Latest / Takin’ A Walk Nashville / Kyle Clark Unplugged: Insights on Songwriting, Nashville's Music Scene, and Finding Peace in Creativity

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Kyle Clark Unplugged: Insights on Songwriting, Nashville's Music Scene, and Finding Peace in Creativity · Takin’ A Walk Nashville

0:01
Speaker 1: Taking a Walk Nashville.
0:02
Speaker 2: Hey everyone, welcome back to Taking a Walk Nashville. I
0:05
Speaker 2: am so glad you're out.
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Speaker 3: Strolling with us today.
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Speaker 2: And if you are looking for the absolute perfect.
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Speaker 4: Soundtrack for the Lake, the Beach, or just sitting on
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Speaker 4: the back porch this summer.
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Speaker 2: Today's guest, as you covered, you already know his work
0:21
Speaker 2: behind the scenes as a platinum certified songwriter, pinning massive
0:25
Speaker 2: hits like Lily Roses, Villain, Cuts for Hardy and John Party,
0:29
Speaker 2: and Blake Shelton's current radio single Let Him In Anyway.
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Speaker 4: But he's also a Bauer House independent artist in his
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Speaker 4: own right, racking up over forty million streams with his
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Speaker 4: viral hit Hope It's Hot Out. He just dropped his
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Speaker 4: highly anticipated new album, Better on a Boat. It's a
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Speaker 4: masterpiece of what he calls coastal country, blending that laid back,
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Speaker 4: sun soaked island ease from his birthplace of Honolulu with
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Speaker 4: the classic Southern storytelling he grew up on in Georgia.
1:00
Speaker 4: He wrote it, he produced it, and he mixed it himself.
1:03
Speaker 4: We are diving deep into this new record, his reputation
1:06
Speaker 4: as a studio Swiss Army Knife, and how he navigates
1:10
Speaker 4: being one of the most versatile young creators in town.
1:14
Speaker 4: Grab a cold drink, soak up the sun, and let's
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Speaker 4: take a walk with the incredibly talented Kyle Clark.
1:24
Speaker 2: Welcome to Taking a Walk Nashville with your hosts singer
1:28
Speaker 2: songwriter Sarah Harrel. Soon great, Kyle Clark, Thank you so
1:31
Speaker 2: much for being on the Taking a Walk Nashville podcast today.
1:35
Speaker 2: Your new album Better on a Boat it just dropped this.
1:38
Speaker 3: Memorial Day weekend.
1:40
Speaker 2: How does it feel to have your first fully album out.
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Speaker 5: Well, it feels great to have this record out. It's
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Speaker 5: exciting to have a project that feels like fully cohesive.
1:51
Speaker 1: And just summertime energy.
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Speaker 5: I feel like that's the thing that I've noticed that
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Speaker 5: I've been gravitated towards just right, and then fans have
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Speaker 5: seemed to enjoy anytime that I put any summertime feeling
2:04
Speaker 5: songs out.
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Speaker 3: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: I love a good summertime album, especially when it involves
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Speaker 2: around the beach an ocean.
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Speaker 3: And you even got your.
2:11
Speaker 2: Better on a Boat hat right now, So tell me
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Speaker 2: more about that. You have a clothing brand coming out
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Speaker 2: that correlates about.
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Speaker 5: Yeah, so me and my wife it was back in
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Speaker 5: April of last year whenever I had started this journey
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Speaker 5: of Better on a Boat the album, and I think
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Speaker 5: it was like a month or two after. My wife
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Speaker 5: had always been interested in potentially starting like a clothing
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Speaker 5: lifestyle brand, and we had like ideas over the years
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Speaker 5: of stuff and it just never felt right. And then
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Speaker 5: I just I think I came downstairs one day and
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Speaker 5: was like, what if our brand was Life's just Better
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Speaker 5: Better on a Boat?
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Speaker 1: And she was like, Oh, I think that could be amazing.
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Speaker 5: Like that it felt like it clicked, and she was
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Speaker 5: like it made sense for like our lifestyle and what
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Speaker 5: we love so much and like our dream of like
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Speaker 5: living at the beach one day, and and so we
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Speaker 5: started just kind of going down the path of like
3:07
Speaker 5: how do we actually make this like the brand that
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Speaker 5: we want it to be, And slowly it's been since
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Speaker 5: since then we have been working on products, like we
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Speaker 5: have this hat, we have another hat that we've been
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Speaker 5: working on, and then a boat tote bag. I don't
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Speaker 5: know if you've seen those like Elbean type bags. It's similar,
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Speaker 5: it's like built off of that idea, but it's like
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Speaker 5: even more like designed, it's reversible. So we've done like
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Speaker 5: a lot of like work to try to get this
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Speaker 5: brand off the ground, and I believe we're trying to
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Speaker 5: launch in June. It's it's just like getting the products
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Speaker 5: in and everything. But it's been such a like fun
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Speaker 5: process to not only work on the music that feels
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Speaker 5: like it's my life, but also like a brand that
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Speaker 5: I'm like, I want to wear that and like and
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Speaker 5: they that was the thing I didn't want to make
4:00
Speaker 5: like Kyle Clark brand. I wanted to make Better on
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Speaker 5: a Boat.
4:03
Speaker 3: Nice. That's so exciting.
4:05
Speaker 2: And what did you say is the launch date for
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Speaker 2: the clothing brand?
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Speaker 5: So we're looking at probably the end of June is whenever.
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Speaker 5: I don't know the exact date yet, but we're trying
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Speaker 5: to get the website finished and then once that's up,
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Speaker 5: we'll have like pre orders and all that stuff start
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Speaker 5: kind of rolling out.
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Speaker 2: That's exciting people can get their clothes for their summer.
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Speaker 3: Yea, and by the beach. The album itself Better on
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Speaker 3: a Boat.
