The Anatomy of Songwriting ft. Scott Goldbaum

00:00:00:02 – 00:00:15:23

Scott

That song I played for you a moment ago that I kind of just let go. I’m going to pull from that. I’m going to flip some lyrics around. So the lyrics originally were Help me become what you need. Meet me in the middle or somewhere in between. And so here I now have we’ll see if we can make this work.

00:00:16:01 – 00:00:37:10

Scott

Meet me in the middle, somewhere in between. Help me become what you need.

00:00:37:12 – 00:00:56:00

Scott

And I thought, that’s way more original than what I started with. But if it wasn’t for me being willing to write out this thing that felt, I don’t know, not the perfect representation of me as an artist. If it wasn’t, if I wasn’t able to do that, I wouldn’t have somebody that I’m now really excited to, like, continue to write as soon as we get off this.

00:00:56:06 – 00:01:19:04

Chris

Welcome to Orchestrated a Musio podcast where we discuss the past, present and future of music creation to explore exactly what it means to be a musician in the modern era. I’m Chris Hazel and this week we are diving into the world of songwriting. For some of us, songwriting may have been a natural evolution in our music journeys, but for the rest of us, the prospect of writing a song might actually seem kind of like a daunting task.

00:01:19:07 – 00:01:42:11

Chris

So this week, Mike Patti and I are joined by the accomplished musician, producer and songwriter Scott Goldbaum. In addition to performing with massive artists like Sting, Keith Urban, Lauv, Charlotte Lawrence and more, Scott is also one of the best and most prolific songwriters I’ve ever met. It seemed like a no brainer to have him on the pod to help us unravel the ball of yarn that is songwriting.

00:01:42:12 – 00:02:05:19

Chris

In the episode, Scott shares his thoughts on how to approach songwriting, the importance of self elucidation and non judgment in the creative process. And he even shares in real time some great exercises to help you get out of your own way, creatively speaking. So if songwriting is something that you’re curious about, keen to try or even just interested in as a subject, I think you’re really going to enjoy this conversation.

00:02:05:22 – 00:02:18:02

Chris

Let’s dive headfirst into the world of songwriting with Scott Goldbaum. Thanks for coming on. I mean, I’m super excited to have you here because the subject matter is one that is that is near and dear to our hearts.

00:02:18:04 – 00:02:19:17

Scott

And what does that subject matter?

00:02:19:19 – 00:02:21:10

Chris

The subject matter is songwriting.

00:02:21:12 – 00:02:27:06

Scott

Okay, great. Yeah, that sounds that sounds really fun. Are we are we doing this now? Is this happening in real time? Okay, we’re.

00:02:27:06 – 00:02:32:08

Chris

Recording. Yeah, I’ll do. I’ll do a whole. I’ll do a whole intro separately. Don’t worry about it. But we’ll.

00:02:32:08 – 00:02:33:00

Scott

Go. Cool.

00:02:33:02 – 00:02:56:16

Chris

You and I have known each other for a long time. We met in our late teens. Early twenties? Yeah. Our bands were kind of like buddy bands in, like, the L.A. Valley. But since then, you’ve gone on to work with some, like, pretty amazing acts, like you’ve gone on to play with Sting, Keith Urban Love, and that is pretty incredible in its own right.

00:02:56:22 – 00:03:23:17

Chris

But the thing that I’ve always admired most about you, or one of the things that I’ve always admired most about you is your songwriting. Thanks, man. You’ve always had this really great way of exploring these complex themes and complex melodies and melding them together in like a beautiful song that’s still approachable and not too heady and not too crazy.

00:03:23:19 – 00:03:46:21

Chris

And one of the things that I’ve always found is that, you know, songwriting is can can be the sort of nebulous thing for people, especially if they’re just starting out in music. They don’t really know where to start with it. It can be this thing that’s a little bit mysterious. So I thought maybe we could have a conversation about songwriting to sort of help demystify that process for yeah, for people.

00:03:46:23 – 00:03:59:01

Mike

And it’s mostly for me. I mean, that’s a, that’s a mystery to me as an instrumental composer for film, TV and games. I have never written a song before, so I’m. wow. Hopefully I’ll learn something today.

00:03:59:03 – 00:04:07:10

Chris

But yeah, I mean, just to get started, how how did you first get into music and then like, how did you discover your love of songwriting?

00:04:07:12 – 00:04:27:18

Scott

I was a jock in middle school and up to that point, and I broke my nose really badly in a basketball game right before I was supposed to go on this youth group church Winter Retreat. And I was really bummed that I couldn’t go, especially because I had a big crush on like the pastor’s daughter and all my friends were going.

00:04:27:20 – 00:04:41:18

Scott

It was one of those coming of age trips for sure, where you leave the house and you feel like you’re really on your own for four days or five days. But the doctor who reset my nose was like, You can not go to this winter camp retreat where you’re going to be throwing snowballs at each other.

00:04:41:18 – 00:05:05:08

Scott

So I was really I was really disappointed. And when one of the counselors found out that I wasn’t able to go, he says, Scotty, don’t you have one of those, like Costco, like Yamaha guitars? Just bring it. And each day while everybody else is outside throwing snowballs, I’ll teach you how to play guitar. And so for four days, my first guitar teacher, Matt Price, just locked me in a cabin.

00:05:05:08 – 00:05:40:17

Scott

And we we learned how to play guitar and situated into that sort of cookie cutter framework of contemporary worship songs, there is no better application for the things that I was learning in. Like sixth grade, seventh grade, because, you know, it was like a week later, once we got home, I was then in the youth group band. I was like the third guitarist where I was able to take the few things I learned about guitar and apply them in a real setting where people are singing back at us, where it’s very inconsequential for me because I’m really low.

00:05:40:17 – 00:06:09:16

Scott

I’m a third guitarist. I didn’t need to be up there, but I was also learning about the framework of General songwriting, you know, like an arrangement of verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus out, right? And so having so many of those opportunities on a regular basis, I decided that guitar was going to become a vehicle for songwriting for me before it was anything else, I really felt it benefited my nervous system.

00:06:09:18 – 00:06:34:10

Scott

It it gave me it. It made me feel like I was stepping into my own individuality. It was extremely collaborative. So coming from a world of team sports and then moving into a world of being able to collaborate with people on a on a noncompetitive level felt really, really exciting to me as a kid. I remember thinking I didn’t care about whether it was football, baseball, basketball.

00:06:34:10 – 00:06:55:22

Scott

I didn’t care about my team winning or losing. I only cared about not losing it for the team. And so in a space like this, as a kid, you know, just trying to remember it 30 years later or however long ago, it was, it was great. I came to really love it. And when I when I started playing guitar and songwriting, I was writing silly songs.

00:06:56:00 – 00:07:17:09

Scott

My my best friend at the time was Spencer Sharp and his older brother, Aaron Sharp was in a band that has since blown up, too. They’ve got a big single called My Type. In fact, forgive me, because I was St Motel, of course. So St Motel is a massive band. There’s I think they’re signed to like Elektra, but they’ve he was another one of my guitar teachers along the way.

00:07:17:09 – 00:07:39:10

Scott

Aaron Sharp And they had a dog named Duchess and like we all do with each one of our pets, we tend to assign our, our pets like 40 names. And so in addition to calling them Duchess, eventually they called that dog Skeeter. And the way that it got to Skeeter was that they had a rat named Skeeter. The duchess ate the rat.

00:07:39:10 – 00:07:55:22

Scott

So they call their Skeeter eater and then eventually just got abbreviated to Skeeter and they wrote a song about Skeeter. And the lyrics were just like funny chords. And instead of words, they were just sounds like imitating the way they speak to the dog. And it was such an escape for me. I was like, All I want to do is write funny songs.

00:07:56:00 – 00:08:13:08

Scott

And so for a long time it was just writing silly songs. And then it was like a complete one. 80, you know, as you move into high school and you start taking yourself way too seriously, and that kind of is where you and I merge, where we’re talking about, you know, more complex feelings and everything is so melodramatic.

00:08:13:10 – 00:08:42:10

Scott

And so anyway, so that’s that, that’s kind of what brought me into songwriting and into being in bands. My, you know, my whole adolescence. It was because of being in a fairly well-regarded band in L.A., I think this is where we met the harm that we had a fan and her boyfriend, the two of them came to a lot of our shows when the band broke up and I was doing a bunch of solo stuff, you know, leaning into acoustic guitar.

00:08:42:10 – 00:09:02:22

Scott

John Butler style, Andy McKee style, you know, fingerstyle stuff. I had posted a video of one of my original tunes called Forest Home and the Boyfriend to this Girl, he had kept tabs on my solo project. After my band, The harm broke up. He ended up working as the social media manager for Randy Jackson and from American Idol.

00:09:03:00 – 00:09:22:12

Scott

And so he showed this clip of me to Randy, and that kind of just changed the course of my professional life. I started working with Randy Jackson on a how to play guitar series, and then he came out with his own line of guitars, which we which we slung on the Home Shopping Network for like five years. I remember that Randy.

00:09:22:14 – 00:09:41:20

Scott

I turned it into a drinking game for people at home to watch. And it was through Randy that I got connected with Keith Urban, who wanted to do his own line of educational series 30 songs in 30 days and his own line of guitars. He still gives out one of his own personal guitars at every concert he plays.

00:09:41:20 – 00:10:19:14

Scott

He was a joy to work with. And so I find myself in this like educational niche while I’m still fronting bands in L.A. It ended up moving on to working with Fender and their online learning platform, Fender Play. That’s been a big undertaking for me since 2017. And then along with that, you know, just the more I opened myself up to opportunities as opposed to just fronting the band and going on tour with my own original music, came opportunities to be in support of other artists like Sting and Loud and early on Charlotte Lawrence, other American Idol winners like Matty, Poppy, Skylar Gray wearing a lot of different hats, like saying yes to things before

00:10:19:14 – 00:10:39:13

Scott

I was probably completely qualified. Sting’s band, it was like, You play mandolin, right? It was like, Yeah. And I learned how to play mandolin and dive and, you know, and yeah, I did the, the gig went well, so I can say that in real time now. But the same sort of thing. Like you play keyboards, can you music direct, can you do background vocals?

