Years of hard work builds on talent
By Preshias Harris
Nashville attracts songwriters like bees to a sunflower. For many, it takes a giant leap of faith to leave home, family and friends – and often a good job – to move to Nashville with the hope of becoming a songwriter.
“I was here about eleven or twelve years before I had a song that was doing well at radio.” – Ashley Gorley
Recently, Chris Lane took a day off from touring to celebrate his second No. 1 song, “I Don’t Know About You” (on Big Loud Records) and talk about his new single, “Big, Big Plans,” that he wrote with Jacob Durrett and Ernest K. Smith.
During the roundtable media meeting before the presentation of the awards for “I Don’t Know About You,” Chris and that song’s writers – Ashley Gorley, Michael Hardy, Hunter Phelps and Jameson Rodgers – opened up about coming to Nashville and how their songwriting careers developed.
“I wrote 12 terrible songs!”
“For me, I never knew that I wanted to do anything with music,” Chris admitted. “I was always involved with sports growing up. I felt that was what I was great at.” An outstanding athlete, he played baseball at the University of North Carolina and had plans to pursue a career as a professional baseball player. However, sports-related injuries made that dream impossible and he turned to music.
“When I graduated college, I was learning how to play the guitar and trying to figure out how to sing and play at the same time,” he continued. “I started a cover band and I guess I became extremely passionate over the touring side of things and being an artist. I don’t think at that time I was thinking, ‘Oh man, I’m gonna be a country artist one day that will have a song on the radio,’ or any of that kind of stuff. Songwriting was kind of an afterthought. I would go out and play all my favorite artists’ [songs], Kenny Chesney Keith Urban, Aldean, Eric Church. I mean I would just cover their songs every night and play for four hours.”
“To be able to sing a song… that connects with the crowd, that’s super special.” – Chris Lane
After a year or so of singing other artists’ songs, Chris felt the inspiration to be more creative. “I started thinking about, like, ‘Man, I should try to write songs like this,’” he recalled. “I would find myself writing by myself some terrible songs! But you start somewhere, right? And you learn from there. I would always find myself saying, ‘What would Kenny Chesney say if he were writing this song? Or what would Keith Urban say if he were writing this song?’ And I sat down and wrote twelve terrible songs that eventually led to me getting a publishing deal and a record deal and all that kind of stuff.” More about Chris at https://iamchrislane.com/
Forty-seven Number Ones
Ashley Gorley is a truly amazing songwriter. “I Don’t Know About You” is his forty-fourth No. 1 as a songwriter. Since that song topped the charts, he has racked up his forty-seventh No. 1 hit. He revealed what drew him to Music City.
“As soon as I knew what [song] publishing was I wanted to do that,” said Ashley. “As soon as I figured out that there was a gig where you don’t have to read music and sing great and play great, and you can still be involved in making up the songs, I was all in on that. That was after I moved here and I was, ‘Oh, I’m doing that!’ But I’ve always messed around with tracks and studio stuff and instruments growing up, so I definitely moved here to pursue that.”
Even for a talented songwriter like Ashley Gorley, success does not come easily or quickly.
“There’s a long gap between that and it actually working,” he said. “I was here about eleven or twelve years before I had a song that was doing well at radio.” More about Ashley and his publishing project at http://taperoom.com/
“This was what I was meant to do”
Like Chris Lane, Michael Hardy did not initially see himself as a songwriter. “I always loved music but I didn’t really get into writing until I was a senior in high school,” he said. “When I was a high school senior, I wrote two songs because I knew how to play guitar and I was probably trying to impress a girl! My sister was going to Belmont [University] here in Nashville so I got these songs recorded with this guy I knew in his little home studio, just some acoustic things. I was in community college and had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. Then my sister was like, ‘Hey, there’s this thing called a publishing deal in Nashville where you can get paid to write songs.’ I had no idea what I wanted to do so I said, ‘Let me move to Nashville and try to get a publishing deal.’”
