by Brad Paisley
I’ve witnessed quite a bit in my time, but here’s something that I’ve never seen: a popular musician runs up onstage to accept a big prize at a fancy award show, only to have security stop him at the steps and ask, “Sir, can we see your diploma, please?” I’ve also never seen Brian O’Connell, my promoter at Live Nation, ask for my GPA when deciding whether or not to book me somewhere. Nor did EMI publishing ask to see my grades before signing me as a writer fresh out of school.
From a fairly early age, I knew in my heart that I was going to do whatever it took to be a guitar player of some sort. In my mind, this meant that whatever degree I eventually earned was most likely not going to determine how well I did in this life. At least that was how I justified to my parents and myself why I let the academic side of my life, um, slide. Instead, I focused almost completely on figuring out the music business. At school, I had always gotten away with doing the exact minimum that I had to do in order to get by. I guess I was smart enough that just attending class was usually adequate for me to retain the information necessary to pass tests. Okay, sometimes I did slightly less than that.
Still, as the proud son of a schoolteacher, I understood on some core level the value of getting a formal education. And I made a promise to my bookworm mom that I would get a college diploma. So after graduating from John Marshall High School, I took my tattered academic record and went to West Liberty State College—now known as West Liberty University—in Wheeling, West Virginia, for two years. While I was there, I learned that if I ever wanted to make it in music—and boy, did I ever want to make it—then possibly going to Belmont University in Nashville would be my best bet. For one thing they had a great music business program. For another, they were actually in Nashville. More specifically, right at the end of Music Row.
As it turns out, there is no easy or even direct path to making a name for yourself in the music world. If there was, I’ve got a feeling that would be one busy path with incredible traffic and people trying to knock you over all along the way. However, I had personally spoken with and asked advice from many people already working in Nashville, and time and time again, I heard that Belmont University was the sort of place where you could get plugged into some of the circles that might help you establish yourself in Music City, USA.
Until this point, I had not done a whole lot of serious thinking about how to get where I wanted to go. Now, perhaps for the first time, I began to ponder life and how I was going to get the privilege of spending mine making music for a living. I figured that one of my best shots might be to get to Nashville while I was still in college. That way I could take chances before some of those big, bad pressures of real life hit me and I suddenly had a mortgage to pay, a family to support, or any other actual grown-up responsibilities to consider.
Applying to Belmont University turned out to be among the best and most important decisions of my entire life. From the second that I started playing music, I dreamed of someday actually living in Nashville. And right from the very first night that I spent there after I enrolled, Nashville felt like home. And it has ever since.
Before attending Belmont, I had only been able to make the pilgrimage to Nashville a couple of times. A few trips here and there, some for business, some for fun, and I really felt the pull of this place like a paper clip to a high-powered magnet. I remember attending Fan Fair as a fan, watching the stars sign autographs in their booths and then perform at the grandstands.
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As it turns out, there is no easy or even direct path to making a name for yourself in the music world.
* * *
I still remember standing there in the crowd, looking at that stage, and feeling like the distance from the audience to the spotlight was a good thousand miles.
Arriving at Belmont, I felt instantly welcomed by my fellow students—many of whom were there for the same basic reasons I’d come. Belmont students are a unique lot. It’s not a cutthroat music school. It’s a Southern Baptist university. And it’s the South. That means there’s a decency and warmth in all things. Competition is fierce but has a “Bless your little heart” attached. And there’s room for everybody. Though I did not know it yet, among the students at Belmont were a number of people who would eventually figure prominently in my music life—including the kid who would become my future producer, a label executive or two, one of my main songwriting partners, my fiddle player, and some of my closest friends.
It didn’t take long for me to fall head over heels in love with this crazy artistic Southern town. How could a guy like me resist? Within my first forty-eight hours in Music City, I hit the streets. I drove over to a meeting at Opryland Theme Park with one of my few contacts. I had already auditioned long-distance to try to get a gig as a musician and performer there. The same company had previously offered me a gig at Gaylord Texan Hotel, but Texas wasn’t where I needed to go. So I passed on it but kept the numbers of the people who had believed in me. So I figured that just as soon as I hit town, I’d stop by Opryland and pay a visit to tell the powers that be that I was around. I was hoping that by some chance they’d need another guitar player at the now-defunct theme park. Certainly they’d need me, right? Because guitar players in Nashville are as rare as blades of grass. So I set out to pay a visit to a guy I’ll call Matt (because I can’t remember his name) who hired players for the theme park.
Well, as it turned out, the offices for the Opryland Park were right there at the Opry House itself. So when I arrived at the Opry backstage door, I thought, It can’t be this easy! And I walked right in. At this point, I was already completely taken aback because I could not believe I was roaming around freely backstage at the Opry. True to form, I was so excited that I got a little lost. I looked around for someone to ask directions. No one. So I ducked my head into one of the Opry offices to ask for a little help finding my way in this new place. And there before me, larger than life, was Porter Wagoner—but not in his typical rhinestones; instead, he had on a camo fishing cap and jeans. But it was Porter Wagoner just the same. What on earth could I possibly say to such a distinguished and truly iconic figure in country music history?
