Serendipity

Okay folks, I'm going to have to crank this one out fast because it is 10:00pm and we leave in the morning. Woohoo!

So, the boys had put their songs on a CD that they passed around town at potential gig sites and they also got it posted on websites such as itunes, spotify and reverbnation. One day this past spring Josh came in and said that someone had contacted them through their reverbnation account and he told them he really liked their songs he heard online. He even said he wanted to talk to them about coming to Nashville to record their music. Of course Josh was super excited, but I saw red flags all over the place.

I'm going to be brutally honest here. I think this band is good, but it is my son and I'm just a wee bit biased. I think they are good for a garage band. Who had been together for three months. In Tulsa, Oklahoma. Get my drift? :) I tried to diffuse Josh's excitement a bit by pointing out that it doesn't really happen that way. Really talented people work really hard to break into the music scene in Nashville and still never make it. I told Josh that was very flattering but this whole scenario was way too easy. 

The guy who contacted them said he had just started his own record label called Mattress House Music and he was the CEO. His name was Stuart Singleton. Josh and Stuart communicated back and forth for several weeks until finally the entire band got together to have a conference call with him. When they finished the call they came in and told me he had sent them a contract and they needed to find a time to go record this summer. They had one foot out the door.

At this point, I knew I needed to get a little more involved. This was a very difficult line for me to walk. I want to do anything and everything I can to make my kids' dreams come true, but I also needed to be the voice of reason and reality. I knew we needed to make an educated decision about this, but I didn't know how to get educated about it. I approached it from three different angles.

The first was to send the contract to a lawyer friend of mine for him to look over. The second was to contact anyone I knew who knew anything about the music industry, and the third was to google Stuart Singleton and Mattress House Music. I got to work.

My lawyer friend called me after he looked at the contract and said it was pretty typical, but you were basically giving up control of your music, your band, your scheduling, etc. He said some people would do anything to get a contract like that but he couldn't recommend it, especially for high school kids. Strike one.

Next step was to talk to people in the music industry. That was a little harder because I don't really know anyone in the music industry. I was talking to a friend of mine, Linda West, about this and she reminded me that a friend of mine from high school was married to someone in the music business. Jennifer Doss was in Todd's grade at Edison and I was good friends with her in high school. Her husband is Zac Maloy, who was the lead singer for The Nixons, but now they live in Nashville where he does mostly songwriting. 

I emailed Jennifer and asked her if she would ask Zac if he knew who Stuart Singleton was and what would he recommend we do in this situation. She emailed right back and said she would have him call me when he got home that day. Zac was so kind to visit with me for a while and he basically said to just be sure what you are getting into and trust your insincts. Since he didn't give the idea a resounding yes, I considered that a strike two.

The most interesting information I found out was what I learned when I googled Stuart Singleton. It took a lot of digging, but I finally found out a huge factor of this equation. Stuart Singleton, the CEO of Mattress House Music, was 18 years old. He turned 18 in March and started his label the next day. Okay, so this is starting to make a little more sense now. This information might have put the kabosh on the whole thing right there except for one intriguing thing.

The reason I found out Stuart was 18 is because his birth was announced in the April 1995 edition of Billboard magazine. Why, you ask? Because his father was Shelby Singleton who owned Sun Records from 1969 until his death in 2009 of cancer. This is the record label that launched Elvis. After his death, Shelby Singleton was honored at the 2010 Grammys. That was a game changer. Maybe this was something we should consider.

To make a long story short, I talked to Stuart, I talked to the lawyer again, I talked to the band parents, and no one felt really great about the whole situation. The main drawback was having to sign a legal contract. We all decided it was probably not the best scenario.

Once we made that decision, I could sense how let down the guys were. I felt so bad for them. Their dream was in sight and then we had to tell them no. I was right there with them. I've been "riding tandem" with these kids all the way and so their dream has become my dream for them too. 