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Speaker 2: It's centered on slowing down, finding joy and simple moments.
4:32
Speaker 2: Being an artist and songwriter can be very fast paced,
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Speaker 2: from touring to writing songs to always working on the
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Speaker 2: next project. So how do you remind yourself to stay centered.
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Speaker 2: Is it finding time to be out on the water.
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Speaker 5: Yeah, I feel like the album really brought a lot
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Speaker 5: of I feel like peace to my creative like where
4:58
Speaker 5: I've fallen into at least, Like I feel like Nashville
5:01
Speaker 5: is so easy to you write a bunch of songs,
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Speaker 5: and you write great songs, right, but like maybe they're
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Speaker 5: not truly you. You're just writing for a Morgan Wallen
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Speaker 5: Pitch or Luke Bryan or like name an artist and
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Speaker 5: it's like you're trying to aim for them.
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Speaker 1: And I felt like this, I don't know what I
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Speaker 1: really like.
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Speaker 5: I kept on coming back to I don't know who
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Speaker 5: I am as an artist or it was like what
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Speaker 5: is it that truly like speaks to me? And so
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Speaker 5: whenever I started kind of going back through my catalog
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Speaker 5: of songs that I'd written, I had found songs that
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Speaker 5: were kind of themed in this like water boat beach lifestyle.
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Speaker 5: And I've always like my family we always take a
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Speaker 5: family beach trip, which will be going on in a
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Speaker 5: couple of weeks down to thirty A and so we've
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Speaker 5: been doing on that trip for at this point, probably
5:52
Speaker 5: over fifteen years or so. And for that we went
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Speaker 5: to other beaches and stuff, but we just have like
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Speaker 5: a tradition and so it's like I truly feel like
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Speaker 5: when I'm looking out at the water, there's like this
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Speaker 5: piece and there's even like a thing called like I
6:07
Speaker 5: think it's called like blue theory or something where it's like.
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Speaker 1: Or ocean theory.
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Speaker 5: I don't know what it is, where it's like if
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Speaker 5: you're looking at something blue, like it calms all your
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Speaker 5: nervous system. And so I truly I feel like that's
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Speaker 5: an accurate like that's the that's the music, and in
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Speaker 5: a sense, like it feels like a place of peace
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Speaker 5: and like I honestly I feel like I have like
6:32
Speaker 5: total ownership over the sound too. I feel like I'm
6:37
Speaker 5: more invested in this project than I've been in any
6:39
Speaker 5: of my previous like EPs and stuff like that. That
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Speaker 5: just feels like, you know, after seven years of being
6:47
Speaker 5: in Nashville, I've kind of found my lane, that makes sense,
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Speaker 5: and found my voice.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, well it also makes sense because.
6:54
Speaker 2: You were born in Honolulu, Hawaii and then raised in Georgia.
6:58
Speaker 2: Did you spend a lot of time and Hawaii growing up?
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Speaker 1: Well, so I only lived there for like a year.
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Speaker 5: My parents they were in the Air Force, and so
7:09
Speaker 5: they I'm like, I wish they would have just stayed,
7:12
Speaker 5: but at the same time, they probably would have gotten
7:14
Speaker 5: moved to another station, and they didn't want that lifestyle
7:17
Speaker 5: for me.
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Speaker 1: And then my brother came along, so.
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Speaker 5: They just were like they wanted to move back to Georgia,
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Speaker 5: where my dad's from. And then after a year of
7:27
Speaker 5: living there, they moved to Texas, where my mom's from,
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Speaker 5: to just like see if they wanted to live there,
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Speaker 5: and they were like, they lived there for two years
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Speaker 5: and they were like, Oh, let's go back to Georgia.
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Speaker 5: But yeah, so basically we moved from Georgia to Texas,
7:39
Speaker 5: back to Georgia and then I grew up in Georgia
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Speaker 5: until twenty nineteen when I moved to Nashville. So I
7:47
Speaker 5: felt like I had like a lot of like the
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Speaker 5: small town life that I lived, but I always felt
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Speaker 5: this pool back to I feel like the water in
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Speaker 5: the coast. Anytime I was by the water there was
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Speaker 5: just like I said, goes back to like that peace
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Speaker 5: feeling and being on a boat and just like the
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Speaker 5: breeze and you know what I mean, all of it.
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Speaker 1: And so yeah, I.
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Speaker 2: Think the good thing even though we're in a landlocked
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Speaker 2: state in Tennessee. It's not a far drive from the beach.
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Speaker 3: It's about I guess seven.
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Speaker 2: Hours to Destin and thirty A area, so you don't
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Speaker 2: have to go far to find water and beautiful lakes
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Speaker 2: here in Tennessee as well to be on a boat.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, oh, it's We went out on.
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Speaker 5: Old Hickory recently and it was just it felt felt
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Speaker 5: good to just be out on a boat, whether it
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Speaker 5: was and then you know, like you said, it's only
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Speaker 5: seven hours to the thirty A and that's kind of
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Speaker 5: where we'll We were there like a couple like one
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Speaker 5: week ago down there for writing retreat with Hardy and
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Speaker 5: so got to write some songs at the beach, which
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Speaker 5: was like a first to do that because I've never
8:55
Speaker 5: had a retreat down there.
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Speaker 1: So it was fun.
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Speaker 3: Nice. That's so fun. One of the songs on.
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Speaker 2: Your new album, Meet God and the Ocean. You wrote
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Speaker 2: that with James Slater. What does that song mean to you?
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Speaker 5: It's a special song and I'm really glad that me
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Speaker 5: and James it felt meant to be. The day that
9:14
Speaker 5: that session came up, it was like, so I wrote
9:20
Speaker 5: that back in twenty twenty one actually, and I just
9:25
Speaker 5: like had a morning. I was waking up a lot
9:27
Speaker 5: because we had just gotten a brand new puppy, and
9:30
Speaker 5: so he was like needing to go to the potty
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Speaker 5: and stuff. So I'm waking up at like five or
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Speaker 5: something in the morning. It was preparing me for whenever
9:39
Speaker 5: I had my own son, you know.