00:10:39:13 – 00:10:58:06

Scott

And I think a lot of it was was there’s a fine line there because you don’t want to overpromise and under-deliver, but if you’re willing to put in the time, as my wife will attest to those 18 hour days of me working on these things that got me the gig, but at the time I may have felt insecure with it since made me those things.

00:10:58:06 – 00:11:29:14

Scott

I had a session last night where I played mandolin for 2 hours and I loved it. I probably taken on a gig this year where I’m going out on tour with the Nord again for the first time in a couple of years. So it started with songwriting and saying yes to a lot of things as they presented themselves, eventually having to disband those projects that were kind of, you know, spinning their wheels in the mud for spinning their tires in the mud and then and navigating it with an open mind and keeping my overhead as low as I could along the way.

00:11:29:16 – 00:11:52:09

Chris

It’s funny how much of that that I can relate to. Like so my songwriting journey also started out with writing funny songs. I think the first song that I ever wrote was with a friend of mine named Alex. I think we were eight or nine. I had just learned I was just learning how to play guitar. One of the first songs that I learned how to play on guitar was A Time of Your Life by Green Day.

00:11:52:14 – 00:11:54:02

Scott

Yeah, it’s a rite of passage. Yeah.

00:11:54:07 – 00:12:14:04

Chris

And and we took that song and we, like, changed the lyrics. That was our very first thing, you know, our very first foray into songwriting. And then, as you said, you get older and you start getting a little bit more serious and then all of these other opportunities start coming in that don’t necessarily have to do with the thing that you’re doing and pursuing as you’re as your own thing.

00:12:14:06 – 00:12:29:16

Chris

But they’re sort of an extension of that and you expand into those things and they also in turn sort of inform as you’re learning more in these seemingly disconnected worlds, they start to inform your world as well and your songwriting and all of that kind of stuff.

00:12:29:18 – 00:12:46:00

Scott

For real, as you say that, I think I’m realizing in real time how full circle it’s come, because I think I think for me, I’ve gotten to a point where the people who take themselves too seriously are the people I take the least seriously. And I’ve been that person.

00:12:46:02 – 00:12:46:15

Chris

Right?

00:12:46:17 – 00:13:06:00

Scott

And so I think these days I’m looking for a lot more lightheartedness and songs as opposed to that desperation that’s still like I’ve become really good friends with Chris Kahraba of Dashboard Confessional over my email guide. Yeah, he’s a student and he’s and I still do. I still teach and everything. And he’s a student and he’s a mentor.

00:13:06:00 – 00:13:25:02

Scott

He’s a big brother more than he’ll ever realize. Amazing songwriter. Yeah, but yeah, harkening back to that era of just spill your heart out because he’s a great songwriter, he has a great balance. But I think a lot of people who are like watered down versions of those pillars in the songwriting community, they’re imitating a little too much.

00:13:25:02 – 00:13:40:23

Scott

Sure. And it gets I think I think that’s something that both you and I did growing up. Chris I remember I was imitating so much that I used to sing with a British accent. You know, my mom just listened to that much Oasis and Bush in the car. Yeah, that I couldn’t help from adopting that. But then over time, you hope that you find your own voice.

00:13:40:23 – 00:13:56:15

Scott

And and, you know, to Mike’s point earlier, we can talk about a lot of tips that I put into place for writing that allows you to kind of get out of your own way, stream of consciousness and stuff like that.

00:13:56:17 – 00:14:16:10

Chris

Yeah, I definitely want to explore that. That’s actually that specific point is a question that I have on here. But before we even get into that stuff, you’re playing in the church band, you’re starting to explore songwriting, you’re writing these funny songs. What was it like for you as you were starting to write songs like As you were starting to take yourself more seriously?

00:14:16:14 – 00:14:28:06

Chris

Did you feel like you were a natural at it? Was it a big learning process? And then do you remember also the first time you ever wrote a song and you sat back and you said, Hey, that’s actually that’s actually pretty good.

00:14:28:08 – 00:14:51:11

Scott

I don’t know. You know, I was so young that, you know, ego was so forefront that I was kind of just looking in to places, you know, externally. I’m looking at my friends and my my parents for gratification validation. And and I took a lot of that to heart to the extent where a member of friends would be like, Man, you’re a great guitarist, great songwriter.

00:14:51:11 – 00:15:10:22

Scott

But when you sing, it sounds like you have cancer. And I remember as a result of that, I got to as a kid, I heard that like in sixth grade I got a different vocalist nearly immediately where I was still writing all the words and getting our buddy Andy Franco to to sing in the band. Our first band, Selfmade and I bring him up because he’s he’s gone on to be a huge success.

00:15:10:22 – 00:15:34:08

Scott

He’s he’s got a show at the end of this Friday in L.A., But yeah, I think I think for me, you know, there was enough there was enough darkness when I was a kid, you know, stuff that I was witnessing that the melodramatic stuff actually came from a very authentic place. And so the second place I was looking was again, whether I knew it or not at that point was definitely my nervous system.

00:15:34:10 – 00:15:50:12

Scott

And so when I would write a song, I would take those things really seriously. As a kid. And I remember I would like be in bands with like other dudes from the San Fernando Valley, and they’d be like, Jesus, Scott. Like, why are you talking about like, like life’s okay over here on the West Valley? Like, you don’t have to bring us down so much.

00:15:50:18 – 00:16:12:11

Scott

And, and I remember I really tried, you know, I came from a place of, of, of earnestness, but I had to make it a little bit more lighthearted because sometimes I think when you dig too deep into the darkness, it’s just it’s like just let the darkness be dark. You don’t need to shine. You don’t need to shine any more darkness on it.

00:16:12:13 – 00:16:32:15

Scott

And so, so yeah, so, so I think for me, it was like the validation was coming from people in my life as a kid because my ego was all about it, you know, before I knew what an ego was with the funny songs and the cover songs, you know, singing those Wonderwall all and ever long time of your life classics.

00:16:32:17 – 00:16:43:12

Scott

And then when it came to writing more serious songs, I can remember the names of the songs. In fact, I bet if I picked up a guitar, I could play songs that I wrote when I was like 14, 15.

00:16:43:12 – 00:16:44:08

Chris

That, yeah.

00:16:44:08 – 00:17:06:21

Scott

We’re kind of deep, you know? I remember that one of the lyrics was like, taken by surprise and tossed beneath your will. I can’t see inside. I know you can’t wait till I’m screaming. You’re leaving me behind. Things will change in time. Like all these things, like from my formative years trying to express and make sense of the things that I was seeing and I was experiencing.

00:17:06:23 – 00:17:36:10

Scott

And it was an amazing therapeutic outlet. So so again, whereas with sports, which is such a huge part of my life, my goal was to just not lose it for people. The reason I did songwriting for a long time was to sustain my well-being. As I got older, I realized that songwriting can’t, and I think the best songwriting doesn’t tend to come from a place of personal experience and needing to vent or needing to have a therapeutic release.

00:17:36:10 – 00:17:42:21

Scott

I think it comes from the craft of songwriting, but I’m glad that that route got me into the into the world of songwriting.

00:17:42:23 – 00:18:05:18

Chris

So that’s an interesting point. So one of the things that I’ve always noticed about you is that you’re very prolific songwriter as well. Like you write a lot. The contrast that I feel like my songwriting has always been, you know, like few and far between. It’s like a moment of inspiration that strikes me when I’m not ready for it.

00:18:05:20 – 00:18:38:10

Chris

And then if it’s not, there, it’s not there kind of thing. And I wonder if a lot of that has to do with writing from personal experience versus looking at songwriting as a craft. So like, what are some of the things that you would I’m trying to think of how to say this. I remember one time you and I went to a cafe and we were having dinner and I was asking you a similar question and you put a glass on the table and you said, Write a song about this glass, this glass of water.

00:18:38:12 – 00:18:41:04

Scott

lame. I can’t believe I did that.

00:18:41:06 – 00:18:42:13

Chris

But that stuck with me.

00:18:42:15 – 00:19:02:13

Scott

That’s sweet. That’s sweet. And I remember I was interviewing Butch Walker for a Fender thing a while ago, and he had a similar take. It’s really helpful to get out. It’s really helpful to go out on it, change your exposition, change your setting up. And he was on a subway and he would see a guy and he’d see the guy in the corner sitting down with his briefcase, and he’d start asking himself, Where’s he going?

00:19:02:15 – 00:19:34:19

Scott

Where’s he coming from? Is he late? What’s in that briefcase? Are those shoes something that he’s had for a long time, or are those brand new? Is is he wearing what he’s wearing to impress people? And he’s building a story around that. And I, I think I can also relate that to Dan Wilson, who’s a songwriter. I remember I opened up for him many years ago and I was able to hear him do these acoustic versions of these songs that he’s written that have since been purposed for Adele or Taylor Swift, and he talks a lot about the freedom of writing songs that you’re kind of commissioned to write as opposed to songs that you

00:19:34:19 – 00:20:10:03

Scott

feel the responsibility of bearing your life experience. It’s your magnum opus. It’s it’s a it’s a it’s a it’s a precise personal testimony because who knows your story better than you do. And so I think having something like a glass that you can put on the table or a stranger that you can look at in the distance and then just start building a story around is extremely liberating and helps you get away from thinking of everything through the lens of quality and preciousness and more through the lens of quantity.

00:20:10:05 – 00:20:40:18

Scott

I think about, you know, the truth of the matter is coming on this, I wasn’t sure if we want to talk about songwriting or tour or touring or teaching or navigate, you know, just being a dude in Los Angeles my whole life and trying to make a living doing something relevant to what I love to do. But in all these different seasons where I’ve had to emphasize these, emphasize these different hats there, it’s all kind of gone back into the same river where I’ve toured with a lot of amazing songwriters.

00:20:40:18 – 00:21:01:12

Scott

So even when I’m not songwriting, I’m studying theirs. I remember going on tour with an artist who’s a dear friend of mine named Charlotte Lawrence, and her dad is Bill Lawrence. And Bill has created and has been the showrunner of shows like Scrubs, most recently Ted Lasso, bunch of massive shows.

00:21:01:17 – 00:21:02:17

Chris

Wow. Okay.

00:21:02:19 – 00:21:31:03

Scott

And I learned through him what a showrunner is. I had no idea until a few years ago my understanding of a showrunner with what he does is that he’s responsible for overseeing the directing, the casting, the editing and the writing. Like five days a week, or how do you make time when you’re so burnt out, you don’t have time to be inspired, right?

