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RSR044 – Jim Reilley - How To Write A Song For Music Row (Or Not)

Songwriting

The words on some of the songs that really inspired me, it’s amazing that there’s only like two verses and a small chorus. Here in Nashville everyone’s like, “You got to have a bridge and the second chorus has to be different...” Not really. Some of the songs are so small and brevity is really important. I also feel like in the studio, knocking them out quick doesn’t always work. You don’t always have the luxury of having a great engineer or great players or great artist. I've always admired and studied the work of Brian Wilson (Beach Boys), George Martin and Geoff Emerick (Beatles). 

"Everyone that wants to get in this business should see this!" - Jim 

What Do You Do When You Produce A Record?

That’s a good question and a lot of artists want to know that too when it comes to money. It’s different for every artist and every production I do is different in one sense and that is that I kind of look at the artist I’m working with and decide how much influence or intervention there should be on my part. Typically an artist that I produce usually I’m a fan of, most always now. A lot of times I’ll just let things happen and then arrest something that isn’t working too well as opposed to getting too heavy handed and oppressive about it. I’ve seen where producers have been that way and it works sometimes, but I don’t like to be that guy. My whole philosophy when I produce somebody is I always say... What I’d like for you to do is have a record where you can meet a random stranger in an airport and after they ask, “Well what do you do, what are you all about?” You just hand them the cd and you don’t have to say anything else. This is the kind of music I do. I don’t have to say, ‘Eh it’s kind of folky poppy, but it’s blues and it’s cajun.. The music will speak for itself. If I did my job right, then they are proud enough to give that without having to say, “Well the producer wanted me to do this, but I didn’t want to.” I’ve had so many people give me projects that they’ve done where they’ve had to qualify virtually every song on the record. I just want to listen to it. It does me no good to produce something for someone that they aren’t happy with because ultimately I want them to be proud of it and give them what they ask me for in the first place.

What About Your Internal Process of Inspiration, How Do You Approach That?

I don’t like to script a lot of stuff so much because then I feel like I’m kind of tethered to that, but it does help when you’re trying to move fast. Sometimes you do need to hear it to know it’s wrong. I’ll be the first one to do an experiment and say, “this probably isn’t going to work, but for me can you just take two minutes and try this.” I’ll never be a guy who says, “No, absolutely not, we can’t do that.” After I hear it and it’s terrible well then I’ll say that, but until then I always like to try. 

What are the Basics of Copyright?

That’s a tricky thing. So much music is so easy to get to now. That even trickles down here in Nashville to even playing the songs live. A publisher will tell a songwriter, “well don’t play that at the Bluebird because someone else will hear it and rip it off.” Half of me is like, well maybe. That does happen, it’s happened to me! But at the same time where are you going to play? What are you going to do? Just be careful. As a writer you have to have this sort of attitude that well if they want to take it and do it better, let them try. For Youtube, I would try it as long as it’s copyrighted. There’s form PA and form SR. From PA is the actual copyright of the song. So you write the words and the music, that is a copyright for that song. Form SR is the form of the sound recording. It copyrights the recording, not the song. You can do multiple songs so basically if you do a record you copyright the whole record on form SR for one price. Whereas form PA you send a recording of the words and music with a lyric sheet. Some people will mail it to themselves so they have the postmark on it, but it’s just safer to do through the copyright office (You can do all of this online) Then your song is copy written! If you have some crazy mojo on this vocal or crazy guitar sounds you came up with that's really exclusive to your song, use copyright form SR so the sound of the song is copy written. A lot of times there’s so much music going on that just getting noticed is a success story these days

What Makes a Great Song?

That really depends on a lot of factors. I don't really think anyone knows, maybe paul mccartney might know. I think everyone knows when they hear one. To me a great song can be the riff, it could be the hook, it could be the melody, it could be the drum part. When I produce artists I ask them to make me a list of songs either for spotify or on a CD of what songs they love and why. What about that song do you love? Is it the vibe, is it the mood, is it the drum pattern, is it the vocal? So it helps me do shorthand. So we go into the studio together and make a record without having to explore all those options (we do sometimes), but this way I know what you do and do not like going in.

Jam Session