#133 Alan Roy Scott
Celine Dion, Ray Charles, Cyndi Lauper, Cher, Jason Gould and Ricky Martin just to name a few credits of songwriter Alan Roy Scott has composed songs for over the past 40 years working out of LA and traveling the world. Multi-cultural music events to build bridges through the healing power of music. As a songwriter, songwriting coach, and founder of Music Bridges, his extensive career has led him to 114 countries and counting.
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Transcript
Rae Leigh: welcome to a song where I trust with Alan, Roy Scott, all the way from LA. Thank you so much for joining me.
Alan Roy Scott: Hello. I am here. It's my pleasure. Of course. Thank you.
Rae Leigh: And you have an extensive resume, plus I met you through working with the Australian songwriters conference this year, and we'll virtually meet you anyway, and you've done a fair amount of teaching, but your list of people that you've worked with is absolutely incredible. And some we're going to have to get some of those stories.
Alan Roy Scott: Well, of course it's fine. I mean, you know, I don't call it teaching, by the way. I don't consider myself a teacher. I am just a veteran songwriter guy. Who's been added a very long time who was willing to attempt to talk or share something I've learned. But I don't, I don't call myself a teacher. I've never made that. The thing I am a teacher
Rae Leigh: Yes. Well, I think it's good integrity to be able to share what you've learned, because we can all learn from each other. Can't we?
Alan Roy Scott: Oh, right. Never stopped. Now as a song I wrote one school. Never stopped learning.
Rae Leigh: Yeah. I love that. Yep. I'm a student of life and
Alan Roy Scott: There you go.
Rae Leigh: Mm.
Alan Roy Scott: You're my new best friend Rae.
Rae Leigh: We both like to learn and we both like to talk, so this is going to be great.
Alan Roy Scott: cool problems. This may never end. The problem is that Rob may like be holding up a sign going.
Rae Leigh: get off the phone now. He'll be right. He he's busy. Um, okay. So why don't we start with you introducing yourself and tell us a little bit about who you are and where you come from.
Alan Roy Scott: I come from Mars. My name is mark. I feel like I come from Mars. No, I guess in actual fact, I'm 65 years old and I named Alan Ray. Scott is my name and I'm from, um, I'll get, I'll get more serious as the podcast goes on. I'll be, I'll be less silly. I'm originally from Chicago. I grew up there at a very amazing time in history and music in the mid city.
I was born in 1956, but I was a child and young person in the sixties. And it was a very important time in Chicago, musically. I can tell you more about my specific background, why I say that. But anyway, I was born in Chicago. I grew up in Chicago and then I've lived, I went to college in Boston at Boston conservatory and Berkeley.
I lived in New York for 10 years. I lived in Nashville for two years. I lived in London for almost a year. And then I've lived in LA since 1982, which is 40 years almost.
Rae Leigh: Yeah. So you've
Alan Roy Scott: And then I'm about, and I'm about to leave LA to move to Sweden next year. So there you go.
Rae Leigh: Or you're moving to
Alan Roy Scott: I am. That is my plan. That is my
Rae Leigh: What's in Sweden,
Alan Roy Scott: well, uh, whole wellness. I'm a ball. I have a girlfriend. Yes, but that is the main reason is that I've always been involved in Europe. I'm basically should have been born in Europe. I mean, a European at heart. I've been to 142 countries, including Oz. One of my favorite countries on the planet and Kiwi land. I'll be honest. I love New Zealand too.
Been to Aus 10, 12 times. But anyway, um, oh yeah, I could, I could tell you my Ozzie Craig when we get there. Um, but anyway, um, I'm moving there because I'm still what you said about being a teacher. The thing you have to know about me is I am a veteran guy. And I have been doing song writing professionally since the late seventies, a long time ago.
And yet, instead of just talking about my laurels and all the good old days, which I'll be glad to share something about the good old days, but I'm still most proud that I'm in the good new days. I'm still as active as possible. I do a lot of writing and song camps and traveling. And so I have a lot of resources and contexts all throughout Europe, particularly Scandinavia, England, Ireland.
So anyway, and I have a girlfriend there now. And so with that, all combined, my kids are grown and things have changed here. I am at the age of 65, I am going to make that change. I've never lived outside of the United States before, so there we go. So
Rae Leigh: That'd be a beautiful fun adventure.
Alan Roy Scott: It's a big, it's a big change. It's a big adventure. It's a big change. And the point about it is, is that as you know, Scandinavia is very involved in Che pop K-pop and all kinds of global music, things that are happening around the world more than here. So I'm going to be part of all of it. I'm going to be
Rae Leigh: just going to the heartbeat,
Alan Roy Scott: I'm going to the heartbeat and another, and I'm going to tell you another funny, well,
we can get to that later, but I will, I will mention the E word, which the word for me is Eurovision. I'm very I'm I, and I know that that's okay in Australia because Australia is, is involved quite well. And I, I was actually in your vision in 2020, I made it and then it got canceled.
So, uh, oh yeah. Oh, it's a big crusher. You talk about my personal blows of the pandemic for me. Yeah, I was. I'm finally made it to your vision. And I been trying for a number of years. I it's a long story. I'm an American to the year vision dream because I've been so involved in festivals and traveling my whole life.
