Speaker 1: Carala. She's the Queen of talking. He was She's only act.
Speaker 1: She got the scoop on one side. No one can
Speaker 1: do with Cli Caralam, Carala. No one can do with
Speaker 1: quiet Caral. This tiple, Caroline, this interview is so moving
Speaker 1: to me. Jesse Alexander has the voice of an angel.
Speaker 1: She's one of the most incredible, soulful songwriters of all times.
Speaker 1: She wrote The Climb for Miley Cyrus, which was a multiple,
Speaker 1: multiple number week on all genres. She wrote I Drive
Speaker 1: Your Truck for Lee Bryce. That song moves me to
Speaker 1: tears every time I hear it. She's written so many
Speaker 1: incredible songs and they all come from from such a real,
Speaker 1: truthful place, So get excited. She shares her heart, and
Speaker 1: her heart is so beautiful. And all of these songs
Speaker 1: that she's written, she has on her album of her singing.
Speaker 1: It's called down Home. So make sure you pick up
Speaker 1: a copy of down Home. It's a beautiful album of
Speaker 1: her versions of these hit songs. You will not want
Speaker 1: to miss that album. Okay, here's Jesse Alexander. Jesse Alexander,
Speaker 1: so happy you're here. I'm so glad to be here,
Speaker 1: and I'm so happy We've been sing each other almost
Speaker 1: weekly for the past couple week, which is rare. Great.
Speaker 1: The last place I saw you was a symphony did
Speaker 1: this in nationale to this huge event with the Rose Garden,
Speaker 1: and you played your big hits with the symphony behind you,
Speaker 1: with the stars under the stars at the Rose Garden.
Speaker 1: It was beautiful. That to me shows how cool songs
Speaker 1: are because you write these songs and their hit We're
Speaker 1: gonna get into all your hits in your whole story.
Speaker 1: But you write these songs and their hits on the
Speaker 1: radio in one form, but then you go hear them
Speaker 1: in a whole another form. That's the power of music, right,
Speaker 1: And it's just so funny to get to tell the
Speaker 1: stories behind the songs. And I mean, I love to
Speaker 1: be up on stage with you know, some of my
Speaker 1: favorite songwriters just to hear them tell their stories. And here,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of the song at its core. So
Speaker 1: it's it's it was magical night. It really was. Have
Speaker 1: you noticed being a songwriter, like there's this whole other
Speaker 1: world when people hear songs on the radio and they
Speaker 1: hear someone like Lee Rice or Miley Cyrus singing these songs,
Speaker 1: you think that a regular listener might think that, oh,
Speaker 1: Miley just wrote that, or it just came out of
Speaker 1: the thin air, or where did that song come from?
Speaker 1: No one really knows. But there's this whole songwriter world,
Speaker 1: and it's a very layered world because the songwriters, it's
Speaker 1: I feel like, are the truth tellers and you have
Speaker 1: to almost live your song sometimes to get them, which
Speaker 1: is it's kind of the Achilles heel because it's it's
Speaker 1: a blessing and the curse. Right, Yeah, you have to
Speaker 1: kind of go through hell to write a song. As
Speaker 1: certain songs, you know, you have to live them. Um.
Speaker 1: And it is kind of been my whole journey, you know.
Speaker 1: It's like every song that I've had popular has been
Speaker 1: something that was a serious, you know, hurdle that an
Speaker 1: obstacle um, some kind of huge life lesson that I
Speaker 1: had to learn to then put it in a song,
Speaker 1: which is can be like you said, like frustrating, daunting.
Speaker 1: It's it's like I know that I'm that writer, Like
Speaker 1: it's not gonna just come to me, you know, I
Speaker 1: have to live them. And and so yeah, it has
Speaker 1: been quite a journey with that. I have all your
Speaker 1: songs that have made it to the top of the
Speaker 1: charts that have they been a deep They've all been
Speaker 1: honest pretty much. I mean, you know, I got fortunate
Speaker 1: enough to have just a good drinking song, you know,
Speaker 1: with drink on it, which is fun too, because you know,
Speaker 1: I don't want to be taken just as the serious
Speaker 1: heavy songwriter. Right these let's just go there. We got
Speaker 1: the Climb by Miley Cyrus I Drive Your Truck, which
Speaker 1: was c M a Song of the Year for Lee Bryce.
Speaker 1: That story is crazy. We're gonna get into that. Blake Shelton.
Speaker 1: Mine would be you Yeah, and drink on it. It's
Speaker 1: just kind of like drink on it. Yeah. So I
Speaker 1: write so many kinds of songs, you know. I write
Speaker 1: honkey TNK songs, drinking songs, cheating songs, grief songs. I mean,
Speaker 1: I try to be very well rounded writer. But for
Speaker 1: some reason that those are the songs that have been popular,
Speaker 1: and so it's it is a blessing. They had a
Speaker 1: heart string on it. Yeah, And I tend to go
Speaker 1: for the jugular, you know, and I have an idea,
Speaker 1: like you know, that kind of idea comes along, you know,
Speaker 1: I try to go to its depth. And that's just
Speaker 1: always been my personality. So I want to talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about your journey. So you come to Nashville
Speaker 1: and you come here as a recording artist, you come
Speaker 1: when to be an artist? Actually, no, I, UM, I've
Speaker 1: left MPT issue. I was there for four years, and UM,
Speaker 1: I was a social work major, and I really didn't
Speaker 1: know what I was gonna do. I was already playing
Speaker 1: in a lot of bands, and I was like everyone's
Speaker 1: backup singer, frontman. So when I moved to Nashville, I
Speaker 1: really had no other vision but just to make a
Speaker 1: living making music, because I really thought I'd either be
Speaker 1: a backup singer a demo singer. Um. I was never
Speaker 1: someone that wanted to be in the limelight. I could
Speaker 1: tell by being in the bands that I was in.
