UCN Interview: Ty Herndon – “My career is the icing on the cake”

13 years ago Liv Carter 3

At CRS 2011, I sat down with Ty Herndon to chat about his most recent release, Journey On, songwriting and the future.

UCB: What inspired you to work on your most recent project, Journey On?
Ty Herndon: I came back to Nashville six years ago, when my nephew was born, and I wasn’t really sure that I even wanted to do music anymore. I had actually even signed up to get my real-estate license because I’ve always liked rehabbing homes and selling homes. I was going to do that for a while and work on my songwriting. That is part of the river of creativity here in Nashville that I never really dove into. I started hanging out in coffee houses and writers’ nights, and called up some of my favorite writers and said ‘I want to hang out. I’ll be in the room but be quiet as a mouse.’ So after doing that for about a year, I started writing this record. I felt like it was time. My inspiration was just to tell my story. Instead of writing a book I wanted to write an album about hope and inspiration, and a little bit of the path that I had taken back to healing. I’ve been sober for eight years now and I wanted to talk about that healing process. What I found out was that my healing process actually relates to other people’s healing processes on many levels.

UCB: The record has a more contemporary Christian feel to it. Was that a natural result because of the subject matter or a conscious decision?
TH: You know, I had been promising the fans for a long time that I would do a gospel album because I grew up on country, bluegrass and southern gospel. I saw it as an opportunity to kind of do both; instead of a straight out contemporary Christian or gospel album, I just kind of did it my way. There is a lot of people out that who have bought my records over the years and I didn’t really want to confuse them too much. I wanted to stay true to who I am as a country artist in this album and I feel like we did that. When you hear it, it is definitely a Ty Herndon record but it’s got a very beautiful, spiritual thread that runs through the middle of it. I’m really proud of that.

UCB: How did the duet with Lizzie Long, ‘When We Fly’, come about?
TH: One of my best friends is Wayne Haun, who is an amazing conductor and producer, and is on the road with Ernie Haas. He is producing Lizzie so he said ‘you know, I would love to write a duet for you guys to do on her bluegrass album.’ I said I would love to because I love bluegrass. So I met her and just fell in love with her. She is just salt of the earth, so cool. We became fast and fierce friends. The night we took home a Dove Award for that song, we were on the phone to each other because neither of us was there; we had other obligations. And I was like ‘Can you believe this? This is so cool!’ I was honored by the Dove Award but my family was even more honored by it, we had been a part of the Dove Awards and Christian music our whole lives.

UCB: Music careers often depend on a lot of people working together. Who are some of the people without whom you would not be here right now?
TH: Oh wow…you know, we were just talking about Wayne, especially as far as this project goes, poising me for probably the more important country record of my career. The writers that I worked with on this album: Wayne and Joel, Caleb Collins, all the way back to…it’s funny Margie Hunt’s name keeps coming up. Margie Hunt saw me in Texas 15 years ago, singing cover songs in a band, said ‘there is something there’, brought me to Nashville and got me a recording contract. So a lot of pivotal people, special people without whom I definitely would not be doing this today.

UCB: With your experience, what advice would you give to young people starting out in the music business?
TH: Finish school, please finish school. Then move to Nashville. There is a place here called Lower Broad way and 2nd Avenue. Music starts at 10 in the morning and goes to 2 at night. If you are a pretty good singer, if you work hard you can get a job and figure out if this is what you want to do. Jean Shepard said yesterday, they will be inducting her in the Hall of Fame, she said ‘you have to get up in the morning every day and know exactly who you are.’ I mean, you look in that mirror and if you are a girl think ‘do I sing as good as Reba McEntire?’ and if you don’t think you do, then you don’t need to do this.

UCB: That’s placing the bar very high!
TH: Yes, it is. I think she was talking about whoever you think is the greatest singer in the world, if you don’t think you are that great then maybe you shouldn’t do it because, really and truly, this business is all built around confidence. Talent is definitely part of it but it is built around how you enter a room and the confidence you carry with who you are as an artist and as a person.

UCB: The reason you got on stage at age 17, is it still the same reason now or has your motivation changed in any way?
TH: I am a big kid. That probably will never change. You know, I am running a business now, I am helping to run a record label, producing and writing and all that stuff. But the heart of the kid is still there because no matter what you are doing today, you got to have fun. If you don’t have a heart for fun, the ability to get up and go ‘I’m going to try to make a difference today with my spirit and have fun’ then, once again, you are probably not doing the right thing.

UCB: It has to be fun but do you still set serious career goals or just go with the flow?
TH: I set goals, for sure. In 2010 we played about 80 dates and I said that I wanted to cause enough of a splash in 2011 to play 125 dates. And we are doing that. I want to have the country album done by the end of May and a single ready to go after that. You can’t set goals like winning awards or nominations, they are godly. I have reached a lot of goals this year and one of the reasons for the record was to make an imprint as a songwriter and I have been able to do that. So it is cool to be writing with some amazing writers for the new record.

UCB: What are you like as a songwriter? Do you keep notepads everywhere or set time aside and focus?
TH: My iPhone has a lot of ideas in it and a program called Evernote has a lot of my melodies. So I go into a writing session usually with an idea and a melody ready to go. It usually ends up taking a completely different direction but I think going into it knowing what you want to write about and what you want it to be is how I like to work.

UCB: After so many years, has your definition of success changed at all?
TH: Oh goodness gracious, yes! I care more about what I think about music and what I am doing now than I care about what other people think about it. I used to just run on ‘oh my gosh, you have to like me, you have to like what I’m doing’ and I got all my confidence and affirmations from other people. You learn, eventually. Once again, you have to surround yourself with love and light and be happy and proud of what you are doing in your day. It is interesting how that works. I just call it growing up a little bit when you start getting it. I learned that I love this business and I love what I get to do for a living but that is just the icing on the cake. The cake is made up of so many other things and it’s really important to understand and know that.

UCB: If I had a crystal ball that predicted the next 5 years, what would you like it to show y
ou?
TH: I would love to be making music, producing music, selling music and to have, my words are almost “easy career”, but it’s never easy. I just want to have a good, solid career.

UCB: And would you actually look into that crystal ball? Would you want to know?
TH: No! (laughs) I think that would destroy the whole process. The whole work ethic would be out the window if you just knew it was going to come easy. So I have to stay motivated and set goals, like you said.

UCB: What are 3 songs that you could not live without hearing?
TH: That’s hard! (laughs) You know, part of my process is if you have been feeling sad for a couple of days, you need to get it out. Sometimes you’re sad and you don’t even know what you’re sad about. We are human beings and we are spiritual and I can’t live without Bonnie Raitt’s ‘I Can’t Make You Love Me.’ If I want to get a good cry in, yes, guys cry, I put that record on. Actually, I know two, I don’t have three, but the other one is Keith Urban’s ‘Somebody Like You.’ That song was a pivotal thing in my life when I started loving myself better and taking care of myself better. I’d go running on the beach, put that song on and say ‘Thank you God for letting me love myself today.’ So those are two pivotal songs.

UCB: As a final question, what quote or saying inspires you day to day?
TH: It’s on my refrigerator: ‘I don’t care how many times they tell me ‘no’, I will walk in the spirit of the Lord and know my glory.’ That’s it.

UCB: That’s powerful.
TH: It’s really on the refrigerator. I am a big put-notes-all-over-the-house guy. (laughs)

UCB: I have those notes too! Thank you very much for your time.
TH: Oh, you’re very welcome, this was great!

Liv Carter

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.
Liv Carter

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