So I do your is a big deal to me. And I finally made it and I was representing the country of Azerbaijan with a song called Cleopatra, and then they canceled it and then,
Rae Leigh: So are they postpone it? Like,
Alan Roy Scott: no, no, they canceled it. No. Oh, you don't know the whole sad story. They canceled Eurovision. They invited the artists back from Australia.
That was an artist named Monte. So, and in fact, part of the sadness was the guys that wrote the song for Montana. Last year, they're called a DNA. They're a pop team from Sydney, they're quite well-known and they were going to be in the Eurovision. And so it was I, and then we were going to come back to the ASC together and we were going to hook up at the ASC, but then Eurovision got canceled and the ASC got canceled.
Rae Leigh: Yeah.
Alan Roy Scott: that all went up in smoke. But anyway, by living in Europe, I'm also going to be much closer to the whole Eurovision. Heartbeat is one of my, my goals is to get back there. I mean, I didn't get the full experience. I only got the getting close part and then they canceled it.
So anyway,
Rae Leigh: Well, I'm sure that if, you know, once you get there, you'll be fine. It'll happen when it's meant to
Alan Roy Scott: yeah, no, you know, I'm, I'm just, I'm, I'm the kind of person when I get. Down. I just find a way to get up, you know, it's hard
Rae Leigh: cool. Being human, isn't
Alan Roy Scott: as you get older, it's sometimes it's harder to get up, but for me, you know, I'm just determined to get up and get that achievement eventually, somehow just cause it feels like that's something
important for me.
So anyway.
Rae Leigh: that's fine. If that's, if that's what you want to
Alan Roy Scott: So I have no idea how I jumped in all the way to Eurovision in the first seven minutes, but there you are. So let's, let's
Rae Leigh: that's, a very cool
Alan Roy Scott: So you asked me where I was from. I told you that
Rae Leigh: he's at chicago and then Boston and then Berkeley and Nashville, London, LA.
Alan Roy Scott: Yes, and. many other and I've been, I literally, I keep track because it's very important to me that I, one day, I mean, I've sat down and looked at the map of the world and literally kept track.
I've been to 142 countries. And by the way, I have a rule about that. That does not mean just being in the airport that does not, that does not qualify. You have to spend at least 12 hours outside the airport to be on for me to put it on my list.
So, so I've been to a
Rae Leigh: then technically I haven't been to LA
Alan Roy Scott: Yeah.
Rae Leigh: I've only been to lax.
Alan Roy Scott: Sorry. I don't mean to like, take something away from your list
Rae Leigh: Nah, it's based off from my list.
Alan Roy Scott: on that. No, but I, I'm a very, very well-traveled and, and I, and all through music and I consider myself a music ambassador because when you're an American and you travel the world as an American, you know, you know how most of us travel with our Hawaiian shirts and are very loud and saying, it's nothing like it is at home.
Rae Leigh: Yeah.
Alan Roy Scott: I don't do. that. I don't do that. So
Rae Leigh: Okay. Well, it sounds like you you've obviously enjoyed your life and you've, you've had a lot of fun.
Alan Roy Scott: I've had a very, you know, you know, like anything you choose, uh, a challenging, difficult life and believe me, Ray, you know this to be in music, to be a songwriter or an artist. It is not for the faint of heart. You have to do it for, you know, and, and, you know, you say, I do not, I don't call it teaching, but I do a lot of whatever you want to call it.
Workshops, mentoring, talking to people, coaching, whatever word applies. And I always say to people that I'm a lifer, that's my own joke about being in it for life, by being in prison or whatever you can't get out of it. It's not something music is not something you pick up or put on like clothes. It's something you are. And I believe, yeah. And I believe that's what it takes to really. Have a life of music, you have to really do it for love and, and pure belief. And along the way, you, you, you can make money. I've made money. I've had success. I have golden records and whatever accoutrements and success I'm supposed to have to be able to be legitimate.
I have all of it and all of that. And I take my music seriously and the business serious and all that. But at the end of the day, it's still something I love
Rae Leigh: Yeah. And you got to have fun.
Alan Roy Scott: And I loved. Yeah. And I love sharing that with other people
and having them, um, I love to try to help people find that in themselves when I'm working with writers and artists and other people,
Rae Leigh: All right. Well, why don't we start? you just said that you have to do it for the love of it. I want to know? the moment you realized you fell in love with music. When, when
Alan Roy Scott: Okay. So let's see. So how do I, you know, I have to chew on that for half a second. Okay. So. far as songs, I could let me go back to my childhood because I glossed over. But that's important. Um, my father, who is like my hero, kind of my unsung hero, he died way too young, but he was my hero in life. One of them, my main one.
And I've done a lot of things in his name, in my heart and soul as an adult. But anyway, he was very involved in the music scene in Chicago, in the sixties, because even though he wasn't a musician, he actually was involved in selling cars, but he was a major patron of the whole local gospel and R and B scene in Chicago in the sixties, which included a lot of famous blues and jazz artists.
There was a whole movie called Cadillac records, which was about the chess family, uh, Phil chess records. That was our family friends. So when I was, when I was seven and eight and nine years old, I was around the chest stuff. I went to sessions for, for, um, Yeah, different apps. There's muddy waters and edit James.
