Nicolle Galyon’s list of accomplishments has gotten a lot bigger recently: after years of working as a songwriter, she received her first number one country song with Keith Urban and Miranda Lambert’s “We Were Us,” followed by another with just Lambert for the song “Automatic.” CMA and Grammy nominations followed, along with being named Music Row’s Breakout Songwriter of 2014, all the while raising a toddler with another baby on the way.
Galyon’s Nashville story starts with attending Belmont University with intentions of working on the business side of the industry as an artist manager. “I was just completely intrigued with the music business,” she says. “I’m actually pretty type A, so I was wired. I’m really business minded by nature so I thought that I’d make a good manager.” However, that drive to be a manager was quickly over taken by her creative side. “Shortly after getting to Nashville I met a bunch of songwriters and kind of figured out that I was a songwriter even before I wrote a song. I just knew that I was. So I started writing songs.
I was a closet songwriter when I was at Belmont.
I wasn’t really out performing a lot.” That didn’t stop her from having the dream of pursuing songwriting as a career, as she wrote all throughout college.
About a year after graduating from Belmont in 2006, she landed a publishing deal with Warner Chappell, one of the biggest publishers in town. She spent several years continuously working on her songwriting, unfortunately without any artists cutting her songs. As she worked on her writing she realized that she was also getting better as a singer, describing herself as not a ‘technically great’ singer but one that was believable, something that is even more important. “I got to the point where I exhausted writing songs,” she remembers. “I thought ‘Well maybe I’m just supposed to make the record myself.’ So I started playing some shows, and the word spread that I was trying to get a record deal, [so] I got referred to try out for The Voice.”
Galyon on The Voice in 2011.
She competed on the second season of the singing competition in 2011 and then came right back to Nashville to get to work. “Ironically when I came back from doing The Voice, everything started clicking on the songwriting side. I started getting cuts, [and] that was all I ever wanted from the beginning. Once that started happening I didn’t have any desire to be an artist anymore, and that hasn’t changed since.”
When talking about her songwriting process, she says even though she grew playing classical piano, “I’m really more inspired by words than
I am anything.” So how does a song start? For Galyon it usually begins with
“a buzz word - something that I think would look good on the back of a record or it just intrigues me.
Some of them aren’t even titles, it’s just words that I think fit together that would look cool. Probably 80-90% of the time I’m writing in a studio or [with a person] that already has a bed of music already ready, so I don’t have to think about that part as much, so [the words can lead]. The idea of the song is just crucial to me. Then you paint around that.” However, the process can be different depending on whom she is writing with. When there is an artist as part of the co- write, there are both positives and negatives to that. “When you have an artist in the room, you’re tailoring the whole thing to them. In some ways you can be more specific, because I like details and a lot of imagery in songs, and when I’m not with an artist sometimes I have to hold back and I can’t say ‘this happened on a Tuesday at 2 o’clock in a red Camaro’ because there might be a lot of artists that can’t relate to that specific experience. But when you’re with an artist you can say ‘this happened on a Tuesday at 2 o’clock in a red Camaro’ if that really happened to them. So you can take some liberties when you are with the artist that you can’t take [otherwise].”
Galyon with co-writers Miranda Lambert & Natalie Hemby celebrating the success of "Automatic."
Writing without an artist in the room provides its own set of challenges and liberties. “Most of the time I just write I think, and most of my co- writers have this same philosophy, you do what’s best for the song, [granted that the song sits in the marketplace you’re writing for]. I’m pretty deliberate when I write about making sure that it’s not just something that I get a kick out of, I really want it to be universal.” She compares the process to making clothing. “It’s like you’re making a pair of jeans, like you just pray that you make a pair as good as possible, and then you hope that there’s somebody out there that those jeans will fit on perfectly,” a process that can be very difficult, as getting a cut on an album goes through a lot of people and has to fit the artist really well.
Success as a songwriter, especially recently, is something that she is very grateful for and realizes it doesn’t happen to everyone. She has been a part of the Girls of Summer and Girls of Fall events (discussed in issue 2!) and is happy to see women supporting each other. “When you live in Nashville and look at the music business, it doesn’t take long to figure out that
‘okay out of every ten jobs at a record label one of them is a woman, and [out of] every ten successful songwriters only one of them is a woman’
and no one ever tells you this, but I think you kind of read between the lines and think ‘oh, there’s only a certain number of slots for us girls.’ So then you take it a step further and you think ‘well we’re in competition with each other for those limited amount of spaces in the business,’ and that’s false. That’s 100% false. There’s enough to go around for everyone.” She has seen a change in people’s perspectives in Nashville. “What I’ve seen in the past couple years, in my career and in my peers’ careers, is that when women really rally around each other and help each other, it’s not only good for all of us writers but it’s good for the industry because
there are things that need to be said that couldn’t be said if there wasn’t a woman in the room to say it.
I’m just really excited to be in the middle of that. I feel like it’s happening a lot in the last year or two where women are really like ‘let’s just write with each other’ and ‘let’s just help each other’ and be here for each other. I think those relationships are really important and I have so many great writing relationships that transcend writing with these women, and it just makes the whole ride more fun when we’re holding hands and going through it together.” From her perspective it has become more equal and balanced out on the songwriting side, as a result of more women doing just that: supporting each other and going through it together, but she thinks there is also another factor to their success.
“I think that women have gotten a lot more savvy, and have gone ‘you know what? I can write that song.’ You can be mad about the fact that it appears like it’s a boys club, or you can be one of the boys and enjoy that success with them. As much as I love writing with all my girl friends, and I’m all about girl power, I really cherish in the writing room bouncing back and forth the perspectives of a man’s perspective on a topic and a woman’s and really fleshing that out [then] seeing where the song ends up. I think women have gotten really savvy about ‘well I can write guy songs too!’ They’re not just going to go cry about it that there aren’t a lot of opportunities for girl cuts, they’re going to show up and they’re going to write guy songs and just go to bat like everybody else. Because at the end of the day,
a writer is a writer is a writer.
