Interview : Brent Cobb: “Writing In Nashville Was Like Something Straight Out Of A Movie!”
Interview : Brent Cobb: “Writing In Nashville Was Like Something Straight Out Of A Movie!”
You will need a pretty detailed map of Georgia to find Brent Cobb‘s hometown of Ellaville. Reluctant to leave this small town, Cobb eventually made the move to Nashville where his talent was noticed by many. Travis Hill and Frank Liddell’s Carnival Music was the lucky company that snatched him up first and Cobb has landed cuts with major artists including Luke Bryan, about whom you’ll hear more in the interview, Kellie Pickler, Eli Young Band, and most recently the opening track of Little Big Town‘s Tornado album, ‘Pavement Ends.’
Brent also found time to work on his own project, a self-titled EP, and send his debut single, ‘Love on Me,’ to radio. His music is a mix of the old and the new, a fresh take on a traditional idea if you will, and free to be creative, he has delivered a very interesting and accomplished disc.
Read on to discover his story and for more information about Brent, visit brentcobb.net.
UCN: When did the EP come together?
Brent Cobb: We put it together at the end of last year, but it’s been a work in progress for a while. Everything was written over the last year so it’s all kind of the same time-frame.
UCN: The radio single you pulled off this was ‘Love on Me,’ and the first time I heard it I did think ‘Is this still allowed, this much fiddle and steel on the radio?’
BC: Yeah… [laughs]
UCN: What was behind that? Was it just what you felt the song needed?
BC: Yeah, I can’t say my music will always be that way, but on that song in particular it just felt like that sort of song. It just called for fiddle, mandolin and steel. It fit the song perfectly. We had the great Glen Duncan and Steve Hinson play on it. Steve is one of my favorite steel guitar players, you can’t put anything past him and he not make it sound great. It just felt right in the studio.
UCN: Did you get any reaction to that from radio? I mean, it sounds new but it’s still so traditional.
BC: There’s a station, the first one that added us, KMOG in Arizona, an independent radio station. They were so enthusiastic about it sounding like this, being reminiscent of days gone by, so, yes, we’ve gotten feedback about that. And even just yesterday, a fan on my facebook music page said that one of the biggest draws of my music is that it has fiddle and steel. I don’t know that it will always be that way either. I mean, on some songs that arrangement might sound like something crazy.
UCN: Speaking of days gone by, I remember you saying you always had music around when you were growing up.
BC: Yes, my grandma has a picture of my great-great uncles and cousins and they all just have their instruments, you know, their fiddles and their lap steel. It’s twelve of them and they’re all just hanging out together, so I know it’s been in our family for that long. And maybe you can’t quote me on this because I’m not sure, but we’re supposedly kin to Jimmie Rodgers, who was the first to be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. I kind of hope that’s true!
UCN: ancestry.com, dude.
BC: I know! [laughs] My grandma is a historian so she has some way into this. I’m going to get on her about this. I know we’re at least kin to a Jimmie Rodgers, and he’s in this picture I am talking about, but that’s not the Jimmie Rodgers. But yes, to get back to that, music has just always been around, and it was on both sides, not just my dad’s side. My mom grew up in Cleveland, which is the home of rock ‘n’ roll, so all her brothers play, and I’ve just been around it all my life.
UCN: Do you even remember a time when you became interested in music, or was it always on your mind?
BC: Always. I remember walking with my sister and picking up a rock and I had this song…[sings] millions and billions and gillions of rocks, time after time after time after time. I mean, kids do that but I actually remember it still.
UCN: Yes, that’s quite impressive.
BC: That was the first song I ever wrote, I guess. I remember the day and even picking up the rock. Right now I pride myself, I don’t know how long I will be able to do this, but I remember every lyric to every song I ever wrote. I don’t even have to write them down. When I write them, they’re just there forever. And I always also remember the spot where I wrote it. I wish I could find something else that I did that with. I mean, if I could do this with math, I could be rocket scientist! [smiles]
UCN: Alongside listening to your family play music, who were the main artists you heard when you were growing up?