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Speaker 1: But it was like basically just had this feeling.
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Speaker 5: I don't know what it was that morning, but I
9:48
Speaker 5: just started singing that melody and those lyrics like just
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Speaker 5: the me God and the ocean, Takobou this staff school,
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Speaker 5: and I was like, there's something interesting, like it felt,
10:02
Speaker 5: and especially because like James connection with like Kenny Chesney.
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Speaker 5: I was like, this feels like a perfect storm of
10:08
Speaker 5: a day to happen. And so I brought it into
10:11
Speaker 5: James and immediately he was like, yeah, let's write that.
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Speaker 5: And once we finished it, I felt like it was
10:17
Speaker 5: always such a special song and even like it was
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Speaker 5: actually he sent it to Kenny Chesney and Kenny loved
10:24
Speaker 5: it and put it on hold, and so it could
10:28
Speaker 5: have been a Kenny Chesney song. But after a while
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Speaker 5: he just I think he had different records that he
10:34
Speaker 5: was putting out, and I don't know if it made.
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Speaker 1: Sense for it.
10:36
Speaker 5: So I was like, well, I want to take it
10:39
Speaker 5: back and I want to put it on my record
10:42
Speaker 5: just because it was. It meant a lot to me,
10:44
Speaker 5: and I feel like I have such a deep connection
10:48
Speaker 5: in my faith as well that you know, I think
10:52
Speaker 5: it has grown over the years and I've like just
10:55
Speaker 5: like I feel like I've been more in the word
10:58
Speaker 5: than I ever had, and I felt happier than I've
11:02
Speaker 5: ever had. So it's like, uh, when I listened to
11:05
Speaker 5: that song, it reminds me, it like grounds me a
11:08
Speaker 5: little bit.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a great song. I love the album. I
11:12
Speaker 3: also listening to it this morning.
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Speaker 2: I also loved the song on it at Doc in
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Speaker 2: a Hard Place like me, I fit stuff collabor I.
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Speaker 1: Love that thank You. Yeah, that one was another fun one.
11:23
Speaker 5: My son was I had a carrier on me and
11:27
Speaker 5: I think my wife was get I think her and
11:30
Speaker 5: her mom were like getting like a pedicure or something
11:33
Speaker 5: like that, and I was at the park and just
11:35
Speaker 5: like had him on me and he fell asleep on
11:38
Speaker 5: me and I was just on my phone. I was
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Speaker 5: like think going through like just trying to think of
11:41
Speaker 5: new ideas, and I remember just like I was like,
11:46
Speaker 5: because I'd always heard rock in a hard place, and
11:49
Speaker 5: so I was like, all I gotta do is change
11:51
Speaker 5: one letter and it's a new it's a completely different idea.
11:54
Speaker 5: And I also when I when I saw I was like, Okay,
11:57
Speaker 5: this is amazing.
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Speaker 1: It feels like the modern day.
12:01
Speaker 5: I'm gonna miss her Brad Paisley, and so I came
12:04
Speaker 5: into the room with Madison, Kozak and Griffin.
12:06
Speaker 1: After I'd thought of the idea, I was like.
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Speaker 5: This is what I want to write today, this is
12:10
Speaker 5: how we should do it, and then we just like
12:13
Speaker 5: that day just nailed it.
12:15
Speaker 3: That's awesome. Yeah, a great song.
12:17
Speaker 2: And you also have an additional ten more songs coming.
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Speaker 1: On the album I do.
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Speaker 5: Yeah, it's exciting because with this record back in April,
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Speaker 5: I started with six songs. Back in twenty twenty five,
12:34
Speaker 5: I was just like, maybe I'll put an EP out.
12:37
Speaker 5: This was like my initial thoughts, and then I just
12:41
Speaker 5: continued writing songs and then it became ten songs, and
12:43
Speaker 5: then I was like, well, I don't want to stop
12:46
Speaker 5: writing like this vibe. It makes me feel good, it
12:49
Speaker 5: makes me feel like energized and inspired, and so I
12:52
Speaker 5: just kept writing and writing and writing, and so then
12:55
Speaker 5: it turned into twenty songs, and then I was like, well,
12:59
Speaker 5: I started producing it, and I was like, it feels
13:04
Speaker 5: it would be cool to base it around the summer season,
13:08
Speaker 5: where it's like Memorial Day is the first half, and
13:12
Speaker 5: then all the way through summer there's still summer music
13:14
Speaker 5: coming out, and then Labor Day is like the final
13:17
Speaker 5: twenty songs combined. So it really like it puts you
13:21
Speaker 5: in the season, and I kind of like, I don't know,
13:25
Speaker 5: we'll see how it goes for.
13:27
Speaker 1: The next album.
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Speaker 5: I'm already working on what's gonna come after this, But
13:33
Speaker 5: I almost like love the way that it felt this
13:35
Speaker 5: year of just like every like it felt.
13:38
Speaker 1: Like putting out Christmas music, you know what.
13:40
Speaker 5: I mean, Like every like when the season comes around,
13:43
Speaker 5: people stream it even more, and like it's just like
13:45
Speaker 5: a necessary like genre. Like I feel like part of
13:49
Speaker 5: the genre that I feel like has been missing for
13:51
Speaker 5: a little bit, or at least like in the sense of.
13:53
Speaker 1: Like where it used to be.
13:54
Speaker 5: It used to be like a much bigger thing and
13:57
Speaker 5: it was on radio, but I feel like the sound
13:59
Speaker 5: is sifted over the past few years. So I was like, well,
14:04
Speaker 5: that's what I loved so like, I just want to
14:06
Speaker 5: make that music and just put that music out in
14:08
Speaker 5: the world.
14:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely as influences from Kenny Chesney and Jimmy Buffett
14:13
Speaker 3: all of that. So listeners can look forward.
14:16
Speaker 2: To not only your clothing brand, but additional songs literally
14:20
Speaker 2: Christmas in July, I.
14:22
Speaker 1: Know exactly, That's exactly it.
14:25
Speaker 2: And in addition to writing and co writing the songs
14:28
Speaker 2: on this album, you were also the mixing engineer of
14:31
Speaker 2: this album.
14:31
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, so this was like a new I forel
14:36
Speaker 1: like new territory for me.
14:39
Speaker 5: I have always had a mixer and I remember saying
14:41
Speaker 5: to my like, I was like, I'm not a mixer,
14:44
Speaker 5: I can't do that. And then I think it was
14:46
Speaker 5: like one day I was like, it's so true. What
14:49
Speaker 5: they say is like our words are so powerful and
14:51
Speaker 5: so like what we tell ourselves is what we can be.
14:55
Speaker 5: And so I just finally made the decisions and say,
14:57
Speaker 5: you know what, I am a mixer. You know, it's
14:59
Speaker 5: like the same thing I said before that was I'm
15:02
Speaker 5: not a producer. I don't I'm not I can't do that.
15:05
Speaker 5: And then it just like as you continue to grow
15:09
Speaker 5: and like your knowledge of like what you're doing. You're like, well,
15:12
Speaker 5: like you know.
15:14
Speaker 1: I was.
15:14
Speaker 5: I asked the guy who was mixing my records prior
15:17
Speaker 5: to this, and he's like, man, these sound amazing. And
15:21
Speaker 5: I was like, well, do you have any critiques? And
15:22
Speaker 5: he was like, I would just do like this and
15:24
Speaker 5: this and that's it. And I was like, that's it
15:26
Speaker 5: and then and I just did that to the record
15:29
Speaker 5: and it was like, it feels great, it feels like.
15:35
Speaker 5: I also started thinking about, like, gosh, you imagine back
15:39
Speaker 5: in the forties and like fifties, you know those like
15:42
Speaker 5: old records where they're like mono and like they're the
15:46
Speaker 5: vocal is like so loud, and everything else is kind
15:49
Speaker 5: of just like distorted a little bit. But it like
15:51
Speaker 5: was a massive hit. I was like, now, it's like music.
15:56
Speaker 5: If it sound if you can hear the words to
15:59
Speaker 5: the song and feel the vibe and the impacts are
16:02
Speaker 5: in the right place and the chorus lifts and all that,
16:05
Speaker 5: like you're gonna have it'll it'll feel good no matter
16:08
Speaker 5: what the mix or the production.
16:09
Speaker 1: I feel like nowadays is yeah.
16:13
Speaker 3: Well, it can be so difficult when you're mixing and
16:16
Speaker 3: producing your own music because sometimes you feel like it's
16:19
Speaker 3: a never ending project. It's never finished.
16:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, mixing the music in the studio where you recorded it,
16:26
Speaker 2: or were you mixing it elsewhere?
16:28
Speaker 5: Yeah, so everything that when it comes to production and mixing,
16:32
Speaker 5: I have a studio in my house and so I'm
16:35
Speaker 5: basically I cut all my vocals there and then I
16:40
Speaker 5: just like I have my speakers set up, and I
16:43
Speaker 5: just really like I I've listened. I listened to this record.
16:48
Speaker 5: I mean it has to be over a thousand different
16:51
Speaker 5: times in different ways too, because like there were certain
16:54
Speaker 5: things that changed and like, oh I added an extra
16:58
Speaker 5: this into it or extra that, and so I feel
17:02
Speaker 5: like I know the songs better than than anybody else,
17:06
Speaker 5: but like it also creates. So the way I look
17:09
Speaker 5: at it is if it doesn't make me crazy after
17:13
Speaker 5: hearing it, or if it doesn't make me like hate it,
17:15
Speaker 5: I'm like, Okay, I think I've got a good I
17:17
Speaker 5: think I've got a good song if I've heard it
17:19
Speaker 5: a thousand times and I don't like I can listen
17:21
Speaker 5: to it again, you know, which I think for me
17:26
Speaker 5: in the past, like being not not having my hands
17:29
Speaker 5: on the production in any like and not to say
17:32
Speaker 5: that I'll always have my hands on the production. But
17:34
Speaker 5: like I think, you know, I've had things where I
17:37
Speaker 5: was like, oh, that could have been different, you know,
17:39
Speaker 5: And so I really I felt like it gave me
17:44
Speaker 5: a different kind of like it. It only increased my
17:47
Speaker 5: artist like self. I feel like to be like that
17:50
Speaker 5: hands on with it and truly understand my sound.
17:55
Speaker 3: Yeah.
17:56
Speaker 2: Well yeah, the mix on every song sounds great, it grows.
18:00
Speaker 3: You did a great job.
18:02
Speaker 1: We'll be right back with more of the Taken a
18:04
Speaker 1: Walk Nashville podcast. Welcome back to Taken a Walk Nashville.
18:14
Speaker 2: Was audio something that you were self taught?
18:18
Speaker 3: Did you go to school for a production?
18:20
Speaker 1: No?