There’s no saying there’s a girl writer and a guy writer. A writer is a writer. Some of the guy writers are writing female hits and girl writers are writing male hits, so it’s almost a moot point whether a writer is a girl or a guy.”
Despite the increasing support for women, there are also times where women are not necessarily treated with as much respect as they deserve. One reader of Songbird was interested in seeing more content on how women are sometimes asked to pretend they don’t have a boyfriend or are married. Luckily for Galyon that has never been a problem for her personally. “I’ve been really blessed because I’ve been married pretty much as long as I’ve had a publishing deal,” she says talking of husband Rodney Clawson who has had an incredibly successful songwriting career. “My husband is in the same industry as I am, so there’s a built in accountability there for me that a lot of other women don’t have. But I do see that. I see where, I have the freedom of getting to say whatever I want to say – I don’t have to worry about a guy misinterpreting. My relationship with him is always going to be purely a working relationship or just a friendship because not only do they know I’m married but they know who I’m married to. A lot of other women don’t have that luxury.”
When looking at the increased support and equality shown for women and men in the writing room, it has even more meaning to Galyon
for one reason: “It’s really fun [to see women supporting each other] just because
I have a daughter, and I really want her to never hold herself to a different standard than a man. I never want her to be catty with another girl.”
Setting a good example for her daughter is something that is very important to her. Part of that comes into play when she looks at how she balances her work and family life. “I can honestly say for a working mother there isn’t a better job in my opinion,” she says. “I call myself a ‘singer- mom-writer.’ I have the luxury as working as much and as little as I want to. Now what I get in return for that is, if I don’t work then I’m probably not going to get a lot in return on the career front. But I think for me it’s some days I’m going to be a rock star at being a mom and some days I’m going to be a rock star at being a songwriter. The truth is I’m probably not going to be a rock star at both of those things on the same day everyday. I’ve had to give myself a break and do the best that I can and know that for me as long as I’m being true to myself I’m setting a good example for my daughter. If I feel like that’s what I’m supposed to do, that I’m supposed to go make music. As long as I feel that I’m called to do that I have to trust that that’s what’s best for my daughter too. If I’m being true to myself that I’m setting a good example for her. If at some point that changes then the same thing applies. If I don’t feel like I’m supposed to write songs anymore, then I have to trust that too. But that’s not where I am right now. I’m really loving the balance. I think it’s a win-win, when I leave in the morning to write a song I’m going somewhere that I can’t wait to go to. And when I leave and come home, I’m coming home to something I can’t wait to come home to.”
Being grateful for the success and life she has was easily one of the reoccurring themes when talking with Galyon. Though most people that are songwriters tend to be very appreciative of things like the flexibility of their careers and the success they have earned, with Galyon it came off as even more authentic than with most. When asked about how her last year or two has been with the number one parties, award nominations, and increased recognition, she said “Everybody’s songwriting career looks different, and no two look exactly alike. Mine was a very, very slow build for a very long time. I wasn’t getting cuts, and I wasn’t getting accolades, and I wasn’t really getting a lot of validation for what I was doing. So for those first five or six years of writing full time, I had to learn to just love the process of writing songs more than whatever I was going to get in return for writing those songs.
I had to learn to love the process of showing up and creating.
That was such a gift for me, because now whatever comes on top of that is gravy because as long as I get to write songs, I’m in love with that. I’m in love with my life of getting to write songs. I had to get through the really long struggle to get to learn to love that process. Now when there is a number one party or there is an article in a magazine or a banner in front of Warner Chappell, for me, I don’t have to live for that because I’m already so in love with what I get to do today. But I also know that – for me it’s a really spiritual thing because I’ve always felt like this is what I’m supposed to be chasing, and I never thought that I was guaranteed to have success at it, I just knew in my heart that I was supposed to go after it and see what happens. So it’s a really spiritual thing for me to see how God has blessed that, and that’s why with the Grammys and the CMAs and stuff like that, that’s all a God thing for me. That’s not even really part of my career I think sometimes. It’s like God saying ‘See! You weren’t crazy for doing this.’ It really is humbling more than anything. I’ve been overcome with humility when you do find out some incredible news and you’re nominated for a Grammy, because you think about the million and one things that had to go right for that to happen and it feels so much bigger than you. You know that you could have never worked hard enough and you could have never been smart enough to make that happen on your own, and it was truly something bigger than you.”
She notes that one of her favorite accomplishments so far was a realization she had when a fellow writer reminded her of what having a Grammy nomination really means. “Craig Wiseman, whom I’m sure you know – a big hit songwriter - just recently said to me, ‘congratulations on your Grammy nomination,’ and I said ‘oh thank you!’ kind of shrugged it off and
he said ‘you realize you just re-wrote the first line of your obituary.’
I said ‘what do you mean?’ and he said ‘now it will say ‘Grammy nominated songwriter, Nicolle Galyon.’’ And that, for my career, that’s a goal that I never even set for myself. That was beyond my wildest dreams – my goal was to have somebody record my songs – I never dreamed that my peers would think enough of a song that I was a part of to ever give me that gift. I think the Grammy thing is just something that is so timeless and classic that whether we win or not, like Craig said, ‘you re-wrote the first line of your obituary.’ Maybe that won’t be in my obituary, but the point is it’s timeless. And it’s something that no one can take away from you. I’m really excited about that.” We have a feeling this is just the beginning of a long line of awards for Galyon, so get used to the recognition!
This article first appeared in the third issue of Songbird, which you can view here.