00:21:31:05 – 00:21:53:04

Scott

You know, when you’re supposed to write, you know, the rewrite of the script or the forthcoming script on a 22 episode season or whatever it might be. And I was just so inspired pulling from a different medium, applying it to our songwriting medium about, you know, letting go of things needed to be so precious and just leaning into the craft of songwriting.

00:21:53:06 – 00:22:18:21

Scott

And and what I think I’ve, I’ve learned is that more is my career. So if you’re like one thing I really miss, like, I’ve got my cell phone here and I can’t tell you how many times I’m in sessions and we have our notes tab up and we’re just we’re just using our thumb to write lyrics. I think one of the things that I miss in modern songwriting and a lot of the sessions I’ve seen is people aren’t writing like five verses.

00:22:18:21 – 00:22:37:08

Scott

They keep the bass two. They’re really just chiseling out one verse and then another verse until they’re totally finished. And like, I was up pretty late last night because I had this song. In fact, Do you think it’s possible? I think I want to demonstrate it with the guitar in The Voice for a second, if that’s cool.

00:22:37:08 – 00:22:38:15

Chris

Yeah, please do.

00:22:38:17 – 00:22:49:18

Scott

I was writing this little melody on guitar. We’ll see if this Mike picks it up. You can hear that, all right?

00:22:50:00 – 00:22:56:06

Chris

Yeah.

00:22:56:08 – 00:23:01:11

Scott

And I think, like, the working melody and and lyrical content was like.

00:23:01:13 – 00:23:13:23

Scott

Help me become what you need. Meet me in the middle or somewhere in between.

00:23:14:01 – 00:23:34:14

Scott

Cute, corny, like sweet kind of reminded me of Remember me from Coco and then last night and so I kind of just let it go. But it’s in one of my many tabs and voice memos and stuff like that. And the melody was sweet enough that I remembered it, but I’ve been obsessed with the rubber bridge guitar lately.

00:23:34:16 – 00:23:57:16

Scott

And so I saw it as I was writing this thing last night. This will be even more tricky to hear, but let’s give it a go. Let’s see if I can figure this out. I was writing this, this cool line, and I was like, Okay, I’ve been listening to a new record each day. It’s been a fun resolution I’ve been having.

00:23:57:16 – 00:24:14:22

Scott

We can talk more about that in a second. But I was listening like a lot of Jose Gonzalez, and it reminded me of that sort of heartbeats vibe, and I wanted something to fit in there. And I realized, okay, well, that song I played for you a moment ago that I kind of just let go like it exists, but kind of in a frozen state.

00:24:15:00 – 00:24:27:21

Scott

I’m going to pull from that. I’m going to flip some lyrics around. So the lyrics originally were Help me become what you need, meet me in the middle or somewhere in between. And so here I now have we’ll see if we can make this work.

00:24:27:23 – 00:24:49:07

Scott

Meet me in the middle or somewhere in between. Help me become what you need.

00:24:49:09 – 00:25:13:10

Scott

And I thought, that’s way more original than what I started with. But if it wasn’t for me being willing to write out this thing that felt stolen and not mine and was so much disingenuous, but I don’t know, not the perfect representation of me as an artist. If it wasn’t, if I wasn’t able to do that, I wouldn’t have somebody that I’m now really excited to like, continue to write as soon as we get off this.

00:25:13:14 – 00:25:42:13

Scott

Yeah. So I think I think more is more in that sense. And I think writing about a class or a stranger or these little like random sports hydrating supplements I’ve got here that I should add to my water, I’ll do that in real time, you know, why am I taking these? You know, it’s so and again, it’s just because again, I think more is more in terms of of having things to pull from at a time where we’re often creating things out of efficiency.

00:25:42:15 – 00:25:46:18

Scott

I think it’s great when we can take pen to paper, and I tend to write better that way.

00:25:46:22 – 00:26:19:22

Chris

Yeah, and well, on that specific point, I think writing like if you’re writing lyrics, writing lyrics, literally pen to paper, like with your hand is is a very beneficial thing to do. But I’m going to leave it out there and I’m going to say it’s such an important thing from my perspective to be okay with having a half finished idea or even like just a small snippet of something and then putting it away for a long time, like you said, and and digging it out.

00:26:19:22 – 00:26:41:03

Chris

I think a lot of people, you know, think as a songwriter, you sit down, you write a song and that’s what you do. And they might get discouraged if they go and try to write a song and they can’t figure out where to go with it. But they’re such a massive part of the songwriting process that is like, Hey, this didn’t go anywhere.

00:26:41:08 – 00:26:59:17

Chris

I love this little piece. Like, I have this guitar piece. It’s like a verse. I haven’t figured out where to go for a chorus. I’ve had it for four years, but I keep revisiting it time and time again, and then I’ll come up with a different chorus. And then I’m like, Yeah, I like that for a minute. But then now it’s not working.

00:26:59:19 – 00:27:24:13

Chris

But like sometimes, sometimes you sit down to write a song and it comes out immediately in one sitting. And then sometimes you have these little pieces like you just demonstrated that you carry around with you for months or even years. Yeah. And then as you grow as a person and as you change as a person, the context of that music in your life and in your brain and in your experience changes as well.

00:27:24:13 – 00:27:27:22

Chris

And you might actually have a different idea for where to take it, right?

00:27:28:00 – 00:27:53:00

Scott

Yeah, Yeah. That’s a, I think that’s a really beautiful way of putting it that leave space in your writing, don’t feel that urgency that you have to finish it all up at age 32 because at age 35, you know, if, if there’s still three quarters or a quarter of the song left to be written, you might want that those three years of experience to maximize the potential impact of that song.

00:27:53:02 – 00:28:30:11

Scott

Yeah, Yeah. And to be honest, man, you know, I think that writing it insulated like if I’m two in a box, especially because lyrical contents involve, you know, different from a lot of the stuff that Mike’s producing and composing on a regular basis. I find it essential, like from my early years of like whenever I had an idea and I’d show it to my mom or now my, my wife, who’s ten times more musically inclined than I am, like having having an individual and then expanding that to a tribe of chosen colleagues that you can send your music to along the way for feedback is invaluable.

00:28:30:16 – 00:28:31:05

Mike

00:28:31:07 – 00:28:53:02

Scott

It’s really invaluable. It kind of breathes a little bit more life into it. So whether I’m writing these, like, instrumental compositions, I’ve been doing that a lot lately, you know, getting, putting library stuff together. And I’m surrounded in this little, you know, this is like a 100 square foot studio, and I’ve just got instruments, quite literally just surrounding this band and grab one.

00:28:53:04 – 00:29:11:04

Scott

And and so I’ve been writing just like that. I’ll grab an instrument and then I’ll add a bass or I’ll add a banjo or whatever. I’ll play with or I’ll play with the Prophet and I’ll even grab this thing that I’ve been obsessed with, this little. Kirby What is it called? Automaton yeah, these are great. You can’t get enough of these guys.

00:29:11:06 – 00:29:35:23

Scott

There it is. You can see the appeal of that. I would say I still have groups of people, and when I say colleagues, they don’t have to be musicians, just groups of people. Cause my mom wasn’t a musician. It’s just people to share some things with and consequentially and say, Hey, here’s a thing I’m working on and see and still seeing how they respond to it, because quite often I’m just too locked in my own head.

00:29:36:01 – 00:29:59:16

Scott

So I think it’s very critical to have people to share these things with when it comes to songwriting. And also it also is really great because we all have our defaults as players, as writers, and whether and whether it’s because we don’t want to admit to them or we there just may be blind spots to us, it’s really helpful to have another set of eyes to be like, even if it’s diplomatic.

00:29:59:16 – 00:30:14:01

Scott

They’re like, This really reminds me of what you did on this last song. And then you realize, okay, I’m doing my shtick. Yeah. So, yeah, I think having a tribe of people that you can inconsequential said things to, whether they’re half baked or fully mastered is beneficial.

00:30:14:03 – 00:30:51:19

Mike

I have a question for you. First of all, this is very interesting and you know, songwriting for someone like myself and probably many of the people that follow signer samples and MUZIO are primarily orchestral cinematic composers. And there’s probably a small percentage of us that have actually tried to do songwriting. But I had a question for you, which is, as professionals, what we have to do is get really good at our craft so that when we get the chance to write something, we have to be able to perform quickly and write whatever is needed for that situation.

00:30:51:21 – 00:31:11:20

Mike

Are you ever in a situation like that where it’s like, Hey, 3 p.m., we need this song and Crank it out and what do you do? I’m trying to see if there’s a parallel with for us, you know, it’s like classical music, music theory nerds. We get our bag of tricks. We talked about this in a previous podcast.

00:31:11:22 – 00:31:30:19

Mike

You kind of develop that bag of tricks that you can kind of draw from when you’re when you’re on a deadline. Is there is there a similar parallel there for being a songwriter who needs to create? Because we’re talking about craftsmanship and you need to be you do it, you know, by a certain time or whatever.

00:31:30:21 – 00:31:55:10

Scott

I think the closest parallel that I can come up with would have a lot to do with licensing opportunities. And I’m not so into the world of getting briefs of we want a soundalike or we want a song that fits this bill. Yeah, this general tempo with a lot of adjectives to describe what they’re going for it to be in the background of this, you know, Banana Republic commercial or whatever it may be.

00:31:55:12 – 00:32:21:16

Scott

I haven’t, I haven’t really spent much time navigating big licenses or where songs are written from ground up for that reason. But I’m sure it exists. You know, I’ve I’ve got plenty of people that that can speak to that really well. I have a friend named Jenna Muranga who’s goes by Ella June. They’re they’re an amazing artists. And they’ve also kind of pivoted their focus on producing a lot of their content with really quick turnarounds for exactly what you’re describing.

00:32:21:18 – 00:32:48:10

Scott

I think because I’ve kind of veered in and out of, okay, I’m writing a lot of music all the time, but I’m also so frequently in service to artist. My my experience with urgency usually has to do with the sideman world of like, all right, I’ve got to get up to speed with learning how to play these parts for this gig, go on this tour, learn something for like a late night TV show, get background vocals, you know?