18:20
Speaker 5: So I moved to Nashville in twenty nineteen and I
18:24
Speaker 5: was signed to Jordan Schmidt, who is a producer and
18:30
Speaker 5: songwriter hit like He's got hit after hit like God's Country,
18:35
Speaker 5: what IF's Trunk Me. So he had like all these
18:39
Speaker 5: like amazing songs and he'd produced a handful of stuff,
18:44
Speaker 5: and so having him in my corner, I could ask
18:47
Speaker 5: him questions. And then my roommate was Jacob Durrett for
18:52
Speaker 5: two years whenever I first moved here, and if you
18:55
Speaker 5: know his stuff, he's on produces Morgan Wallen alongside with
18:59
Speaker 5: Joe and Charlie, but basically having those two guys in
19:05
Speaker 5: my corner and I can ask them anything. I remember
19:09
Speaker 5: staying up till two am and Jacob was right there
19:13
Speaker 5: next to me, like teaching me how to tune a
19:15
Speaker 5: vocal and uh, and I was just like, you can't
19:19
Speaker 5: really like it was. It was so like priceless, you
19:23
Speaker 5: know what I mean. Like I think, especially learning from
19:26
Speaker 5: guys who are in the industry. I think you could
19:28
Speaker 5: like watch all the YouTube videos and that you want,
19:31
Speaker 5: and you could go to like there's so many like
19:34
Speaker 5: production courses and stuff that I know are in town
19:37
Speaker 5: and also around the world. But like just sit there
19:41
Speaker 5: and be like these guys are doing it. They're producing
19:44
Speaker 5: the people that I listen to, and they're they're getting
19:47
Speaker 5: the sound where I want to get my sound too,
19:51
Speaker 5: And so I just kind of kept on asking questions
19:54
Speaker 5: and just being a student. And I still feel like
19:56
Speaker 5: I'm a student. Like I know a lot now, or
19:59
Speaker 5: at least I know a lot more than I did
20:00
Speaker 5: when I first started. But there's always something to learn
20:04
Speaker 5: in production, so you're just never and those guys say
20:07
Speaker 5: the same thing too, It's like they're always learning something.
20:09
Speaker 2: New, right, audio is constantly changing, and that hands on
20:13
Speaker 2: experience with people is definitely invaluable. Speaking of Jordan Schmidt,
20:19
Speaker 2: before step into the spotlight as an artist, you built
20:22
Speaker 2: your reputation as a songwriter when you want Atlanta's one
20:26
Speaker 2: to one point by Kicks competition two years in a row,
20:30
Speaker 2: and that caught the attention of songwriter and producer Jordan
20:34
Speaker 2: Schmidt and he offered you that joint publishing deal with
20:37
Speaker 2: Sony Music Publishing into nineteen.
20:40
Speaker 3: So at that time.
20:41
Speaker 2: Were you trying to start your career as an artist
20:45
Speaker 2: or did songwriting come first for you.
20:47
Speaker 5: So I've always been like I've always been thinking like
20:52
Speaker 5: dream wise, I want to be an artist. That was
20:54
Speaker 5: like I feel like as a kid growing up five
20:59
Speaker 5: years old, my and have videos of me and it
21:02
Speaker 5: kind of connects to my last record was like it's
21:05
Speaker 5: called I Hope You Will Be Someday, and I had
21:08
Speaker 5: a clip that like is from the v VHS VCR
21:11
Speaker 5: like thing and my parents say, or my mom says,
21:15
Speaker 5: I run up and I say I'm Kenny Chesney, right,
21:18
Speaker 5: and then she's like, uh, oh you are well.
21:21
Speaker 1: I hope you will be someday.
21:23
Speaker 5: And so it just felt like this kind of like strange,
21:26
Speaker 5: like and again I didn't even know about that clip
21:28
Speaker 5: for a long time. Like it was like they pulled
21:30
Speaker 5: it out of the the you know, those the black
21:33
Speaker 5: tapes they got basically they had to convert them into
21:36
Speaker 5: like CDs and then you can put them on the
21:38
Speaker 5: computer and stuff. So they like pulled those out and
21:43
Speaker 5: it just was like so strange that like I had
21:45
Speaker 5: had this like fire in me. I feel like from
21:48
Speaker 5: such a young age to like I was standing front
21:50
Speaker 5: of the TV like with a plastic microphone and a
21:53
Speaker 5: plastic guitar or whatever, like watching Kenny Chesney on the
21:57
Speaker 5: on the TV playing a show and trying to mind
22:00
Speaker 5: what he was doing. And so it it felt like
22:04
Speaker 5: there was always that dream of being an artist and
22:08
Speaker 5: kind of like following the footsteps of like my heroes.
22:13
Speaker 5: And like I think that when I came to town, Jordan
22:18
Speaker 5: was actually trying to sign He wanted to sign me
22:20
Speaker 5: as an artist because he wanted he signed me as
22:23
Speaker 5: a songwriter, but he felt I guess, I feel like
22:28
Speaker 5: he really loved my voice and some of you know, again,
22:31
Speaker 5: there was all songs that I had written by myself,
22:33
Speaker 5: so they were they were okay, they were not great,
22:36
Speaker 5: but he saw the potential and he was like, I
22:40
Speaker 5: want wanted me to come here and potentially cut the
22:44
Speaker 5: songs that he didn't get like cut by you know,
22:47
Speaker 5: like Kane Brown or Morgan Wallen or Blake. Like it
22:51
Speaker 5: was like the songs that were just in his catalog
22:52
Speaker 5: that were also really great songs, they just didn't see
22:56
Speaker 5: the light of day. And so he wanted me to
22:58
Speaker 5: potentially be the like vessel for were those songs.
23:01
Speaker 1: And produced me.
23:02
Speaker 5: So I came here and like I started doing that.
