Ben Hayslip has been changing the face of country music with his songs he's been crafting over the past several years. If it's a hit on the radio, chances are it's a Hayslip song that he has penned either with The Peach Pickers (Hayslip, Rhett Akins and Dallas Davidson) or with some of the town's other hitmakers. Hayslip is the recipient of numerous songwriter awards in the recent years, including two ASCAP Songwriter of the Year trophies and three CMA Triple Play Awards.
Roughstock was honored to get to chat with the hit songwriter recently, and we are excited to present Ben Hayslip as our latest songwriter in the spotlight.
Roughstock: Talk about the road that has led you to where you are now with your career just being on fire!
Hayslip: The road started with me and Rhett in Georgia. We wrote our first song in together in 1985, so close to 30 years ago. We wrote our first song together at my parents house. Growing up, the one thing Rhett and I always had in common other than sports, was we both loved to write songs. It's hard to find that, as kids. When you do find that, you kind of gravitate toward each other. We were already good friends through sports, but songwriting made us even closer. We both talked about moving to Nashville, and Rhett moved there first. He was kind of a big reason for me to move, too. I may have come anyway if he wasn't here, but I knew him being here made my decision to come to Nashville a whole lot easier. After getting to Nashville, Rhett already had a record deal. He was really busy, so I just kind of had to feel my way through the business and find my own way.
When did you get your first break in Nashville?
A guy named Don Daily gave me my first publishing deal in 1996. When you move to Nashville, you need somebody to believe in you. You've got to find that one person, and Don Daily was that one person. He believed in me, and he got me in the music business. I've been it ever since. I've had a publishing deal since 1996. It wasn't the easiest ride to get to where I am now. I just had to keep working at it. I went through ups and downs, and I went through times where I thought should I move back home? Should I give up? Those first 12 years I did have cuts on a lot of people. I had a lot of cuts here and there, but I only had one hit. My first hit was on Jeff Bates with a song called “Long, Slow Kisses.”
Since signing your publishing deal with This Music, you have had one hit after another. How did that relationship come about with This Music?
I've always known Rusty Gaston since I moved to town, who is my current publisher. I signed with Rusty in 2007. Pretty much since I signed there, my career changed. Rusty knows how to put me in the right situation with the right writers. He works as hard as I do. It's just been a great combination. Since making that move, my who career has changed. I started getting cuts, I started getting singles, I got two Songwriter of the Year awards, three Triple Play Awards … all that came since 2007. Most of my success has come after Rusty and I got together. We have been a real good team, and I think he would say the same thing. This Music was a brand new company, and I was the first writer they signed. We have been a really good team since we have partnered up.
When did you link up with Dallas Davidson?
Soon after I signed my deal with This Music, Dallas and Rhett got put in a room together. I knew Dallas a little bit, because we had written a few songs together at that point, but us three had never written together before. We got together for the very first time, and we really had a great time. We wrote a good song, so we decided to do it again, and we kept doing it. The first hit we had together was "Put a Girl In It" (Brooks & Dunn). We started writing these songs once every week. We just had a great time together. It was unlike any other writing experience I had ever had. It was just so laid back. You had three guys that grew up pretty close together in Georgia and had a lot in common, from Georgia football to hunting and fishing. Me and Dallas went to the same college. So we had a lot in common.
When did you guys decide to call yourselves The Peach Pickers?
I think Rhett threw it out one day, just messing around … said let's call us The Peach Pickers. We thought it was pretty cool. It kind of stuck. It went from a joke to you writing about us … calling us The Peach Pickers, and that name has done a lot for our careers as being branded with something like that. It's like everybody knows who we are. Not only who we are, but that name -- The Peach Pickers -- kind of branded the style of music that pretty much everybody in the music business knows. Whether it's a Peach Pickers song or not, people actually sit down in rooms and say let's write a "Peach Pickers song" today. I've been told that before. The Peach Pickers really not only helped my career, but it was huge in taking Rhett and Dallas also to another level. Our team – because we're definitely a team – took us individually to the next level, but also took The Peach Pickers to a new level, just being together.
You've had cuts by guys like Blake Shelton, Luke Bryan and Martina McBride ... so who is your dream cut at the moment?
I guess if I had to say a dream cut, I'd love to have a George Strait cut. I'm a big Strait fan, and that has not happened so far. I've been close a couple of times, but still don't have one. That would be the dream cut.
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