Speaker 1: Even though everybody try to get me to be the
Speaker 1: front singer. Your voice needs needs to be the front singer,
Speaker 1: That's why. But I was always like, yeah, but can't
Speaker 1: you know, why don't you take the second half of
Speaker 1: you know, I'll sing the first half. I really tried
Speaker 1: to pass it off. Yeah, but because of my voice,
Speaker 1: I think people always tried to put me up up
Speaker 1: in the front. And you always know you had this
Speaker 1: talent of a voice. I knew that I had a
Speaker 1: voice that evoked emotion at a very young age. I
Speaker 1: can remember singing in front of people and a me
Speaker 1: feeling something, you know, I felt um something come through me.
Speaker 1: But I also could tell that there was something in
Speaker 1: my voice that would emote emotions. We always felt that. Yeah, really,
Speaker 1: so you've never just dialed in a performance and like,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give it my best, meriit cary impersonation. You've
Speaker 1: always felt it. No. I can remember, like maybe ten
Speaker 1: age ten or eleven, like me closing my eyes and
Speaker 1: singing and then opening them and people have tears in
Speaker 1: their eyes. Just do you think that's God? Definitely? I
Speaker 1: mean I think it's God, and I think it's my purpose.
Speaker 1: There was that, even at that young age, there was
Speaker 1: something that needed to be said and come through me.
Speaker 1: But I didn't know what that was. I mean, I
Speaker 1: was just a red knick kid from West Tennessee. I
Speaker 1: didn't know, you know, anything. I didn't know there could
Speaker 1: be a job singing, you know, or definitely not being
Speaker 1: a songwriter. But I can just really remember those early
Speaker 1: times singing me. I was very shy child, and I
Speaker 1: was the only child. I was kind of a lone
Speaker 1: her and so to be in the limelight was not
Speaker 1: comfortable comfortable for me. But when I moved here, the
Speaker 1: first thing I did was get a backup singing job,
Speaker 1: which was so much fun. I mean, my third day
Speaker 1: literally living in Nashville, I had boxes all over my apartment.
Speaker 1: I got on a bus and headed to Beaumont for
Speaker 1: like a two week run with an artist named Matt King.
Speaker 1: So I had kind of that dream Nashville, got a job.
Speaker 1: I was a backup singer. I was on tour. You know,
Speaker 1: years old, You're like, this is great, it's crazy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it did it feel easy? It did it kind of
Speaker 1: felt I mean, you know, looking back, I had like
Speaker 1: four years of hard work prep, so it was kind
Speaker 1: of like I prepped myself. By the time I got here,
Speaker 1: I really was engaged in the business. But because of him.
Speaker 1: He was a Warner Chapel songwriter as well, and so
Speaker 1: he was like, the songs you're writing, you really should
Speaker 1: get a publishing deal and that would keep you home.
Speaker 1: And you're like, what's the publishing Exactly, what's the publishing?
Speaker 1: Someone will pay you to write songs, and sure enough,
Speaker 1: this's this whole world totally. And so that's how I
Speaker 1: got my first publishing deal through that back like a
Speaker 1: Cinderella story. Did he help you get it? He did?
Speaker 1: He um introduced me to his song plugger Kurt Denny
Speaker 1: at the time, and I got my my publishing deal.
Speaker 1: The negative and kind of the story to my whole career.
Speaker 1: There's like a certain themes that just keep coming back up,
Speaker 1: and this is one of them. It was six months
Speaker 1: into my first deal I lost the guy that signed me.
Speaker 1: Oh so you're champion correct leaves correct, and so now
Speaker 1: you're just like orphaned literally and just kind of so
Speaker 1: no one's really rooting for you. No one's your advocate.
Speaker 1: You know what's so crazy it is you think like
Speaker 1: you just get linked up with the company and it's
Speaker 1: just this company runs it. It is all about the
Speaker 1: personal relationships, isn't it. And it's moving parts all the
Speaker 1: time and like parts all the time of something that
Speaker 1: I mean, we could we could spend a whole segment
Speaker 1: just on that story. So your people leave you, you
Speaker 1: get them. And so I think that it's kind of
Speaker 1: call as me to really um find strength within myself. Now.
Speaker 1: I mean, I definitely lean on others, but that dust
Speaker 1: yourself off, pick yourself up kind of mentality has just
Speaker 1: been because you just can't give everything to someone because
Speaker 1: they might well miss that whole thing of like sometimes
Speaker 1: you just gotta do it yourself, you know. And it's
Speaker 1: caused me to I think it's to endure and I've
Speaker 1: found persistence and that endurance within myself. So I don't,
Speaker 1: you know, regret any of that. But yeah, he he
Speaker 1: left and then what happened that's left. That's when I
Speaker 1: just started to find my own people, find my own way,
Speaker 1: try to find people. I found some mentors um early on,
Speaker 1: an incredible songwriter, Gary Nicholson was one of the first
Speaker 1: people that said, why are you not an artist? You know?
Speaker 1: And then Al Anderson and a kind of a team
Speaker 1: of writers kind of surrounded me, and I got my
Speaker 1: first deal at m c A with Tony Brown and
Speaker 1: Mark Right and Legendary. It wasn't zing Can produced Elvis
Speaker 1: played with Elvis. He produced Emmilu Harris, which you had
Speaker 1: been like you were like the reincarnation of Emmy Lou Harris.
Speaker 1: That's that was everyone was gonna say, you were going
Speaker 1: to be the new Emmy Lou. Did that feel like
Speaker 1: a lot of pressure. It did, um, but it also
Speaker 1: felt natural because I'd grown up on that kind of music.
Speaker 1: The negative at the time was there wasn't Americana yet really. Um.
