Show Notes

• Early childhood as a creative
• Influence of music
• The craft of songwriting
• Most songs don’t get written in the back of a tour bus
• Qualities required for success
• The Climb
• How to approach your true calling
• Jessi’s inspiration for performing and writing music
• The joys of working with amazing country artists
• Who she would choose to sing her next #1 hit

Connect With Jessi Alexander

Website: http://www.jessialexandermusic.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jessilalexander/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JessiLAlexander/
More About Jessi: https://smarturl.it/JessiAlexander

Summary

Singer/ Songwriter Jessi Alexander has written five #1 songs, including “The Climb,” which became the anthem for Miley Cyrus’ box office hit, “The Hannah Montana Movie.” She discusses her humble Tennessee roots, and her remarkable career in the country music business.

Full Transcript

Brian  

Singer/songwriter Jessi Alexander has written five songs that hit number one on Country Music Radio. Jessi’s chart topping hits include “I Drive Your Truck” recorded by Lee Brice, which won Song of the Year at the 2013 CMA Awards, 2014 ACM Awards, and 2013 NSAI Awards. Additional number ones include two songs recorded by Blake Shelton, “Mine Would Be You” and “Drink On It”. As if that isn’t impressive enough, Jessie’s career skyrocketed with her song “The Climb”. Miley Cyrus recorded the song and it soon became the anthem for her box office hit “The Hannah Montana Movie” and won the 2009 MTV Movie Awards Best Song from a movie. Jessi celebrated her most recent number one in June 2020 with Scotty McCreery’s “In Between”, a song that enjoyed the second greatest ascent to the top in the Billboard Country Airplay Chart’s 30 year history. In addition to her writing talent, Jessi is also one of the finest female vocalists in Nashville. In 2020 she released her third album, “Decatur County Red”, inspired by a cabin in the county’s Tennessee River. The album finds Jessi at her most honest and vulnerable, looking back on her humble Tennessee roots and tracing her remarkable journey through heartbreak and joy, pain and reconciliation, disappointment and triumph. I had the pleasure of seeing Jessi perform down in Nashville a few months ago. She’s an amazing performer and an incredible writer. And I’m delighted to have her on the show. Welcome, Jessi. And thanks so much for joining us on Life Excellence.

Jessi  

Thank you so much for having me.

Brian  

Jessi, music is such an important part of people’s lives and an important part of our world. I know for me, and I suspect for all of us, there are certain songs that mark either events or seasons in our lives. There’s so much emotion packed into music. That line in your bio; “tracing her journey through heartbreak and joy, pain and reconciliation, disappointment and triumph” shows us how meaningful and personal music can be. I’m guessing that you were influenced by music at an early age. Tell us about the role music played in your life growing up, and how that led to your becoming a singer and songwriter.

Jessi  

Absolutely. My life with music – I really don’t remember much about life before [it] like it’s always been [there]. But I think people would be surprised to find out that my parents were actually both artists – my dad’s a painter and my mom was also real handy with a paintbrush – so most people would be fascinated to know that I actually grew up not really playing music, but painting. As a child I would spend my time with my dad in the summers – my parents were divorced when I was three – so half my time would be with him and then her. When I was with him – he probably didn’t know what to do with a little girl – he’d get out his paint sets and paint brushes and I learned to paint with him. Also because of that – this is around the Memphis area where I’m from, Tennessee – he knew a lot of the blues musicians down on Beale Street in Memphis and he would do a lot of the art and stuff. So I can remember going down, probably five years old, six years old, walking these pretty rough streets of Beale Street and listening to blues music. That’s like my first watching people perform. I got to meet Stevie Ray Vaughn and Albert King and BB King and all these blues legends. And obviously, that blues music really rang true to me going through this tumultuous, dysfunctional, being an only child split between two parents. So that kind of was a refuge for me. But you have to remember, where I’m from in Decatur County – where the record is about – it’s half Memphis and on the other side is Nashville. And Nashville is the king of songs country music, traditional gut wrenching; all those legendary songwriters like Dolly Parton and Kris Kristofferson and all those people. So if we weren’t going west towards Memphis, we were going east towards Nashville and so that also became kind of stomping ground and refuge for me to learn from. So I would say those two places were probably my biggest memories of music. But my dad also had – he was like a hippie from the 60s era – so he had a stack of vinyl records. And I can just remember going through those records at a really young age [and] now that I have kids, I always think about them. I was such a weird kid, but I was an only child and I was around a lot of adults. So for me, I was devouring music, not just country music [but] people like Janis Joplin and all that kind of music from the 60s, but also Earl Scruggs bluegrass or Aretha Franklin, Bill Withers. I can sit here and name, all day, that stack of records but that was my bible. Those records started my encyclopedic knowledge of songs and musicians and songwriters and artists. So by the time I was probably ten or eleven, I was well-versed in a lot of types of music.

Brian  

So the way you’re describing your childhood, I don’t think that’s all that unusual. And, again, certainly we’re all exposed to music. But what is unusual is to take that upbringing, to take that background in music, and that love for music, that if you didn’t have it really early on, definitely got developed over time. And so how did that lead to even the thought of becoming an artist or writing songs?

Jessi  

It really didn’t cross my mind, the way I was raised was very simple, blue collar. My granddaddy was a carpenter, my mom was a secretary, people in my family, some went to college or had trades, so it wasn’t an option. I knew that I was an artistic kid, by a young age everybody knew I was not going to probably be academic. So in my mind, I thought I’d probably be an art teacher, a hairdresser, something creative in a small town. I’m sure today we’ll talk a lot about fate or planets aligning, or God or whatever, however, you want to slice it. But when my mom remarried, she married someone that got moved for his work, actually, to a town outside of Nashville. And I really think that move was so important, because then I had Nashville in my backyard. I could dream – the dream was big, but it was closer, it was tangible. I would say, really, to be honest, when I graduated high school, all of my friends knew what they were going to do. They all, everyone, scattered and went to college and I went to college, just kind of kicked around for several years. I was there for four years without even picking a major, I just did not know what to do. There was no major for songwriting, and I wasn’t a vocalist, like a classical trained vocalist. So I was just puttering around, really honing my craft though, I was playing in bands, and I was writing songs on the side and doing all those things to get ready for the big move, which was to move here.

Brian  

And so what led up to the big move? So you were writing, you were (Jessi:  Yeah, just finding work.) just fumbling around college trying to figure out what to do. But it sounds like as all that was happening, you were performing, the music side of you is evolving. So what tipped the scale and caused you to say, you know what, I’m moving to Nashville – if that was the move or whatever move you made that put the stake in the ground and said, hey, I’m going to try and do this for a living?

Jessi  

It’s a great story, actually. I had so many different jobs – Subway or car auction or whatever – I was working my way through college. I always had a strong work ethic, no matter what I did whatever I put myself into, that paid the bills, but then I would go and play in these bands. So being a singer, I could sing harmony with a bluegrass band or a blues band, or I was in a 12 piece big band with three girl background singers. I did all that. You can imagine me strolling into class – what should be my junior year, my senior year – I think my professors would just look I me, and be like, bless this girl’s heart, she’s just working all night, working two day jobs and these gigs and still doesn’t even know what she wants to do. But I had such an appetite for learning, that’s what’s crazy. To be someone that’s not academic or booksmart, if you will, I’ve always had a strong appetite for knowledge, with obviously, music a big one. So to answer your question, even though I didn’t really have the job of being a songwriter, I treated it like a job. When I got off my other jobs, I sat down and I studied more songs, I wrote more songs, I made phone calls, I researched, I just knew that no one was going to help me do this. It was something that I was going to have to do on my own. And the final story with what really tipped the scales was I went into class – it was an audio engineering kind of class – and the professor called me…he’s like, I need to see you after class. So I thought, oh, boy, I mean, this is it, I’m failed. It’s over. I’ll never forget the look in his eyes. He was like, Jessi, I’ve never said this to a student. I don’t know how you’re going to take this, but I think you need to quit college. And I was stunned, here we are mid semester, it’s like, what? He’s like, you need to quit because this is holding you back. We’re at a point now where school is not going to help you, you actually have to go there. I slept on it and thought about it for a couple days and I thought he was just so right. There’s no way this piece of paper is going to help my journey, I’ve learned everything I needed to learn from college.

Brian  

Do you feel like he gave you permission (Jessi: Mmmhmm, absolutely.) to formalize that and make your jump?

Jessi  

I absolutely do. I think that was the nudge, because I can be pretty loyal, committed to something. It was the permission, yeah. It was crazy how quickly once I got here [that] things started falling into place immediately. It’s like all that legwork that I’d done paid off quick.

Brian  

Tell us more about that. So what happened?

Jessi  

You have to understand my headspace when I moved here, it wasn’t just to write hit songs because in my mind, I was feeling lucky to do anything in the music business. I knew that I had some kind of talent, some kind of gift, but if that made me a back-up singer, a recording artist, a songwriter, or what we called demo singers – people that go in and demonstrate the song for the songwriters, for them to pitch the songs – I was like, I’ll do any of that. Please just let me quit Subway, I’ll do whatever. So when I got here, I auditioned for Reba McEntire, a back-up singing gig, because in college back-up singing was one of my main ways to perform. I ended up not getting the job because I’m not a dancer, at that time she was having a lot of singing and dancing. I was actually there in the rehearsal hall where she had all of her auditions and a guy came up to me and he could tell I was down. I was telling him why I was there and [I] said yeah, I didn’t get the job. And he was like, well, actually, I’m looking for a back-up singer too and I really would love someone that’s kind of like an Emmylou Harris type. The way he described the singer was just like, that’s me. So sure enough, I went and auditioned on the spot, and talk about whirlwind dream come true, I was playing the Grand Ole Opry with him two nights later. I was on a tour bus to Beaumont on the third day. And I was maybe 20 years old, either 20 or 21. But it was just literally [a] Cinderella story.

Brian  

That’s awesome. So fast forward a little bit. I’d like to talk about songwriting, and we’ll come back to some specific songs and talk about performing too. But let’s talk about the actual craft of songwriting. It fascinates me the actual work that goes into it. You mentioned jumping on the tour bus two days after you auditioned. I have this vision, Jessi, of you driving down the road in the back of a tour bus, looking out the window, kind of reminiscing about your life, and then putting words to paper and cranking out a song like “Damn Country Music”. Now, I’m sure some songs get written like that but I know most don’t. So share with us the reality of how songwriting works. I know today you were writing and so maybe you can talk about today. But when do you write, where, with whom? Tell us about a typical work day or work week for you.

Jessi  

Absolutely. I’m going to describe the Nashville songwriting way because when I’ve written in London or Los Angeles, there’s definitely a different flow. I consider myself a Nashville staff songwriter, meaning I work for a company. I have pitch sheets, I know exactly what artists are looking for and my job is to deliver a song for them. That’s what I consider like 80% of my work life. So believe it or not, a lot of people think we’re rolling out at two o’clock after yoga and maybe having some marijuana and whiskey and pontificating and reading books and then writing. I wish it was that loose and fun, but it’s actually very regimented. A typical day for me is to…well obviously, I have kids so my morning is very busy. But I know on my calendar, weeks and months in advance, everyone that I’m going to write with. I have a publisher that is strategic in finding who’s going to be cutting, Kenny Chesney, well we need Jesse to write with so and so and so and so. They’re very strategic and I could never do all that. That’s why I have a publisher. It’s kind of like my manager. So when I get there I can have several different types of co-writers. I could have…like today, I had an artist that makes records and is a great songwriter and so my job is to help deliver what they’re looking for on the record. Are they missing a ballad or do they need a show opener? So that’s my job there. I also write with just songwriters, people just like me, and we sit around and we go, man, I’ve got this great title. And someone might say, hey, I heard Tim McGraw is looking for something kind of like that. There’s a lot of thinking about how we can get this song…because placement’s everything. We all have thousands of songs sitting in vaults. So our job is to try to hit a bull’s eye every day. And then the third way is probably a little closer to what you imagine. I would say the least way I write is…I might sit at the piano by myself after I take the kids to school or I might sit with my guitar and just free think, free write, sing, play, channel something. Typically I don’t have as much time to finish a song like that so what I love about those are, they’re just little snippets of ideas that I can then take into one of those two other writing styles.

Brian  

So going back to working for the publisher, that sounds very formulaic to me, and can you tell us more about that? So on an album, for example, and I know, I guess, vinyls are back, but when I was growing up, there were actual albums. Whatever that looks like, is there a structure, a certain formula? I’ve heard people talk about TV sitcoms and they’re 23 minutes. If you really went through and analyzed every single sitcom, you would see that at the five minute point, it does this, at the ten minute point it does that, at the 20 minute point it does this. I know the songs aren’t that formulaic but in terms of the layout of the album, is it like we need two ballads and one fast song and one honky-tonk at the end or…

Jessi  

I think that there probably is, every artist is different. But I would definitely say you don’t want a ballad heavy record or too much tempo, you want range. I would think for an artist you want a lot of range. But imagine, we’re trying to basically put words in an artist’s mouth and that’s half of our battle. It’s like, would Blake Shelton say blue truck or would he say black truck? Would he think about his dad or would he not? We don’t know, that’s why when you get to write with the artists, it’s just so much easier. But I will say that the songs that I’ve had success with are generally not as pinpointed as I’m talking about. A song like “I Drive Your Truck”, that came from real story, real emotions. We could have over-thought that, we could have thought, gosh, can we say “Go Army” in it or should we say all these details, but that was a song that we were writing for pure joy and almost like it had to come out. And then the artist will pick whoever it resonates for, but I would say [that’s] what all artists are looking for. One of the hardest things to pull off as a songwriter is writing something original, something really special, something that no one’s said before. I mean, those are just a handful of times [that] you get those in your career; we’re all just chasing that. It’s very difficult. When you look at the stereotype of country music and the type of things that are sung about it, it probably becomes even more difficult to make that original; I guess there are different ways to do that. It’s not necessarily the topic or the theme or the words, sometimes it can be the melody, the song itself, that’s catchy. Exactly, we want lightning in the bottle, we want special, we want something that just rings true for so many people and they’re hard, those special ideas. That’s what’s great about co-writing is that I might not have anything that day, but my co-writer might have a title that they don’t think is anything, [then] the way I hear it, it’s just different and a light bulb goes off or vice-versa. So the collaboration is really what makes, I think, Nashville special as a songwriting community.

Brian  

When I hear you talk about the difficulty of making it unique, making it special, coming up with something different, and then I go down to Nashville along Broadway and go from bar to bar to bar, what strikes me there is there’s so much talent. I think because it’s so condensed, it’s so packed on Broadway, but literally every door that you go to, you hear really good music. Some is better than others but the point is there’s a lot of talent down there. There’s a lot of artist talent, and I’m sure behind the scenes, there’s a lot of songwriter talent too. So what are the qualities that it takes to be successful in your field? It just seems like such an incredibly difficult business. So the people who are successful like you, what are you doing that other people aren’t doing?

Jessi  

That’s a great question because so many people reach out and they want this…like, what’s the magic, what’s the one thing? I think it’s a lot of things. I think the very, very – if I had to pick a characteristic of number one, it would be thick skin or maybe perseverance. This is a town where you can just quit today and someone will fill your spot. I hate to make it sound like you’re not special, but there are just so many people moving here. And the talent – you’ve got to imagine the people that are here were the best in their little town. There are some great people that came out of little towns. So it’s the best of the best and everybody’s here and so you have to have resilience and perseverance. There are so many times I almost quit. I mean, we could have a whole other podcast episode about me thinking I was going to quit and even talking about quitting. But I would say that’s number one. Number two is work ethic. Just true grind. Because it really isn’t a game of numbers like odds – at least this is all for me – there was a wonderful songwriter named Hugh Prestwood that wrote some huge songs. He only wrote like ten songs in a year and he got them all cut. So there are those songwriters, but I would say for someone like me, it’s playing the odds, it’s writing, writing, writing, and then something just pops, and then you might have a run of songs. But I like to keep my pencil sharpened, I call it, I like to just stay sharp. I look at it as a day job, like very blue collar; I clock in, I clock out. So that, to me, has worked. What other characteristics…I think staying true to yourself and being authentic because it’s real tempting in this town to go oh, so and so’s doing great with honky-tonk songs, I’m going to go write a bunch of those. Or oh, they’re doing so awesome with wedding songs, I’m going to go do that. I think if you chase things you never really find what your gift is or what you’re going to bring to Nashville as a songwriter; so staying true to who you are. Then I would say lastly, being fluid, not being too rigid. I went through a phase where I didn’t want to write with other females only because I so enjoy writing songs for men. I mean, it’s genuine. I get giddy writing songs for men. When I write for a female, I’m always – I don’t know…but this year, I’ve re-worked some things, I’ve opened my heart and my mind with it and already met some incredible women that I’m writing with. So I think it’s just not getting rigid. Those would be my top.

Brian  

You brought up something, and I was smiling because about an hour ago, I was listening to – I’ve listened to the whole Decatur County Red album, all three of your albums actually – but I was listening, about an hour ago, to “I Drive Your Truck” and I actually had the thought – because I was thinking about how you write songs – I mean, it seems like…I heard a speaker, he was talking about stories. And he said the best stories are your own stories. He said you can pull stories that you hear about or you can read about stories and you can incorporate those into your speeches. But the best stories are your stories because they’re the ones that you know the best. You know the details. So I was thinking about that as I was listening to “I Drive Your Truck” and I had that exact thought – you said you like to write songs for men, but you were singing the song. I didn’t listen to the version by Lee Brice. But I was just wondering, do you write songs for men or for women. Does it evolve into that? How does that work? I find that fascinating because I just couldn’t imagine you driving that truck around like that, or maybe you did. [Laughter].

Jessi  

Yeah, it’s weird to me that – I guess maybe I should probably talk to an actor friend about this sometime – because in my mind, I’m kind of acting. I’m seeing a story. The second someone says, for example, I drive your truck – she said that title – immediately, I reached to a memory that I had, which was my grandmother, after my granddaddy passed away, she kept his truck parked in the garage. It was in mint condition to the way he left it, for years. And I would go and sit in his truck and I could still smell him and feel him. So immediately, I went there. I find that if I can connect something that I’ve lived or felt, then we’re off to the races. Where I struggle, a hard day for me, is when I’m just…I have nothing to really offer. I’m just rhyming words basically. I would say the connection is pretty immediate for me when I get an idea going. But for example – a lot of people don’t know this, I don’t think I’ve ever told anybody this in a podcast – but actually “The Climb” was written from a male point of view. You hear a 15 year old Miley Cyrus sing it, but when we wrote it I absolutely saw a guy. I saw the struggle of this guy in my mind when we were writing it, and my co-writer, John Mabe, is obviously a male so he was singing it. So it’s great when a song can transcend gender and just go to any age group, any female or male, but I definitely…I don’t know why. Maybe if I was an actor, I probably would want to be a male actor and the kinds of characters; there’s just the rough, the invulnerable. I don’t know, it’s just more my nature kind of being a tomboy, but I do love to write songs for men. Now that we have so many amazing women in our format coming through, that are kind of like that as well, I’m having so much joy writing with them. So with “The Climb” it’s interesting that you say that was written for a man because I really thought that it was – and certainly if it wasn’t written this way it applies and sort of lays over what was going through your life at the time or what’s going through your life at at different times. Maybe that’s why it’s such a great song, is we can all apply that to our lives. But I really thought, when I read about you and when I read about “The Climb”, that it was one of those situations where you were writing to order, so to speak, or you wrote it as a reflection of an actual experience that you were either going through at the time or had gone through. Can you tell us more about that? That’s such a great song. Absolutely. Well, we mentioned it earlier about those those moments that you want to quit, and that’s one of them. I went from being a back-up singer, songwriter, publishing deal, then to a record deal. So a pretty long, hard journey, we’re talking about seven or eight years worth of – I’ve talked about the Cinderella story moving to Nashville, but then I got hit pretty hard with the realities of how gut wrenching this town can be. You have to hear a lot of “no” to get one yes. I had a rocky road as an artist, for whatever reason, I just couldn’t get any traction at radio and I was seeing the writing on the wall. Sure enough, I lost my record deal and publishing deal and pretty much was trying to figure out what I was going to do. I was approaching 30 and my husband – or at the time, my boyfriend – he is a great songwriter. He had just won Song of the Year for a song called “Whiskey Lullaby” and I remember thinking, I’ve given this town a good run, I’ve worked hard, and he’s having all this wonderful success, maybe we should get married. I know I want to be a mom, I could stay home. You know, I’m just thinking that. So when I went into write “The Climb” that day, which I didn’t know I was going to write it, just another day. Me and John Mabe – who was also kind of an underdog, he had just started writing songs – so we’re both underdogs, both kind of scrapper types, when we were at that song, we didn’t think anything. I mean, it’s just like another song that will be vaulted. But sure enough, when we finished it, I just remember thinking this is really special and I don’t know why or how, and I was at a point of giving up. But if you listen to those words, you can hear how it really is self-help therapy to myself, but I didn’t even know that. Then it was two years later that I actually did have a child, my daughter, and the song was coming out, literally, on the television for President Obama’s inauguration, the night that I was in hospital delivering her. You can’t make that stuff up, it’s just full circle.

Brian  

Oh, that’s a great story. So tell us about how…it seems like you just never really know. I imagine there are times that you go in a room with with a co-writer, you go in a room with an artist and at the end of that session, you really feel like you’ve nailed it, that you have something truly special. Then I’m sure like “The Climb” there are other times where you’re working, you’re producing, okay, I have a song, time to punch out for the day, but it’s not going to go anywhere and then it becomes Hannah Montana huge. I remember another songwriter, talking about that same notion, I think it was Josh Kerr, and he was telling a story about how he had gotten together with a band and they were going in to write a song. They wrote the song and it was good and everybody was happy with it and they had a little bit of extra time left. They had been working on something else or somebody had an idea for something else and they wrote that kind of as an afterthought. That second one was the one that ended up the huge hit. So how does that all play out? How do you know?

Jessi  

I know, it’s crazy that we don’t know. I mean, that just shows you how twisted and, is it magical? I don’t know what the words [are]. It’s just like art; it’s the eye of the beholder. So like you just don’t know when a song is going to resonate like that. We might think oh, we rang the bell. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been like, oh my god, I can’t write a better song than that one. Then you hear crickets, like nothing, nobody likes it. But I will say the longer I do this and have done this, I do feel like my judgment is pretty…like I can kind of tell this is special, this important. But it’s just, it’s magic. I don’t know…I don’t know what else to say other than it’s just kind of a mystery for me still.

Brian  

Well there are obviously very talented people in Nashville, if we’re talking about the country genre, but really beyond that in music, who are we to have the skill of being able to sort of determine songs that are going to do well, I guess. And so you do that on some level as a songwriter, and then maybe you show it to an artist or an artist gets a call from somebody that says, hey, you have to listen to this, I think this would be great for you. And they agree, it’s great, and then they record it. But then you have the finicky public. It seems like that’s really the wild card, that you could have the the greatest song ever written and you and all of your writer friends agree that it’s the greatest song ever written. Then you get a bunch of artists in a room and they’re fighting over who’s going to record it, because it’s so great. Then somebody records it and it’s another song that gets produced. I mean, you know the number, there are  hundreds or thousands of songs, even the songs that get recorded, and not all of them end up number one, obviously.

Jessi  

Totally. We never know. A lot of it has to do with timing and luck, or it’s…they’re big machines – Sony, Warner Brothers – we’re talking about big, big record labels with a lot of artists. I’ve just been fortunate that everything aligned, but I could tell you so many songs that are buried on records that I think are just as special as “The Climb” or “I Drive Your Truck”, maybe even more special. But the artists, they only get certain amount of songs that they can release to radio, which is when y’all would ever hear them. Those slots are coveted; to get a single is really the way we get paid. So it could be that those songs are out there, [but] they haven’t been released to the masses.

Brian  

Back to the craft of writing for just a second. So one thing you and I have in common – you might not know this – is that we’re both writers. So although I have had the unique opportunity to take part in the process of writing a country song – which was actually around the time that I saw you in that private concert, and that’s what led to our connecting – but usually I write articles and books in the success and personal development genre, so very different, for the most part, than country music. But as a writer, I know that sometimes words flow almost effortlessly and much of the time, it’s not quite that easy. Share your thoughts on that, Jessi, how does that play out as you’re writing songs and help us to understand more about that for you.

Jessi  

I like to think of it as some days I play ping pong and some days I play chess. So my favorite’s ping pong. I love…there’s nothing better than collaborating with someone. They say something that makes me think of something, and then we’re back and forth. That is probably my favorite, just some high energy; I love throwing paint at canvas. But I also love to then fine tune. That’s when chess comes in, where I’m, okay, let’s go back, let’s make sure all this is right. I think that’s part of my tool belt. But I would just say that, as you know, you just described this, sometimes there’s this channel that’s just open and it’s just pouring out. Then it’s almost like it just stops and it’s over, and you’re just like, why? What did I do that day? How do I get back to that? But I think that’s why, as I was saying earlier, my method, as a songwriter – I’m not sure what yours is like as a writer – but that’s why I write so much. I’ve learned that the more I write, the more I write, the better I write. It’s just like an exercise, like going to the gym, for me. Where I have trouble is if I get too distracted and lost and [have] too much downtime I’ll meander off into something else. So I think it’s just…sometimes the flow’s there. But my husband always says, I work hard, play hard. I’m the person that will put in 50 hours a week, no problem, 60 hours, just bam, bam, bam. But then when I go to the beach, you don’t even want to talk to me about songs, there’s not a guitar in sight. I don’t even listen to music. I listen to podcasts, like yours.

Brian  

When you’re writing with other people are there times when you get stuck? So you hit the ping pong ball and it doesn’t come back? And you’re sort of looking and then (Jessi: Yes.) you’re not sure where you’re at? How do you work through that? That seems awkward, sitting in a room with one or two other people and nobody’s saying…that awkward silence goes on for minutes or maybe longer? How do you work through that?

Jessi  

Yesterday that happened, actually. It was a great title, the guy had a great title, me and the other co-writer, we saw it, I started spouting out, first verse kind of came out, the chorus was getting written, that just came out so easy. Now it’s time to write the second verse and it’s just like the first, just new words, it shouldn’t be that hard. And, oh my gosh, that first part took an hour, but just trying to get that second verse took like three and a half. You just get crazy, you’re just foggy and the goal lines are so far away and your judgment; and then nothing sounds good. Then this person might pick up a guitar and be like, oh, what about this, we’ll ride that for a minute and then stall out. It just [gets] to the point where you finally say, I don’t think we’re going to get it today. So what we do is we put that piece down, we like to get a fresh look at it. I’ve already, just today, seen the email that came through about rescheduling. So we’ll try to find a morning or an afternoon, because we’re all so booked that we have to find these little windows of time where we’ll get back together. I think you’d be surprised how quickly that second verse will likely get written because we’ll have a new perspective, fresh view on it.

Brian  

Does that ever come to you on the beach in spite of your desire to not have it just jump into your mind?

Jessi  

I think it’s more bizarre times. I can’t tell you how…there’s a funny…voice memos is one of my favorite apps that I use as a songwriter. I mean, there’s literally a voice memo of me talking in an elevator saying these words as I’m walking my daughter into her pediatrician appointment. I’m not kidding. Like you hear the doctor say, oh, hi, you look so…and I’m literally spouting out a whole first verse. Like, it’s crazy. I mean, I get titles, thoughts, ideas, music,  in obviously the shower, obviously driving my car, things like that. But then there’s these…literally, I’ve been in a restaurant talking to a girlfriend and she’ll say something and I’m just like, oh my god, that’s a song and I have to excuse myself, go to the restroom or something, and just get it out. I’ve learned that those are all little gifts. They’re just little, they’re not all great but you just never know, one tiny little piece can change your life really, as a songwriter. Somehow we’re just pulling out the [inaudible].

Brian  

You really need to capture it right at the moment, right there. If you don’t get it, then it’s gone. Whether it’s in a dream and you wake up, or at the pediatrician or at the restaurant. I carry Post-it notes. I like Post-it notes.

Jessi  

I think that sometimes it’s just good to sit at the piano. I just don’t get to do this a lot. If I sit there and just try to be quiet and just start playing or I’m on my guitar – either way – and just singing and playing. I love that I don’t pressure myself to finish it. I don’t have any desire. It’s not a number game for me in that way. It’s like, I’m okay, literally all I got was a line. In my mind, hey, that could be the one line and be the opening lines with this guy’s idea.

Brian  

That’s great. Jessi, one of the things we try to accomplish on this show is identifying success traits in specific vocations that we can then take and apply to be more successful in whatever we do. What advice do you have for our listeners and viewers about what it takes to be successful in one’s chosen vocation, whatever that is? And how to approach something, especially when we truly believe that’s our calling. I know from our conversation very early in the show talking about your background and how your appreciation for music evolved, and how you started performing and writing, I get the sense that for you, it’s more than a job, even though on a day to day, week to week, month to month, year to year basis, it really is a job. But that it’s more than that for you, that you feel really called to this. So what advice do you have for people around that who feel like they’re really called to something? Maybe they’re in the position that you were in when you were still living in Decatur County.

Jessi  

Yeah, West Tennessee. Yeah, man, I want to, for a second, imagine not being a songwriter. If you had a dream of doing anything, what’s success? I think dedication. That’s the word that I’m seeing right now is a true dedication to whatever it takes. What does it take to achieve this? That might be different, maybe you have to figure out what that is. I always use the tool belt analogy, I guess, because I grew up around a carpenter, but know your tool belt. Like, I have a hammer and I have this and this, but I know how to keep them sharp, and I know how to use them and when to use them. But I do think that you can get distracted so quickly by trying to use other people’s tools, other people’s gifts. I have so many songwriters that reach out and they think, gosh, if I could just get in the room with a hit songwriter, I’ll write a hit. But it really doesn’t necessarily happen like that. Maybe you have to find your group that are on your level and you guys become the next hit songwriters. So I think that dedication to your craft, learn as much as you can learn, ask questions, dare to be stupid, dare to fail. I really am all about work ethic, that’s what’s worked for me is not giving up. Now, I didn’t have a backup plan. I didn’t have a college degree. So for me, there was no other option. But I think you’d see that thread in most of my life is just putting in the work.

Brian  

You talked earlier about times when you wanted to quit, and maybe it’s happened various times, sometimes it was a more stronger tug than others, but share with our listeners and viewers what to do when they’re in that situation. So you were pretty close to that, it sounds like, (Jessi:  Yeah.) and yet you didn’t, you kept going. Where did you reach for that, the energy and the support and the springboard to keep going?

Jessi  

Yeah, I call it grit, you know, it’s like, I think I’m one of those people where I get kicked down and I doubt myself and I even have to say the words; “I think I want to quit” – it has to come out. Even though in my soul, my soul knows it’s not possible, but I have to say it, and almost wallow in it for a minute and just kind of go there. But for me, what happens is, I don’t like that feeling. I don’t like to be stricken with self-doubt. Something inside of me just rallies and it has to come from me. I mean, my husband can tell me, my kids can tell me, my cousins, my publisher, you’re gonna have a hit, you’re gonna come back – because I’ve gone through some long stretches without hits, there’s been years [that] go by where you’re like, man, I might be done. But I would say two things; this rally cry has to come from me, I have to just get back up on my own. Then I would say the second thing that has worked now, maybe two or three times for me, is reinvention. That could be seeing what you see as success, maybe your end game wasn’t right. Maybe that isn’t logical or isn’t attainable, maybe you just need to adjust it a little more. Or maybe that end game is too much of a distraction and you need to work on what is my daily success; I wrote a song today. It’s changing your perspective. I think everybody is so different, you know?

Brian  

Well, and too, maybe it just wasn’t meant to be. That’s a very difficult conclusion to come around to. So when you went to Nashville, you didn’t go to Nashville to – I don’t think – to become a great songwriter, you wanted to perform. You wanted to be an amazing performer – and by the way, you are an amazing performer. I’ve thought about this a lot. I can’t for the life of me figure out – we’ll talk about this on the next podcast, maybe – why some people make it and some people don’t. When you look at, I mean, Jessi, when I look at you on paper, you’re an attractive young woman, you’re an incredibly talented vocalist, you have an amazing voice. I’m not an expert in anything, in certainly not in country music, but you have a great voice and a unique style, I think, that it seems like that would be attractive to companies and to the public and yet, some people make it and some people don’t. You were faced with that, at some point, where you had the record contract, long story short, it didn’t pan out. You had to come to terms with that and you made lemonade out of lemons. Again, it’s very difficult as you’re going through it but I really believe that if things are meant to be, then they’ll happen. Sometimes we fight really, really hard to make things happen and we’re convinced that it’s our calling, we’re convinced that it’s what we’re meant to do and yet, the doors just don’t open for that.

Jessi  

Absolutely. That’s really where faith comes in for me. I could not have dreamed this life or this career, and I’m still just amazed by how God works in my life. And where, if I’d been a recording artist, like maybe you envisioned or I envisioned, at one point, I would not have written “I Drive Your Truck”, I wouldn’t have had time. I wouldn’t have written The Climb” because I wouldn’t have had the struggle. I can’t tell you how many times I feel like there’s a little voice inside of me saying like, I’ve got you, all you’ve got to do is just work hard and be you and be authentic – I’ve got this. And so my faith really, at the end of the day, it’s strong; as to I don’t have a plan, I don’t know the plan. All I know is to put one step forward every day and just do my best. So that’s what I lean on.

Brian  

So He’s driving the truck.

Jessi  

Absolutely. And if I can let go and not have these banner moments that I see that I want, maybe there’s going to be even better and bigger. I went through a phase of wanting an Oscar. I mean, it sounds crazy, as a songwriter it’s hard to do. I got really close to it with “The Climb”. So once I tasted it, I was like, man, that would be so cool. I’m a huge movie lover too, people that know me know how much I love movies; I love film and television. I would love to write an Oscar winning song. I fixated on that for a couple of years and got distracted chasing things that just didn’t matter. And who knows, I might get that Oscar, but it won’t probably be doing it like that. It’ll probably come from a way that I was just writing songs that I believed in and let God do the rest of the work.

Brian  

That’s a great approach. What do you love most about what you do, Jessi? What inspires you to write songs and to perform music?

Jessi  

Oh man, I love so much about it. I think that I love that every day is different. I’m very…I’m likely to get bored quickly if I had a job that was to do the same thing. So today I wrote with a guy from Texas, he’s a Texas artist. Monday I was with a new Georgia boy, I’m writing with females, males, bands, just everyday is so different. So I love…that’s probably my favorite thing about my job. What else? I do love to perform, I love to sing. But my true love is to start with a blank piece of paper, just like you do as a writer, and look up three or four, five, six hours later and go, there’s a song, a whole song has just been written. And to hear it on the way home, you listen to the work tape, you’re like, nailed it. And then the next morning, you listen to it again, it’s just getting better. And that joy – before someone said…this is way before someone says no – this is when you still think it’s amazing.

Brian  

Still in the irrational, exuberance phase, right?

Jessi  

You’re texting your co-writers like yeah, played it for my wife last night, they love it too, you’re just high. It is a high. Songs, for me, can be a high, especially when I know I nailed it. Like every word is perfect, every line is perfect. There’s so much gratification in that for me. And I’ll be honest, sometimes it’s okay if someone didn’t like it, it’s just – I love it.

Brian  

I was just going to say that. I was going to suggest that oftentimes that’s probably enough, that you’re satisfied with the quality of what you produced, whether that gets publicly acclaimed or not. That’s a wonderful, wonderful feeling. It’s a maturity, I think too, that you’re able to get to that point and in find joy in what you do and not have somebody else determine the joy, I guess, based on the results that get created. Not that you wouldn’t love another number one hit.

Jessi  

Absolutely, yeah. But I mean, you just never know. The song I have on the chart right now that I wrote in 2018. I mean, it’s just, it’s such a long…you were asking earlier about characteristics that you need. I would say patience. I did not say that and I should have because it is such a game of waiting. So many of my songs are five years old, six years old. I mean my Scotty McCreery song you mentioned, that was six years old when it came out. (Brian:  Wow.) I’d forgotten about that song, that was long gone. That’s two catalogs ago. So you do have to have a lot of patience.

Brian  

Jessi, you’ve worked with a number of amazing artists, including all the ones that we talked about:  Blake Shelton and Miley Cyrus, but also others like Dirks Bentley, Miranda Lambert, Little Big Town, Trisha Yearwood, and many others. Who have you enjoyed working with the most? And then secondly, if you could choose an artist to record your next number one hit, who would it be? (Jessi:  Oooh, okay.) This is just between you and me. I won’t tell anybody I promise. [Laughter].

Jessi  

Okay, I’m just gonna go with my gut here. There are so many artists that I’ve enjoyed, but I’ve just enjoyed the years of time with Blake Shelton. We came to town around the same time. We have a love language of communication, I don’t know what you want to call it, but the songs I write, he responds; we just, we get each other. Even after having our first two number ones together that I wrote, and he recorded, he then called me to write for “Angry Birds”, which is the animated movie. then he’s called me with a beautiful gospel melody that he had dreamed the night before. We wrote it for his record, I think two records ago, a song called “Savior Shadow”. He has just entrusted me and just shared with me pieces of his soul and his story and I’ve gotten to be a part of his career. I have a lot of songs on a lot of people’s records, but just to have that full, several chapters, a long timespan with someone, that’s really special to me and there are a lot of artists that don’t remain so faithful to a writer. So I would say Blake is probably my favorite in that way. And then my next member one…I mean, I have two songs that I have on the chart right now go to number one, but do you want like just a random person to record myself?

Brian  

Absolutely. If you could pick…if I had a magic wand and could wave it and said, I can give you anybody to record your next number one song, who would you like it to be?

Jessi  

To be a collaboration with Dolly Parton. Can you hear me? (Brian:  I can.) There you are. Dolly Parton, she would sing it and I would love for Eric Church to be on there. And I would love Miranda or anybody. [Laughter]. Really just Dolly. I mean, if Dolly ever sang one of my songs, I don’t know that there’s any greater reward. She’s one of the greatest songwriters of all time.

Brian  

Absolutely. Then you could be done, just mic drop. Drop your pen.

Jessi  

Drop the mic, yeah, it’s over. Yeah, I’ll go with Dolly, doesn’t get much better than that.

Brian  

Oh, that’s awesome. Jessi, thank you so much for being on the show today. Your music is amazing. But I have to tell you, I’m even more inspired by you and your story and all the great information that you’ve shared today. I really appreciate it. So thank you.

Jessi  

I hope so. I hope I’ve helped a little bit. Thank you so much for asking such great questions.

Brian  

It’s been great having you on the show. And for our listeners and viewers, thanks for tuning into Life Excellence. If you enjoyed the show today with singer and songwriter Jessi Alexander, then hit the subscribe button and subscribe to the Life Excellence podcast or to our YouTube channel. Also, if you’re not already following me on Instagram, you can find me @BrianBartes; that’s at B-R-I-A-N B-A-R-T-E (E like Edward)-S. Until next time, dream big dreams and make each day your masterpiece.