And I w I was around that whole world because my father was very involved in the gospel and the blues scene. He had a TV show called Jubilee showcase, which featured all these gospel acts and Shaka Khan, who was from the neighborhood. So as a seven or eight year old, little white kid with orange hair and freckles, I was grew up thinking that there was something wrong with me.
So the reason I mentioned that joke is because later on I became an RNB writer. And you wonder, how does, you know, a white guy with freckles and orange hair become literally an RMD writer? It was just in me, organically from my childhood. So you asked me, how did I know I was born into it? It's almost like I was born into it because I loved.
All of it being around my father and that whole world and all the people I met and I met, you know, Barry Gordy came through with early Motown acts. I had seen some of them, so I was born into the whole soul R and B thing.
Rae Leigh: Sounds
Alan Roy Scott: then later on and I got away from it. And then later on you might ask me at some point how I got started or my break, blah blah.
And it literally was that when I needed to become a songwriter, it just came out of me one day, not one day. That part of me, my childhood just was there when I started writing, I didn't, I didn't have to learn that part. That, that grew, that soul was just in my, in my DNA. And then I was gonna say another funny thing is when you say a moment, well, I, I actually trained to be an act, uh, actor and I mean, cause cause musical theater, these, what happened to me is after I grew up as a child, About that kind of music.
Then I went to high school and got into theater and musical theater and choir, and it was also doing bands. I did both, I would, I would dabble with songwriting and music. And then I was also in shows. So I went to college for musical theater, and that led me to going to Boston, going to New York, living in New York, auditioning for musicals, traveling around the country.
I was in Fiddler on the roof and Brigadoon and micro lady and all that life. And then there came a day where I just suddenly said I'm done. And on that day with, with the theater life, and now I'm going to be a songwriter. And I literally reached a day where I made a decision. I don't want to go on anymore.
Auditions. I don't want to audition for Godspell or Jesus Christ, superstar, or an Alto commercial or any of the things I was doing. And I just decided to switch to my other hobby. My other thing I had been doing. Since I was 10 songwriting and I made that decision. And within about nine months, I went from being an actor and a total of whatever, unknown to having a hit record, uh, a disco hit in 1979.
That happened,
you know, in our work, uh, it's called the body language by the spinners group called the spinners. And the thing about it is that, you know, in today's world,
it's not a big deal because people go on to voice and eight weeks later, they're the winner of the voice and everyone knows them or other ways, or, or you put out a viral video, you get 1 billion hits and you're famous in about
10 hours, but,
or something like that.
Rae Leigh: yeah, yeah. Maybe.
Alan Roy Scott: not, not quite that fast, but, but, you know, and believe
me, I'm, I'm an older guy. I don't usually say back in the day. Cause it just sounds like back then,
Rae Leigh: yeah,
yeah,
Alan Roy Scott: but back in the day it
was. Pretty much of a feat to go from being literally a beginning unknown songwriter person, completely to having a hit in nine months.
That was quite a rare feat. And there was a lot of, a lot of factors involved. I mean, obviously I can expound on that,
but I'm just kind of giving you
Rae Leigh: sounds like you had accidental training that like, It sounds like you had accidental
training anyway, though through just your
dad
Alan Roy Scott: I had that, and then I met and then I did, and I did go when
I was at Boston Salvatore and I took classes at Berkeley and I did take, you know, music theory, harmony count up. So I trained, I'm a S I'm a self-taught, I'm a self-taught piano player. I basically learned by learning my heroes. I learned every note of early out in John albums because you know, my age, when I came up in the mid seventies, it was Elton John, Billy Joel.
And then of course, you know, Motown earth, wind and fire, Stevie wonder was the RNB stuff, Chicago. So I'm point is I learned piano basically by teaching myself. Every song on albums. And then, and then from there I added in theory and harmony and other knowledges on top of that. But I always tell people that I'm self-taught, which I, I really am,
Rae Leigh: Yep. Cause you you've done so
much work on your own and it sounds like you, you know, you've gone above and beyond
just going to a college or, you know, going to Boston or Berkeley or any of that.
You've
Alan Roy Scott: I just self right into all of it, you know? I mean, I mean, I, I'm the kind of person
I like to think of myself as one way I stay active is just the, the, the old jumping in the deep end of the pool metaphor. Cause sometimes I'll do that. It feels like I'm just doing that and.
That has something that has always worked for me because I just, you know, even now, I mean, I mean, I'm moving to fricking Sweden and I mean, I'm like changing my whole life around at 65 and, and, you know, I don't know if everybody would be willing to take a risk like that, but, you know, I mean, I'll be fine.
It's not a risk. I know what I'm doing and I know I'll be fine, but I mean, it's still a big change, you know,
Rae Leigh: absolutely. I heard you say before that, when you're writing a song, it's about putting a bit of
yourself into a song and telling your story. And I wanted to ask a little bit more about
what it
Alan Roy Scott: Well, it's funny you.
say that because actually the truth is the opposite. No, no, it's not the opposite. What I mean is what I mean is, is that I have made my living as a chameleon songwriter for others. I've made my, I was a staff writer for 14 years. So I basically am a collaborator. I can write songs all by myself and I have, and I do, and I can, but mainly I have made my life and my career around writing songs with other people or other artists for them.