Speaker 1: I can remember the early Americana fests, you know, festival
Speaker 1: that was kind of starting to brew, but like the
Speaker 1: true Americana artist wasn't really established. You had two routes
Speaker 1: to go. You could either go down like Shannai Twain,
Speaker 1: Um Faith Hill, Martina McBride, or it was more like
Speaker 1: Lucinda Williams, Patty Griffin. There wasn't, you know, the Chris
Speaker 1: Stapledon Mini Brown or the Casey Musgraves. That just wasn't there.
Speaker 1: And for someone like myself, I really wasn't either, you know.
Speaker 1: And I tried to make a record that was a
Speaker 1: little bit of both, but I didn't put both feet
Speaker 1: in either areas. You're kind of dancing both lines and so.
Speaker 1: And as the story you know, goes a year into
Speaker 1: my first record deal, the person that signed me leaves.
Speaker 1: Why do you think this is a common theme? I
Speaker 1: don't know. Do you think it's a lesson you needed
Speaker 1: to learn? I guess so, because I keep just learning it.
Speaker 1: What do they say the lesson repeats until learn. But
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a big lesson to have to keep
Speaker 1: learning on a big scale. And so with that and
Speaker 1: plus the culmination of that and me truly not as
Speaker 1: I became this artist and they were developing me. The
Speaker 1: closer I got to that, the lesson that felt authentic
Speaker 1: to me. Okay, so you felt like maybe you were
Speaker 1: chasing someone else's dream a little bit. Kind of. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was like I just started to realize that the
Speaker 1: radio touring and just touring in general playing music felt
Speaker 1: really natural, but talking about myself in terms of being
Speaker 1: an artist did not feel as natural. I really always
Speaker 1: wanted to hide behind someone else, you know, And and
Speaker 1: at the time I didn't understand why. You know. I
Speaker 1: also had some extreme life things going on. My mom,
Speaker 1: who had been battling cancer form probably two years up
Speaker 1: to that point. She was diagnosed again, but we found
Speaker 1: out it was terminal. And so being an only child,
Speaker 1: I mean, here I am, I've got a record deal,
Speaker 1: this is kind of fizzling out, my mom is dying.
Speaker 1: It was just a very dramatic, dramatic time for me.
Speaker 1: So it made me put in perspective of this record deal.
Speaker 1: It was kind of like what what am I chasing?
Speaker 1: You know, I had to re examine my life at
Speaker 1: three years old? How do you re examine your life?
Speaker 1: Because all of a sudden you have this record deal
Speaker 1: and now it seems like your ada, kids leaving. You know,
Speaker 1: it feels like it's not going exactly how it had
Speaker 1: been presented. Your mom's now dying, dying, and what are
Speaker 1: you thinking? Like? How do you process life at that point?
Speaker 1: How do you know? How do you handle it? I
Speaker 1: think that looking back, you don't process that yet, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean it was just like plow through. You know,
Speaker 1: there was too much to do. There was just you know,
Speaker 1: whether it be planning her funeral or then it was
Speaker 1: you know what is that getting? It's just you just
Speaker 1: do it. There's no there's no one else to do it,
Speaker 1: you know. There You're just I've always had the kind
Speaker 1: of that survivor instinct, um, which I do feel like
Speaker 1: God gave me and that's like one of my tools
Speaker 1: and my tool belt felt But um, I just pushed
Speaker 1: through and I got lost in music. You know, I
Speaker 1: leaned on music. I leaned on songs, you know, I
Speaker 1: leaned on songwriting. Um. My husband was also entering my
Speaker 1: life At the same time John Randall, who was a
Speaker 1: savior in so many ways, and just by you know,
Speaker 1: being that person that I could sit up and drink
Speaker 1: a bottle of wine with and cry to, or you know,
Speaker 1: saying let's go here's music tonight, or you know, we
Speaker 1: In the midst of all that, you know, I'm also
Speaker 1: recreating myself as a songwriter and kind of letting go
Speaker 1: of what I wasn't and becoming who I was. Do
Speaker 1: you ever feel crazy in this evolution? During that period,
Speaker 1: I definitely felt crazy, And I think grief will make
Speaker 1: you do crazy things, but I didn't realize. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm sure we'll get to it with that drive your truck,
Speaker 1: but all those things I had to feel to write
Speaker 1: these songs, Because these songs you're writing are deeply feeling songs. Yes,
Speaker 1: they're like of my core, but at the time, I
Speaker 1: don't know that I'm going to need those feelings. You know,
Speaker 1: you had to come out later in song. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: had to live through these things for a song of
Speaker 1: that caliber to have been born. Honestly, totally, and I
Speaker 1: think the hardest, like if I looked at the whole
Speaker 1: my whole career, the hardest obstacle was the one that
Speaker 1: I was just about to face, which was rebranding myself
Speaker 1: as a songwriter. Because once you say you're an artist,
Speaker 1: people don't want to take you because there's a songwriter
Speaker 1: and there's an artists, and then there's those like Miranda
Speaker 1: Lambert and it is a divide, isn't it not a divide?
Speaker 1: But it's a difference. Yeah, And so I would walk
Speaker 1: into the co write and they'd be like, what are
Speaker 1: we writing for you? And I had to even as
Speaker 1: a female, is even harder to say, well, I'm not
Speaker 1: writing for you know, Faith Hill. Today I want to
Speaker 1: I'm not writing for myself. I want to write for
Speaker 1: Faith Hill, or I want to write for Even more
Speaker 1: than that, I had to say things like I want
Speaker 1: to write for you know, Tracey Atkins, I want to
Speaker 1: write for Luke Brian And they're like, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: but you're an artist and people don't necessarily want to
Speaker 1: do that because they're like, oh, great, we have an artist, right,
Speaker 1: so we have a chance of getting a song a
Speaker 1: lot quicker on the album because if you're just writing
Speaker 1: for someone else and you have to pitch it and
Speaker 1: has to go through a million different processes and finally
Speaker 1: has to get to the artist. So it's a lot
Speaker 1: harder when you're not writing with the artist as a songwriter.
