Little Rebellion Music

When describing to people the realities of being a songwriter in Nashville, I have in recent years brought up the story of Dan Couch. His path to being an “overnight success” was 15 years in the making. You can be as talented as you’d like to be, but most often it is about patience, dedication, and some luck. His lucky break happened years before he found success, when he started writing with a then unknown and unsigned Kip Moore. Now, two #1 hit songs later, we chatted about what it takes to pursue a career for that long, the importance of the willingness to change your dreams, the songwriter-publisher relationship, and generally the intricacies of songwriting.
I opened with my usual starter question:

LRM: Why did you start to write songs?
Dan Couch: Probably just because I love songs, and I love the way songs spoke to me. I think I was 17 years old I wrote my first song, but it wasn’t to try to get a song on the radio. At that time I wasn’t even thinking about that, I didn’t even know there was a job writing songs at that time. I thought I was going to be a professional baseball player, it wasn’t on my mind to be a professional songwriter. My mom loved music, loved songs, would always stop me if she heard something lyrically that was really cool, she’d say “you gotta hear this!” So I don’t know, maybe I was just trying to impress my mom. [smiles]

LRM: One of the reasons I wanted to talk to you is because I like your story. Maybe you don’t see it that way, but I like how long it took.
DC: [laughs] Well you know, I’m okay with that now.

LRM: I think there are lessons in that and maybe by the end of this we can even come up with the moral of the story. [smiles] Your decision to come to Nashville was, I think, initially to be a performing artist, right?
DC: Yeah, I came here to be the next Garth Brooks.

LRM: Well, yeah… Why not? [smiles] DC: Yeah! [smiles]

LRM: I mean, he kept getting told that he wasn’t going to make it anyway… [smiles] DC: That’s right! [laughs] I just drew some inspiration from his story. He was kind of the good guy, the clean guy. He’d never been in prison, didn’t do drugs, it was a new kind of country music. He’s a very charismatic individual and I was inspired by the whole thing. I think I wanted to be that, I wanted to be a part of that. I think I fell in love with the idea of being a star, more that I fell in love with the idea of being a performer. Maybe that was kind of backwards, but I’m so thankful that I was delusional enough to think that I was going to be the next Garth Brooks, because that got me to Nashville, and got me writing songs as a way to try to get into the business. Ultimately, what I realized was that what I loved doing, what I was passionate about, was the songwriting and not the performing. I did have a band back in Indiana for a while. We’ve moved from out west to Indiana for 18 months to get ready to come to Nashville. I had a band at the time and did enough performing to know that, okay, I kind of like this, but the truth is I didn’t really love it, I was in love with the idea of doing it and that’s what got me to Nashville.

LRM: How did you start to identify that it was about stardom rather than wanting to be a performer?
DC: I think that was only after I came here. We actually moved here in 1995. That moment didn’t come until about three years later, after having done all the open mic nights which I did for three years. At the same time I was writing and some time in that I was like “gosh, you know what, I said I was going to come down and do this but what I really want to do is get good enough to become a writer for a publisher, to become a staff writer somewhere.” So the goal changed, the dream changed. I signed a publishing deal in 1999 and by that time I was already not thinking about doing the artist thing anymore.

LRM: Was there an element of having to check the ego at the door, or was it just understanding of wasn’t your path and doing songwriting instead?
DC: If there was a tough thing it would’ve been sort of owning up to the fact that I went “Hey, I said this is what I was going to do but it’s not what I want to do anymore.” But you know, I have a great wife and she’s been behind me the whole time. She didn’t say “You said you were gonna do this and if you’re not going to do that then we’re going back home.” I didn’t get that from her, thankfully, I got “If that’s what you want to do, you need to try to do that.”