So I am really more about making sure that whatever I'm doing has truth to it. And it has the ring of truth or whatever, or it feels like I'm in there, but it's not coming. Mainly I have not written about my own life. I have not been an artist. I have been more a songwriter for others. So I have written a few songs where it was like, I'm just going to say something about me in my life.
And I've written a handful of songs coming from more about me, but the majority of my life has been a nuts and bolts. You know, veterans songwriter for hire writing for projects, TV, film, with artists, for artists on assignment. And I've done that for 40 years,
Rae Leigh: Yeah. And I, I think that's a real
skill and obviously a craft to be able to be that chameleon for those
people
Alan Roy Scott: I I say that word with pride to me, when I say I'm a chameleon, songwriter, other people struggle their whole career to try to find their identity
Rae Leigh: Yeah.
Alan Roy Scott: an artist wants to find the truth of who they are. And, and that's great. And I, and I love that. That's just
not what I, I,
Rae Leigh: You're, you're helping them find the truth of
who
Alan Roy Scott: Yeah.
That's just not how I've mainly made
my way. So for me, my big thing is to claim I'm a chameleon. I love the fact that I can tell you I've had songs recorded by Ricky Martin to journey, to Celine Dion, to whatever the whole breadth. I mean, I've had songs in 10 languages all, I mean, I can't even begin to tell you how many.
Things I've done have different things that all add up to the chameleon
picture.
Rae Leigh: Tell us about your favorite one, your
favorite
Alan Roy Scott: I can't, I can never answer that. I, first of all, let's set some ground rules. I'll try to answer every question and give you ideas about an answer to that, but I can never tell you my favorite song. My favorite moment, my FA I, I just, I don't know. I can't function with just one thing to answer a question
like that. So ask me the question again and I'll try to shade it with an answer. I can give you the question was
what is my favorite? What?
Rae Leigh: what was your favorite, um, collaboration with an
artist where you song was recorded
with
Alan Roy Scott: Okay. So, okay. Let's
Rae Leigh: or you just
Alan Roy Scott: Okay. Okay. Well, I have, I have, I have. Two that I'll
I'll use to answer the question. Okay. Okay. So one was that of, of big, you know, some of the artists I've worked with are major artists and different blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So one of the ones I was part of, and it's a long story, but Cindy loppers one, I'm going to mention, um, and she was, um, she was just the real deal.
I loved her because the silly voice and all that, that's not anything that's not her faking. That's not her putting on a show that is Cindy. She is that way, the way she became famous for being that way. That's how she is. And I love that. And when I worked with her, I w it was part of a project that I organized in the Soviet union called music speaks louder than words, which is another big part of my life, which we can talk about my highlight.
Cultural exchange projects in Cuba and Russia. And that, so the first one called music speaks louder than words was 1988 before the Berlin wall fall. And I had organized a project where I had, uh, the cream of the crop of top American writers, Cyndi Lauper, Michael Bolton, Diane Warren, Desmond, child, Tom Kelly, and Billy Steinberg, who wrote many Frannie gold, Holly and I, all these people, the cream Mike Stoller from Libra installer, Barry man, this entire group of American songwriters and artists went to the Soviet union into Moscow and wrote with Soviet songwriters.
And I, or I created that whole project. I organized that with I had partners yet. Anyway, the way it worked, it was random collaboration with Americans and Russians on every
song. And so my, I had my publisher with me on. Trip. And of course, like all publishers, I was like more trying to make sure that everybody was happy and my publishers going, come on, get in there.
You know, you're signed to me, you should be writing. What are you doing?
Rae Leigh: Yeah. Yep.
Alan Roy Scott: I reluctantly
put myself in it as a writer because I didn't want people thinking. I was just like, you know, I did this project so I could write with people and famous people,
you know, but anyway, funny enough, the way we used to do it
is I would put all the names in a
hat and draw the names from the hat.
I called it, leave your ego at the door, like Quincy Jones. Right? So let God decide who works together. So would she know it out of the hat? I get pooled with Cindy lopper and with another guy named Frankie Previtt who wrote the time of I've had the time of my life. That was his big hit. And he had several others, his Frankie and a knockout.
So it was a four way co-write with Cindy. Frankie me and this Russian guy, Russian star named Igor Nika lion. Anyway, from the back of the room when her name is Paula and my name is Paul. I hear this. Yeah,
Rae Leigh: Is that Cindy?
Alan Roy Scott: that will be in my soul from my tire life. I felt like one inch tall.
Rae Leigh: Oh
Alan Roy Scott: because I mean, you know, no, I mean, I'm probably way over exaggerating what she, it was kind of maybe a joke, but it really was like, you know, talk about it here. I am in a room full of all those people I just mentioned.
And I'm one of the organizers and I'm standing there and she like cut me down to like the size of a worm there, you know, but, but the way I do what I do in life, I redeemed myself by writing a really great song and earning your risks. And w was a really great song called cold sky. And we did an album after that project called music speaks louder than words, and it's on there.
And Igor Dita, Igor did a, uh, a Russian rap. I swear to you, he did a Russian rap. This is 19. This is 1989 rap barely existed. Yeah. But my point is I got to go to New York.
We recorded it in New York. I got to hang with her for a week and I, and I, and I became friends and I, I love that woman. She's an original and the other one would be, and the song that we wrote never came out.