00:32:48:10 – 00:33:15:06

Scott

In fact, it’s not often that my creative production world tends to collide with my live touring world this year. I might for the first time, because the reality of it is that I’ve played my original songs plenty. You know, I’ve toured and I’ve done that, but not on the stages, not on the types of theaters and arenas where the artist I’m playing for have.

00:33:15:07 – 00:33:36:19

Scott

But but it looks like this year I’m going to be working with an artist. I can’t say quite yet, but who I’ve actually gotten to play a lot on their record and write a lot of parts for. And so that will be a new experience to get to take those things that I’ve played on the studio and I feel like I have some ownership in and get to play for, you know, people at the Greek Theater or the Hollywood Bowl or something like that.

00:33:36:21 – 00:33:44:21

Scott

But yeah, as far as far as like turnaround, I’m I’m sure. I’m sure there is. It’s just I don’t have enough experience in the licensing world to.

00:33:44:23 – 00:34:02:11

Mike

Yeah, I guess it’s kind of like yeah, there’s, there’s times where you need to write something and you’re getting yourself out of the way. It’s, it’s, yeah, you’re in service to something else. And for me, this is something I’ve done probably 98% of the time. And every once in a while I get to just write something for myself.

00:34:02:13 – 00:34:18:20

Mike

Yeah. And it’s, it’s very rewarding, but sometimes it’s challenging when you don’t have the practice of just like, well, who am I to order what? What can I mean, you’re used to just writing something for this scene or for this trailer or for this, this, you know, television show. There is, there.

00:34:18:22 – 00:34:47:16

Chris

Is a part of it. Like where in terms of songwriting, I had this experience when I moved to Nashville. So there’s like two, two parts of that, two parts of this balloons. So in Nashville, co-writing is a really big thing. A lot of a lot of people do, you know, we’ll get together with a team of writers and you’ll get into a room and you’ll write a song together and then someone will go out and pitch out to different artists.

00:34:47:21 – 00:35:23:18

Chris

That’s that’s much more akin to composing, right where you have a project that you’re working on in this phase of things. There’s also the aspect of writing for another artist, which I’ve done a couple of times as well. Like, you know, an artist wants an EP and you’re writing and producing this EP for them or something that’s also a little bit more akin to it because there is a little bit of a deadline, there is a little bit of a work aspect to it, but it’s it’s also slightly different because a lot of times you’re working with that artist.

00:35:23:20 – 00:35:42:05

Chris

There is still the songwriter process that you’re going through of, you know, exploring these different ideas, exploring the different melodic content, the different lyrical content, what you want the song to be about. So it is a little work for Higher Feel, I guess.

00:35:42:07 – 00:35:43:12

Scott

Yeah, for real.

00:35:43:14 – 00:35:49:00

Chris

Scott Have you had any, any experiences in that and what’s that been like for you?

00:35:49:01 – 00:36:13:06

Scott

Yeah, yeah, in the way in every room’s different, the way that a lot of my colleagues tend to work when we’re and I would connect with this approach when we are working with an artist where we’re in it, we’re in a session and, and the artist is there, we’re writing for them. It’s kind of the opposite approach of taking that time and asking, How do I feel?

00:36:13:08 – 00:36:48:11

Scott

And it’s more about connecting with the artists and getting to know how they feel opening then up them, up a lot of songwriting sessions. Just start with conversations. And like anything else in this industry, it’s relationships, right? So I don’t know that you’re often going to crack as much of a code with with depth unless you when you’re meeting somebody for the first time, as opposed to having a long standing relationship with someone and being able to converse about what’s going on in their lives and then melding the real with the craft.

00:36:48:13 – 00:37:11:04

Scott

But again, I do think I do think you nailed it on the head that that’s probably a better example as opposed to like filling, you know, finishing a brief from your home studio to submit to like a Coles campaign or something like that. But working yeah, akin to that would be working with an artist and you know you guys have blocked three maybe hours, maybe a whole day to do something.

00:37:11:06 – 00:37:41:09

Scott

But again, you’re using muscles not for necessarily self-reflection as much as you are connecting it and trying to especially I’m 36, so I find myself in this like big brother role a lot when I’m in those rooms, when you’re trying to pull things out of the artist themselves and then help shape that for them and connect with them in ways that are authentic or be like empower them by being like, I have no idea what that experience must be like, but what have we put it through this filter?

00:37:41:11 – 00:38:03:06

Scott

What you know, kind of like that, what artist contrast. You’re talking about something really dark. What if we actually made it? Like what if we could, like, put a groove to the sorrow? Like, what if we could actually take something that’s saying something that’s really sad and make it sound like a bop? That is when I think being able to pull from the craft is really helpful when you can’t connect to something.

00:38:03:07 – 00:38:14:23

Scott

But also, I think the more rich your life is outside of what you do for a living, the more of an ability you’ll have to connect with all sorts of people. You find yourself in a room with it.

00:38:15:00 – 00:38:36:05

Chris

The relationship between you and the artists that you’re working with and writing for is similar to the relationship between the composer and the director. right. so you know. Yeah. So you’re sitting down when you when you have a director and you’re working on the film, you’re trying to understand the message that they’re trying to get across and learn about their vision for it.

00:38:36:05 – 00:38:45:09

Chris

And then help support that, maybe come in with some some alternative ideas that might help tell that story through a different lens. Like you said, Scott.

00:38:45:15 – 00:38:55:19

Mike

You’re there to make them look good. It sounds like your job is or the to convey their vision. It’s almost like you’re a chameleon in a way. You’re you’re in there. Yeah, I think so.

00:38:56:00 – 00:39:16:00

Scott

Right. And that’s where and that’s where the craft comes in. And I think sometimes you get brought in and and this is the case, you know, I’m often brought in on things that because I’m like the we all get get somewhat labeled and maybe this is true in the composer world, you know, the stuff I do tends to not be grandiose or like really powerful or like rocking.

00:39:16:02 – 00:39:39:05

Scott

I tend to do a lot of like sweet, cinematic, layered, pretty gentle type of productions. And so I can get brought in on a lot of ballads and stuff like that. But but yeah, you know, it’s fun to switch gears when you find yourself in a room where people don’t really have a label for you yet. So you see, you’re always you’re always ready to be a chameleon when the opportunity strikes.

00:39:39:07 – 00:40:07:00

Chris

Here’s a question that I get a lot from people, and I’m curious what your experiences with that. First of all, how do you tend to get an idea for a song? And then once you have an idea, do you like how do you start it? You know, some some songwriters start with, you know, instrumentation. Some songwriters start with lyrics, like what is your process from ideation to starting to figure that out.

00:40:07:02 – 00:40:12:08

Scott

Giving it a little bit of thought and being really honest with myself. I think lately it’s been the music first.

00:40:12:10 – 00:40:13:03

Mike

00:40:13:05 – 00:40:41:13

Scott

I think the music tends to help me find the affect. And because I’m often recycling material, I’m not just saying I’m sitting down to write a song. It’s I’m sitting down to be with this moment of inspiration that for me often comes a stringed instrument, and I’m going to take that moment into the world of existing creative output.

00:40:41:13 – 00:41:06:18

Scott

Like all these little lyrical ideas that I have. Having said that, if I’m just in the mood to write, period, whether or not I have an instrumental idea, it often is stream of consciousness. It’s often free association where I will just write and and it’ll be nonsensical. But then there will be one little moment in there that I’m that I’m really I really like.

00:41:06:21 – 00:41:17:00

Scott

We can we can try something in real time where it will be silly and maybe I’ll say something inappropriate because it’s just the thoughts, the current of thoughts that are going through my head. But if you want to, we can try it in real time right now.

00:41:17:05 – 00:41:18:23

Mike

Yeah, let’s do it. Yeah.

00:41:19:01 – 00:41:37:06

Scott

Okay. We’re really reaching into the dark here, guys. Let’s give it a shot. So if I were to say something like, you know, the bark fell from the trees and the sparrows that weren’t making time to visit Venice Beach Boulevard, where the lemonade stands fell short of their daily income, and the police officers pulled people over for selling lemonade without permits.

00:41:37:06 – 00:41:58:04

Scott

But before you knew it, you had people coming together over the wrong things and leaving together over the right. But in time the sun went down and the apples fell far from the tree. Super Nintendo is turning into Nintendo 64 and 64. Audio had no time left to spend on the moon descending from its present stage. And so you just you just come up with this nonsense, right?

00:41:58:09 – 00:42:22:11

Scott

And you and every every great poet has 200 bad poems in her. And so you just let you just turn the sink valve on. You just let it come out and then you go back to it and you’re like, I don’t know if I got anything from that, so I’ll do another set, but let’s just say for the sake of this medium of podcasting, we pull something from that first set and you and you circle, you’re like, What did I say about people leaving for the wrong reasons?

00:42:22:12 – 00:42:46:17

Scott

You know, like, what was was that leaving for the wrong reasons? People leaving for the wrong reasons when they expected the sun, you know, to still be out at 6:30 p.m. And it was, you know, like, okay, let’s extract that and let’s build a story around that. So like, all right, people leaving for the wrong reasons when they expected the Suns to still be out, did they go home disappointed, falling short of what they like.

00:42:46:17 – 00:42:50:11

Scott

Did you you start building something more tangible out of this nonsense.

00:42:50:13 – 00:42:50:18

Chris

Right.

00:42:50:19 – 00:43:10:02

Scott

And and maybe the little bit from there that was inspiring and that you think you can build an exposition your first verse out of isn’t enough. So you do another set and some people I never really I don’t typically do what I did just a moment ago where I’m doing it out loud. That’s that’s really tricky because you can’t really document it that much.

00:43:10:04 – 00:43:33:09

Scott

I’ll typically write it with my hand or I’ll do some typing and then I’ll go back. But the more sets of that you do, I think the better off you are lyrically. And then, you know, you go back to that, that instrument and you just start situating it like into you might, you might, you might first want to vocalize it before you even put any chords to it.

00:43:33:09 – 00:43:35:11

Scott

You know, where is this idea of.

00:43:35:13 – 00:43:42:00

Scott

Let’s say sunset later than we knew? Or the sun went down before we knew it?

00:43:42:06 – 00:43:43:06

Scott

Okay, so we’ll take that.

00:43:43:12 – 00:43:46:08

Scott

The sun went down before we knew it.