LRM: That’s what you do when you love someone. Or maybe I’m just a romantic…
DC: But that’s good. [smiles]

LRM: You met Chris Oglesby but then it still took a whole year to get your first deal with him. What was that year like? Did it feel like being in limbo or did it feel like progressing?
DC: It felt like I was progressing. I thought I was ready for a publishing deal but I probably really wasn’t. Chris was encouraging about the things that I was writing and he liked the songs enough to say, “that’s cool, let me know when you got some more songs and then come back and play me some more stuff.” That went on for about a year. What did get a little bit stressful is that in that time my wife became pregnant with our first child. All of a sudden I was feeling a little pressure because it wasn’t just us anymore, I was gonna have a son. I applied for a job at Nissan, and I was still going to continue writing but I was starting to feel the pressure so I applied there. And in that same month, that was when Chris finally, after a year of playing for him, said “I’m going to go to bat for you and I’m going to tell the rest of the creative staff that we need to sign you.” So that was a huge relief!

LRM: What were some of the lessons from that first deal?
DC: I would say to just be thrilled that somebody’s actually paying you some money to write songs, but you have not made it. This is just the beginning. I was signed by a big publishing company, BMG, they were one of the biggest in town getting all the Kenny Chesney, Tim McGraw, Faith Hill cuts. They had a bunch of great writers on staff and it took a minute for me to realize that, holy cow, this is the big leagues! So it’s not good enough for your songs to just be good.

LRM: Was [Craig] Wiseman still there at the time?
DC: Yeah, Wiseman was there, Aimee Mayo, Chris Lindsey, Ed Hill, Bill Luther, Hugh Prestwood, Josh Kear, Luke Laird,… I mean it was a huge stable of writers! Actually Luke and Josh at the time were kind of where I was in my journey, just beginning. They didn’t start having their success until after that first BMG deal as well. But we were learning, we were on staff with the best of the best, people like Marcus Hummon. It was really a huge lesson! I could turn in a session of five songs but so would all these other great writers. So if I’m going to get any attention from any of the song pluggers, who are going to take what’s the best, to try to get it heard and get it on a record, if your stuff is not really special, you don’t have a chance.

LRM: So suddenly you’re going from trying to get good enough to get a deal in the first place, to trying to get good enough to compete with Craig Wiseman and Marcus Hummon.
DC: Yeah, absolutely a steep learning curve. I was competing with the pros

LRM: What specifically did you learn about songwriting? Was it the technical side of writing, how to write a hit, how to identify what Nashville wants?
DC: I don’t think it was anything technical but really just the opportunity to do it day in day out, and I wasn’t worried about running to another job. I had a job now and that was to write songs, and get better at it. At the time BMG was really good about saying “look, we don’t expect you to get a song cut in this first year, or maybe even the first two years in this deal. We want you to get better at writing songs, we want you to figure this thing out.” They were really good and really patient about helping songwriters. I don’t know if there’s still that much of that going on today. I think people are already pretty good songwriters, or they’re artist-songwriters, when they’re getting signed to their first deal. I think that side of the business has changed a lot. But what mainly did I learn? I learned to work hard! You know, guys like Wiseman who get there early and stay until 7 or 8 pm to finish the song, or a guy like David Lee who is really digging to try to get the best possible lyric and match that with the best possible melody. It was just really learning to work really hard to make the song all that it could be. I also learned a lot about being in the studio and trying to direct a band. I learned a lot about working with musicians and trying to record demos.

LRM: It seems that first publishing deals are just about education. I’m sure there are exceptions but it seems that the first deal for many people is going to school and then after that you do the real thing.
DC: What I’ve seen is that on your third deal, that’s when things start to make sense and that’s when you start getting success. For me that’s been true. I’m in my third publishing situation right now and I am now having success.

