TAXI’s Michael Laskow Interviews Hit Songwriter Marty Dobson
Michael Laskow: In the Pop and Urban music world -- the level of songwriters’ demo production is often expected to be more polished and produced. Many songs on the charts are largely built on production in today’s market. Obviously, you're aware that there are guys who are top liners (songwriters who specialize in melody and lyrics), and people who are more technically adept at creating beats and tracks. In Nashville, when you go into a writing session, is it a little more pure, where it's two people with guitars or pianos, and you're not thinking about production, or do you hear, maybe like an EDM drum beat underlayment in something because you want to stay cutting edge, and the audience is younger. Do those factors come into play?
Marty Dobson: Yeah, they do. I'm writing with a lot of what we call “track guys” in Nashville. A lot of the 20-year-olds are coming into those writing sessions with some cool little loops. So, we may write to that, but we may not wind up using it in the end. But we start with that feel! One of the things I'm hearing publishers in Nashville says more and more is, “I need songs with bounce.” And I think they're talking about that Hip Hop feel that makes you bob your head.
And if you bring in something that doesn't have that bounce, songwriters are tending to get feedback telling them that it sounds a little dated. There’s so much of that going on, that you need to incorporate it into your songwriting to stay current.
ML: I'm glad you brought up the D word -- dated. I think it's because most people fall in love with music when they're 15 to 20 years old and, and to some extent, they freeze right there when it comes to what they write when they’re older. So how do you stay current? I know you already said you listened to a lot of radio or a lot of current records, but, as far as being current and being 15% ahead of what's happening today, does your brain now go to the beat? Are you hearing that little bounce when you write, even though you may not have a track person in the room?
MD: Yeah, in ways that feel authentic to me because I like some of that stuff. For instance, Maroon Five’s, vocal phrasing is really cool. So you know, and there's some of that rapid, off-the-beat phrasing that’s not what you expected.
ML: Yep, it’s not on the ones, the vocal phrasing often starts on the “and.”
MD: I try to incorporate some of that into the songs I write. I've got a 16-year-old son who’s a big music lover, and he sometimes plays me the weirdest stuff. But every now and then there’s something I hear in it that I can incorporate into a song that I'm writing. Maybe it’s a vocal trick or something in the production or a beat that I've never written, you know. And so I'm just always trying to be a student of different music and stretch myself. Otherwise, everything I ever write would be like The Eagles, James Taylor, and other artists of that generation.
ML: Yeah, well fashions change. With the exception of Converse All Stars, we’re mostly wearing different shoes, today. But, sometimes things do come back -- clearly, there's been a lot of stuff with lots of ‘80’s influence in the last couple of years in Pop radio. Do you guys see that creeping into Country where you'll go back to an era and recycle old stuff? What's getting recycled now?
MD: You know, Conway Twitty used to do that kind of thing. And so there was a period where that was big, and then it kind of went away. And so when we came in with something with that R&B feel, people were like, “Oh, that feels fresh and new,” and there a couple of songs that kind of feel like a disco, you know, some disco elements and things like that. You know, there, you can hear almost Bee Gees influence in some way.
ML: I love the Bee Gees. I'm a shameless fan.
MD: Me too. So I think to me, if you want to do it as if you want to make money at it and you want to get other people to record your song, you've got just to be a sponge and take in the great stuff from music that's coming out now. Take great stuff from music in the past, and find ways to make that contemporary to help people connect to that kind of thing. And so, and also I have to remember I'm not writing for me. If I'm writing a song for an artist to record, it's not whether I love it and I would say it, it's about whether they love it and they would say it. And so I want to have integrity and craft in what I write, but I'm not the end user.
ML: So many people feel like they've given up the artistic or creative side of what they do if they're not just emoting and waiting for the muse to show up. I think that by learning the craft and being aware of what you're doing at all times, that you're actually calling on a higher self, your creativity's being tapped, it's being stretched, it's being pushed, it's being pulled. You’re asking yourself to rise above what comes easy, and that's, that's hard!
MD: Yeah. I could sit down every day and write something kind of like James Taylor would have written, but it's just going to lay there, you know? I'm a big believer too that there’s really not too many songwriting “rules,” they’re just communication rules, and it's when we break those that the song's not very good.
ML: Explain that a little more.
MD: Well, an example I use a lot in my mentoring is somebody will switch pronouns and in the song. And so I will be talking to the person, and I'll be talking about a person. And so I'll say, Michael, you've been a great friend to me. I really appreciate you having me on the TV show. He is just an awesome guy. You're going to go, who's he?
ML: I love that you’re saying this!
MD: So I say that's not a songwriting rule… that's just bad communication. A lot of times, inexperienced songwriters don’t give enough of the backstory, so listeners don’t know it either. Well, that’s not a songwriting rule. It's just bad communication. So if I start telling you, “She took me for a ride and stole all my money,” you're going to ask, “Who is she?” And so it's not songwriting rule. It's just learning how to communicate in a way that's clear, and let's you feel what I was feeling when I wrote it.