But I wrote with share at a, at a, at a castle in France and she was she and I became friends because there was a whole bunch of Ellie writers. Part of this castle miles Copeland who managed the police at the time, had a castle in France and every twice a year, they used to have gatherings in the castle.
And I
got lucky enough to get myself invited to that one time. And I mean, I was there with Cher and Patty Smyth and a lot of miles, we had that huge hit with black velvet and a bunch of other people. Anyway, the LA crew, which consisted of Patty Smyth from scandal and B Bruce, Robert Springer, we all became buds.
So during that week, we all hung with her and she, I wrote a really crazy song with her that never got recorded, but we became friends. And that's what it's about for me is the friendships, the relationships ships, the experiences. Um, you're asking me about a collaboration where it worked out really well and successfully, that would be a different answer, I
suppose,
Rae Leigh: Oh, goodness. Well now you have to tell me that one,
Alan Roy Scott: Um, I'm trying to think of like someone I wrote
with where it turned out great.
And it ended well, and the whole thing was a slam dunk kind of success.
Um,
Rae Leigh: but that doesn't exist. Does it?
Alan Roy Scott: hardly, well, I haven't wore weird ones. I have a really
weird one. You want a really weird one? Okay.
Okay. I got a notorious B I G cut. Now you would say that's kind of unusual for someone who sounds like me or kind of have, but it turned out that I never even met him.
It turned out that I had an earlier song. That was an instrumental song called charisma, which is recorded by a real, a famous trumpet artist named Tom brown back in the eighties. And they sampled like the first 16 bars of charisma and use that as the foundation for a track on notorious big's album, which came out after he died called born again.
And I didn't even know it had happened. For three years, three years later, I get a royalty statement. Okay. One day. And on the royalty statement, I see this song title. I really want to know you. And I go what's that. Then I see my name and
pen other people's names that I've never heard of before. I'm going, what
is this?
How
Rae Leigh: well, they're on drugs when
this happened.
Alan Roy Scott: How did I end up with these 12 people? You know, and
then, then I see that it made $60,000. And I
Rae Leigh: Yeah.
Alan Roy Scott: well, I don't know what this is, but I should probably find out.
Rae Leigh: Just in case it's like they've got the wrong person or
Alan Roy Scott: so it turned out that my publisher
EMI music, because I had signed in those days, I signed an exclusive staff deal, meaning they could do whatever they wanted.
So they, they resold my original charisma as a
sample song. And they, I retained 14% of the new copy. So, so 14% of 10 million albums was still like $60,000.
Rae Leigh: Gosh, that's insane.
Alan Roy Scott: Fuck. Talk
Rae Leigh: that's where you, don't worry.
Alan Roy Scott: right?
Rae Leigh: That's where you probably, you probably shouldn't get too caught up about percentage because if it's a hit, you know?
Alan Roy Scott: but I make the joke now because I came up in the days when collaboration was usually two people, you know, or three people, maybe that was collaboration mostly. And now every song
has got 12 feet, one, and I've been in several sessions where it was me and eight top liners. And I could tell you
about that.
That was an image. I mean, like two years ago, I had an amazing day where literally I was in the room and it was seven top lines, you know, we all with
Rae Leigh: a lot.
Alan Roy Scott: Right.
Rae Leigh: Yeah,
Alan Roy Scott: And, and, and, and the way that he did it, which was blew me away. The producer, I walked in the room and there's like eight of us and figure out, you know, okay, we're going to like a mini camp.
Okay. We're going to like have two or three teams here or whatever. Instead it was one producer. He plays the track and everybody else's top lining. And he says, cans, each person, the mic and says, go out in the studio and take a crack at it. So,
and we created the, the, the melody, the vocal, literally every person took a crack at it.
And then the seven of us and the producer decided who had the best first line in the first verse or the first half a line or a one word. And this vocal was crafted like syllable by syllable from seven
people's top-line attempts. That was so crazy.
But that's how
Rae Leigh: Was that overwhelming for you? Like, I feel like I would
find that quite
Alan Roy Scott: what I. To be honest with you.
I'm proud of myself that I am. I just jump in. I just go for it. I, I don't know. I just, it was intimidating because in the end, obviously they had a couple who were like, there was one of the, of the people was this really excellent German singer. Who'd done a lot of, you know, commercials and ads. Cause she's a really great singer.
Right. So of course she sounded great on her thing. So she had war on the vocal because I don't sing that well. So I'm like, I'm battling going. You know, I still think what I say he's
the best.
Rae Leigh: yeah, yeah. Lyric wise, but it's hard.
Yeah.
Alan Roy Scott: I still think I did the best on
that phrase. So I was like, there's like fighting to get a few, a few parts of the
melody and you know,
Rae Leigh: Yeah. I guess that's where it can
help if
Alan Roy Scott: so it, it, it goes, it goes, it goes always. I have been through every. Kind of combination in my time, I've seen a lot of things,
you know,
Rae Leigh: What would you say is your best
advice for when it comes to collaborating or co-writing with
people, whether it be one or two
people or
Alan Roy Scott: you have to
leave, well, leave your ego at the door. Be willing to back down and go with the flow. Even if it's a flow that you're not particularly thrilled with, you just have to be part of the, okay, here's the phrase that pays you need to be part of the glue that makes it work. Not part of the friction that tears it
apart.
