About a year and a half ago, I got more serious about my songwriting. I’d been seen by others, and even saw myself, as a fairly gifted and talented songwriter. So as my desire to be the “artist” or performer has somewhat subsided, I decided to try and concentrate more on seeing if I could just write songs and possibly sell them.
While I realized this was difficult, I can say even now that I had only an inkling of an idea of how difficult it could be. Not impossible, surely, but one of the more difficult things I could try to accomplish in this life.
And the humbling part has been the realization that while my songwriting has been top notch for local bands and the local scene, I seriously needed to work more on the craft of songwriting, especially as I began to explore a new genre and style for me: contemporary and modern country.
Now, those of you who have known me for a long time, you know that the last thing I would have ever found myself writing or enjoying was country. But country music has changed over the last ten to fifteen years, and I’ve enjoyed it more and more as it has changed. It is no longer the country of Randy Travis, Merle Haggard, Dolly Parton, Hank Jr., and George Jones. A more modern rock and pop sound has dominated modern country in recent years, just with a more country flavor.
While I’ve heard other people grimace at such a change to their traditional country … I’ve begun to really enjoy the music.
So I joined a little organization called TAXI and have been submitting songs to them, getting rejected, and working on aspects of my songwriting. Every year in November TAXI has what they call the Road Rally in LA. i didn’t go last year, but I really felt like I needed to go this year, even to the point of leaving my month old daughter and missing a dear friend’s wedding.
I could take a guest, so my good friend Josh went with me. I also have some family in the LA area, so I got to visit with them while drinking from the music business firehose.
Registration for the Road Rally started on Thursday night, so we found a cheap flight out to Burbank. We left my house at 4:30 am and got there at around 11am Cali time. My uncle Dave came to pick us up and then we did a little drive through tour of Hollywood and downtown LA, which was incredible. We ate lunch at Phillippe’s, a very popular place in downtown LA that serves French dip sandwiches. They had ten lines going at lunch, each about twenty people deep. We each had lamb French dip sandwiches. Very good.
Then Uncle Dave dropped us off at the hotel and we checked in and got in line for registration. After registration, I talked with my cousin Rick (one of Uncle Dave’s sons) and he took us to a local Mexican restaurant which was also good. I hadn’t talked to Rick in a while and it was good to catch up with him.
We got back to the hotel exhausted. Josh went to sleep and I checked out the open mic in the main ballroom for about an hour before coming back up to crash myself.
The Road Rally is basically a conference with all these seminars with things about the music business. Everything from songwriting to marketing to publishing and recording. I mainly focused on the songwriting part of it.
Friday morning started with a great intro by Jeffrey Steele, a highly successful songwriter in Nashville. He has written songs like “What Hurts the Most”, “These Days”, “International Harvester”, and “Brand New Girlfriend.” All great songs, and he had a lot of great advice and a great story and even had an amazing performance at the end of his session. He was definitely a highlight.
Some overall thoughts on the weekend. If you’ve never been around a host of people who make music and wanna be creative, it is a very cool vibe. The energy was amazing. Just being around a lot of people who are passionate about the things you’re passionate about was very encouraging. There was a lot of meeting new people and networking, and even late night jam sessions … that I didn’t participate as much in, but Josh did!
You also have to be very patient to do what I’m trying to do, and be very good not only at writing but REwriting. One presenter, very successful in the songwriting business, had his first song on an album after rewriting it SEVEN times. What if he had given up? Even then, it took years to see the money from that song.
Jeffery Steele talked about when he was hired to write a song for a boy band in the 90’s. The band was Westlife, and the song he wrote for them was “What Hurts the Most”, which is, in my opinion, an amazing song. But Westlife passed. Seven years later, a country/rock band, Rascal Flatts, recorded it and had a huge hit. SEVEN YEARS later.
Most songwriters don’t “make it” as songwriters because they’re just not patient enough. They give up. One songwriter on a panel talked about moving to Nashville in 1980 and not getting his first song on an album until 1995. That’s fifteen years.
So while I’m hopefully closer than fifteen years away since I’ve been writing songs for a long time already, what if it takes years to be that good, that connected, and get that one opportunity? Years of rejection is daunting for any artist, but will the ultimate goal be worth it? To me, yes. Others will make excuses.
I am a good songwriter. Maybe a great one. But I am not yet a consistently astounding songwriter. That takes more learning and growing as a musician and writer and just writing lots of songs and continually getting better.
Did I learn a lot last weekend? I did learn some, but most of it was either learning things I already know to a deeper level or just new bits and pieces here and there. The biggest impact for me was realizing, especially after hearing professional songwriters talk and share, that I am on the right track to being that good. And if I’m patient, I’ll get there.
Getting to see my family was also very cool. I had never just gone to visit Uncle Dave and Aunt Sonnie, and getting to see my cousins Rick and Tracy was great. Tracy is also a musician and songwriter and she’s been getting into trying to write professionally as well.
On Sunday night, while Josh crashed again, I went with my Uncle Dave and Aunt Sonnie to this great pasta place in Santa Monica. I got the garlic chicken thing, but there was this atomic pasta on the menu that looked interesting. Aunt Sonnie got it, and when I tried it, I was completely amazed at how good it was. I should have gone for it!
So in conclusion, I have things to work on with my songwriting, skills to practice, more things to expose myself to. In the meantime, I need to find a job that can help me support my family, as any aspiring musician or songwriter has done.
For those of you who have been so supportive and encouraging, thank you so much.
Peace.
Keep up the good work. I too am trying to find my feet musically. Right now, I’m doing the teaching/recording studio thing, and it’s really picking up.
But still, deep down, writing and composing music is what I love.
This movie soundtrack is a neat opportunity, and I’m really looking forward to seeing where it might go.
And you are a great songwriter and lyricist. I won’t be shocked at all when (not if) your song is getting airplay.