Speaker 1: So that's why people kind of have you on a
Speaker 1: pedestals and artists are like, great, I could get in. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I had to just abandon all of about I mean,
Speaker 1: it was a rebranding, if you will, I mean, I
Speaker 1: do a proof that I am a real songwriter. You
Speaker 1: know that I had written all of my record and
Speaker 1: I had many cuts before this, but I think people
Speaker 1: didn't really understand, like how how are you going to
Speaker 1: add into the in this Because you're so beautiful and
Speaker 1: you're so talented, so it's easy to assume, oh, you're
Speaker 1: just writing your beauty and your voice, and yeah, you're
Speaker 1: an artist. So that's why really early on, I am
Speaker 1: decided I have to really show these guys what I
Speaker 1: got and I'm gonna write men's songs. And that was,
Speaker 1: um really, that whole frustration, the frustration of being kicked
Speaker 1: around for ten years, having that Cinderella story high and
Speaker 1: then the loads of you know, the record deals, and um,
Speaker 1: that time in my life, I was starting to think
Speaker 1: about maybe I will get married, you know, maybe me
Speaker 1: and Gera will have kids. One day, I was starting
Speaker 1: to go, you know what, maybe it's been ten years,
Speaker 1: like you know, I've kind of given this town all
Speaker 1: of maybe it's time to let go of all of
Speaker 1: this everything I writing. I mean, I knew I'd always
Speaker 1: sing and write songs, but just the chase, you know,
Speaker 1: the chasing exhausting. And me and j Are both had
Speaker 1: this year of like, let's just have the year of no,
Speaker 1: we don't want to do anything. We don't want to
Speaker 1: do We're just okay, okay. I like that because I
Speaker 1: have always heard of the year like yes, yes, everything.
Speaker 1: But we were saying like, no, we don't want to
Speaker 1: sing on that demo, We're not right with that person.
Speaker 1: Where we kind of were like, well, let's just go
Speaker 1: all in and like who knows what happens, Just do
Speaker 1: what you want to do exactly, and that's risky. It
Speaker 1: was very especially in a time like this. Everyone's always worried,
Speaker 1: oh shoot, I gotta get that opportunity, like I don't
Speaker 1: want to miss this one. If there's a new artist,
Speaker 1: I should jump on board and right. And then there's
Speaker 1: always a million things like that you should be chasing
Speaker 1: like you were saying earlier. So a year of we did,
Speaker 1: and we were like, we're going to write songs we like,
Speaker 1: we're gonna write with people we like. You're not gonna like,
Speaker 1: yeah do, We're gonna do what we love. And that
Speaker 1: one of those during that period was the morning that
Speaker 1: I was driving into the office, Um, and I heard
Speaker 1: a melody coming to my head that felt the word
Speaker 1: that I kept thinking was classic so much that I
Speaker 1: kept thinking, am I on something? Is this love? Lift
Speaker 1: us up where we belong? I kept but which song
Speaker 1: is this? And um, I remember my phone ringing and Nope,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna remember and
Speaker 1: and remember you know a d D like we all
Speaker 1: do as creative as I'm wanting to turn the radio on,
Speaker 1: I was no. I remember God whispering in my ear.
Speaker 1: Just listen. And by the time I got to music Row,
Speaker 1: the melody was really loud in my head so much
Speaker 1: that I needed to get my hands on the guitar.
Speaker 1: And I was walking in the door to write with
Speaker 1: a new writer to me, John Maybe, and I just said,
Speaker 1: can I have your guitar? Roal fast? And I sang
Speaker 1: this melody and it was the climb. Okay, wait, first off,
Speaker 1: I just have I want to cry because I I
Speaker 1: really do. I'm sorry. I can't believe how on tune
Speaker 1: you are with God. But also you're making me prime this. Also,
Speaker 1: you had to wait for ten years for the climb,
Speaker 1: and the climb to me is so crazy that that
Speaker 1: is your debut into the world because you were having
Speaker 1: to climb and like struggle and feel and why do
Speaker 1: you think you had to go through the climb yourself
Speaker 1: in order to get the climb of the song? Because
Speaker 1: you had ten years of struggle for losing your mom,
Speaker 1: losing record deal A million dollar question. Girl, You know,
Speaker 1: I don't know what does it teach us? Do you
Speaker 1: think we all have to go through that? I feel
Speaker 1: like I've been around now on Nashville long enough to
Speaker 1: see there's usually a struggle. Like those people that came
Speaker 1: and got it all right away, what happens there's usually
Speaker 1: like at some point there's going to be a hard
Speaker 1: spot for you. But for me, I felt like I
Speaker 1: had to just kind of live the hard part in
Speaker 1: the front half. And maybe that's what gives me the
Speaker 1: raw on this and that I'm in tune with so
Speaker 1: much more when I right now, hard part in the front, yeah,
Speaker 1: And I mean there will be hard parts stick, but
Speaker 1: really I had to live that to write a song
Speaker 1: like the cop you can't just create that on You
Speaker 1: can't write that out of air. I mean I try
Speaker 1: every day to to write songs like that, but you
Speaker 1: know those are the ones that you know, I have
Speaker 1: to live. And it was so bizarre because I didn't
Speaker 1: think anything about that song. I was so sad and
Speaker 1: damaged and over the Nashville and is this your year
Speaker 1: of no? Right now? This is still the year no?
Speaker 1: And you're just like thinking I'm about to get married
Speaker 1: and maybe just like general, yeah, exactly. And so when
Speaker 1: we wrote the climb Um, I knew it was special
Speaker 1: because of that melody driving in, but I didn't. I
Speaker 1: was so burned and like, Nashville kind of kick my
Speaker 1: ass so much that I didn't think anything would ever
Speaker 1: come of it. Yeah, did you think nothing's ever come before? Right?
