![]() ![]() There’s different flavors to all of these different kinds of songwriters. This is a generalization, but Austin does it differently than LA, who does it differently than, maybe, San Francisco, who does it differently than even Seattle or New York. There are a lot of different ways to do the math on music. ![]() It’s really what most people are missing. I realized that the one thing most people are missing is an easier lyric. I flew under the radar, so I was able to absorb these different things. Well, a lot of these songwriters would let me in the room because they don’t really hear me as a guy who does that. We show up, and you don’t have to wear a hat, boots, or anything, and you can still be participating in country music. I was lucky that Sugarland seems to be the one country band that doesn’t get stuck on you like Teflon. The only thing I had was just a little bit of a Wikipedia page, so when people typed me in, they’d be like, “Oh, he seems legit.” I started asking friends, “Who do you know in Sweden that’s an awesome songwriter or producer? Let’s go there.” So I did that. How do I get better? Well, you can’t go to songwriting school. Teach me what you do.” Then, maybe I’ll learn. So I decided to go to places where people don’t care about what I do or my work. I wonder, holy moly, are my songs getting sung by very talented, emotional people who just naturally have the ability to sell it with their voice? Is the singer giving it more success than the song has intrinsically? I asked myself, “Gee, as the guy who’s not singing here, have I just been propped up?” I wondered sometimes, “Wow. Somehow, I’ve been lucky enough with both of these human beings that I trust them, they trust me, and we will drive 300 miles an hour. Would you like to drive?” Most people just drive it at, like, 40, 50 miles an hour around the corner, because they don’t want to hurt it. These people who have a natural ability to sing in a such away that makes you feel emotional, even if they’re not even saying a word yet. One of the things that’s the same in both bands is that there are incredible singers. ![]() There are two bands that are my 10-year-bands each, Billy Pilgrim in the ’90s, and Sugarland in the 2000s. I think that the question that I was looking to answer was, “What if I just got lucky, and I’ve been yes’d the whole time?” The metaphor would be, you sit with a Buddhist, you sit with a Hindu, you eventually sit with someone of every faith, and you find out that they basically are all the same. It was like the first time you go to a comparative religion class. What was the experience of dropping into worlds of people who are making music maybe outside your frame of reference? What was your takeaway and how did that affect your own process? I read that while your band was on hiatus, you spent time traveling to different cities all over the world and meeting with other songwriters, people working in wildly different genres. Or, you’re afraid somebody actually might be listening this time. It feels like it’s no different than the anxiety of youth, in creation. You want to write a record?” I’m like, “Uh, yeah!” They are like, “Can you do it in a week?” I was like, “Yeah?” You just smile, say yes, and go figure it out. I had to get comfortable with last-minute scheduling, thinking on my feet. It was hard to value consistent success outside of that. My successes were primarily with the bands I’ve been in, whether it’s Billy Pilgrim or Sugarland or whatever. I got used to this idea of being a mercenary creator. It was this feeling that, if I take wild stabs at nine different things, maybe one will stick. It’s this incredibly reactive space that I’ve designed for myself, because when Sugarland took a break, suddenly my over-scheduled life disappeared. If somebody calls me or emails between now and then, I might make whatever they’re asking for. If I do go over there, we’ll make something brand new. I can go over there and work with him today, and if I don’t go over there, he’ll mix the things we did last week. I have a studio here in town and I painstakingly made sure that there’s enough money in an account to pay the salary of this incredible engineer to work with me. Like today, for instance, when we hang up, the day becomes mine until about 4pm. I don’t mean the more non-working spaces, I just mean empty. The more empty spaces I can keep in my schedule, the better. When you are constantly juggling big projects-and playing in big bands-how do you do so without going insane? Or without feeling like every moment of your life is scheduled down the the exact second? ![]()
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