00:43:46:10 – 00:43:58:09

Scott

Let’s go see where that might be on the fretboard. So I’ll take a root note here. The sun. Okay, So I think D might be nice. The sun set down.

00:43:58:09 – 00:44:14:09

Scott

Before we knew it, strangers became friends in the dark. We were walking with the blinders on.

00:44:14:11 – 00:44:21:11

Scott

So on and so forth. And you start building this idea. You do another set. You’re like, All right, I think I’m going to situated in D.

00:44:21:12 – 00:44:37:09

Scott

That’s kind of nice. What what is this? Is this, is this resonating with the affect? Or if I’m like, working with like a pop star, maybe that’s going to be something that’s completely reinterpreted. Maybe I have to do it in a much higher register. It’s a lot more like.

00:44:37:11 – 00:44:41:12

Scott

Sunset down four. We knew it.

00:44:41:14 – 00:44:51:13

Scott

So on and so forth. So yeah, that’s kind of a process when you’re when you’re running out of steam creatively by yourself or with others, you can always default to, That’s fine.

00:44:51:14 – 00:44:57:21

Mike

That’s, that’s great. Because one of the things we’ve talked about or I’ve heard from others is you don’t want to have a blank page for very long, right?

00:44:57:23 – 00:44:59:04

Scott

No, no, no.

00:44:59:04 – 00:45:21:08

Mike

You want to just like fill it with even if it’s total nonsense, because then at least you have something to work with. Like if you’re doing an instrumental world, you would just literally just improvise. If you’re a pianist, get it out there. See if there’s four measures that sound like something that’s that’s decent and that’s that’s, that’s a that’s a good idea.

00:45:21:08 – 00:45:23:21

Mike

That stream of consciousness definitely resonates.

00:45:23:23 – 00:45:45:03

Scott

I think the most important thing and I’m in my studio sweating right now, so I’m a little I’m not in an optimal environment to demonstrate this as best as I wish I could, but I think that’s good. I think that your listeners need to have as much non judgment for their creative output as I just broke the ice with.

00:45:45:05 – 00:46:13:07

Scott

You can’t be afraid of talking about silly things that give your insecurities away. You can’t. They’re there anyway. Just because they’re documented doesn’t say anything more or less about you. And so I think non judgment is a massive if you can just allow yourself to not judge yourself and the silly things you’re talking about and the reason it’s important that you say it fast, I mean again, you don’t really do stream of consciousness verbally.

00:46:13:07 – 00:46:35:13

Scott

You write it down, but it’s important you write it fast because the faster you write, the less time you have to judge it to begin with. And it takes time. The more that you do that, the more you exercise that muscle, the less pressure you’ll feel. And I think it’s valuable to to feel that that ease and that lack of judgment in order to have a full page.

00:46:35:15 – 00:47:05:17

Chris

Well, I think that’s a that’s a really interesting exercise, too. I feel like the creative process for a lot of people, for me included, tends to be overly analyzed, you know, extremely thought through. And you can get into this rut where, you know, you’re judging the process before you even start it, right? It’s like you have this idea and you’re like, okay, I’m going to go, you know, put this idea down and then you go to do it and then you start judging it in your brain.

00:47:05:17 – 00:47:24:15

Chris

Yeah, you beforehand. And then you just never you just never put it down. So do you keep a journal of of like just stream of consciousness thoughts. I remember hearing this one piece of advice that was like when you wake up in the morning, very first thing in that space, in between being asleep and being awake when, you’re still sort of like transitioning that.

00:47:24:15 – 00:47:29:10

Chris

That’s a good place to do, like two or three pages of stream of consciousness.

00:47:29:12 – 00:47:54:23

Scott

Yeah, Yeah, I, I find myself if I wake up in the middle of the night with really vivid dreams, I have a journal by my bed and I’ll write things out there because that sets up some really interesting landscapes to kind of visiting that, that realm of your subconscious and that that kind of does the job of you going out on the subway and seeing a stranger.

00:47:55:01 – 00:48:19:13

Scott

It kind of does the job for you. And I’ve heard great things about that exercise of doing it first thing in the morning. But I think that it being too rule based gets in the way of that non judgment feature because as soon as you don’t do the rule oriented method, you’re going to start judging yourself from the get go and feel like your creative output, however it is, is going to be it’s going to have its shortcomings because you didn’t do it the way you were supposed to.

00:48:19:18 – 00:48:48:14

Scott

Yeah, so, so I don’t tend to do something to ritualistically, even down to songwriting. I love to create, but but I, but that can be in a variety of mediums within music, you know, it can be 90 seconds songs I put out on my social media channels or just this is how I found myself. When you’re on tour, you can advertise yourself on tour really easily, but when you’re working on records, it’s really hard because you can’t leak what you’re working on.

00:48:48:20 – 00:49:07:16

Scott

And so I realized I had just had such a fun beginning of the year working on a lot of projects from home, and I wanted to keep doing that. I wanted to emphasize more time in the studio than on the road. So I thought, I’ll start a project where I just grab an instrument, like I said earlier in the podcast and just play an idea recorded with my iPhone in real time.

00:49:07:18 – 00:49:25:21

Scott

Add something else to it. It’ll be 90 seconds or so. And I have found so much joy in that process, and it’s also alleviated this pressure to keep writing material. So in the more traditional lyrical American songbook way.

00:49:26:01 – 00:49:56:14

Chris

Yeah, it sounds like it’s sort of like structuring your life around free creative expression rather than putting the expectation on yourself. If I need to do this, It actually kind of hearkens back to what Tatro was talking about in his episode, which is you should set up the mechanisms in your life so that creativity is easy, that it’s not a big lift, that you don’t have to, you know, either put pressure on yourself or do all of these things to be creative.

00:49:56:16 – 00:50:22:08

Scott

It all flows into the same river to I think that ease comes with thinking that it doesn’t matter specifically how this creative output is purposed. You don’t know how it’ll end up being purpose. Maybe this is the thing that you come into that songwriting session with as an alternative for your artists in the same way a composer has this little idea that came to them in the middle of the night with no particular commission or AIM.

00:50:22:10 – 00:50:27:16

Scott

But maybe it’s something that Christopher Nolan’s really going to be fascinated by, even though it has nothing to do with his script, you know?

00:50:27:22 – 00:50:28:03

Chris

Right.

00:50:28:05 – 00:50:54:04

Scott

So, so I do think that the one thing I will say about structure to reinforce your point is that ease is great. I don’t enjoy getting I don’t think any creative gets is happy when their creative flow gets compromised by technical things falling short. So it’s funny because we’re thinking about building a bigger studio. My wife Molly has one on the other end of the house and I have this tiny one on this end of the house.

00:50:54:04 – 00:51:12:11

Scott

We’re thinking of building a big but a part of me feels like if I actually have to, like, walk to get an instrument that might slow down the ease of everything. Yeah, but it would invite more collaboration and having a bigger space. So I’m figuring that out. But I think I think finding a way to not overwhelm yourself is really great.

00:51:12:13 – 00:51:34:16

Scott

Having is, as you work through the creative process is key. Yeah, and not having too much of an aim. And again I’m look, I’m just another dude with his own set of opinions. I’m not here to, like, preach anything that’s, that’s good that, that will work for everybody else. It’s just worked out for me the last 20 some odd years, I’ve been pursuing.

00:51:34:18 – 00:51:58:15

Mike

That’s actually good advice, too. It should come. If it’s coming easy, it tends to just be better. Meaning there’s this idea you’ve heard of like try hard. And I’m sure we’ve all done this where we, like, are working really, really hard on like 16 bars of music or something. Yeah, we’re trying to make it be something just like and it but the foundation is wrong, you know, It’s really, really just select all delete.

00:51:58:17 – 00:52:02:21

Mike

Yeah, Yeah. And just try something that comes a little bit more naturally and build on that.

00:52:02:23 – 00:52:16:21

Chris

Yeah, that’s the time where I would say you take that piece that you’ve been working really hard on and kind of being in your head against the wall to make it work and you put it in your back pocket and then you move on to something else and you carry that around with you for however long it takes.

00:52:16:23 – 00:52:36:07

Chris

Yeah, maybe you never touch it again. Or maybe, you know, at some point months or years down the road, you’re like, yeah, there’s that. You know, I’ll go through my voice notes every every two or three months, and I’ve got voice notes all the way back to like 2016. wow. And I’ll just start listening. I have them all organized.

00:52:36:07 – 00:52:47:17

Chris

I went through like a few months ago and organized them into like song ideas or whatever, and I’ll just start listening and I’ll be like, Holy shit, I completely forgot about that idea. That’s pretty cool. Yeah. You know, maybe I’ll pull that out and give it another go.

00:52:47:21 – 00:53:06:13

Scott

No, absolutely. I think if you’re only making it through three quarters of that 616 bars and you’re like, Man, it’s got to be perfect because these first 12 are precious. You can listen to yourself and you, as you said, Chris, you can carry that in your back pocket. Or if you’re finding yourself scrolling through voice notes from nearly a decade ago.

00:53:06:15 – 00:53:31:06

Scott

First of all, I want to say it again. When you go back to it, do not judge yourself. Yeah, I think that there’s a really important correlation between how much we judge other creatives and how much we judge ourselves, and the more we judge other creatives. I tend to think we are less prolific because we know the depths at which people can criticize our work because of how much we’re capable of criticizing other’s work.

00:53:31:08 – 00:53:55:10

Scott

So when I started criticizing people’s work, much less when I stopped, that’s just such it’s just such low hanging fruit to talk about with another person, something you hate you guys mutually don’t like and think it’s garbage. And that’s that to me, I think is is toxic to you as a creative. So if you can go back to those voice notes without judgment, there’s gold in there.

00:53:55:10 – 00:54:13:22

Scott

You’re telling me there’s there’s preexisting data, Clay that I that is mine as far as you know, like that you could just get to apply to this next thing. I’m telling you, last night around like midnight, I was just I had this cool guitar thing on this rubber bridge, you know? And it’s great. You have instruments that inspire you, find things that inspire you.

00:54:14:00 – 00:54:26:00

Scott

I’ve been really into this using this meditation book lately. I can’t get enough of its sound. I think it’s like I think it’s E-flat, but like any time it fits anything, I’m just like, I’m throwing it in the mix, inspires me.