“Um, hey, Porter, do you know where I can find Matt So-n-so?”
This being country music, Porter Wagoner could not have been nicer, and he informed me that I could find Matt by going across the parking lot to the white building. I said, “Thanks, Porter. See you later”—six years later, actually.
As soon as you arrive in Nashville, you realize that it is called the “Athens of the South” for a reason. Nashville is an incredibly artistic town right in the middle of the Bible Belt. It’s a big, beautiful contradiction. It’s like a rock star in a church pew. It’s the Bible-publishing capital of the world, and at the same time, it’s the place Harlan Howard wrote the book on cheatin’ songs. The two need not be mutually exclusive. I find it to be the healthiest of combinations—it offers the old moralistic virtues of the South along with the freethinking creativity of all the modern artistic movements.
Unlike some other places where people go for the business of music, it’s also a very real and very human place. There is an accountability in Nashville. In New York or L.A. you can be a complete prick. It won’t matter. You couldn’t possibly offend enough people to make a dent in the population wide enough to affect your job or reputation. It’s just too big. It’s not even real. It’s massive and make-believe in those places. In Nashville you have to work together on these few streets that make up Music Row, because you will see your nemesis at the Pie Wagon at lunch. Screw somebody over and mark my words, they will be two tables over at South Street at dinner. Or at the very least, across the room at the Pancake Pantry the next morning. And eventually we will make you leave and go to one of those bigger places where you belong.
There’s an openness here though, too. For me, the true spirit of Nashville and country music is best captured in something that the great songwriter Harlan Howard once said (and that helped inspire my song “This
Is Country Music”). Once, somebody was giving Harlan a little grief about one of his cheating songs, specifically about whether he was glorifying infidelity by writing it. Harlan wasn’t having any of that. “No, I write songs about things people do,” Harlan told them, “whether they’re right or wrong.”
That’s country music—that simple but wonderful idea of just telling the truth. It’s at the heart of what the best writers do so well here in Nashville. Country music is sort of like reality radio—as opposed to reality TV, where it seems they just make the stuff up. Nashville is a town that excels at giving people a powerful platform to tell the truth for mass consumption. This truth is the secret weapon in country music. The art of our town comes from painting an honest picture in living color.
And there’s another thing that I’ve always loved about Nashville: our town is different from other entertainment capitals of the world because there’s an unspoken (and occasionally spoken) rule here—no matter who you are, or how big you get, you can’t forget where you came from. If Porter Wagoner can be nice to a fool like me backstage at the Opry, then who am I to be anything other than nice as well? This is a country tradition that other genres of music could learn from a little. Roy Acuff wasn’t a jerk, and Little Jimmy Dickens is maybe the nicest guy in the world. These people created country music, so who are any of us who follow in their footsteps to act like idiots and treat people badly? It is my belief that the precedent has been set. No changing it now.
At Belmont, I wasn’t trying to walk in anyone’s footsteps yet—I was just trying to get my foot in the door. I took whatever courses were required and for once in my life, I actually paid some attention. The degree that I was there to get wasn’t even technically in music; my degree was in music business—which is actually a bachelor of business administration degree. So I actually put my college education straight to work for me and had it pay off right away. I still remember every word and statistic I learned in publishing class about the statutory royalty rates and how publishing can be split in different ways. I vividly remember hearing from one of my professors about what writing a number one song might possibly earn you. It was eye-opening, and almost every bit of it ended up being highly relevant to my life. I devoured it. I even went to the bookstore and bought the books for all my classes. A first for me.
My academic record, sadly, is not without one painful yet hilarious blemish. What I am about to tell you is not something that I’m proud of, but I believe that you good people reading this trash have a right to know. First, please take any small, impressionable, guitar-playing children safely out of the room.
* * *
I even went to the bookstore and bought the books for all my classes. A first for me.
* * *
Okay, I have a horrible confession to make here among friends.
I, Brad Paisley, future multiple winner of the Guitar Player magazine reader’s poll for best country guitarist . . . got a D in guitar.
What the hell, right? Well, I can explain . . .
It was my first semester at Belmont and the class was taught by a great jazz player named Marty Crum who still plays around Nashville.
At the same time, I was pursuing several opportunities in town, including a number of internships and a few females, and so I may have skipped my guitar classes a few times that first semester. Okay, maybe I skipped a few times more than a few times. Stupidly, I figured that I could clearly play guitar, so how bad a grade could I get?