I thought this through for several weeks and the conclusion I came to was that these boys didn't care about making money on their music or being promoted or any of the things that Stuart was offering with his services. I knew really all they wanted to do was to get to Nashville, get to experience the real recording process and come home with a CD that was a better quality than what they were making in the garage. They just wanted to live their dream on the ultimate Nashville road trip.

Figuring I had isolated their basic desires, I decided to email Zac again with my new idea. What if we just made a road trip to Nashville and paid for them to record in a real studio? Where would we do that and how much would it cost? Zac called me that evening with a proposal that I had no idea was even a possibility.

Zac proceeded to tell me that when they moved to Nashville they bought a house that included a recording studio in the home. The guy who lived there before them had used that studio to record people like Keith Urban and Rascal Flatts. He said he would love for them to come and spend a week with him and he would mentor and record them. 

I knew a little bit about Zac, but after I got off the phone with him I looked at his website to learn a little more about him. Here is what I found on his website:

Zac Maloy is an acclaimed, award-winning songwriter and producer whose songs have been featured on numerous top-charting albums. Born and raised in Ada Oklahoma, Zac began playing music at a very young age. After graduating high school Zac formed a band, The Nixons, while attending the University of Oklahoma.  After playing hundreds of local shows they decided to tour regionally, then across the country. Several radio stations began playing the band’s indie album which led to offers from multiple record labels.  The band inked a deal and released three albums on MCA/Universal Records.  Their first album, Foma, scored Rock hits  "Wire" and "Happy Song."  Their 3rd single from Foma, "Sister,” reached the top of the Rock charts and eventually crossed over to Top-40 with heavy rotation on MTV. The success from Foma paved the way for several more chart toppers, including the Rock hit “Baton Rouge” and Zac's solo release "Early Morning Phone Call."   The Nixons toured relentlessly and quickly developed a reputation as one of the hardest working bands of their genre, completing worldwide tours with Radiohead, Soul Asylum, No Doubt, Kiss and Bush. 

Once The Nixons went on hiatus, Zac began writing and producing for other artists. After writing for and producing several rock projects, Zac signed a publishing deal with Sony/ATV and decided to take writing more seriously.  Sony tapped Zac as a writer in large part because of his unique ability, as a former artist, to relate to artists out there living the life Zac knew well. One of his first cuts after signing to Sony was "Used To" on Daughtry's eponymous first album, which has gone five-times platinum worldwide. This opened the door for Zac to score singles in a range of genres, including Carrie Underwood's # 1 Country single "Temporary Home," Cavo's Top-5 Rock single "Crash," David Cook's Top-5 single "Come Back to Me," and Black Stone Cherry's Top-5 Rock single "White Trash Millionaire." This success solidified Zac’s move into the songwriting world and prompted a relocation from Oklahoma to Nashville, TN. Now viewed as a multi-faceted writer, Zac is called upon to write a wide variety of music from Underwood to Orianthi; Adam Lambert to Shinedown; Michelle Branch to Blake Shelton.
 
Earlier this year Zac signed with Warner Chappell publishing.  He currently resides in Nashville, TN, where he continues to collaborate with various artists and songwriters in his Forest Hills studio. Zac co-wrote the current singles for Barenaked Ladies, "Boomerang" and Skillet, "American Noise," which is currently Top-5 and climbing.

Zac had said for us to all talk about it and decide, but to let him know as soon as possible because if we were coming he wanted to start working with their music right away. After I saw his website, it was hard not to call him back right then and say, "Um, YES!!" The only thing holding me back was that it is very expensive to record a CD like this. We were going to have to brainstorm creative ways to make this possible if it was something the boys really wanted to do. 

I'll go into more detail more later about telling Todd and the guys about this incredible opportunity, but I've got to go to bed so I can drive this band to Memphis tomorrow! We are going to meet some good friends on Beale Street to hang out, eat dinner and then spend the night at their house. The adventure is about to begin!!