00:54:26:02 – 00:54:28:22

Mike

And everything’s in E-flat then. Yeah. Yeah.

00:54:29:00 – 00:55:01:07

Scott

I think when you like. So. So I’ll send you guys some samples of that application. It’s pretty cool. But. But that goes to say like, find things that inspire you and then once you’re inspired, go back to something that once inspired you, that you left incomplete. And maybe there’s those weeks, months, years, decades in time as they’ve passed, you’ve written something that really fulfills you much more than it would have if you pushed through it.

00:55:01:12 – 00:55:21:05

Scott

Because again, the reason we’re saying, hey, don’t be precious with things, we’re not saying, don’t be precious with things, and then release, release, release. We’re saying like just as a creative exercise again, every great poet has 200 bad poems in them. Another thing I will say on the note, just as I bring up poetry, I love this.

00:55:21:05 – 00:55:59:01

Scott

This poet Billy Collins, he put it this way once when he’s writing a poem, he looks at Wizard of Oz as a really great reference point. Don’t start with the flying monkeys. Don’t start with the flying monkeys. Start in Kansas. Flatlands, Natural disaster, Something that we can all grasp. She wakes up with golden roads and all these, like these anthropomorphic figures, and then they walk through this forest and they experience all these wild things, these surreal settings.

00:55:59:01 – 00:56:15:06

Scott

And then the flying monkeys come, I think with with lyrics I do really like in the storytelling side of things, starting things that are much more down to earth. Before we get to Heady, I used to not be that way because of course, you know, I didn’t I don’t know what I was doing when I was a kid.

00:56:15:07 – 00:56:25:22

Scott

But I think that I think that that’s why starting with a glass on the table has value to it, right? Because before you know what, you can then be referencing angels or something like that.

00:56:26:00 – 00:56:29:16

Chris

That makes sense. Yeah. Start, start somewhere tangible.

00:56:29:22 – 00:56:30:09

Scott

Yeah.

00:56:30:11 – 00:56:35:23

Chris

That the listener can sort of grasp on to and be like, I know, I know what that’s about.

00:56:36:01 – 00:56:58:14

Scott

Totally. I think so. I think so. I think being able to fit yourself in there because my favorite band is Radiohead, you know, I love, I love things that, you know, Bon Iver, I love lyrics to that, that leave you wondering. But even then, you know, I think of like Tom Yorke’s lyric, like when a leak becomes a lake, you know, it’s like that’s, that’s even referencing something that’s just as a homeowner, something I think about and somebody who loves nature.

00:56:58:14 – 00:57:24:05

Scott

I think about like, don’t, don’t leave your audience behind. Like leave room for them to to find themselves in there. Lately, there’s been this conversation about Rick Rubin’s take versus Jacob Collier’s, Jacob Collier’s take on song writing. And Rick Rubin’s take is something to the effect, and I could be paraphrasing this horribly, but is consider your audience last.

00:57:24:07 – 00:57:49:23

Scott

And then Jacob Collier. My take is no, I actually think it’s a great exercise to consider your audience first. And I’ve had a lot of I’ve had this conversation come up with a lot of times with friends and colleagues about what do you think is best? Jacob Collier is or Collier is a prodigy. He’s one of the most brilliant technical, visceral musicians that’s working right now.

00:57:50:01 – 00:58:13:12

Scott

And then on the other side, you have someone like Rick Rubin, and these memes have gone wild where he just says out loud. He goes, I have no musical, no technical ability. Yeah, don’t know what I’m doing with the soundboard. I think in those instances both are right. Yeah, if you have if you’re Jacob and you could do anything and everything, well, it’s quite possible that if you’re only thinking about yourself, the end result could be pretty masturbatory.

00:58:13:14 – 00:58:40:22

Scott

But if you’re Rick Rubin and you have limited resources and your goal is to be as present with the collaborators in your room that presumably also have finite resources creatively, then let’s just think about this moment. Let’s not think about the audience, because we might, you know, we might shape this into something we think they want. And so so that just that just goes to say on the spectrum of songwriting, everybody is is clearly coming into a room with different offerings.

00:58:41:00 – 00:58:59:04

Scott

And and that’s why I go back again and again to non judgment and being prolific exercising that muscles great, you know, going for a creative walk every day. It’s not just good in the short term, it’s massively beneficial in the long term.

00:58:59:06 – 00:59:30:13

Chris

When there’s a there’s a big piece of, of that example that you gave to with Rick Rubin and and Jacob Jacob Collier. I forgot his first name. It’s like understanding yourself, you know what I mean? And building the mechanisms or pieces into it from a place of of understanding yourself, which is kind of what songwriting is, right? It’s like songwriting is to a degree, an exploration of self.

00:59:30:15 – 00:59:57:17

Chris

And then when you sort of extrapolate it into an example like that one, it’s like, Well, what are you coming in with? You know, where are you coming from? Where are you trying to go? What’s your goal here? It’s Jacob Collier, understanding that if he focuses on the audience first, it will keep his music from being too masturbatory because he he is working with an entirely different toolset than Rick Rubin.

00:59:57:22 – 01:00:10:09

Chris

Whereas Rick Rubin’s mystical power is essentially to be in that present moment. And it’s essentially to like, draw, draw that out of the artists that he’s working with. You know.

01:00:10:14 – 01:00:35:01

Scott

I really connect to that way of looking at it, man. Yeah, yeah. Self elucidation, that’s just, that’s just good work. That doesn’t seem relevant to being a songwriter, But I, I think it, I think it’s really Yeah. And that’s, that’s why I guess that all the sort of adjacent things like journaling and meditation and, and you know intentional I don’t want to say isolation, but solitude.

01:00:35:03 – 01:00:35:16

Mike

01:00:35:18 – 01:00:44:07

Scott

To spend that time with yourself in order to get an idea of who you are is really, really beneficial in the songwriting community.

01:00:44:07 – 01:00:54:07

Chris

Yeah. And that self-awareness feeds into the songwriting. The songwriting feeds the self-awareness, and it’s sort of this, like, holistic symbiotic thing, right?

01:00:54:09 – 01:01:08:06

Scott

Yeah. Yeah, dude. I mean, like, anything else, I’m. I’m thinking about getting in my own head right now about, like, how silly that stream of consciousness exercise that we did in real time was like, my goodness, I thought.

01:01:08:06 – 01:01:08:21

Chris

It was awesome.

01:01:09:02 – 01:01:42:20

Scott

Maybe, maybe I’ll do maybe we’ll do this more and I’ll get better at it. But goodness like the grace that you have to give yourself in order to become so confident and calm and things, it’s like such it’s such a superpower. If you’re willing to risk embarrassing yourself creatively in order to work those those muscles, you have to be willing to take chances that are coming from a real sincere place that that don’t get it.

01:01:42:20 – 01:02:08:08

Scott

You know, you want to have self-awareness, but you also don’t want to just you don’t want to keep yourself in a box. You don’t want to feel so self critical. And again, I think there’s an important correlation between criticizing others and criticizing yourselves. The less you do it to others, the less you’ll you’ll do it to yourself. But those those sorts of things, I think, are I just think it’s important to practice exercising those muscles if if not to eventually be like, okay, so do less next time.

01:02:08:08 – 01:02:24:10

Scott

Don’t, don’t insert yourself in this way. You know, you’ve learned from that. Yeah. Not to go off the topic of songwriting, but I think in our industry it’s a fine, it’s a fine line of playing by the rules. But as creatives that’s, that’s almost counterintuitive at times.

01:02:24:10 – 01:02:25:14

Chris

Yeah, it’s kind of antithetical.

01:02:25:14 – 01:02:46:17

Mike

To who we are. you said it before when you said, I need someone who can play the mandolin, and you’re like, Yes, yes, I play the mandolin, right? I mean, that’s it. But you put yourself in this situation where you kind of have imposter syndrome. But I think that, like, this is good advice, I think, for for younger people who might be just out of college or they’re in their twenties, it’s like just, you know, you don’t know who you are yet.

01:02:46:19 – 01:03:00:18

Mike

You know, just go for it. If you get an opportunity, just get ready to fail, you know? Just yeah, yeah, Put yourself in an uncomfortable situation. And if you feel like an imposter, that’s probably a good thing because. Yeah, yeah.

01:03:00:20 – 01:03:22:19

Scott

I think so too. I fail forward, wrong and strong, I guess, but. And at that age, I think that’s a good point, Mike. Like really bringing it to younger folks at that age, especially, you know, whether it’s like late teens, early mid twenties, those are great periods of time in your life to not get sleep because you’re learning the new instrument to play on that.

01:03:23:00 – 01:03:53:17

Scott

On just those two out of eight songs in that set, that’s going to get you on your first world tour and introduce you to members of the band you’re opening for, who may one day ask you to them play keyboards or mandolin or military instruments, and before you know it, you’re silly to call yourself an imposter because you’ve been doing this on the road for six months or a year and you have a documented resume because you said yes, you didn’t put yourself in too narrow of a box and you were willing to potentially fail.

01:03:53:19 – 01:04:00:20

Scott

Just remember, if you say yes, you have to put in that stupid amount of work. So at least you know, you did give it your best.

01:04:00:20 – 01:04:23:11

Mike

Yeah. And you’re when you’re young, your brain still works. You know, there’s a little bit more neural plasticity when you’re 43. Like me, it takes a lot longer. Like, I challenged myself to learn how to solve a Rubik’s Cube last year, and it took me forever because it was like the brain is trying to learn something new. And it’s just like, Man, if I was 23, I would have nailed this much faster.

01:04:23:13 – 01:04:25:13

Scott

Yeah, yeah.

01:04:25:15 – 01:04:27:11

Mike

It’s a good thing to do when you’re young.

01:04:27:12 – 01:04:52:04

Scott

Do you guys feel not to be the one asking questions? But you mentioned neuroplasticity, and do you guys feel like there are values to are there there is a value to journaling as well like in the composer world. The reason I bring that up is because I know there’s this there’s this great exercise that when you go through, you know, difficult times ranging from like, this was hard to this was extremely traumatic.

01:04:52:04 – 01:05:14:19

Scott

And you’re and you’re suffering through PTSD. There are exercises via journaling where you write for anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes straight about the facts of the hardest time of your life, how you felt about it, how you feel about it now. And you do that 15 to 30 minutes straight. You do that four consecutive days in a row.