Rae Leigh: I like that. You've what you've you've said that one a few
times.
Alan Roy Scott: No, I just made that one up to say it. That particular
way. That's a new one. Now
Rae Leigh: That's
really
Alan Roy Scott: I've got lots of little slogan raises, but no, I made that one up now.
That's not a, well, That was, not
Rae Leigh: was a good one.
Alan Roy Scott: not a bad way to look at it because that's spit seriously. That's kind of how it
feels. feels like there are definitely times where it's going south and you can't just step up by saying, listen to me or con follow me.
You have to find a way to be the
solution. And that is
Rae Leigh: going to dance together.
Alan Roy Scott: and that's not always easy. And especially what about when you're a situation where you're with a celebrity or a producer and they're, they're paying the bills and they're calling the shots. Now that's harder because they're coming at you with the political weight of their position.
And you have to not be afraid to say, if you don't say it, you have to feel yes that person's famous or rich and in whatever, but I know what I'm doing too.
And you have to be willing to stand up for your own internal confidence and find a way to stay in the ring, so
to speak. And it's hard.
Rae Leigh: show your value.
Yeah. You've got to show your
value in
Alan Roy Scott: Well,
Rae Leigh: is why you're
Alan Roy Scott: what that, but that starts with you believing in your own
value and not, not your own value as in, do you know how lucky
you are to have me in the room?
Rae Leigh: no. Yeah.
Alan Roy Scott: what? I'm well, not bad, but, but you do have to be able
to, when things are tough and people are, it's going south, you can't start being down on yourself about it.
You have to say, I'm cool. I know how to do this. Just take a breath. Let's keep going. And you just, you know, just
keep going.
Rae Leigh: Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Is I want to ask you, would you say it's different if you're going in as like the chameleon songwriter, like you said, and you know, you're working towards someone else's project versus if you're the artist and you're
actually going to occur with someone, but it's something that you, you both trying to come out
for,
something
Alan Roy Scott: from my, from my perspective, they're all very different because when it look any and artists making their first album, Well, let's, let's start again. You could still say that apply state. Let's talk back in the day on artists get signed and they're making their first album for, you know, now everybody's making their own albums.
So it's not like you have to worry about so often what anyone thinks, cause you're on your own and you make your own project and then you put it out yourself or get somebody distributor or whatever, but it's all yours back in the day, you would get signed and you'd have a deal with Sony and they're giving you a budget and you now are going to make an album and you're going to work.
So anyway, that's their whole life's dream coming to that point. And here you are assigned to work with them. So your goal in that point is to do everything in your power to help them elevate themselves, to find who they are, what they want to be too. And within that process, you get to contribute. You get to say, here's what I think.
Just not, you know, let me tell you what I think you should do. You know, it's not like that. So that's one that's one way when you work with an artist, your role is to, is to facilitate them, finding them
Rae Leigh: Yeah.
Alan Roy Scott: more or
less
Rae Leigh: It's like being a friend though.
Isn't it
Alan Roy Scott: Yeah. Yeah, it is. It is so, so that's how I always saw my role
in those situations, you know, versus, and what was the other, other option that, that I, that you said
versus being what
Rae Leigh: The writing for someone else's project
versus, being the
Alan Roy Scott: oh, well, I can't, because I really didn't try to be an
artist. I don't really have a lot of experience of how that feels. I didn't do an album where it was about me for me. I didn't do that. So I don't really know much about it. I mean, I, I mean, I, I did, I, it's not true. I did one album in, in Czechoslovakia, but that was with a friend and he took 10 songs of mine and wrote Slovakian lyrics.
And I took 10 songs of his and did English X, and we did a whole duet album. And that was a really cool
experience, you know, but I'm
saying I haven't done the traditional, I'm making an album. And here's what I think I'm going to say.
Rae Leigh: But has there been like an artist that you've worked with that.
maybe you sort of you've witnessed and experienced what they've been like in a session and
how they've navigated, you know, trying to get a song for them?
Alan Roy Scott: I think I understand the question, but I'm
not a hundred percent sure where I've been. So you're saying where I was writing with them, or I was just trying to pitch a song of mine. You mean?
Or what, what are you saying?
Rae Leigh: well say you're writing a song with an artist and it's it's you, your project is to get a song for their album or single whatever. Um, is it, was there an example of an artist that you worked with
where they came in and they kind of
knew what they wanted or there was
a drive or something and something that you can
share?
Alan Roy Scott: Well well, I'll mention the name. Unfortunately, she was making an album, but unfortunately, and I love this, this woman that she is, she, she died. It was very sad. And this is a while ago and she had several huge hits and she had one of the voice I love the most, and she's a really great person, but she got a brain aneurysm.
Her name's Laura Brannigan ever heard of Laura Brannigan, uh, Gloria I'll look her up. Oh, she had three huge hits. Gloria, Gloria, never million
number. You must know Borea. That
Rae Leigh: Oh yeah, no, I do. Yeah. Yeah.
Alan Roy Scott: and several others self-control
how am I supposed to live without you? She had three and she was a huge artist in her time.
So later on in her career, she was making a new album and she died.
In the middle of it. So it never got made or finished is my point. But the experience is still the same, that she was very much, I wrote three songs with her
Rae Leigh: Yep.