But Hardy had to persevere at his craft before he found success. “Over the course of the three or four years I was in Nashville before I got a publishing deal,” he noted. “I really fell in love with the craft of songwriting and realizing you can move people and make people feel things. I really fell in love with whole thing and the competitiveness started kicking in and I wanted to be the best and it started to come together and I began to come into my own. I’m very thankful that I know that this is what I was meant to do. That was just God pushing me in the right direction. I never had like a defining moment. I just said I’ll try it out and see what happens. And here we are!”
The influence of John Prine
Hardy talked about his admiration for songwriters who are skilled storytellers. One of his influences is singer-songwriter John Prine who received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2020 Grammys. “John Prine is definitely one of my favorite [singer-songwriters],” said Hardy. “He’s got a song called ‘Six O’clock News’ that tells the story of this kid’s life and growing up without a dad. The kind of hardships he goes through. He’s a genius writer. He’s got really great images and a lot of color in his lyrics. That’s something that I try to do in my writing too.”
Michael Hardy has his own career as a recording artist, under the single name HARDY, with a new single, “One Beer,” set for release in mid-February. More about Hardy at https://hardyofficial.com/
“We didn’t know a soul here”
Like Chris Lane, Jameson Rodgers was a talented baseball player before deciding to focus on his music.
“My story is kind of like Michael’s,” said Rodgers. “I didn’t pick a guitar until I was a senior in college. I had the first Eric Church record in my truck for, like, three years. That was kind of the first record that I’d heard and I thought, ‘Man, I want to write songs like that.’ Or I felt I could write songs like that. I went down to Southern Mississippi [University] and a few of my room mates wanted to get into writing songs too, and so we wrote a handful of songs and pretty soon people were coming over, building a fire and asking us to play those songs. I talked a buddy – one of my room mates – into moving to Nashville. We didn’t know a soul here.”
Rodgers signed a song publishing deal with Combustion Music in 2014 and is currently out on the road on the Luke Combs Beer Never Broke My Heart Tour. See Rodgers’ website here https://www.jamesonrodgers.com/
A leap of faith
Hunter Phelps started writing songs when he was a college student. He definitely took that leap of faith when he gave the opportunity of a ‘real’ job and moved to Nashville without ever visiting the city and with no idea how to break into the music business. He played in a lot of Nashville honky-tonks and self-released an EP before signing a joint publishing deal with Warner/Chappell Music and Ashley Gorley’s Tape Room Music. Although “I Don’t Know About You” is his first No. 1, Phelps’ songs have been recorded by the likes of Florida Georgia Line.
“I definitely had a moment when I knew I was going to move to Nashville,” he recalled. “I’d been writing songs for a couple of years in college. I went to the University of Florida and I got an internship my junior year with a mechanical company. I was in construction school there. I guess I was doing a good job and the president [of the company] called me into his office one day and he was like, ‘hey man, we’re ready to start paying you now if you’ll commit to working with us once you’re done with college.’ It kind of all flashed in my head at one time, and I was like, ‘Man, I can’t. I’m going to go to Nashville and try to write songs.’ And he looked at me like I was a nut. He was like, ‘Well okay. Call me if it doesn’t work out.’ I haven’t called him!” he said with a smile. Follow Hunter at https://www.facebook.com/hunterphelpsmusic/
Lane: “I love songwriting”
Chris Lane summarized life as a singer-songwriter. “From the songwriting aspect of things, I haven’t had the success that these guys have had,” he said. “I’ve spent an incredible amount of time out on the road. I think I’ve focused more on the touring side and trying to build a fan base. Sometimes I think about I wish I would have concentrated a little bit more on the songwriting side of things, maybe my career could have progressed more quickly with better songs. I had no idea that I would end up in this position but I absolutely love it.”
Chris smiled and said, “I love songwriting and a song like ‘Big, Big Plans’ where are so many proposals happening on stage every night, to write a song that connects in that way, or to be able to sing a song that these guys have written that connects with the crowd, that’s super special.” Chris Lane is signed to Big Loud Publishing. http://bigloudpublishing.com/chris-lane/
Preshias is also a music career development consultant with the emphasis on new and aspiring artists and songwriters. Visit www.collegeofsongology.com for more details. Follow her blog at www.nashvillemusicline.com