Over the past several years, songwriter Brett James has made a huge impact on Nashville, having penned some of the format's biggest songs to date. In addition to hits like "Jesus, Take the Wheel" and "Cowboy Casanova" for Carrie Underwood, "Out Last Night" and "When the Sun Goes Down" for Kenny Chesney, "The Truth" for Jason Aldean, "Blessed" for Martina McBride and "The Man I Want to Be" for Chris Young, James is also responsible for crossover pop smashes by Daughtry and Kelly Clarkson.
In this new exclusive Songwriter Profile series, Roughstock will introduce you to the men and women who make country music what it is. Today we highlight Brett James. James is not only is knocking out hit songs as a songwriter, but also testing the waters with Music City Hitmakers -- a unique concert experience featuring James, Hillary Lindsey and Gordie Sampson singing the songs they are best known for while being backed by the Nashville Symphony. Between those two gigs, James is also the brains behind the producing of country music's hottest prodigy, Kip Moore. We recently sat down with James where we discussed all of that and more.
Tell us about the beginning of your love of songwriting and what brought you to Nashville, eventually leading to where you are now.
In 1991, I was a freshman in medical school in Oklahoma. I went to a Steve Warnier concert one night and said, ‘Man … I think I can do that.’ So I started writing songs. A year later, I took about $1,000 I made working over the summer and recorded a five-song cassette tape in Oklahoma City. I sent it to my one friends who was in the music business. She was an intern in college radio promotions in Ann Arbor, Michigan, so she wasn’t really connected. She was an intern. She gave it to her boss, and her boss decided that she wanted to manage me. So the next thing I know, my spring break of my sophomore year of med school, I go to Nashville. I’d never been to Nashville before. The third day I was in town, we got to meet with three record labels, two who patted me on the head and sent me packing. The third one – out of the blue – was Tim DuBois. He was the president of Arista Records at the time. My third day in Nashville, he said, ‘Mister … I’ll give you a record deal if you move here.’ Just like that. I was like wow!
So I dropped out of med school that next summer. I finished my board exams and came out here. I spent the next seven years struggling as an artist, not having much success, making a couple of records for Arista. But I was having a good time as a writer. It was back in the early 90s, so this town was a boom town. I had a great publishing deal and was having a lot of fun, but not having any success. After seven years and a couple of failed albums, I was like, ‘Well what do I do now?’ So I went back to med school. I had two kids to feed. I gave it a shot and got to live the dream for a minute. It was time to go home and get a real job. In 99, I moved back to Oklahoma and went back to med school. That was when Troy Verges and I started writing. He started flying out to Oklahoma. I’d go to pathology class, and when I got home, I would write a song with Troy. Writing’s a funny game. It’s kind of like poker. You either have a hot hand or you don’t. All of a sudden, that year I had a hot hand. I had 33 of my songs recorded while I was going to med school over nine months. I think we had five Top 10 records that year. That was better than my wildest dream ever! So by the end of that year, I was like I think I can feed the family for a while, so I quit med school for the second time in 2000.That was 13 years ago. I’ve been doing this 13 years now.
You recently have joined forces with fellow songwriters Hillary Lindsey and Gordie Sampson to come up with Music City Hitmakers -- a unique twist on songwriter rounds that Nashville is known for. How did the concept come about to incorporate that idea with the backing of a symphony?
Music City Hit Makers is the brainchild of Charles Dickson, who is a world-class violinist. He plays with the Nashville Symphony and many others orchestras as well. He also happens to be my first cousin, so I’ve known him since he was a baby. He moved to Nashville several years ago and was playing with the Colorado Symphony. He moved from Denver. He went on the road as a fiddle player for Ashton Shepherd, but was also playing for all the symphonies. He knows what I do and what other writers do, and he kind of connected the dots. He had been to a lot of Bluebird shows and knew how that looked. He was like, ‘This would work great with the right people in front of a symphony.’ It was sort of like a big Bluebird show with a symphony behind them with a studio band and talk about the stories behind the songs, that sort of thing. So it was absolutely Charles’ brainchild. He put the whole thing together.
Just getting the charts written for a symphony is a big deal. Typically they’re expensive. You have to hire someone else to do them. So the next thing for him was getting the right people with the right songs. His concept was to kind of base it around the three writers behind ‘Jesus, Take the Wheel’ – Hillary Lindsey, Gordie Sampson and myself. The next step was what songs are we going to do. We picked our set list, because a symphony show can’t be 30 minutes long and it can’t be unrehearsed like Bluebird shows are. So we came up with this set list, and it has 19 No. 1 songs. We do a two hour and 20 minute show. We ended up working with Charles Judge who is Nashville’s hottest keyboard player in the studio. He does all of Carrie Underwood’s keyboards, all of Taylor’s keyboards, all of Rascal Flatts’ keyboards … the list goes on and on. He’s really busy. So from there, we just started putting it all together.
You mentioned a total of 19 No. 1 songs being incorporated into your set list … what can we expect to hear when we come to a Music City Hitmakers show?
We don’t do it like a Bluebird sitting. We’re not sitting on stools and doing it ‘in the round’ like the Nashville tradition. I’ll come out and do a song, then Hillary will come out and do a song. Then maybe two of us do something together, then she and Gordie do something together, and then Gordie comes out and does a song. It’s kind of traded around that way. I do two or three Kenny Chesney songs, we do Carrie Underwood songs, Jason Aldean … I do a Daughtry song and a Kelly Clarkson song – crazy stuff. We have a lot of fun. Hillary does some songs from movies that she’s written. She’s got two that she was nominated for Golden Globes for that are in the show. Stuff like that. It’s a pretty wide variety. We sort of try to break it down for your living room, but it just happens to be in a very formal symphony hall with very formal symphony musicians. We try to just strip it down and say this is for fun tonight. We’re going to tell you about these songs that we’ve written and play them for you in a way you haven’t heard them before.
Has there been any talk about doing a Music City Hitmakers album at some point down the road?
There is talk of doing an album like this, yes. We would love to. It would be fantastic. We’ve recorded two or three with the symphony so far, and they came out really good. So at some point, I think there might be a record down the road.
With you three spending this much time together now as the Music City Hitmakers, are you finding that you are collaborating as a trio on more songs than before?
Well we always do anyway. Gordie, Hillary and I have been friends for the last 15 years. Troy Verges is also on the show. As of right now, Troy doesn’t sing any songs in the show, but he comes out and plays electric guitar for the whole thing. We’re all sort of like brothers and sister. We all grew up in this business together. I don’t have closer friends in the music business than Troy, Hillary and Gordie. Troy and I completely came up together. All of our first hits were together back in the 90s. We go back a long way, so we always write together.
Here lately you’ve been getting involved with the producing side with guys like Kip Moore …
I’m producing Kip and a couple of other things coming up. There are some other things on the horizon, but right now my producing focus is on Kip. We’re about to start his second record next month. It is very exciting. I think he’s on his way to his third No. 1 in a row, which will be exciting for all of us. Kip is like my little brother. He’s been one of the greatest joys of my career. To see him go from where he was when I met him as a golf pro, which is what he was doing when I met him … he wasn’t that great of a singer-songwriter yet, but there was something there. So to see him go from where he was then to now, there’s literally no one probably in songwriting that I would not put him in a category with. I think Kip is going to turn out to be one of those Bruce Springsteen / Alan Jackson artist … he will be one of those guys who did it over a 30 year period. I think he will be one of the best that there ever was.
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