Alan Roy Scott: and it was for an album, even though it never happened, but it was that process.
And she was just very focused. She had just come out of a divorce and she was definitely trying to redefine herself away from what she became famous for, which was a mostly dance records, a couple ballots. And, and so my experience was letting her, I would ask her things like, you know, I think one of the songs we wrote wasn't about the divorce at all, but it came out of me asking her, you know, how did it feel
when you were still happy?
I think I asked her. How did it feel earlier on when you still were happy together? And she started explaining that to me. And that was the emphasis that we wrote the song from. And I wrote it with her and contributed the lyrics. We sat at the table, but my point is that I probed her to find something she wanted to say,
Rae Leigh: yep.
Alan Roy Scott: bye bye.
Shaping her in that direction. And I've done that a lot.
You do that sometimes,
Rae Leigh: Yeah. you get to know,
who people are and what makes them
tick
Alan Roy Scott: and, and I've had other situations and I
won't mention names cause you don't, I don't believe in, you know, let me tell you at war, I started where I tracked somebody, you know, I've had other artists where they were there because their manager assigned them to work with you or you into another person.
And you wanted to be on their album. And here you are writing with the artist. Here's your shot. The artist has absolutely no songwriting ability. Doesn't give a shit.
And it was in the studio the whole time pops in to say, I don't like that. Or how about baby? They're even worse. Just spends their whole time on the phone.
Cause she's like, well, I'm here. My manager said I had to be your hero. And, and yet at the end, if you're good and you write a really good song for them without them, and it makes the album, then you still have the privilege of them taking 30, 40, 50%. Yes.
Okay.
Rae Leigh: And I have heard that that's a
things happening.
Alan Roy Scott: Oh Yeah.
That those things
happen all the time.
I mean, I mean, I
Rae Leigh: probably why the manager wants them there.
Alan Roy Scott: I mean, you know, I mean there's all kinds. I mean, I've, I, it feels like it's been
through several books of the music of music in my life in music. I mean, you know, there there's all the I've been very active, active in music, activism rights. And I can tell you another famous war story from the eighties.
It's not about me, but there was a, when artists. And their managers began to demand co-writing on songs that they are publishing, not, not cording publishing. They demanded publishing for songs saying so Celine Dion and I don't blame. I love Celine Dion. And when I worked with her, she didn't speak English yet.
She had to sing her lyrics phonetically with a translator, but a lovely, lovely person early in her career. But she was one of the first major artists to start trying to get publishing. And what happened was there was an album that consisted of all the top writers of the day. I Tom, snow big names at that time, man.
And while the bourbons, Alan and Marilyn Bergman are legends and all these people wrote songs that were going to be on her.
Rae Leigh: Yeah,
Alan Roy Scott: And the manager started calling around all those people saying, you know, Celine sells 10 million times, you're going to make a lot of money. So we'd kind of liked to I, and I'm paraphrase.
I can't, you know, basically they were trying to say, you should give us a piece of the publishing
Rae Leigh: yeah.
Alan Roy Scott: And I was involved in the union at the time, not the union, the association called national academy of songwriters that all these writers were part of. And they basically said, no, they all refused.
So what do you think
happened?
Rae Leigh: What
happened?
Alan Roy Scott: She replaced all the songs. They replaced all the songs with new people that would give them
percentages.
Rae Leigh: Wow.
Alan Roy Scott: So there was a whole album of Celine Dion cuts by really a list writers that she pulled them because they refuse to play along
Rae Leigh: Yeah.
Alan Roy Scott: songwriters who would, and that was happening for a while.
That was the beginning of where things have gone.
Along the way.
Rae Leigh: I heard a story,
um, of that happening with Dolly Parton and Elvis Presley
with them, the kennel
parka
Alan Roy Scott: well, everyone, you
Rae Leigh: her songs And wanting the publishing.
Alan Roy Scott: Yeah. And she told him, no, no, I read that recently.
Yeah, I will. Yeah, no, she told him no. And, and that's what these, because she could, and she did, and that's what these writers I'm talking about did because they could, they lost probably, you know, half a million hours in that decision because she sells Tom
10, 20, 30 million albums. But you know,
they, and I got to
Rae Leigh: you think that regret that
you
Alan Roy Scott: I don't know, you'd have to talk to them, but I would say as a group people, I respect them
for standing up for our
rights.
Rae Leigh: yeah,
Alan Roy Scott: you know, I mean, money is money and business is business, but integrity is integrity,
you know?
Rae Leigh: yeah.
And everyone's faced with those decisions in this industry and you
Alan Roy Scott: especially, oh honey, we could do a separate podcast just on all that part about the beginnings, the beginnings of sync licensing, where it started to get to the point where you had companies who would take your song and wouldn't even give you credit for writing it. And just, you would agree to take a buyout where they give you an upfront fee and that's it.
You don't put your name on it.
Rae Leigh: In perpetuity.
Alan Roy Scott: just, just, you know, I, and, and there are plenty of
stories that people will say, well, I'm making some money. I need
them, you
Rae Leigh: Yeah. And that's, that's the thing People always take the gig.
Someone will.
Alan Roy Scott: but I come from the older days where there was, you have to understand another thing that I'm back in the day, stick up, wave it in the air three times to the right back in the golden age, there was lots of things.