LRM: So I guess it’s like first deal is college, second deal is graduate school, and then you have a career.
DC: Yeah, maybe so. [smiles] I’m just hoping to have some more success before somebody figures out that I don’t know what I’m doing and throws me out of town. [smiles]

LRM: Just between us, I don’t think any of us really know what we’re doing… [smiles] DC: [laughs]

LRM: You mentioned trying to get attention from song pluggers. How did that translate to your writing? Did you ever talk with co-writers about things like “this plugger is pitching to this artist and he’s been recording this kind of material, so let’s write a song just like it to try to get a hit.”
DC: No, that’s never really been my approach. It has been to write something that I know, understand, have lived, am living, or known somebody to have lived it. I like to write about what I know about. So that first hit, ‘Somethin’ ’bout a Truck,’ came about very easily for me and Kip, to talk about trucks and a girl and beer. I mean, I have pictures in my mind of being 17 years old when that was going on. But we didn’t set out to try to write a song about trucks that day.

LRM: That’s a song I refer to a lot when I talk about song structure. Introducing four elements in four verses and then pulling them all together in the chorus, I love that! Nobody does that in Nashville now! [smiles] DC: I’m glad you like it!

LRM: Back to education – I think initially and in those first deals is where people learn the basics of songwriting, and then later they get to a level where they can start writing more freely and play with things like song structure.
DC: But at the time when we wrote that, I still didn’t have success.

LRM: Oh I didn’t mean success, I meant you were writing at that high level by then. Because some people who write just as well might not get success, or others who maybe aren’t as good still get success. That’s the element of luck we were talking about before.
DC: Oh yes, I see what you mean.

LRM: I think writers need to give themselves time to develop, maybe years, where publishers will help guide the writing a little. And with ‘Truck,’ I’m almost sure that this happened where at least one publisher told you guys “four verses before the chorus, no, you can’t do that.” [smiles] DC: Oh sure. But even Kip and I, when we wrote it, were saying “nobody’s gonna play this on the radio but this is how the story has got to be. This is how the song needs to go, how it needs to be built.” I think at the label they were a little hesitant at times, saying “I don’t know, it takes a minute and 45 seconds to get to the chorus.” So it’s a special song for many reasons, but that is one of them. It went against how a song is supposed to go these days, structurally, and it still works. And it worked in a really big way, for me and Kip. It was his big introduction to the country music world and for me finally having success after a lot of years of trying.

LRM: And like before at the start of this, you may not see it this way, but I thought it was a good thing that ‘Mary Was the Marrying Kind’ didn’t blow up to like Top 10 level. I think it gave Kip time to get used to everything, do the radio tour, and then build the next song up to #1. Although I do love ‘Mary’ but apparently audiences weren’t ready to hear that song at the time.
DC: I guess not. It was crazy because the song initially was doing so great. He played it at the Ryman Auditorium during CRS and absolutely crushed it. All the radio people there loved it. It got 23 first week adds and we thought “Here we go!” That was a crushing blow when the label came off that song and decided they were having to fight too hard to try to get radio play it. It was crushing.

LRM: How do you deal with that aspect? Do you go in denial, do you harden yourself to it? Do you find a therapist? [smiles] DC: I think therapy might have been appropriate at the time, yeah. [smiles] I think probably for the first time ever since moving to Nashville I was like “what I’ve I done? What have I got my family into?” This looked like such a sure thing. We had the head of the label, Luke Lewis at the time, saying “this thing is a smash!” Then we had everybody reiterating that idea to us, everyone at the label, the promotions people, the management, other publishers involved. It was really tough to go through that. And thank God that I had the next single, ‘Truck,’ to look forward to. It’s crushing when you get any kind of bad news. I had a song recorded for the recent Kenny Chesney album, a Wiseman song, one I wrote with him and PJ Smith, and it didn’t make the record. They recorded it but it didn’t make the record. Those are tough blows. But you learn how to deal with that. What you realize is that it happens to everyone. All the guys who have hit songs have had those heartbreaks too, where they’re being told “this song is gonna be huge, it’s gonna be the first single,” and then the song ends up not even making the record. It happens all the time, because opinions change and it’s an ever-changing climate and there are so many stars that have to line up, so many people that have to be in agreement, and they have to have the whole team pulling in the same direction.

LRM: Songs really have to run the gauntlet. I think many people don’t understand how many people a song has to go past before it goes anywhere near a playlist.
DC: Absolutely. But I was losing sleep at that time, in between ‘Mary’ and ‘Truck.’ The ‘Mary’ single died in July and ‘Truck’ wasn’t released until September 26, so those were three pretty tough months for me where I was losing a lot of sleep, waking up at night and not being able to go back to sleep and wondering “Holy crap, what do I do? What if this really is not going to work?” I thought that once you made it to that place where your song is on the radio, it was going to happen. In my mind, I just started to believe that. I think what it teaches you is that there really are no guarantees and that you better just keep your head down and write. Just write. You can let a lot of that stuff mess with you. At the time when you should be creating, if you’re spending time thinking about that stuff, you’re not writing, you’re not creating. And that’s really what you need to be doing, continue to create new work and to try to make this next song special, and continue to write and get more irons in the fire with other camps, and with other artists. And hopefully something then ends up taking off.

LRM: Is it a part of your personality to think that way and to be that levelheaded, or is it just from experience?
DC: I am an eternal optimist, and I’ve always kind of believed that you can do whatever you put your mind to if you work hard enough and if you put in the time. I think that’s how I was raised. I never doubted that we could be sitting here with hit songs today. I always believed that. And thankfully I had people around me who believed that to.

LRM: So it was a matter of being patient enough to find the one path that works rather than saying this is the only path I am willing to try?
DC: Yes, exactly! I didn’t say “if I by this time I don’t have this or that, then I’m quitting.” There were times where we would take a look and evaluate where we were, but enough good things happened throughout the years that made us think that this is possible. I was talking to my buddy, my accountant, he’s one of my best friends from high school, and he and I were talking about this. He was down here for the ‘Hey Pretty Girl’ celebration. I asked “Did you ever think it would take us this many years?” I can’t believe it took this long. I signed my first deal in 1999 and were just now having some success. And he said “I know when you think of it that way it seems like a long time,” but then he said “but you were always six months to a year away from something happening.”

LRM: Oh what a great way of looking at! It doesn’t feel like that long of a time if you constantly think “I’m just about there.”
DC: Absolutely. [smiles]

LRM: Did you ever think “that’s it, I quit,” even for a fleeting 5 minutes.
DC: No, I never thought “that’s it, I quit.” I did get scared when Mary didn’t work and the thought crossed my mind for the first time, “Oh my God, what have I done? I spent all this time doing this, and my wife has been right here supporting me, and what else could I have been doing?”

LRM: There are two other songs I wanted to dig into a little bit more. One is ‘Hey Pretty Girl.’ You know the lines in there that say ‘Life’s a long and winding ride / better have the right one by your side.’ From the first time I heard that, and I don’t know Kip at all, but I thought “you are so talking to yourself right now. This isn’t about telling this woman this, this is you telling yourself this.”
DC: Oh yeah… [laughs] I definitely think there are some things songwriters feel they need to write and it is definitely therapy. I think that song in particular is for Kip what he wants to have and for me, thank God, it is what I have. So it’s a cool thing that we were able to collaborate and talk about what it is going to be like for him, and what it is like for me. It’s one of my favorite songs I’ve ever been a part of.

LRM: And it’s also a song that doesn’t have quite a conventional structure.
DC: True. But it’s real, and I think that’s why fans respond well to it, because it’s written from a really real place. I think that comes across and Kip’s delivery of the lyrics is incredible.

