sexy. But whatever. They had to add him on instead of get sued. And you see that Tom Shrett had to add a bunch of writers on some songs because again, and I read articles about comedy, and what I try to do is not watch any as I'm on tour. Now I have a couple more a couple more dates on my stand up tour. I try to watch any comedy at all, because it's not that I'm going to purposely steal anything. Subconsciously, I may think, well, that's funny, and come back to I don't remember why I'm thinking about that, this is a funny idea, and then create something, not realizing I've created it because I heard so I tried. And as I'm writing this second second book, I don't read anything because I don't want to accidentally take anything. Yep, that's real, man, that's so true. And and as like my day to listen like if you helped in my truck right now, it probably would be on like you know, uh, some gangster rap or something, and I lose. I use it to cleanse my palette. In that same thought, where I don't try to listen to commercial country or you know, things that I feel like are close to the market where that I'm chasing, I try to listen to things that are the complete contrast um because in the same way you know if it's if it's gonna inspire you in some roundabout way. So I try to pull most of my inspiration from other genres. Yeah. I don't think a lot of the stuff that happens happen on purpose, right, I really don't. I don't think someone sits down and goes But there are times, and again I've benefit of being friends with some really big writers friends buddies. Don't have any friends. I like two friends in my life, one of my dog and so. But I think sometimes you're like, hey, you know, we should go for this vibe. You know that you know, air clopped wonderful tonight. I love that vibe. Why don't we chase that? And all of a sudden you're kind of doing it, and you wanted to go that direction. You actually kind of slipped into that spot. You don't and you don't do it on purpose. Yeah, Well, you know a lot of times I will pull up a track that you know, we're inspired by or or you know, maybe it's a popular track at the time that that people are loving, and maybe it's just simply taking the drumbeat from it and then putting different chords over and then it pulls you away from it where you never really wouldn't know how you got there. It's just you know. Um. Sometimes I will try to mirror a different pattern of a song that I love, but hopefully incorporate other elements to it, pull it away from it far enough to where you just listening to Mozart hip hop. That's stay out of those. They stay out of those. Lawsuits make everybody everybody getting sued now or everybody's having an add on writers more of that now, I think more it's the instead of suing, just make me a co writer. Sure, and I haven't had to deal with it. Yeah, good for you. I mean, I guess if I meant of averages, it's coming. Yeah, well that's what I'm saying. Yeah, I guess it's not necessarily a bad thing because if people want to be on obviously you're flowing some down, you know, obviously they're hearing it, and someone's like, this song is making some money. You should probably listen to this and see if Yeah, man, I enjoyed this time. Yeah, me too. I'll get you well, the best of luck to you. I hope the Kelsey album does great. I'm kind of anxious to see what elsehoul got in your pocket. Um yeah, so let us know, give us a call up here on the hotline. We don't have a hotline doing now. We don't even have an extra microphone. Like we've we've had people like we brought you know, we have the artists come in and like keeping groups. We can't get a group and we can't bring in all a little big town because we have one mic. So Karen came in. We can't we don't have two mikes. So only Preston from low Cash came in. So yeah, this plays a total dude, I can don it some mikes if you need some mis We we only have six channels and I like only three. Like this thing gets millions of listens, right like, this is this podcast that's turned into twenty people listening to it to oddly millions of listens. It sounds up, but that's how we roll, and not on purpose. We when I built this studio, studio do finger quotes. They didn't even know what we're putting this up. Mike d and I were just like, well some computers. This is old equipment from our old when when I live in Texas. We made this and then we just started doing it and eventually we're gonna have to It works barely. Sometimes I'll have multiple channels playing things and I'm like, why is iTunes playing in my or I'll have I'll just trying to play something off this, like let's say the Legends and instead of a playing through here, it'll be planted my legs in my bedroom and I'll be able to hear it through my head. But I'm like, wait, this isn't right. Yeah, is how we roll. That's how we roll. Good luck, man, I appreciate. Yeah, good luck, congratulations and tell your wife a Cello absolutely will and now that's what she does, is that it's much more out more than you. I agree, you have a tweet. He think since April of sixteen, you just don't because I wanted to see what you're like talking about you done. Instagram is what I love so um, tree Man's creative life is the Instagram handle what tree Man's when I was when out? Yeah, tree Man's creative life and Instagram handle when I was growing up. You know, a friend of mine, you know, just coined the nickname tree Man or whatever. It's just kind of hung around and uh, I think I want to keep it for a while, and that's your Instagram names, that's my Instagram name. Checked it out because I wanted to see what your thoughts were in the world and characters less there's there's definitely a lot of thoughts on Instagram. Uh, good one. And thanks to Sleeping number and thanks to Force White who you don't spoke your name with the E so people ever call you Forestead not yet, I get more Forced Whittaker. You look like them, thank you? Exactly the opposite. So the haircut pretty so you kept it substance about third grade or what? Same kind of hair the same haircut here? Oh no, absolutely, it's funny you said that. Tomorrow morning, I'm shaving in what what what do you mean save there's a lot of different shaving your heads, Like, I mean, I'm buzzing it off, man, because I don't know what I don't I never have known what to do with my hair, you know, so I kept into the capital all the time. But I've just decided tomorrow I'm I'm literally like, I'm I'm just gonna shave it off. Yeah, it's happening. That means there's a cleansing, just goes full shave that means they're just good luck, good luck buddy and new beginnings. Or tree Man looks at pictures tree Man's creative life, tree Man's creative life. All right, thank you very much of see next time. The O.