Speaker 1: Why would this? The song is just as good as
Speaker 1: these others had ten years nothing? So why would this
Speaker 1: be anything? Yes? Man, I thought that so many times,
Speaker 1: like I just keep you keep trying and keep trying,
Speaker 1: and you're like, well they've gotten real close had a
Speaker 1: ton of like close calls, but if nothing has ever
Speaker 1: panned out, so why would this be any different? But
Speaker 1: you keep freaking climbing anyway, and so we've we've you know,
Speaker 1: when we found out that it was going to be
Speaker 1: a part of the movie, I mean, all the way
Speaker 1: the Handam Montana movie sons, how does it get to
Speaker 1: my left? Okay, well, first of all, I'm at the
Speaker 1: time of Disney Writer. We had a small office here,
Speaker 1: a Disney um and my amazing plugger at the time,
Speaker 1: Lisa Ramsey, found out that they were shooting the Handam
Speaker 1: Montana movie here in Nashville and was like, that's ridiculous.
Speaker 1: You you can't come to Nashville and scout and not
Speaker 1: listen to our Nashville songwriters. You need to have Nashville
Speaker 1: songs because at that time the Disney music really came
Speaker 1: from the l A office. She's like, no, you're you're coming,
Speaker 1: and so she put together so she found this director
Speaker 1: who Peter Chisholm, who is straight it out of London,
Speaker 1: like he'd never seen a guitar pool or anything like that.
Speaker 1: We have him come to the office, we get beer,
Speaker 1: we get sit we're all seated around in a circle
Speaker 1: and we do what we do with the bluebird guitar
Speaker 1: style guitar pool and I played him a couple of
Speaker 1: songs and he just loved my voice. I didn't play
Speaker 1: the Climb. The Climb. It was written for a guy,
Speaker 1: you know, because I was writing min songs. So you
Speaker 1: were like, you were like really proven doing girls. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I was sang a couple of songs and we
Speaker 1: just kind of hit it off. And as he was
Speaker 1: walking out, he said, would you just make a comp
Speaker 1: of your music? I should love to hear your voice.
Speaker 1: And so I thought this in my moment, what do
Speaker 1: I have that's at all pop? Because I didn't write
Speaker 1: pop songs at all. I was writing traditional country songs
Speaker 1: mainly at that time. And I said, oh, I have
Speaker 1: that song. It's the Climb. It was called that at
Speaker 1: the time, and I gave it to him and he
Speaker 1: called like a week later and said, if you'll rewrite
Speaker 1: this for a fifteen year old, I'm going to rewrite
Speaker 1: the script to to kind of revolve around this song. See,
Speaker 1: the Climb is so of warton to meet you that
Speaker 1: you're making me cry because the Climb is such an
Speaker 1: important song in my life. I don't never forget when
Speaker 1: it came out, I was in the middle, and I mean,
Speaker 1: everyone's still struggling. I was in the middle of a
Speaker 1: huge like what the F is this life about? You know?
Speaker 1: And then you hear a song like that and you're like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're not alone, yes, you know, Okay, We're all in this. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And really the song was written Me and John Maybe,
Speaker 1: the my co writer, were really underdogs, you know, he
Speaker 1: was a new songwriter to his in his first deal,
Speaker 1: and it kind of been kicked around. I've been kicked around,
Speaker 1: and we just wrote it from our own experiences. It
Speaker 1: was kind of like self help therapy. And so I'm
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you acknowledge that as well, because to me,
Speaker 1: it was so funny that the song that I write about,
Speaker 1: you know, being kicked around, actually being becomes a song
Speaker 1: that actually helps me bust down the doors that I've
Speaker 1: been trying to kick out for so long. It was surreal. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: I'm having like I'm pregnant with my first child, so
Speaker 1: there's all this other stuff going on with within me,
Speaker 1: like am I should I just be mom? You know?
Speaker 1: And then I have a big struggle like as a mom, like,
Speaker 1: how am I going to do this? How do you
Speaker 1: decide that? Because that's such a struggle of like so
Speaker 1: many women, especially talented women who have something to share
Speaker 1: with the world. It's it's a big decision on how
Speaker 1: do you balance that and how do you How did
Speaker 1: you come into that struggle? How did you have a
Speaker 1: chance to think about it? I mean literally the Clime.
Speaker 1: When The Clime came out, it came out on five formats,
Speaker 1: it was everywhere. I mean, Hannah wants Hand in a movie,
Speaker 1: like I'm seeing you know, Miley, I'm singing Hannah Montana.
Speaker 1: She's playing it on the inauguration Obama at the ball,
Speaker 1: at the inauguration, the inauguration, Barack Obama. Yeah, and so
Speaker 1: like are you literally holding a newborn? Um? You know
Speaker 1: these both both these things came out in January and
Speaker 1: your baby was born in January and you Climb was born.
Speaker 1: Are you kind of like, what is that moment? Because
Speaker 1: you've not been waiting ten years, You've almost thrown in
Speaker 1: the towel, You're in a year of because you're so
Speaker 1: freaking frustrated, and now here comes your child and your
Speaker 1: song child's happening with that happen to be got in
Speaker 1: some ways it was frustrating because I couldn't throw my
Speaker 1: all into either. I felt like I really want to
Speaker 1: be so present with my baby, and yet I mean
Speaker 1: every door that I'd ever wanted to be open as
Speaker 1: being just opened. Now, why do you think it takes
Speaker 1: to write with some of these writers that I'd always
Speaker 1: wanted write with? Now everyone right and so and then
Speaker 1: I would try to do that and I felt like
Speaker 1: I wasn't being a good mom. It was just really
Speaker 1: trying time. You know, why do you think you got
Speaker 1: both at the same time? That is a great question.
