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APRIL 2010 TAXI Road Rally 2009 Jeffrey Steele — Road Rally Keynote Interview, Part 3 Interviewed by Michael Laskow Editor’s note: Normally, we’d put a bio about the interviewee here. This interview is so good we didn’t want to edit much out to create space for Jeffrey’s incredibly long and impressive bio. To see it, please go to his site. http://www.jeffreysteele.net/about/ I hear people complain about writers who add a word, get a third. You know, you go into the writing meeting with the best of intentions, but it comes out non-productive, and somebody has contributed something minor. Does that stick in your craw and make it difficult to go for another one of those? Or do you just keep forging ahead and doing them…? To me, that whole phrase… and I know it’s not the same everywhere as it is in Nashville. But in Nashville, man, if you’re in the room and you’re pourin’ the coffee—and I think that should be an if instead of a but—and that’s all you do all day. To me, if you weren’t in that room with me, we wouldn’t have found that song that day. Whatever you were sayin’, doin’, actin’—or even if I sat there thinking and you weren’t doing nothing—whatever motivated me to get that song that day, we got the song. Hell, man, 50%, 33% People always ask me those questions. Share the love. I see people who are 10 or 15 years away from having their first success—and it’s obvious to me, because I’ve been around long enough to know it when I see it—but they’re worried about that write a word, get a third-thing, and they shouldn’t be worried. Right now they should be worried about having a hit and writing a great song. Yeah, they should be worried about just getting better every day. And I know that sounds like clichéd advice, but if you get caught up in that deal… Sometimes you’re right about it and sometimes you’re wrong, and sometimes it just doesn’t matter, you know? I’ve had songs that I’ve been on that I wasn’t a big contributor. Every time you get into the room with somebody, you’re either gonna be the A-writer or the B-writer or the C-writer. You’re gonna be that guy who’s driving the truck, or you’re going A bird's eye view of Jeffrey Steele and the Road Rally audience. to be the guy who’s sittin’ beside the guy who’s drivin’ the truck, or you’re gonna be the guy gettin’ coffee for the guy drivin’ the truck, or maybe just editing that guy, going, “I don’t like the way that sounds…” That might be your role the whole day. I always felt like if you’re in the room, you’re in the room, you know? Great attitude. I mean, you have to. Because if you think that way, you’re gonna get stuck in that place. You’re not doing music, you’re worried about money, honest to God. And there could be 50 people who could have an argument with me for that. You know, “No way, dude; that was my idea.” So what, man? You’re gonna make a hundred thousand frickin’ dollars. OK, so now you’re only gonna get $80,000 or $75,000. I just had this with these guys I was producing. Shut me up if you need to shut me up… They had this song—it was a four-way, and however they got to the song, I don’t know—I was pro- ducing the album. So when I heard the song… It was a pretty cool song, but being a producer I’m trying to figure out a way to make this a hit song. I think it has potential, but the arrangement’s not great. So, I threw in some ideas and changed it around, we put in some really cool little riffs and stuff, and it ended up sounding really cool. The track sounded huge. Until later on, after going through the motions with the record, they called me up and said, “Hey, Jeff, you know we got five writers on that song, and you made that song what it is because you changed…” And I’m like, “Ah, dude, that’s what you hired me for. You’re payin’ me to do that. Don’t worry about that. That’s why I’m the producer—that’s my job.” And he goes, “Yeah, but the guy that we were in the room with that day… That one guy, he didn’t really do anything. He didn’t do anything, so we want to get his name off of it.” He was really adamant. And here was this guy who just got his first record deal; he’s got a record coming out with eight or nine songs Continued on page 43

http://www.jeffreysteele.net/about/

Recording - April 2010

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