BC: The first artist that had a big impact on me was Elvis, and that was one of the first sets I ever got, a karaoke Elvis tape. My dad loves Elvis! Then the second album I got was The Black Crowes album, Shake Your Money Maker. He had a bunch of cassettes and I remember seeing the cover of that one and thinking ‘Man, they look crazy, this is going to be cool!’ I also remember a CD that had the live version of ‘Free Bird’ and ‘Can’t You See’ on it. My dad had this little Fender guitar and I remember finding those songs and then recording me playing over those tracks. It was terrible, I wasn’t even really playing the guitar. I would set it upright, turn it way up, and kind of hammer on the strings. I thought I was doing something that nobody had ever done before. [smiles] So, I guess, Marshall Tucker, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Elvis and The Black Crowes, they were stuff I was into. Oh, and Chuck Berry.
UCN: That’s interesting that it’s a mix of rock ‘n’ roll and southern rock. While the base of your EP is that traditional Nashville sound, there is this layer on top that’s not quite rock ‘n’ roll, do you know what I mean?
BC: Yeah.
UCN: I was trying to figure it out wondering is this influenced by the Bakersfield sound, no, not really, and it’s all quite unique.
BC: That’s awesome. Thank you, a lot. And now we’ll just see where it goes. Now that we’ve got the foundation, who knows which way it will go, maybe completely traditional or maybe just straight rock. I don’t even know.
UCN: That’s going to depend on what you write and what that needs, I guess. But switching to something else, how did Luke Bryan get involved in your career?
BC: That starts in 2006 when I made my first album. If I hadn’t been able to make that album with Dave [Cobb] and Shooter [Jennings], then I wouldn’t have been able to give it to Luke, and he wouldn’t have been able to be a fan of what I do, and he wouldn’t have been able to introduce me to everyone in town. That happened through us opening shows for him, with my first band which was just a cover band. My bass player gave him the CD and he just really liked it. He stayed on me about coming here, and I was reluctant to come here or go to L.A., I just wanted to live in Georgia. Finally I gave in and I called him but I was still like ‘I don’t want to move, man.’ A little bit of time went by and me and my dad were watching GAC one morning and Luke’s video came on. He told me to call him but I said ‘Nah, he’s too busy now,’ but then he called me the next morning, left me a message and told me to come here.
UCN: What was your initial impression on Music Row? You had visited here before I guess.
BC: Yes, when I was little, but I didn’t know…I thought Lower Broadway was Music Row.
UCN: So do a lot of people, I think.
BC: But thank goodness…[smiles]
UCN: Yeah, I know! [laughs]
BC: So, when I got here with Luke, it blew my mind. He took me to the top floor, to A&R, Larry Willoughby’s office. It was just crazy to me, I couldn’t believe it. We went to Warner-Chappell building and we co-wrote in the Liberace room with Jay Knowles. That was the first co-write I had here. I was just like ‘wow, I’ve seen this side of Nashville’, and I felt like I was in. It was like something straight out of a movie.
UCN: Surreal.
BC: Absolutely.
UCN: How long did it take for that to become normal?
BC: It took until about two years later when I actually signed with Carnival, and then after the first year of being signed with them, then I was finally like ‘OK, this is pretty normal.’ I don’t know why really. Luke was always really cool about the business. That week that I stayed with him, he was breaking it down for me, mechanical royalties, performance royalties and all that. We were just sitting in his driveway drinking beer and he was explaining all this stuff to me. I was just like ‘Man, how in the world do you know all this?’ I never really realized you could do this for a living, you know. It was strange to find out really.
UCN: If in your family music was just what was going on, you had no need to go seek it out.
BC: I guess so.
UCN: What were those first meetings like for you? I mean, he can take you to the door, but you still needed to go sell yourself.
BC: It just really depended on how I was that day. For publishers, the very first meeting I went to was actually with Carnival and that morning I wasn’t nervous, everything just went right. I had my coffee, I guess. [smiles] I was really comfortable and I walked in there and said ‘I just wanted to let you know I’m going to play you some of the best songs you’ve ever heard.’ [laughs] It was funny and we just got along, you know. But then the next one was different. I walked in and felt shy and didn’t feel like anything I said would have come out right. I sat down and played the most depressing songs you’ve ever heard. So he was like ‘I don’t know, I can see you doing something more alt.country but I don’t know if you are what we are looking for.’ I knew I was blowing it but there was nothing I could do. I’m kind of still that way, when I meet people now. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s part of being a songwriter, we’re all crazy… [smiles] But maybe if we weren’t we wouldn’t write those songs! [laughs]
UCN: I actually think that’s true. [smiles] I have friends going ‘I sometimes wish I could be a little more normal…but then I think I couldn’t create things like this.’