Speaker 1: Do you think there was a lesson behind the idea
Speaker 1: that one I don't know, um, just to make you
Speaker 1: realize right away that you're going to balance both of these,
Speaker 1: not give you the choice to back. It was just
Speaker 1: surreal and it just I still can't believe in. I
Speaker 1: kind of went through it all the way. My mentor said.
Speaker 1: He said, it was like you, you know, had been
Speaker 1: swinging at the ball for so long and when you're
Speaker 1: bat you know, hit the ball, your arm was so
Speaker 1: strong that you just went over the just hit home run,
Speaker 1: And it was weird. That was very, very surreal and
Speaker 1: it There's another thing that kind of happened where Disney
Speaker 1: l A Was like, oh my gosh, you could be
Speaker 1: our pop top line girl, which means pretty much a lyricist,
Speaker 1: and they you know, you should come out and write
Speaker 1: for our franchise. So I did, and I was writing
Speaker 1: for Tinkerbell and Princess and the Frog and all these
Speaker 1: motion pictures. And meanwhile, I'm getting further and further away
Speaker 1: from my roots, which is you know, traditional, mainly traditional
Speaker 1: and soul kind of songwriting, Nashville songwriting. So I kind
Speaker 1: of got lost in that for a little while and
Speaker 1: had to then again re examine myself and say, who
Speaker 1: am I as a songwriter? And at the core, I'm
Speaker 1: sixt Avenue Music Row songwriter. Um, and that's when songs
Speaker 1: like I Drive Your Truck. Tell me about that, Tell
Speaker 1: me about how Drive your Truck came into existence, because
Speaker 1: that is one of them the powerful songs. Also well, um,
Speaker 1: I give so much of the credit to my amazing
Speaker 1: co writer, Connie Harrington. She we have been writing songs
Speaker 1: for many years. At this point, we're writing a lot
Speaker 1: of female songs which weren't getting recorded, you know, because
Speaker 1: there weren't any females to record them. And she came
Speaker 1: in that day and she she had she was a
Speaker 1: little choked up. She there. I could tell something was
Speaker 1: up with her, and we searched. She always comes out
Speaker 1: with all these titles, she has all her little posted notes,
Speaker 1: and she was like, well, I had an idea yesterday
Speaker 1: coming home from Dixon, where she's from, and she started
Speaker 1: to cry. And I was like, oh, because with Connie,
Speaker 1: like she's crying, then you know she's onto something amazing.
Speaker 1: But she's like, no, no, no no, I can't do that
Speaker 1: one today. I can't do that one. And she would
Speaker 1: read off some other titles and I was like, no,
Speaker 1: no, no no, no, we're doing We're doing the tears. She
Speaker 1: just I don't care how long it takes, just cry away,
Speaker 1: but you're gonna so she um finally explained that she
Speaker 1: was driving home. She was listening to the middle of
Speaker 1: an NPR special and it was about fallen soldiers and
Speaker 1: it was basically a dad talking about his son who
Speaker 1: had lost in Afghanistan, and the interviewer just said, well,
Speaker 1: what are you gonna do a memorial day to on
Speaker 1: your son? And he said, real simply, I think I'll
Speaker 1: just go drive his truck, and Connie's just you know,
Speaker 1: pulls over. She's writing down everything. We cry. It's really sad. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, what a great everyone has to grieve in
Speaker 1: their own way, and to drive your son since truck
Speaker 1: who just passed away at war totally and meanwhile you
Speaker 1: have to understand what's going on with me. So my
Speaker 1: mom had been um deceased for about ten years at
Speaker 1: this point, and so I'd always wanted to write a
Speaker 1: song about grief and never really had been able to um.
Speaker 1: And so I knew in that moment this was my chance,
Speaker 1: This was it, this was it, and I knew I
Speaker 1: had to pour everything I had about that into this song.
Speaker 1: So we started to just hammer on lyrics UM eight
Speaker 1: nine in theaster half of bout you know all these things. Um,
Speaker 1: I was really kind of drawn from my granddaddy's truck,
Speaker 1: who my grandmother kept kind of parked in mint condition
Speaker 1: for many years after he passed and Jackson, Tennessee, and
Speaker 1: I can remember his truck and I could smell him
Speaker 1: and feel him there. He's like a shrine to him,
Speaker 1: you know. So she had her thoughts, I had mine,
Speaker 1: and we wrote a lot of the early lyric But
Speaker 1: at that time, like I said, I knew, like we
Speaker 1: have to write men's songs. There's no females, you know
Speaker 1: that we need. This would be a great song for
Speaker 1: Jason al Dean or Kenney Jesney. So we brought in
Speaker 1: the incredible Jimmy Eery and he just brought it to
Speaker 1: life in having his perspective and literally when we were
Speaker 1: done with that song, we we need a cigarette. Literally,
Speaker 1: I mean we were crying. I mean we brought in
Speaker 1: rusty guests and our song plugger and he was like
Speaker 1: that song of the year, I mean, and at that
Speaker 1: point we didn't know what it was. We just knew
Speaker 1: we wrote the hell out of it, you know, you
Speaker 1: didn't know we went for it. And that's really where
Speaker 1: our job's over. You know, we just write the songs
Speaker 1: and then it's in God's hands and do you give
Speaker 1: it all up to God? Totally? I mean, it was
Speaker 1: like that's it, and it's hard. I mean, we want
Speaker 1: want Jason Alteon to get it. You know, I sent
Speaker 1: it right away to Dirk's and right away to all
Speaker 1: these people, but you know it wasn't those weren't the
Speaker 1: right fits. Um Lee Bryce, you know, was the voice
Speaker 1: for it. And you just have to love a lot
Speaker 1: of faith in my job. You have to a lot
Speaker 1: of faith and giving it up because these are your children,
Speaker 1: they really are your babies. You're like, I'm giving this
Speaker 1: to you to take care of. So he did an
Speaker 1: unbelievable job. He's saying it like a minute like he
Speaker 1: wrote it. And it did what we wanted to do.