LRM: I like that it reflects what one writer is wishing for and the other writer already has. Plus, it’s the best story in the world of meeting that person and building that life.
DC: Yes, true. [smiles]

LRM: The last song I want to discuss of that group of songs is ‘Reckless.’ The total honesty of that, I’m interested in that kind of writing. What decisions did you guys make, how much was allowed in? The stuff that didn’t make the song, is it because it simply didn’t fit or because you filtered what the label might not have accepted?
DC: That was a situation where Kip was like “Let’s just say it and I don’t care what anybody says. I just want it to be real.” I was cringing a little when he said that line ‘I got fired for smoking pot,’ so I’m going “Aw man, we can’t say that.” But I think one of the reasons that Kip and I work well together in the writing room, is that I probably write more traditional George Strait-style songwriting, maybe kind of a prettier lyric, a softer lyric, and then he has an edge, and he’s not afraid to say something like that. When you put it together you end up with what works.

LRM: And where he still gets to say what he wants to say, but you kind of help shape it a little.
DC: Yeah, I think so. I try to help him say things in a way that’s not going to get him in too much trouble. [smiles] When he said that line ‘I told him I had something he could stick way on up his ass,’ I went “dude, we can’t say that!” But he was like “We’re saying it!” [smiles] So, I don’t think anything is off limits. Maybe you don’t use the actual name of that person, but I think it’s one of the coolest things being honest and also being entertaining in a song like that. I think people empathize with the character too. I think it’s an endearing song for Kip because he’s saying “you know, maybe I’m way too much about having fun, but I’m still growing up. Don’t give up on me.” I think it has a really honest and endearing quality about it.

LRM: When you write with artists do you adjust anything about your own approach to writing, since you know that they are going to have to be the ones singing it?
DC: Yes, I think so. The interesting thing with Kip is that he was years from a record deal and we started writing so in that situation, no, we were just coming together and collaborating and trying to come up with the best possible song. But now when I sit down with another artist, or even now that Kip has a deal, it’s different because, if he’s not going to record it he doesn’t just want to write a song to write a song anymore. He wants more of an inspired lyric and not just sit down because we’re supposed to be writing that day. When you have a publishing deal you’re supposed to write five days a week, sometimes twice a day, trying to get songs. I definitely think it’s important to know the artist you’re writing with, because there are certain things that they’re just not going to say if they’re being honest, and if they know who they are. I respect it so much if they say “you know, I just wouldn’t say it like that” and then I think it’s our job as songwriters to then go “okay, tell me how you would say that and let’s figure out a way to write that line.”

LRM: When you now work with new songwriters do you know talk about some of the things you’ve learned or do you think it’s important for them to mostly figure it out themselves?
DC: I think every writing situation is different so it’s hard to say. But right now, I mostly write with people who already have a publishing deal. But if somebody really just got to town and doesn’t know how anything goes yet, maybe.

LRM: And I didn’t mean it as in ‘tell them what to do,’ but I think it’s important to, while letting writers develop themselves, also make them aware of the reality of the business. Because there is a reality and you can try to not deal with that but then you’re not going to get success.
DC: I think that something that all songwriters who end up making it have understood. And I don’t think it’s a compromise, it’s just a realization. You can write songs that are going to go over well at the Bluebird Café all day every day, but at some point, if the publisher is not having success in having those songs placed they can’t continue to pay you. It’s a business and a large part of it is commercial.

LRM: Is it a decision you felt you consciously had to make? Or can you basically keep two catalogs, the one you turn into your publisher to pitch and the stuff you write for yourself?
DC: I think you definitely should do both. I think you should try to be commercial, and then also find a way to tell your stories. Successful writers can write the hits, sure, but they can also write songs that are the opposite. But like you were saying, the hits are what sells, that’s was paying the bills. So yes, songwriters should be writing those songs. But there will also be part of the time where they will be writing songs that they know won’t have a chance. I think you have to do both, you have to be flexible. I think you have to be flexible when you get into a new writing situation, with the new co-writer, and you need to let other people bring to the table what they have, and then try to make it something cool. Something you couldn’t have done on your own. Otherwise, just go write them all yourself.