23:07
Speaker 5: I started writing songs. I cut some songs that Jordan
23:11
Speaker 5: had had written, and I put those out on EP
23:13
Speaker 5: in twenty twenty. And then basically I feel like the
23:18
Speaker 5: pandemic kind of happened, and like it became a you know,
23:22
Speaker 5: I had a publishing deal, I didn't have a record deal,
23:26
Speaker 5: and I kind of was like, all right, well, I
23:28
Speaker 5: feel like I need to, you know, really like figure
23:33
Speaker 5: out what I'm gonna do because the artist thing isn't
23:36
Speaker 5: really going the way that I thought it was going
23:37
Speaker 5: to go. And so I just started really like all right,
23:41
Speaker 5: I'm gonna write songs and I'm going to try to
23:43
Speaker 5: get cuts for other artists and I did that for
23:47
Speaker 5: and I still am doing that, you know, I still
23:48
Speaker 5: write stuff for other people. But I think for a
23:52
Speaker 5: long time I wasn't focusing at all on myself, and
23:55
Speaker 5: I kind of put the artist thing on the back
23:57
Speaker 5: burner and in a way of just being like, oh,
23:59
Speaker 5: just cut. If there's a good song that I write
24:01
Speaker 5: that nobody else cuts, I'll cut it. And I think
24:05
Speaker 5: that like once I had a I feel like I've
24:09
Speaker 5: had a couple of conversations about this with other artists
24:13
Speaker 5: or just other individuals in the music industry. But the
24:17
Speaker 5: thing that really takes somebody from like just being a
24:22
Speaker 5: great voice or a great songwriter is like an identity,
24:28
Speaker 5: and like if you can somebody told me, like, if
24:30
Speaker 5: you could draw a cartoon of a famous whatever musician, right,
24:34
Speaker 5: and you could, like and if you knew who it was,
24:37
Speaker 5: then like clearly they have created an image, right, an
24:41
Speaker 5: artistry that's recognizable from outside, from like actually seeing who
24:46
Speaker 5: they are.
24:47
Speaker 1: So like if yeah, like I know.
24:49
Speaker 5: Morgan, I don't know if he has the mullet anymore,
24:50
Speaker 5: but like at one point he had the mullet and
24:52
Speaker 5: the cutoff shirts or whatever. So if you saw like
24:54
Speaker 5: a cartoon or a Halloween costume of Morgan walland you
24:57
Speaker 5: would know it's Morgan Walland same thing with Hardy, you
25:01
Speaker 5: know what I mean? Like and Laney, there's you can
25:04
Speaker 5: tell who they are and so I think that it
25:08
Speaker 5: just it's like finding a lot of this town. Has
25:11
Speaker 5: been finding myself and saying who am I?
25:15
Speaker 1: Who do I want to be?
25:18
Speaker 5: And then going after like in making myself more of
25:23
Speaker 5: that person every day.
25:24
Speaker 1: You know.
25:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you've definitely heard your image with your Coastal
25:30
Speaker 2: Country brand, your single Hope It's Hot out that went
25:34
Speaker 2: viral on TikTok.
25:36
Speaker 3: And has to past forty million streams.
25:39
Speaker 2: Obviously coming here during the pandemic was hard as an artist.
25:43
Speaker 2: But when that viral moment happened, what did it teach
25:47
Speaker 2: you about your direct connection to bands and how did
25:50
Speaker 2: it change your trajectory as an artist?
25:53
Speaker 5: Well, I feel like it was such a powerful tool
25:57
Speaker 5: because it really kind of put the power were into
26:01
Speaker 5: the artist's hands where it's like you can kind of
26:04
Speaker 5: make your own make your own luck right in a way.
26:08
Speaker 5: And I remember that song specifically. It was a song
26:12
Speaker 5: that my manager and then Jordan like, not that they
26:17
Speaker 5: didn't like think it would be a good song, but
26:20
Speaker 5: they just were like, I don't think that one's like
26:22
Speaker 5: us worth us producing, Like they didn't see it as
26:25
Speaker 5: like a song that was in there, like there's like
26:28
Speaker 5: I don't know if the hook lands all the way
26:30
Speaker 5: and uh. And I remember just like posting a clip
26:34
Speaker 5: of that song up on the on the Internet and
26:39
Speaker 5: and just all of a sudden, it's like I look
26:41
Speaker 5: at my Instagram and there's like a hundred videos made,
26:44
Speaker 5: or like or TikTok look at there's a hundred videos made.
26:47
Speaker 5: And then it's like a week later there's now five
26:50
Speaker 5: hundred videos, and then there's a thousand videos, and then
26:53
Speaker 5: it just kind of kept on like going, and I
26:56
Speaker 5: think by the time that I put the song out,
26:58
Speaker 5: there was like ten thousand or more videos that had
27:01
Speaker 5: been made with the audio and that song. It just
27:07
Speaker 5: like it shows if you put out something that you
27:10
Speaker 5: believe in like and like people love it, like, it
27:14
Speaker 5: doesn't have to have a big like label putting.
27:18
Speaker 1: A bunch of money behind it.
27:19
Speaker 5: And so that was like the proof that I needed
27:23
Speaker 5: to say I can be an independent artist.
27:25
Speaker 1: And at least at this point.
27:28
Speaker 5: Like I I've had so many conversations with labels and
27:32
Speaker 5: A and RS. And I think at some point there'll
27:35
Speaker 5: be a right fit for potentially a label, because I'd
27:38
Speaker 5: love to go to radio at some point. But right
27:42
Speaker 5: now it's been awesome because I can connect with fans
27:45
Speaker 5: and just like make music that truly connects with them.
27:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's awesome.
27:51
Speaker 2: And in addition to your artistry, you mentioned you've had
27:55
Speaker 2: songs cut by other artists, and within a year of
27:58
Speaker 2: your first publishing deal, you co wrote your first platinum single,
28:02
Speaker 2: Villain by Lily Rose. After writing that song or any song, really,
28:08
Speaker 2: how do you know? And you touched on this a
28:10
Speaker 2: little bit earlier, but how do you know if the
28:12
Speaker 2: song is meant for yourself or another artist or sometimes
28:17
Speaker 2: when you're in a cool write, is there just a
28:19
Speaker 2: song you're drawn to right away?
28:22
Speaker 1: You know?