BC: I swear I believe that!
UCN: How did you develop your way of writing?
BC: It really freaked me out at first writing with strangers because I always try to write things that I have lived or experienced. And really, it’s kind of the same like I just said, if I walk in and I feel immediately that I’m not in it, or it’s someone trying to write a song that I can’t feel at all, I just shut down and freeze up. Bu then on days where I can just do my thing, it’s great. I have no control over it. But if I don’t feel it, I try not to write it.
UCN: Oh and they understand, they’ve all had days like that.
BC: Yeah, everybody does.
UCN: Unless maybe Dallas Davidson who I think even writes hits in his sleep. [smiles]
BC: And hit after hit after hit. [smiles]
UCN: Of your songs, ‘Diggin’ Holes,’ I really like that one! You wrote that with Casey Wood?
BC: You know Casey?
UCN: I’ve met him at rounds at the Bluebird a couple of times. He’s so good.
BC: He’s awesome! He’s the real deal. He even had his time here as an artist. He came here for a while, and then he left for a while, built a house, started a family and then he came back. It’s just a cool story. We wrote right after he got back to focus on writing. He came in that day and he was just on fire. We talked for a long time about his brother in Kentucky, and about both of us sort of being in the dog house a little bit at that time with our ladies… [smiles] We kind of threw both ideas together. He said his brother played music but had wanted to stay in Kentucky because he was good at diggin’ holes. I let him finish talking and then said ‘Man, we gotta write that,’ but then about being in the dog house. After that it just fell out.
UCN: Where did ‘To Be Saved’ come from?
BC: You know, in life sometimes you just kind of get off track and you feel like you need straightening up a little bit, when you have a couple of those days where you feel like you’re not doing right. It was one of those mornings when I woke up, and I wasn’t writing anything by my-self then, and I needed to feel something that I wrote 100%. So I just started strumming my guitar and wrote that. That one took a couple of hours to finish. I just wanted to write about wanting to be saved and do right.
UCN: I like the idea in ‘Good to Go for Cheap,’ I like the idea of a party song where the character is not actually going to the party. [smiles] Is that something that actually happened?
BC: Yeah, it was when I was working at Walgreens and trying to work with Carnival. I was sit-ting in the house one night and all my buddies were hanging out but I had to go to work at 7 in the morning. All my friends were out and I was just reminiscing about ‘man, those were good times,’ just to be down there and it’s just a big playground in rural Georgia. And I’m broke and sitting in the apartment, so I just wrote that song. But yeah…good times were had by all but me. [smiles]
UCN: Hey, you got a good song out of it, I’d say you got more than they did.
BC: There you go, that’s right! [smiles]
UCN: And then the ballad, ‘Dear You,’ was that a specific situation of from a general feeling?
BC: I was living in Ashland City, me and three other guys. I lived on the top floor of this three-story house and I remember sitting up there looking out the window. It was sort of similar to ‘To Be Saved’ where I was just thinking about life. I grew up around religion and I’m pretty religious, so I sat there looking out the window and the song is really a letter to God. I started writing it that way and then finished it with a writer called Barry Dean, who’s a great writer.
UCN: Do you now mostly co-write?
BC: I write a lot by myself. When I co-write it’s often a song I already started and I’ll bring it in. Like I was talking about earlier, sometimes I have a hard time wrapping my head around someone else’s idea. I co-write a lot, but am constantly writing by myself, always. I can’t stop it.
UCN: But that’s good. [smiles]
BC: I know… [smiles]
UCN: What’s next for you this year?
BC: It will depend on how well ‘Love on Me’ does. I’d like a full-length album out soon but we’ll see how this song does. If we can get it to a certain point then we’ll definitely put something else out.
UCN: I look forward to hearing it. Thank you!
BC: You’re welcome!
Contact Brent Cobb
0 comments: