New Artist Spotlight: Cole Swindell and Music That Means Something

With "Chillin' It" propelling Cole Swindell from promising unsigned artist to Gold-selling, Top 5 singin' Warner Nashville-signed artist, the singer is ready to unviel his 12 track debut album. Take a look here at this in-depth conversation about his career, touring with Luke Bryan, song 'controversies' and more!

It’d be easy to suggest that because he’s friends with a lot of top stars that Cole Swindell has seemingly rode on their coattails but as with nearly every other artist in Nashville, Cole’s built up his career through writing with many people around town an happening to have built relationships with and been employed by superstars like Luke Bryan. Cole was hired by Luke before Luke was even a star, it was his first music business job after college at Georgia Southern. Cole basically spent the time in music business boot camp and throughout the course of this conversation, he describes what it was like to witness Luke Bryan’s career take off, what he learned from that to his own songwriting, his album Cole Swindell, to even a nice discussion on how songs don’t have to be a tear-inducing sort of song to make an emotional connection with the audience or to make you feel something. 

Matt Bjorke: How would you describe your songwriting process? 

Cole Swindell: Oh man, I think it’s different every time you go into a room. I think it depends with a title, idea or melody. You gotta go in open to write something that is good. Don’t settle for anything just because you need to write something. It just depends on what you have first, but it’s a lot of hopefully being comfortable to say what you feel and know that not every line is gonna be great. Just gotta be willing to put yourself out there.

Matt: What have you learned by being able to tour with Luke BryaN all of these years? 

I was out when he is a new artist [as his merchandise sales guy], kinda like I am now. Except I don’t think things happened for him like they have for me, because every artist has their own path. I got to see what a new artist does from the ground up, from a slow-moving first single to a second single that really didn’t do much. I got to see what an artist does from going on a radio tour, to everything else. I didn’t know it then when I was watching it that I was learning all of that and with him being such a good dude. But looking back, I was lucky to get to experience all of that with one of the biggest guys in the format come up, what it’s like to be an artist and how to treat people in your camp. I learned a lot. 

Matt Bjorke: What does it mean to have a guy like that on your side?

Cole: I think its’ a big advantage. For one, he’s a super guy but I don’t think many people can say they’re good friends with a guy who is as big of a star but there are other superstars who are just as good a guy as he is. We just happened to be friends and I’ve promoted his music. I’d like to say now that after me working for him, this is his way to help me. He’s done nothing more than really give me a shot and be welcoming if I need advice but he’s really let me figure it out for myself. When he asked me out on tour, I don’t think that was a gimme, I think he truly did that because he likes what I’m doing as an artist. means a lot to to have the support of someone like him. 

Matt: I’m sure the Georgia connection doesn’t hurt…

Cole: Yeah, that’s what they say but I’m just glad they had room for one more… 

Matt: What Made “Chillin’ It” the right song to be your debut single?

Cole: I think for me, your first single is huge. It’s your first shot. Some people don’t get a second chance if the first one doesn’t work. I think it has to be the right one so in my opinion, I wanted it to be something that felt good and made people wanna know more about me and say ‘what’s his music about?’. So when I wrote it I felt like it was the song to do it with. It was one of those feelings as a songwriter and you almost freak out and say ‘am I overreacting to it’ but I had that feeling, I went to my Manager (Kerri Edwards) agreed. So we ran with it and when it hit SiriusXM, it showed people are digging’ it.

Matt: Yeah, it’s gotten over 1,000,000 plays on SoundCloud…

Cole: Wow, isn’t that crazy man? I wrote it February 7, 2013 and just a year later it’s Top 5 and has millions of plays. I was worried when playing my live shows that they only have one song they can buy and know but thanks to Youtube, they know every word to these songs and its’ not even out yet. Social media and YouTube are huge. So, I’m very excited the album is now out for everyone to buy it and get to know me more, I can’t wait to see how it changes the show.

Matt: How did you go about choosing the songs for the album? 

Cole: We went about it differently, we knew we had Chillin’ It” and I knew we had to tell the rest of my story, because life’s not all about chillin’ it. That’s one song that’s a feel good song so we just took songs that, for the most part, are part of an album that, that one go-to CD you pop in when you first get it and it doesn’t leave your CD player for months. Songs about relationships, songs about live concert experiences and songs about how I grew up (like “The Back Roads and the Back Row”), what it was like where I came from. I think that’s what’s cool about your debut album, you get to tell your life story over 10 or 12 songs and the fact that I’ve got 12 and wrote 11 of them, I think it’s a good representation of who I am and what my music is about.

I want it to be high energy, man. It has a lot to do with how I write my songs, and I think about what I’m going to be doing when I sing these songs. I remember writing “Hey Y’all” a year and a half ago and I thought, if I was performing in arenas, i thought it’d be cool to have a song as an intro song for your show, to wave to everyone, even the people in the back in the show. You gotta have a balance, you have to have high energy show and sing all ballads but the ballads are important. To me, I love all kinds of songs, from 90s country to the newest sounds of country music today and its’ gotten us to where we are. 

Matt: Yeah, it is a sort of melting pot these days…

Cole: Yeah, it does.  Everyone’s got their own deal and I’m jut glad I love the music I get to make, but it ain’t for everybody. From the more traditional to the current sounds to the progressive sounds. I know I’m not for everyone, why not just listen to what you want to. 

Matt: Yeah, like when Luke’s song (“That’s My Kind Of Night”) came out and I was like, so what if it mentions Conway and T-Pain in the same song… 

Yeah, that kind of stuff, I think people mistake sometimes that they think for a song to be a great song it has to bring a tear to your eye or say, ‘oh man that’s true,’ and to a point that’s true, that’s great but if you see 20,000 people singing along to a song, you can’t tell me that the song doesn’t make you feel something. I get that it’s not life-changing but when you’re from where I’m from there’ nothing to do but sing about things like that. 

It’s funny that the people who write hateful things about songs like that, they either get it for free or they don’t even really like listening to it or the genre. The fans that buy it are the ones that love it. It’s like, “hey, we’re trying to sell records and give people what they wanna hear." It’s not about ‘selling out.” I’m lucky to really love everything that’s on my record, and I'd like to think it shows.

Matt: And that’s probably how you go about selecting everything on the record…

Exactly, and not everything I’ve written was for me because before this record, as a songwriter, I wasn’t (always) writing for me. For example, Florida Georgia Line and I wrote the other day and they're about to go in and record so we tailored it more to them but if it would’ve been me it’d have been (written more) for me. And I wrote their current single “This Is How We Roll,” and they wrote “Hope You Get Lonely Tonight” with me for my record. That kind of stuff is just cool to me to have your buddies write with you for your albums and it really feels cool to have phenomenal writers like Thomas Rhett record your songs, even when could choose their own songs. To have his current single — written with his daddy — it’s really cool to me but it probably wouldn’t have worked on my own album but he's willing to have the best songs on his album that fit him and that's all we can ask each other to do, to record the best songs on your record, no matter who wrote them, and that they hit you and your life in some way.

Matt: That’s why albums are really snapshots about where an artist is at in their life at the time they wrote and make it…

Cole: Exactly, and I think that’s why as a songwriter when you’re frustrated when someone wouldn’t ut it, I’ve had songs that didn’t hit me at first but then I go through something and listen to it again, and snap, it hits me…

Matt: Yeah and then I’m sure songs like “Chillin’ It” hits people differently than maybe it did you as a writer…

Cole: Yeah, the fact that every time that song comes on and it makes people wan an turn their radio up, that’s cool to me and then there’s other songs that make you cry or help you deal with things an you need to hear ‘em. That’s all we’re trying to do…

Matt: Yeah, like Luke’s “Drink A Beer,” I lost a close friend and it really hit me hard…

Cole: Man, I’m so glad you brought that song up. That’s a perfect example of a song when I first heard it, I knew that after Luke had been through (losing siblings), I was like ‘wow, bet that hit him hard,’ but for me, it changed when my dad passed away this year. It took on a different meaning for me. That’s why songs become timeless, it may hit someone one way one day and one way the next. 

Matt: What one word would best describe country music to you?

Cole Swindell: Life. Form the feel good part of it to the loss (Like “Drink A beer,” songs like that), Everything. I think the reason some people don’t like it is because the real life stuff, the sad stuff. And that’s fine but for me to be able to have songs about parties in a field and the next song’s about losing someone and the chance to see them again in the future. To me it’s just real life.

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