And The Writer Is...with Ross Golan

And The Update Is…a weekly beat on the industry . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today's guest wrote "The Climb." She also wrote "I Drive Your Truck," "Mine Would Be You," "Don't Think Jesus," and "Ain't No Love in Oklahoma." But her real story isn't the hits. It's the ten years before the first one, the five years after it when the phone stopped ringing, and what she figured out in between about how to actually last in this business.

From a dropped record deal and years as what she calls a washed-up artist nobody would write with, to Song of the Year, a Grammy nomination, and a run of hits she wrote while raising three kids under three. She carries three things at once that almost no writer figures out how to hold together: a working method she can actually teach, a conviction that this is a calling and not a job, and a refusal to write the safe version of anything.

And The Writer Is... Jessi Alexander!

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A special thank you to our sponsors for making these conversations possible.
Our lead sponsor, NMPA — the National Music Publishers' Association. Your support means the world to us.

0:00 Intro
0:48 Her favorite non-songwriting songwriter trick
1:54 "How do you make unavailable country men emotional?"
5:33 The five songs on her Hall of Fame plaque
11:07 Pool halls and stick shifts: "that color is what I draw from"
12:42 The artist deal that fizzled — "I wasn't the artist type"
13:31 No man's land: "no one took me seriously, I was a washed-up artist"
14:01 The insane story behind writing The Climb: "just another damn day"
20:11 Bud Light, a guitar pull, and a British director
22:07 Being told The Climb would change her life "Sir, that doesnt happen to people like me"
28:08 Nashville still said No
30:38 Getting men to sing: long notes and the falsetto flip
31:44 "What part of their tool belt have they not used?"
34:32 The professor who told her to quit school
36:18 Her album, the mergers, and Redneck Woman
40:27 New mom: "they'll just put someone else in my spot"
45:30 Good mom or good at work — never both
46:16 2015 to 2020: "the water just turned off"
48:23 Advice for the writer whose phone stopped ringing
50:24 The song that rang every bell
57:21 Concept-first or melody-first: "I'm the director"
61:16 Songwriters own it. Screenwriters sell it.
64:16 Imposter syndrome and the Billy Strings answer
65:24 What makes Morgan Wallen great
69:46 "I don't like to not know where all the bodies are buried"
71:43 I Drive Your Truck (Crazy story)
74:37 Her granddad's truck in the driveway
75:44 "Call in the third. Call in the fourth. Call in the 10th."
76:46 No #1 party until they found him
80:36 The truck-song traffic jam they were worried sick about
85:38 "Keep your head down." Still the only answer.

Credits:
Hosted by Ross Golan
Produced by Joe London & Jad Saad
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today's guest is a songwriter four albums deep, with a song that's been picking up new listeners for nine years and Mick Fleetwood playing on her latest record. But her real story isn't any of that.

From weekend stage camps in West London to opening Wembley for Taylor Swift five months after giving birth, she spent a decade releasing roughly one song a year into near silence. What kept her going wasn't a plan — it was a pair of collaborators who got nothing back for years and got up and made something every day anyway.

This is an honest conversation about what a long stretch of nobody listening actually feels like, and what happens when the proof finally shows up on a timeline you didn't choose.

And The Writer Is... Suki Waterhouse!

Hit subscribe and turn on notifications. Every week, we go deep with the most interesting creatives in music.

Follow us on socials: @andthewriteris

A special thank you to our sponsors for making these conversations possible.
Our lead sponsor, NMPA — the National Music Publishers' Association. Your support means the world to us.
And @splice — the best sample library on the market. Period.
They've developed a Sounds plugin that allows creators to actually get paid for derivatively generated work from their art, and they have paid out $100M+ to artists already since inception.

Chapters:

0:00 Intro
0:46 How's being a parent and doing music?
1:18 "Being a parent is only hard for good parents"
2:49 "The girl with the guitar" — how her daughter describes her job
4:30 Test-driving album demos on a toddler in her "no" phase
12:44 Somewhere Over the Rainbow — and losing to the girl who sang All Saints
14:38 The voice teacher who told her she was too skinny to sing
15:58 "I was angry. I had this huge fire in me."
16:42 The friend group that turned on her: "fuck this school, fuck these people"
26:45 "You walk through open doors" — model, actor, musician
28:56 "Brutally," 2016, and ten years of making things nobody heard
31:01 Advice to a young female artist: learn to produce, even basically
32:56 "I went hunting for my fucking tribe. And I found them."
35:54 Amy Winehouse at the pub, The Libertines, and a London scene that's gone
38:12 Backstage at a Jake Bugg show — meeting Natalie and Jules at eighteen
39:23 "They got zero back for years and years and years"
42:45 Extreme ADHD, a giant sitar, and a fight over a song
46:26 December 7th: flying to London for a song that didn't exist yet
47:16 The pact: "if we're not writing something brilliant, we're not carrying it on"
47:28 The worst audition of her life, in the dark
48:09 A Wurlitzer, a Mellotron, and the song that opens the album
1:01:39 "Good Looking" — top ten on TikTok, written nine years ago
1:05:53 Covid, Daisy Jones, and deciding to just make the record
1:06:32 Every label said no except Sub Pop
1:08:40 "It's nothing about what happens in the first week"
1:10:16 "Dangerous Woman" and a song that gains meaning over time
1:11:38 Daisy Jones: "my name wasn't on the list and I was fucking pissed"
1:16:24 "You're more envious of the check than the song"
1:26:14 What makes a good song — Beck, Elliott Smith, and roughness
1:29:26 Red Rocks with no ear monitors: "I was in insane debt"
1:32:04 Opening for Taylor Swift at Wembley
1:34:17 Hayley Williams: "this one's for Mr. Waterhouse"
1:37:02 A baby in March, a record in September
1:39:44 "When everyone goes a bit red — that's when you keep it in the song"
1:40:35 What to play driving at night, heartbroken, walking through London

Credits:
Hosted by Ross Golan
Produced by Joe London & Jad Saad

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

And The Update Is…a weekly beat on the industry . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.