01:05:14:21 – 01:05:41:12

Scott

And it has there’s been a lot of it’s done things to like relieve people of fibromyalgia, of IBS, and it’s helped a tremendous amount of people through PTSD. And as I was navigating some really scary health diagnosis last year, I had I had I was diagnosed with a heart arrhythmia that required to pretty intense procedures done on my heart.

01:05:41:13 – 01:06:07:00

Scott

It was really beneficial for me to go through this journaling process in very difficult. But when we when we talk about knowing yourself in order to be a better songwriter, I feel like I’ve gotten to face myself with all the tears and the unsettling feelings that come alongside it. And I feel more connected to myself now that I’ve ever been as a result of that process.

01:06:07:02 – 01:06:15:02

Scott

Is there an application for that as a composer, especially when it’s not so deadline based?

01:06:15:04 – 01:06:24:04

Mike

Well, I would say there’s an application for it as a human being, for sure. Yeah, I think I think. Andrew Huberman I don’t know if you follow his podcast.

01:06:24:06 – 01:06:25:17

Scott

I love that. That’s the one I’m referencing.

01:06:25:17 – 01:06:48:18

Mike

Yeah, I think that’s the episode as a composer, because composers tend to be instrumentalists. I think it’s good to just let yourself, you know, hit the record button and just noodle, you know, and just write stuff and try to do it every day. As for me, I mean, I try to go for walks every day and I leave long voice memos, you know, just what’s going on in my life.

01:06:48:20 – 01:07:08:09

Mike

Sometimes they’re prayerful, sometimes it’s just a meditative thing. Sometimes it’s just like, here’s what’s going is what I’m struggling with. Or this is a success we had today, or this is what I’m grateful for. Yeah, I try to do that every day. First, you got to focus on who you are as a human. And then I think then, yeah, it comes out in your creative work.

01:07:08:11 – 01:07:39:23

Chris

Yeah. Yeah. And on that note, you know, I think inherently any kind of creative work does involve some kind of self-awareness. And in the. in the context of film composing, it’s like, what are you what are you doing? What’s your job there? Your job there is to support the story and the emotional aspects of that story. The more in touch you are with your emotions, the more in touch you can be with what the emotional aspect of this part of the story is.

01:07:40:04 – 01:08:03:23

Chris

You know, you because you are essentially really with any kind of music or any kind of art, at least the way I view it is you are essentially sort of like synthesizing emotion into something that’s a little bit more tangible, whether it’s visual art or sonic landscapes or things like that. You’re trying to create a feeling and an emotion in the person who is consuming that art.

01:08:04:03 – 01:08:26:16

Chris

So in order to do that, whether you’re writing your own music or, you know, supporting somebody else’s vision, any kind of exercise, whether it’s journaling or speaking into, you know, a journal app or something like that, any kind of self-exploration is going to help you be a little bit more honest internally with what’s going on with your emotions.

01:08:26:16 – 01:08:35:03

Chris

And that will, like you said, make inherently, whether directly or indirectly, affect your creative.

01:08:35:03 – 01:08:57:04

Mike

Output. Yeah, I think when composers get older, it’s kind of like it’s like a fine wine. Hopefully it gets better with time. I know John Williams is obviously my hero and one of the first films he did, he was he’s five, so that gives us hope. Wow. It was George, I believe, 1976, 77. You know, it’s just such a brilliant score.

01:08:57:05 – 01:09:17:13

Mike

The detail, you know, the craftsmanship. But it’s almost like for him, like all of the stuff that we struggle with, like, all right, what’s the range of the flute? And then it like, none of that matters to someone like him at that age, right? You know, And it just all the details come secondary where he can just hear hear it in his mind and be able to just execute on.

01:09:17:14 – 01:09:28:10

Mike

And I think that just comes with the challenges and successes of life. And I’m sure there’s a connection. I mean, this is this is a great conversation because I never think about this stuff. So. Yeah.

01:09:28:12 – 01:09:47:08

Scott

Well, yeah, I know. And you bring up John Williams. We’ve been going to the Hollywood Bowl just about every year, you know, for the last 15 years to see his nights and I am truly I don’t think I’ve ever seen a crowd of 17,000 people like that go so hard for like a for an encore night with.

01:09:47:13 – 01:09:49:07

Mike

yeah. It’s just with his.

01:09:49:07 – 01:09:54:15

Scott

Rage and it says so much about wanting to know the story of the storyteller.

01:09:54:17 – 01:09:55:15

Chris

Yeah.

01:09:55:17 – 01:10:16:14

Scott

And he and he’s a composer, you know, He’s also the most, like, decorated Academy Award winner. But, like, I think that that’s a really good point, Chris, is is wanting to being willing to play some emphasis on who you are when you’re telling any story in any medium, because whether you want it to or not, it will be filtered you.

01:10:16:14 – 01:10:17:22

Chris

Absolutely.

01:10:18:00 – 01:10:47:11

Scott

And so I think that there is I don’t want to be too hippie dippy as my beloved mother in law might say. Shout out Frankfort, Kentucky. But that goes to say, I do think that there is value in and self elucidation as a practice, you know whether whether it’s journaling or I also connect with what you were talking about, Mike just just going on those walks with the voice memo and reflecting that solitude, that reflection, I think I think it kind of clears things out.

01:10:47:13 – 01:11:11:01

Scott

As you go into a session, you’re much more of an open vehicle. You can default to your bag of tricks, like that’s all in your muscles and your instincts, but you can you’re not muddying up areas where you can more clearly receive unforeseen inspiration. You’re not up those areas, you’re open to it. And and then you you have the technical skill to just to just roll with it.

01:11:11:01 – 01:11:29:22

Scott

And I think that’s absolutely applicable to modern day songwriting. You know, I will I will give shout outs to a couple songwriters who I think are just carrying that torch so unbelievably well right now. In fact, I’ll just keep it to one do not take up too much you guys time. But I can’t get enough of Madison Cunningham right now.

01:11:30:00 – 01:11:54:12

Scott

This woman is an extraordinary player, writer, lyricist, insane singer. And if people could just model that, be inspired by what she’s doing, I’m telling you, start with any song, any record. But Madison Cunningham, man, I one of the most inspiring songwriters I have seen in a very, very long time.

01:11:54:14 – 01:11:56:16

Chris

I have to check her out. I haven’t heard of her.

01:11:56:18 – 01:11:59:18

Scott

Yeah. Yeah. I can’t say enough about her. So. Good.

01:11:59:18 – 01:12:04:04

Mike

Yes, I think yeah, my daughter is into her. I have a 16 year old daughter.

01:12:04:09 – 01:12:18:18

Scott

Yeah. Madison Cunningham. Yeah. That pumps me up that if it’s, if she’s, if she’s like excited, if she, if a 16 year old person is excited about Maddie Cunningham, then I’m, I’m stoked about Gen-z. And that’s good news.

01:12:18:20 – 01:12:19:03

Mike

Yeah.

01:12:19:08 – 01:12:45:03

Chris

So in talking about exploring yourself in the vulnerability, taking that sort of deep dive, it’s one thing to do that on your own. It’s another thing to do it in the context of a band, right? Taking that dive into yourself, all of you kind of doing it together and, and expressing or exposing that type of vulnerability to other people.

01:12:45:05 – 01:13:05:00

Chris

So what, what would you say as somebody who who played and who’s played in a lot of bands, written a lot of music with bands and written a lot of music on your own, what is the difference between the two experiences and do you prefer one over the other?

01:13:05:02 – 01:13:26:14

Scott

I don’t know. I’ll try to. I’ll try to do a good job answering that question because it sounds like there’s there’s a lot of value to to that question. I will be I will be honest with you. My it’s going through a filter of something I’ve been struggling with recently and it is the massive decline in bands.

01:13:26:16 – 01:13:27:16

Chris

Yeah, same.

01:13:27:16 – 01:13:47:01

Scott

It’s so much more affordable to be an artist and make much music as you can left to your own devices. And then if you blow up and get label tours and support, you can put a band around you. And we’re seeing that as a result of how difficult it is to to make a living as a band. I don’t.

01:13:47:07 – 01:14:10:17

Scott

And this, this may be dating me, but there just aren’t a lot of bands that are able to to do that. Yeah, even as I shout out, Madison Cunningham is like, I love what she does as a writer. I love her with her band, you know, I don’t to what extent they’re equity members as much as they’re hired guns who put their heart into the music they equally believe in, as she does.

01:14:10:19 – 01:14:45:08

Scott

But You know, going back to being a kid who started learning about songwriting through very basic, opened the eyes of my heart, lowered songs and, then getting thrown into a world with people whose influences like My Now wife’s were like Alan Parson’s project and and Toto and Queen, and then somebody else like my my beloved friend and drummer Mike Musselman, who’s all about like the Death Grips and Frank Zappa and then someone else like Nick Champion on bass who was all about classic rock and funk.

01:14:45:10 – 01:15:12:02

Scott

It goes back to being like, okay, if I can clearly admit to who I am relative to who these people are as far as creative influences is concerned, I’m going to realize I have all these spots in my self. I guess just, just, just to learn from these people. And man, I think when you’re collaborating with people, there’s a whole argument to be made about band leaders and this and that.

01:15:12:02 – 01:15:50:14

Scott

But in my experience with original projects, I have been in bands with people who are not on the same creative pages. Me Yeah, inherently. But we trust fall when we’re in the rehearsal space. We trust fall on one another to say maybe your way is best. What does it look like when I imitate it? And I think that maybe one of the reasons you know, Chris, you were a fan of my bands coming up because it ended up being kind of progressive sounding and and at the heart of it was still a guy who like, like to write simple acoustic songs but is now playing in like seven, eight time and experimenting with pedals and

01:15:50:16 – 01:16:14:13

Scott

letting the drummer just go haywire, you know? So. So yeah. So I think that if you’re going to pursue a band creatively, which is something would love to do just for the fun of it, again, surround yourself with people you trust, and if you trust them enough, don’t feel like you have to cling to who you are because that gets in the way of who you might be as a result of their creative influence.