28:22
Speaker 5: It was interesting with Lily Rose, so it was like
28:25
Speaker 5: such a random We had ran into each other a
28:30
Speaker 5: whiskey jam and we were like, let's write together because
28:34
Speaker 5: we had gone to college together together at the University
28:37
Speaker 5: of North Georgia. It was so I think that's the
28:40
Speaker 5: thing about this town is you'll just like run into
28:42
Speaker 5: somebody and you're like, well, I haven't seen you in
28:44
Speaker 5: a long time. Or whatever, and then you'll get back
28:46
Speaker 5: together and write a song. And so I had a
28:50
Speaker 5: friend here at Belmont that was Mackenzie Carpenter, and so
28:55
Speaker 5: I was like, okay, well do you want to come,
28:59
Speaker 5: Like I set up the right base. I was like, okay, Like, well,
29:01
Speaker 5: I'll bring in McKenzie and maybe we'll write something, you know,
29:05
Speaker 5: And then sure enough we wrote wrote Villain.
29:10
Speaker 1: And it was one of those things too.
29:13
Speaker 5: Where you don't really know what you're writing that day,
29:16
Speaker 5: Like you may think that something's a hit, and you
29:19
Speaker 5: may think someone's not a hit, and it surprises you
29:21
Speaker 5: every time. The song it was the same thing. Lily
29:24
Speaker 5: just posted it on TikTok and then it started taking
29:28
Speaker 5: off and it was like, you know, number one on
29:32
Speaker 5: the Highway and all the like, and again being a
29:36
Speaker 5: platinum song is it's crazy. It's like it it's wild
29:40
Speaker 5: to have that accolade just because it's it's such a
29:45
Speaker 5: big feat. Like I mean, I from my own song
29:48
Speaker 5: Hope It's hot out, Like I'm like, I can't wait
29:50
Speaker 5: till it goes gold because that will be just like
29:52
Speaker 5: an awesome thing to be like my song went gold,
29:54
Speaker 5: you know, but you really don't know what you're working
29:57
Speaker 5: on in the moment, you just kind of have to
29:59
Speaker 5: show up and like just give it your best every
30:02
Speaker 5: single time, or at least because there's days where you
30:05
Speaker 5: don't want to and you're just like I really could
30:08
Speaker 5: just like stay at home and just like not write
30:12
Speaker 5: a song because I'm drained. But the instances where I've
30:16
Speaker 5: shown up, I feel like it always is it's paid off.
30:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, well that's a big part of it, just showing
30:22
Speaker 2: up because you never know what's gonna come out of
30:24
Speaker 2: the song, and I'm sure you're glad you set up.
30:26
Speaker 5: That, Yeah, totally, And like that's like not the only
30:32
Speaker 5: time that that's really ever happened I've had. I feel
30:35
Speaker 5: like with the Blake Shelton song, it was one of
30:39
Speaker 5: those instances where like I could have gone home and
30:43
Speaker 5: we were we had a writing retreat that we were
30:45
Speaker 5: on with It was with Hardy and and we we
30:51
Speaker 5: had written like four songs at that point, and I
30:55
Speaker 5: was like, I'm like really tired and went to dinner
30:58
Speaker 5: with my wife and then something in me was like
31:01
Speaker 5: I need to go back to the house and just
31:03
Speaker 5: like see if anybody's hanging out maybe like just I
31:06
Speaker 5: don't know, never know, and I showed up and it
31:11
Speaker 5: was Zach Abben, Carson Wallace, and Michael Hardy just sitting
31:15
Speaker 5: in there listening to music, just chilling, and I sat
31:18
Speaker 5: down and as soon as the song that Zach was
31:21
Speaker 5: playing because they were just kind of vibing out as
31:25
Speaker 5: soon as the stop party was like, so, y'all want
31:26
Speaker 5: to write a song or what? And so then we
31:29
Speaker 5: wrote the song led him in any way, and it
31:34
Speaker 5: was such a like it was one of those ones
31:36
Speaker 5: where like all those other ones I'd mentioned where it's
31:39
Speaker 5: like you don't know if you're writing something great or
31:42
Speaker 5: like you may think. It was like I felt like
31:45
Speaker 5: we were writing something really prolific and really unheard of.
31:49
Speaker 5: I feel like, and I'd never heard a song, and
31:52
Speaker 5: I never heard a concept in that world of things.
31:56
Speaker 5: So I felt like it was a powerful, powerful message,
31:59
Speaker 5: and I felt like if we did it correctly, it
32:01
Speaker 5: was going to land in the right you know, on
32:03
Speaker 5: the right ears. And sure enough, like Hardy, he sent
32:07
Speaker 5: it to Blake Shelton and he instantly, I guess, got chills,
32:12
Speaker 5: and and that was funny because he was sending like
32:15
Speaker 5: text to Hardy and it was like, because I can
32:17
Speaker 5: barely get Gwyn to like stop crying so and go
32:21
Speaker 5: to dinner.
32:22
Speaker 1: She was just like just like torn up over it.
32:26
Speaker 5: So it was cool to like hear that response, but
32:30
Speaker 5: also like proof of just like showing up even whenever
32:35
Speaker 5: you don't want to.
32:36
Speaker 3: I love that. Yeah, that's a great song.
32:38
Speaker 2: Blake Shelton's current single, You're also known as a Swiss
32:42
Speaker 2: Army Knife and writing rooms always contributing to Melody La
32:46
Speaker 2: Concept production. Did that versatility come from necessity when you
32:53
Speaker 2: were starting out independently or have you always loved each
32:56
Speaker 2: part of the puzzle creatively?
32:59
Speaker 5: You know, I feel like I truly do love all
33:04
Speaker 5: aspects of music. I love creating in any capacity. And
33:10
Speaker 5: I think part of the Swiss Army Knife thing because
33:13
Speaker 5: that's kind of what Jordan would call me, he would
33:16
Speaker 5: say that.
