I got back into town late Sunday night from my 3-day adventure to ‘the crazy town that is like Hollywood with twang.’

My collaborator Denis Loiseau and I had a great trip. Our primary business meeting was hosted by the husband and wife owners of the firm and began with him giving a personal tour of their facility. Gold records covered the walls along with photos of many of their famous clients and of the wife’s 3-year tour with Rod Stewart and her performing for and talking with members of the royal family. He then personally gave a tour of the amazing recording studio where some of the top performers in the world have recorded albums.

His business partner wife then joined us as we chatted about the industry. We also discussed a project on which Denis and they had begun working prior to my collaboration with him. We then presented the demos of the two songs on which Denis and I had collaborated and a few earlier songs that Denis had written either solo or with other co-writers.  

Our hosts were pleasant, friendly and informal in a professional way, and very generous with their feedback, suggestions, and time.

They said that story songs or ballads by independent songwriters who aren’t also performers are very rarely cut. A key reason is that performer/songwriters strongly prefer to tell their own stories in their songs rather than the stories of others, and most songwriters mostly write ballads so the market is flooded with them. So, “What Kind of Man Does That” has very little chance of being cut/commericalized. Nice song, nice story, but probably not going to be a money-maker. That is very useful information so early in my career.

They also said that with all of the (negative) changes occuring in the industry in recent years (such as so many people ripping the songs without pay for them) that the odds of a songwriter who isn’t also a performer to get anything commercialized essentially went from very long to much worse than that.

They didn’t think that “Rebelry” would be a commercialized either, but gave excellent and very specific feedback as to what the industry is looking for right now.

I know that many and perhaps most songwriters can spend decades writing songs without ever getting the opportunity to meet with such major industry execs in this way and to be given so much of their time. Since I only have about 6 months of experience writing songs I believe that I was given a great gift very early and am determined to make the most of it.

Based on our hosts’ comments, Denis and I came away from the meeting with a much greater focus on what is most likely to be of interest to the industry. We’ve already gone through our 50+ hooks/song ideas and selected a dozen that we believe have the best chance of being commercialized.

We’re now focused on creating story “bubbles” (that’s what our hosts called them) where we outline the story/message/theme/emotion we’re attempting to convey in each line of each verse, chorus, pre-chorus, and bridge without actually writing the line, creating the rhyming schemes, etc. We plan to accomplish all of this within 12-24 person-hours between us over the next two weeks. It is an ambitious goal, and during the trip home we’ve already completed one full story bubble and are well more than half-way done with two others.

We then plan to run the story bubbles of all 12 prospective songs by several industry execs and pros–including these two new contacts–for their feedback as to which (if any) have the greatest likelihood of being commercialized once the full song and lyrics are developed. We then plan to focus on those that receive the best feedback or to start over with another list if the first list doesn’t appear to make the cut.

In this more business-like manner we hope to be able to far more quickly present a much larger percentage of potentially commercial songs versus the way that we (and I think most other songwriters) have been doing it–though even in this scenario the odds of success with any given song will remain very small). 

If we can do that–a big IF at this point–we hope to be able to separate ourselves from the pack in the minds of industry execs, and to gain name recognition while expanding and strengthening our credibility and relationships with more of them. 

While I’m obviously excited and somewhat awe-struck as to how quickly this songwriting hobby has morphed into a great adventure, I’m very aware that the odds of any new song-writer ever having even a single song cut are daunting. I’m not doing this for possible monetary gain. (There are far easier ways to make a living including my professional passion of investment management.)  Songwriting is just a hobby which has grown into a passion and I love it. I plan to keep doing it for as long as I keep loving it. And with that mind-set, if I do it for 30 years and never make a dime, at the end of the journey I know I will have enjoyed the trip along the way. 

Although I’d pay someone for the opportunity to keep having so much fun, if I eventually do somehow win the songwriting lottery and actually make a buck or two  that will be merely frosting on an already great cake. 

A quick aside: I found a quarter in a parking lot at Nashville. As he saw me pick it up Denis quipped, “See? It’s just your first trip here and you’re already bringing money home from Nashville.”  That got a good chuckle out of both of us.

Sorry for the long post. I get carried away in my excitement. I plan to share in a later post our experiences at the famous Blue Bird Cafe’ where songwriters perform many of their hit songs of the past and present.

Kind regards,
Russ