Speaker 1: You know, it went to number one, UM Song of
Speaker 1: the Year for a C M. S N A CI
Speaker 1: And to tell about the number one party. Yes, so
Speaker 1: UM at the number one party. You know, we have
Speaker 1: those pretty much for every number one and we just
Speaker 1: couldn't imagine having this party without finding the dad that
Speaker 1: said those words. If it wasn't for him, there would
Speaker 1: be no song. So Connie and we all spent so
Speaker 1: much time looking for this NPR special just to find
Speaker 1: a name, and Connie one day found it and it's
Speaker 1: his name was Paul monty Um. He lives in Massachusetts.
Speaker 1: He's a UM school teacher actually, and his son, Jared
Speaker 1: monty Um, was ordered the Medal of Honor. So it's
Speaker 1: incredible soldier and story. But Um we called him. We're
Speaker 1: all on you know, conference call. We're crying. We're trying
Speaker 1: to explain to him, like, have you heard this song
Speaker 1: I Drive Your Truck, which was everywhere on the radio
Speaker 1: at this point, and he's like, well, I've been sent
Speaker 1: that song. A friend of mine said that that would
Speaker 1: really hit home for me. We're like, yeah, because we
Speaker 1: wrote it about you. And I mean it was hard
Speaker 1: for him to fathom. I mean, I can imagine. But
Speaker 1: we said we're flying you to Nashville's, which we flew
Speaker 1: him here. He spoke at our Number one party where
Speaker 1: I sitting next to him at the palm that night
Speaker 1: and we were just winding and dining him and and
Speaker 1: he said, well, tell me what other songs have you
Speaker 1: written that I would know? And I said, well, I
Speaker 1: wrote this song called the Climb you might know. And
Speaker 1: he literally put his drink down and got tears in
Speaker 1: his eyes and he said, I played that at Jared's funeral.
Speaker 1: He said, you were meant to be in his life.
Speaker 1: Your stories were meant. You were drawing from the greater sources,
Speaker 1: and it's all connected. It felt like my mom and
Speaker 1: Jared we're just surrounding me. And you know, I found
Speaker 1: out that we actually wrote it to date two years
Speaker 1: to the day that he passed. Jared Jared, Yeah, there
Speaker 1: was too many coincidences. You know. It was like this
Speaker 1: song was destined to be written. And I can't tell
Speaker 1: you how. That's almost the ultimate gift that's beyond Grammys,
Speaker 1: and I mean, it's just to know that the song
Speaker 1: really had been served into the world and it's going
Speaker 1: to go out. There's so many people that helped that
Speaker 1: helps you know, that song helps them. And I have
Speaker 1: so many stories of people saying, you know, I drive
Speaker 1: my husband's truck and it is like a shrine, you know,
Speaker 1: and it's a place where you can feel somebody and
Speaker 1: because all their stuffs in there there smells Oh my god,
Speaker 1: you make me cry because you do. You're so soulful,
Speaker 1: like you are such an intentional person with your life
Speaker 1: and your talent. And I feel like that is why
Speaker 1: you've had these massive impact songs, because you really go
Speaker 1: for it all the way. You have something to say
Speaker 1: and it's bigger than you. Yes, and I lean on that,
Speaker 1: you know. I try to really get out of the
Speaker 1: way to be honest, um, and every day that I write,
Speaker 1: I try to right, you know, the most emotion I can.
Speaker 1: But like, like I said, there's days that I have
Speaker 1: a lot of fun writing to It's not all it's
Speaker 1: not all sad, but yeah, it was. That whole era
Speaker 1: of my life was just really um incredible because I've
Speaker 1: found out, you know, during that era that I was
Speaker 1: pregnant with twins. Oh my gosh. Yeah, so you know,
Speaker 1: here I am on the second wave of my songwriting
Speaker 1: and then I have twins coming. Twins don't run in
Speaker 1: my family. That's not genetic or fertility. Like, I'm already
Speaker 1: having a hard time balancing my life, my work and
Speaker 1: and one daughter, and now I know I have two
Speaker 1: more coming at one time. Are you going to do this? Well?
Speaker 1: God provides, you know that the week that I found
Speaker 1: out that I was going to have the twins, um
Speaker 1: like Shelton went two weeks and the number one with
Speaker 1: a song that me and my husman wrote together. So
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, and that is drinking. And so it
Speaker 1: was really like every time you know, something like that happens,
Speaker 1: there's always this other it's it's there's always this duel.
Speaker 1: You're open to the faith, Oh, definitely, you're open to
Speaker 1: the magic. Okay, So I want ask a few fire
Speaker 1: questions about this kind of going. So for faith to you,
Speaker 1: faith is faith is um. Wow, that is such a
Speaker 1: big question. That's the first thing that comes to mind. Yeah,
Speaker 1: letting go. I love that. Yeah, and not knowing the answers,
Speaker 1: love it yea. Love is deep, real, honest, tragic, beautiful.