I found out about my grade when I went home to West Virginia, right in time for my parents to receive my first report card from Belmont—the one in which I got a D in guitar. My parents hit the ceiling. I still recall my father yelling at me—and he hardly ever yelled, unless I really deserved it. “Of all the damned things for you to fail at—a D in guitar! You pack up your things and move to Nashville, and the one thing you’re there to do—the one thing you’re actually good at—you bring home a D!?”
As usual, Dad had a point. So I called up Mr. Crum, over the holiday, and I said, “What can I do about this? I can’t have this on my record.” And he told me, “What you can do is show up for class, Brad. This grade isn’t about your playing. It’s about you not even showing up or learning anything that I told you to learn.” He had a point too.
“This is going to ruin my academic record and break my parents’ hearts. Is there anything that can I do to at least turn this D into a C? Anything. I’m begging you,” I said.
“If you come back to school, and learn these things and play them for me, and promise not to miss another class this year, I’ll give you a B.” And he kept his word.
Now whenever I get a little too cocky—and that can happen—I think back to that D in guitar. And you know who’s happiest in retrospect? My parents. They are actually sadistic about it. It is one of their go-to knock-me-down-apeg weapons. If I’d known how much they were going to love having it to hold over my head, I wouldn’t have worked so hard to change it to a B.
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SOLO
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A day before his seventeenth birthday, Brad’s laboratory exploded, giving him a supernatural ability to play guitar but also leaving him hairless. Unbeknownst to most of his fans, Brad is completely bald on top. That’s why he wears the hat even to bed.
—JIMMY KIMMEL
Other than in jazz guitar that first semester, I worked diligently during my time at Belmont, especially in my internships. I knew enough to know that I needed to know more. I interned as many places as possible—ASCAP, Fitzgerald Hartley management, and Atlantic Records. I decided I would be discreet at my internships and not be too outspoken about my aspiration to be an artist. I realized that anybody hiring someone for a position, albeit a nonpaying one, didn’t want to think the person they’re hiring really wanted to be doing something else. I also had just enough sense to realize that just like in any business, I needed to meet the right people, and maybe a few of the wrong people too. I was most excited about that.
My first internship was my best. That was at ASCAP—the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, one of the leading performing rights organizations on earth. I found myself working with John Briggs, an important membership representative, and Connie Bradley, who was the head of ASCAP’s Nashville office. There could not have been a better place for me to learn about music publishing and songwriting.
When I first started at ASCAP, I didn’t tell anybody I played or wrote. I just absorbed everything going on around me. John Briggs had gone to Belmont himself and had been an intern too, so he knew what I felt like. Early on, John told me, “I’m going to take you everywhere.” And he did. He took me to every showcase and every board meeting. He had me go as his stenographer to some meetings, even introduced me as his assistant at others. That was the best education I could have ever received. I met people I still see now and who still remember me as John’s intern.
Eventually at ASCAP, a few people figured out that I wrote songs—mostly because they started asking me, and I didn’t want to lie. One day, Tom Long—another member’s rep and great guy—asked me to play him one of my songs in his office, and I said, “That’s not why I am here.”
Tom replied, “Don’t be modest—play me a damn song!”
I said, “I don’t—”
“Play me a song or you’re fired,” he said jokingly. I reminded him I was working there for free. But in the end, how was I to refuse?
I played Tom a song called “Before I Heard Your Name.” It was kind of a schmaltzy love song but heartfelt.
Tom heard me sing and play this little number, and he flipped out. He said, “Play me another.” I did. He went and got John Briggs and said, “John, get in here. Have you heard your intern sing yet?” John admitted that he had not. He then proceeded to listen and quickly said he thought I had what it took. After th
at day, these great people at ASCAP began to unashamedly cultivate my writing ability. They set me up cowriting with some great writers, and they even put me in the coveted songwriter workshop they offered, where top writers like Gary Burr, Pat Alger, Mike Reid, and Tim DuBois would come in, speak, and critique. Looking back now, I know for a fact that the path I wound up taking was due to ASCAP. They would eventually send me to meetings, which led to my first publishing deal at EMI. They allowed me to actually observe the way business was done, as opposed to merely fetch coffee and make copies. And they accidentally introduced me to the most talented song guy I would ever meet—Chris DuBois.
Chris DuBois was roughly my age, had just graduated, and got hired as a new-membership rep at ASCAP about three months after I started my internship. Our similar sense of humor was obvious right away, and we really hit it off. When he found out I wrote songs, he wanted to hear them. So I would frequently go into his office and play him what I was working on. His advice was always amazing; he really had a knack for knowing the best way to make a song better. One time, I went in with a half-done song, and he had a hundred suggestions on how to improve it. I said, “Why don’t you just write it with me?” He said, “Hmm. All right. Maybe I could.” And just like that we sat down after work and began the first composition of what would be a hugely successful songwriting team. The amazing thing is, Chris had never even tried to write a song prior to that night. Years later he would win the ASCAP country songwriter of the year award.