33:18
Speaker 1: It.
33:19
Speaker 5: It was really like I try to make myself more valuable,
33:22
Speaker 5: you know, because I think being one dimensional in anything,
33:26
Speaker 5: I feel like you're just whenever you think about this talent,
33:30
Speaker 5: there's so many talented people right in all areas, right
33:35
Speaker 5: the industry, there's talented people. There's like in the songwriting,
33:39
Speaker 5: the studio musicians, there's like so many the producers, the mixers,
33:44
Speaker 5: the mastering. So I was like, if I can learn
33:48
Speaker 5: as many skills as I can, that only increases my
33:51
Speaker 5: value as somebody in the room, right whenever I go
33:54
Speaker 5: to write with whoever it is, or if they if
33:57
Speaker 5: I write with an artist that day. So I just
34:00
Speaker 5: I saw it as like I'm only helping myself out
34:04
Speaker 5: if I go and I learn how to do these
34:06
Speaker 5: things and just kind of soak up all the knowledge
34:10
Speaker 5: I can from the people who are doing it really well.
34:14
Speaker 2: I think that's so important And like you said, that's
34:16
Speaker 2: how you get invited back.
34:18
Speaker 3: Well, Kyle, I have a couple more questions. It's left
34:21
Speaker 3: for you.
34:22
Speaker 2: So as we talked about your new album Better on
34:25
Speaker 2: a Boat and Channels Ultimate summertime Spirit, like.
34:28
Speaker 3: Can you chest me Jimmy Buffett, Zach Brown?
34:31
Speaker 2: As I mentioned, if you could spend a day on
34:34
Speaker 2: a boat swopping stories with any one of your musical influences,
34:39
Speaker 2: who are you picking and what's the drink?
34:42
Speaker 5: Oh my gosh, well, I mean, I guess just for
34:46
Speaker 5: the sake I feel like, I mean, if I was
34:49
Speaker 5: if I was able to sit down with Jimmy Buffett,
34:50
Speaker 5: that'd be incredible and probably would have a margarita just
34:55
Speaker 5: for the sake of it and either that or like
34:59
Speaker 5: a pin Cole. But it just like, yeah, I mean,
35:03
Speaker 5: if I could if I feel like just because I
35:06
Speaker 5: never got the chance to see him in concert, and
35:09
Speaker 5: I never I never got the chance to meet him
35:12
Speaker 5: or anything. So there's a lot of artists that did,
35:14
Speaker 5: and like with Zach Brown and Kenny Chesney and plenty
35:18
Speaker 5: of others, but that's probably he's kind of the one
35:23
Speaker 5: who did it. You know, he did the Coastal and
35:27
Speaker 5: he also, you know, I've read his book. He didn't
35:31
Speaker 5: care about what Nashville like. He he was like working,
35:36
Speaker 5: he was a writer for Billboard actually, like interviewing other
35:39
Speaker 5: artists and like doing album reviews, and he was trying
35:44
Speaker 5: to make it and he got a record deal. It
35:46
Speaker 5: didn't work out, and then he was like, all right,
35:49
Speaker 5: I'm going to the beach. And so he left Nashville
35:52
Speaker 5: and just started doing his own thing and not paying
35:54
Speaker 5: attention to whatever else was going on. And I just like,
35:59
Speaker 5: I think that's super mirable. Like I feel like, I
36:03
Speaker 5: I feel like the people who you know, carve their
36:06
Speaker 5: own lanes are the ones that make it. You know,
36:09
Speaker 5: they don't follow whatever, they don't follow the crowd.
36:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love that. That's a perfect choice.
36:15
Speaker 2: And my last question for you, when you're not out
36:19
Speaker 2: on the water or chucked away in a writing room,
36:22
Speaker 2: what's your favorite spot in Nashville to just slow down
36:25
Speaker 2: and catch your breath.
36:26
Speaker 5: Oh gosh, there's so many great spots.
36:32
Speaker 1: I feel like that.
36:33
Speaker 5: You know, we live in twelve South and so like
36:36
Speaker 5: Severe Park is right next to us, and so we'll
36:39
Speaker 5: walk there with the dog and the baby, and I
36:43
Speaker 5: think it's like peaceful, just going out on a walk
36:45
Speaker 5: and just kind of decompressing your day or just even
36:49
Speaker 5: like I've gotten a lot of song ideas just on
36:52
Speaker 5: a walk, you know, So I think which it's I
36:59
Speaker 5: think I think that's one and one of the ways
37:01
Speaker 5: other places would potentially be, like I feel like Old
37:03
Speaker 5: Hickory or just being out on the water there, just
37:06
Speaker 5: seeing the water. I think that, you know, that's where
37:10
Speaker 5: at least I feel like in Nashville I find or
37:12
Speaker 5: outside in Nashville, I find peace.
37:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a great pick.
37:15
Speaker 2: Your twelve South in general has changed so much, but
37:19
Speaker 2: what hasn't changed about that area is Severe Park. It's
37:22
Speaker 2: that stayed the same, great place to walk and.
37:24
Speaker 1: Even have a picnic mm hmm, totally.
37:27
Speaker 2: Well, Kyle, Thank you so much for being on Taking
37:29
Speaker 2: a Walk Nashville. Today listeners can listen to your new
37:33
Speaker 2: album Better on a Boat and look forward to additional
37:36
Speaker 2: songs and your clothing brand that's coming out this summer.
37:40
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, appreciate you having me on. Thanks
37:44
Speaker 1: for listening to Taking a Walk Nashville with Sarah Harrelson.
37:47
Speaker 1: Please check out our other shows produced by buzz Night
37:50
Speaker 1: Media Productions Comedy Save Me and Music Save Me posted
37:56
Speaker 1: by Lynn Hoffman and Take It a Walk posted by
37:59
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Speaker 1: and are part of the iHeart podcast network