Speaker 1: The point of this life is to love, to learn,
Speaker 1: to grow, and hopefully like have a good time. Music
Speaker 1: to me is music. To me is a refuge. It
Speaker 1: is my purpose, it's my healer, it's my strength. It's
Speaker 1: obviously it's everything. Yea. And how about motherhood has taught me? Wow,
Speaker 1: it has taught me so much about myself. It's taught
Speaker 1: me how to be selfless, how to find strength that
Speaker 1: I didn't know I had. Um. Motherhood really is a
Speaker 1: journey that I'm figuring out every day. I Mean there's
Speaker 1: days that I feel like I'm the worst mom in
Speaker 1: the world, and there's days I feel like, Okay, I
Speaker 1: got it. Um. It's really the kind of thing you
Speaker 1: probably won't know how well you did until you're standing
Speaker 1: back looking at it and you're older and you're like, wow,
Speaker 1: I got it. But when you're in the thick of it,
Speaker 1: it's just a daily growth. You know, I never know
Speaker 1: if I'm pulling it off. But then i'll hear, you know,
Speaker 1: my five year I will say yes, ma'am and I'll
Speaker 1: say okay, you know, or something like that. Okay, And
Speaker 1: I like to wrap up with leave your light, So
Speaker 1: leave some inspiration of how you've been inspired and how
Speaker 1: you want to inspire the world. Okay. Um, There's so many,
Speaker 1: so many things that I'd like to share, mainly to songwriters, UM,
Speaker 1: but I think the main thing is to just follow
Speaker 1: your own light. You know, we've all gotten caught up
Speaker 1: in trying to compare ourselves to other you know, for me, songwriters, artists, um, mothers.
Speaker 1: I mean, I can compare myself to other mothers and
Speaker 1: how they're doing it. But what I've learned time and
Speaker 1: time again is if you just stay true to your
Speaker 1: own convictions and your own truth, usually that's there for
Speaker 1: a reason and that's guiding you in some ways. And
Speaker 1: so every time I've gotten off the path and chase something,
Speaker 1: you know, it usually doesn't go anywhere. It's like a
Speaker 1: road that goes nowhere, it goes, and if it goes somewhere,
Speaker 1: it's usually dark. So for talking about light to me, UM,
Speaker 1: if you can just follow your own journey and if
Speaker 1: when it feels right, it is right. Typically for me, um,
Speaker 1: surround yourself with light, surround yourself with people that make
Speaker 1: you feel light. If you walk away and it's dark,
Speaker 1: there's a dark feeling, then they're out. You know that's
Speaker 1: that's not no matter how flash, Yeah, that's not going
Speaker 1: to illuminate you and your truth. Um So I think
Speaker 1: that it if you can stay out of the comparison game,
Speaker 1: I think this journey of life is gonna be a
Speaker 1: little bit easier, or at least for me, it is
Speaker 1: love that. Yeah, Okay, you're gonna play some of these
Speaker 1: great songs. Yes, yes, yes, yes, Okay, here we are,
Speaker 1: let's do it. Okay, so you're gonna play with some
Speaker 1: of the Climb, which is Miley Cyrus is huge hit.
Speaker 1: It's on your record down Home with Chris Stapleton singing
Speaker 1: with you and Morgan. It's amazing. He's so good. Oh, okay,
Speaker 1: you have to check it out. Okay, they made it
Speaker 1: very special. Heck yes, okay, taking away, Here we go,
Speaker 1: Here we go. I can almost see that dream I'm
Speaker 1: dream and there's a voice in sudden my head. Sand
Speaker 1: You'll never every step I'm takeing every move and make
Speaker 1: feels lost with no direction. My faith is shaking, butter
Speaker 1: gotta keep trying, gotta keep my head high. It's always
Speaker 1: gonna be another mountain, always gonna wanna make it move,
Speaker 1: always gonna build uphill battle. Sometimes I'm gonna have to lose.
Speaker 1: Then about how fast I get and abounce winging on
Speaker 1: the other side. Yeah, it's the clos Yeah, only the
Speaker 1: most amazing song of all times. Thank you, except for
Speaker 1: this next one that you're gonna play. Okay, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: cry now, now we're gonna cry. So now you're gonna
Speaker 1: play us some of I Drive Your Truck, which was
Speaker 1: c M a Song of the Year sung by Lee
Speaker 1: Bryce Is. This is also on your album down Home. Yes, okay,
Speaker 1: so we can hear you singing all of your hits
Speaker 1: on your album down Home. Everyone go get it. But
Speaker 1: this is what leeb Rice made song of the Year.
Speaker 1: I Drive your Truck, Haiden nonsense, cilly estuy f empty bottle, gatory,
Speaker 1: it rolling on the floor, that duty breeze cap on
Speaker 1: the dash, dog tags hanging from the radio, old school can,
Speaker 1: a cattle boy boots and a gold army ship folded
Speaker 1: in the back. This thing burns gas like crazy. Oh
Speaker 1: but that's all right. People got the way ease of coping. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I got I drive you true. Roll Everyone loow down
Speaker 1: in the burner, every back road in this town, find
Speaker 1: a field, tear it up till all the pains cloud
Speaker 1: up to us. Just sometimes I drive you true. Jesse Alexander,
Speaker 1: you are amazing. Thank you so much for joining me.
Speaker 1: Thank you for sharing your heart, your songs. You're incredible
Speaker 1: story and everyone get down home her album. You can
Speaker 1: hear her singing these hits. You're amazing. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Thanks on my show. You're the best. See you all
Speaker 1: later a piece. How amazing was Jesse Alexander. She is
Speaker 1: so inspired, She's so soulful. I love her so much.
Speaker 1: Her story makes me tear up. Like listening to her,
Speaker 1: I got emotional. I'm sure you did too, So moving
Speaker 1: Next week is the last interview of the year for
Speaker 1: Get Real, and I have Russell Dickerson joining me. He
Speaker 1: has exploded onto the music scene this year with his
Speaker 1: single Yours. His story is incredible. He's so connected to
Speaker 1: his purpose and his higher force. His wife is his
Speaker 1: best friend. She recorded his music video their story is
Speaker 1: amazing to hear how his music journey has unfolded is
Speaker 1: really nothing short of remarkable and inspiring. So get excited
Speaker 1: for Russell Dickerson next week, the last get real interview
Speaker 1: of the year. We'll see you in thank h