LRM: Is that the most gratifying part of songwriting for you, to walk into a room with nothing and you walk out with something that didn’t exist a few hours ago?
DC: That’s definitely something I don’t grow tired of! I have been so lucky to since 1999 call songwriting my career. I haven’t always made very much money, in fact I made very little money for most of those years. And some years no money at all. But I love it, I love doing it. It doesn’t feel like work to me, it’s exciting to get up and to come in and put words on paper, and create melodies and to put music together with these words to create a new song. For me, it’s terribly gratifying to come up with something new! It’s always exciting and it’s always fun. And there’s always the chance that it could be something that ends up getting recorded and gets played on the radio. There’s a lot of gratification in writing a song, but I’m not naïve enough to think that if I didn’t think we could knock it out of the park every once in a while, would it still be gratifying, would I still feel the need? And I’m not sure… That’s the honest truth. We all come in here to take our swings and step up to the plate when we step into the writing room. And you try to knock the ball out of the park, and once in a while you do. But if you believe that “Look, we’re gonna write all these songs but were never gonna have a hit,” that would take the motivation away. Because I believe a large part of the motivation is to be successful, and to be heard, to have an audience, and yes, to be able to provide a living.

LRM: So then, at the #1 party for ‘Truck,’ what was the primary feeling you had? Was it, this is the culmination of all the hard work, or was it, I’ve done it once now let’s do it again’?
DC: I think I was just so happy to be there, and so happy for my wife just to be able to say to her “Look, we did it!” If you handed me a football then I wouldn’t have wanted to spike it and go like “YEAH!!” [smiles] I just felt so fortunate, so lucky, so blessed, to be standing there and so happy with the entire situation, how it came about with the group of guys around me and around Kip, from the producer Brett James, to the manager, to all the other songwriters on the record, the people at the label, it just really felt like such a family thing. I felt a lot of love that day.

LRM: How do you see the next few years developing for you? Is it about maintaining success or building it up further?
DC: Yeah, when I’m not writing songs now we think “how do we take what we’ve done so far and make it bigger?” So I’m thinking about, is it time to partner with another company and combine resources and creative people, and maybe giving the songs I’m not writing with Kip a better chance to get recorded on other projects. I think about my catalog and its value continues to increase now, so we have an asset there. I think about that, yeah. I think about what’s next for us as far as publishing goes and making sure we cam have continued success. If I can have a hit song or two on every Kip Moore record, I’m not going to complain. [smiles] I just want to continue having fun and to love writing songs.

LRM: Do you also think about giving back to the songwriting community and supporting other writers?
DC: Yes, I’m speaking at an NSAI meeting at MTSU soon, and I’ve done that a lot, talking to people who are aspiring writers, and try to give them a little bit of the education I got. I didn’t know anything when I came to town, knew nothing about the town, how it operated, knew nothing about the music business, except that I wanted to be in it.

LRM: Well…I thought I knew a bit about it, but then when I moved here, it turned out I didn’t. [smiles] DC: Yeah, there’s a lot to learn. [smiles]

LRM: But I sat down and shut up and listened to people who know more than I do, and I am slowly learning and then passing that on.
DC: Along with talking to new songwriters, I think what I’m thinking about more than anything now is my buddies, who have been working just as long and as hard as I have. I want them to start having some success too. That’s going to be really cool, and I hope that I can have some of that success with them. The new Kip Moore single is one that he and I wrote with Westin Davis [editor’s note: ‘Young Love’ will hit country radio in November]. So now I’m thinking how cool would it be to have another #1, and how cool would it be for that to be with Westin! I would love to be there for his first hit, and be a part of that. I think about the people around me who have been working just as hard and who for whatever reason haven’t had a hit song yet.

LRM: Well, just let me know when the #1 party is.
DC: Deal. [smiles]

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Liv Carter

Liv is a career coach for creatives, and the people who work with them.
She holds several certificates from Berklee College of Music, and a certificate in Positive Psychology from UC Berkeley.
Her main influences are coffee, cats, and Alexander Hamilton.

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