01:16:14:15 – 01:16:41:07

Chris

Yeah, yeah. There’s a there’s, you know, I I’ve kind of been struggling with the same thing internally, right? The lack of bands, the sort of prevalence of a more isolated musical creative experience. But there’s something, there’s something that you just can’t supplement for in the idea of collaborating with other people on the creative front. It’s one thing to collaborate with other people.

01:16:41:07 – 01:17:07:11

Chris

If you have a song and you’re bringing them in and you’re saying, Hey, you know, you can add to this or pepper this in here, but to write a song from scratch with other people and do exactly what you said, which is stressful sort of into this experience together, you know, one of the things that I that that has echoed in my head for a couple of years now is like I alone am only as good as my own limitations.

01:17:07:13 – 01:17:31:18

Chris

Yeah, right. I have limitations as everybody does when it comes to skill or the way that I think about music or the way that I approach creativity. But when you put yourself into a room with three or four or five other people and you’re all creating together, you’re going to sort of inherently you have that trust open, start to expand each other’s limitations.

01:17:31:20 – 01:18:10:22

Chris

Yeah, because now you’re working with someone who approaches music from a completely different perspective and it’s something that maybe you never thought you would ever like, but then you try it on and you’re like, actually this kind of this good, you know, this, this, this perspective feels good to where this approach is actually kind of nice. And it’s it even if even if your goal is not to have a successful music career as a band even if you are a more inherently individual creator, playing in a band is only going to make you better as a creator and vice versa.

01:18:11:00 – 01:18:46:18

Scott

I think that what ends up happening when you’re trying to make it more equitable for is that the emphasis gets put on the instrumentation and having. So if I want the drummer and the bassist and the violinist, whatever it may be, if I, if I want the musicians in the band to feel as if they have equal stake in this eventual end product, this creative and product, then we’re going to put emphasis on the instrumentation and we’re going to focus on making something unique that leans into.

01:18:46:18 – 01:19:20:08

Scott

I remember when we had this one song called Cusp, and the lyrics were definitely the last thing that we cared about. But like the riff was something like this. It was big for and just like, Hey, that’s weird and cool and can we all come together to make something good? Let’s get some counter melodies in there on the strings and let’s have the that’s have the drums like really groove.

01:19:20:08 – 01:19:52:06

Scott

But there if you I remember hearing this back in the day and as a millennial, it’s like we call it the Incubus effect. When you’re watching Incubus play live, pick any band member, you could just focus on them equally as much as Brandon Boyd or anybody else. Yeah. And so when I’m writing in a band and if I were to write again now, I would take that approach that I hear with Radiohead or their newer trio, The Smile, and I would write something really interesting musically, and then I would write vocals to fit that, that interesting idea first.

01:19:52:06 – 01:20:10:19

Scott

I think that’s an amazing exercise as a lyricist as a vocalist to fit in to preexisting instrumentation. I think that’s more fun for everybody. I think it gives more equity, like authentic equity to the musicians in the band who perhaps aren’t writing lyrical content or singing and and it’s how I like to do it and it’s really exciting.

01:20:10:19 – 01:20:41:19

Scott

And I think that left to my own devices, I can still write things that way. Like if you check out an EP put out in 2021, I have a song on there called Trigger Finger and that was me left to my own devices as best as I could, doing something, harkening back to the era of me being in bands and writing weird time signatures with with with, with the instrumentation in the forefront, you know, and then fit in crazy lyrical content into it after the fact.

01:20:41:21 – 01:20:42:13

Scott

That’s awesome.

01:20:42:19 – 01:20:53:16

Chris

Yeah, it’s funny. You when you were walking us through your process of the stream of consciousness writing and then starting with the lyrics and then finding a vocal melody and then fitting music to that.

01:20:53:16 – 01:20:55:20

Scott

Yeah, chord progression to fit into the melody.

01:20:55:22 – 01:21:12:17

Chris

The complete opposite of the way that I do it. I go, it’s always music first. For me, I still am. But hey, I know, I know we set aside an hour and a half and I don’t want to keep you any longer than the time that we’ve put aside, because I know we’re all busy people and we have things to do.

01:21:12:22 – 01:21:33:13

Chris

So just one last question for me is like, if any of the listeners are curious about songwriting or just sort of starting to experiment with songwriting, what is a piece of advice that you would sort of impart to them? You know, as they as they start to embark on their journey into songwriting.

01:21:33:15 – 01:22:05:03

Scott

Embrace the weird, I would say embrace the weird. A lot of. Great songwriters. No, you only really need like to know how to play three chords to write 3000 songs. Don’t worry about fitting in to like your local songwriter scene. If there is a way that you feel. Back to Chris, his point earlier that writing a song is a means for getting closer to figuring out who you are.

01:22:05:03 – 01:22:38:05

Scott

It’s a means for expressing your identity more and more with every tune. Then don’t be afraid of doing things outside of the norm as a writer and as you do it. I think the only way and this is this is taking a tip from Ira Glass. The only way that your artistic output will eventually be on the same level as your taste is by going through a volume of work.

01:22:38:07 – 01:23:05:14

Scott

So don’t be too precious about things. As a teacher, I still I still work with music education so much when it when we lean into the creative, it’s the perfectionist who are the ones who struggle to put out the most. And as I’ve demonstrated in this in this podcast, trying to keep stream of consciousness for the first time, don’t worry about it being perfect before you put it out there.

01:23:05:14 – 01:23:35:03

Scott

It’s an important muscle to exercise. I’ll say it a third time. Every great poet has 200 bad poems in her. That might also be from Billy Collins, but I think it’s critical that you embrace the weird to do it with non judgment and. Yeah, I think more is more. The more you write, the better. And then over time, you know, if you’re able to really turn this into something that you’re able to do on a consistent basis, refinement is refinements there and you’ll find it in a variety of ways.

01:23:35:03 – 01:23:58:05

Scott

It may come to you in one sitting. It really might. Some amazing songs have. That’s why people can work in half day sessions and, turn out a massive pop song, but it also may be a failed day to you until a few years later. You pick up that three quarters of stuff you liked and you complete it, and it’s a much more meaningful thing than it would have been if you pushed through it then.

01:23:58:06 – 01:24:00:09

Scott

So I think that’s my advice.

01:24:00:11 – 01:24:06:14

Chris

Awesome man. What are you working on that you’re excited about? Where can people keep up with you?

01:24:06:16 – 01:24:28:22

Scott

You know, like I said, and I think that it’s cool to talk about this, too, because I’ve found have found a lot of benefit from people being transparent with the stuff they’re going through. So so last year, you know, my life turned upside down when I was diagnosed atrial fibrillation and atrial flutter initial tachycardia and I wasn’t able to tour.

01:24:29:00 – 01:24:46:19

Scott

So I spent a lot of time as I was trying to figure out the best way to treat what I was going through writing. And so whether I want it to be or not, it’s turned out to be a bit of a concept record going through those motions of of getting better. And I’m also very happy to say I’m doing a lot better.

01:24:46:19 – 01:25:11:20

Scott

I was able to get a procedure done in December that seems to be keeping me in really great shape. I’m coming up on four months without any episodes and that’s amazing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I couldn’t be happier. So but it was a very, very very dark period and thank God I had access to these creative outlets. So I’m working on finishing up that that collection of songs.

01:25:11:22 – 01:25:33:11

Scott

And so I’m not sure when that will come out because I’m also playing on other people’s records and I’m teaching a bunch of people that I’m doing some composing the first time now, which is really exciting. But I think that one thing I’m excited to point to, considering what the majority of what we’ve been talking about today is songwriting is eventual record that I’ll be releasing before the end of the year.

01:25:33:12 – 01:26:06:23

Scott

And in the meantime, you can check out my existing tunes just at my name. Scott called Bom, my socials on all the DSPs and if you like, some of the things we are talking about and you want to hear them in the context of of the band’s that Chris and I were referencing, you could check out bands of mine like Wives Club Forebear, and even you could probably find the band that I was in when Chris and I met when we were like teenagers called The Harm The Harm Music on Bandcamp probably has a bunch of our stuff there.

01:26:06:23 – 01:26:12:14

Scott

So if you want to dive in and to hear me at my Angsty us, feel free to do a deep dive there.

01:26:12:16 – 01:26:20:18

Chris

And I’ll attest it’s worth it. For Bear was my absolute favorite Los Angeles local band while you guys were together, and so it was the home for that matter.

01:26:20:20 – 01:26:42:00

Scott

Thanks. Yeah. Yeah. Well, there’s been some talk about us in our older age, be it remotely or coming together at our boy Matt toggle Matt toggle was a founding member of of the harm when we were kids and he’s gone on to become a massive engineer working with John Mayer and Greg Kurstin and he’s got a home studio now so we may be revisiting that and making a record.

01:26:42:02 – 01:26:44:06

Scott

goodness. 15 years later, 20 years later.

01:26:44:08 – 01:26:46:11

Chris

Dude, I can’t wait. That’s going to be awesome.

01:26:46:13 – 01:26:54:19

Scott

Thank you guys so much for having me on. By the way I really love what you guys have been doing listening to the previous podcast and yeah, getting to be a part of it was such a delight.

01:26:54:21 – 01:27:01:12

Chris

Dude, thank you for being here. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on songwriting this is actually a really great, great conversation.

01:27:01:17 – 01:27:04:05

Mike

Yeah, this was great. Scott, great to meet you.

01:27:04:06 – 01:27:07:02

Scott

You guys as well. Be well, dude, thanks so much.

01:27:07:04 – 01:27:30:15

Chris

Thank you all for listening. And a special thanks to Scott for sharing his songwriting thoughts, tips and tricks. And I highly recommend that you go check out his music. It really is incredibly beautifully crafted. Just go to his website. Scott Goldbaum or check out the show notes where we’ve included all of the links. Once again, if you like this conversation and you want to hear more like, it don’t forget to rate and review the podcast.

01:27:30:17 – 01:27:53:09

Chris

We really love being able to share these conversations with music creators like you, and every bit of feedback that we get helps us to continue doing that. You can find us on Instagram @Musio and on YouTube at @Musio.official. And if you’re a music creator and you’re looking for high quality virtual instruments, just head over to Musio.com to get literally thousands of them completely free for 30 days.

01:27:53:11 – 01:28:06:08

Chris

Thank you again for listening. We really hope that this conversation was valuable for you as it was for us. Now get out there and write some songs or do some stream of consciousness journaling or catch on the next one.