Rae Leigh: Yeah.
Alan Roy Scott: Back in the golden age of you. See, you've seen it on the TV documentaries. When law had the Afros and long hair, there was lots of record labels, publishing companies, lots of drugs, limousines, lots of money being paid, being made.
And
so with that as a backdrop, it was a different canvas
that we all were playing in. And I'm not saying people weren't desperate or anything like that, but it was just different than it is now where it's so hard to make money
at it. Now that it's
Rae Leigh: Unless you're on YouTube or Spotify
or one of
Alan Roy Scott: well, unless you become, unless you become someone who is a complete pro at playing, you know, the YouTube ad revenue.
You know, viral videos, all of that, that I'm, you know, being, being my age, I'm not really that much, you know, I mean, I'm getting placements in film and TV places, but it's more because I know people and I've been around and all that. I'm not like playing that game for one, but there are people that are a handful of, you know, influencers and YouTube artists who were making good money.
But again,
how many,
Rae Leigh: Yeah, it's just being displaced and, um, and we're all, we're all working around it. I want to know
what you would say your best advice is in this industry.
Well,
Alan Roy Scott: In the industry about the industry or songwriting about the industry?
I, I mean the music industry above the idea of being a songwriter or music or
anything, is that what you mean?
Rae Leigh: Yeah, let's go with that question and then you can do some writing as well.
Alan Roy Scott: The best advice for the industry would be that you have to believe that things will keep evolving. And you just have to stay the course
Rae Leigh: Mm.
Alan Roy Scott: that, that the industry will always be changing. And there will always be new things that come and go or, you know, CDs, then that's, then, then, then MP3 floppy disks, then MP3s and now whatever we're at now.
And, and you know, the best advice I can give someone who wants to be in the industry is to try to think outside the box,
if you want to get in the box and you want to make it before you sell out and become a cog in the wheel, try to think outside the box to see if you can make it in a way where they come to you.
Rae Leigh: That'd be ideal. Wouldn't
it?
Alan Roy Scott: Well, probably it is a little bit utopian, but hell
Rae Leigh: No, I think I believe that do the work and, um,
Alan Roy Scott: Well, what about, well, let me look, look at our girl, Billie Eilish. I mean, what is it.
You know, Billie Eilish became out of nowhere, it became the thing, right. Or you could say a Dell before her, or you could say whoever you want now do a lipo or Ariana Grande
day. Of course, you
Rae Leigh: Yeah. Tones
and I,
Alan Roy Scott: connects the dots back to scooter Braun and all that.
But anyway,
um, you know, people just find, I mean, I mean, again, is it true? Okay. She and Phineas made the album in their bedroom if that's really true. And however, I don't remember the exact story and how she got discovered or people found her, but basically there's an example of Billie Eilish popping up as Billy Eilish with an album she made in her bedroom with her brother producing it.
So, so the industry found her.
Right?
Rae Leigh: Yeah, because the people like loved it
And you can do that. Now
Alan Roy Scott: Well, you
Rae Leigh: something, any bedroom and put it online.
Alan Roy Scott: And she's just one of many examples, right?
Rae Leigh: Yeah, absolutely. One of many, I mean, Okay. So I'm going to ask you, this is one of my last official questions. Um,
and I think it's going to be an interesting one because you've, you've,
just worked with so many people like, oh, I actually want to hear, I saw Ray Charles
on your
Alan Roy Scott: Yeah. Well, I, that was a break. That's a great story.
Unfortunately, it didn't, you know. Okay. Let me tell you, I'll answer. Tell you about the Ray Charles, by telling you another thing. Here's another, you know, this is you're gonna like this. Okay. So, okay. So I look at it like a call it success, failure, and almost what I mean is we all have successes.
If we stay at, we all do. And I don't know about you, but most people are IDed. It's kind of like, yeah, that was successful. Cool. I'm glad with that. Great. Moving on next, you know, Hey, great. The failures where you really, something just completely screws up and you get knocked to the ground. Those are.
Rae Leigh: Yep.
Alan Roy Scott: Those are hard to get over, but you do eventually you, you take your blows, you lie on the floor and bleed, you get up and you keep going, but then there's a middle ground.
I call the almost, and the almost where the one that everybody has to have to test your S your metal, because the almost are the ones where things happen that you have no control over. You can't be blamed for, or blame anyone for it just happens where things almost happen. And they don't. And those are the ones that are harder to let go of because you keep thinking about them, like with me and your vision, your vision for me was probably my
biggest almost maybe
top, top top few.
Cause I, I mean, I got, I got your vision canceled on me and taken away and out of my life and that opportunity because it happened during the pandemic. That's an almost, and I have others. So my rate, Charles wasn't home, I spent a whole day.
In the studio with him and Quincy Jones and my co-writer Jeff mosquito, and they were doing a song of mine called DuJuan to me.
And they recorded the song. And he's saying all day, and you know, back in the day with real steam, there was no Auto-Tune no, Melodyne, you know, you just kept saying he just kept singing takes. Okay. You know, I mean, I produced some artists, I produced Patti LaBelle and some other cool artists. And I can tell you that's a great story too.
My point is that we have like 47 tracks of payload bell.
Rae Leigh: Yeah,
Alan Roy Scott: So anyway, he's saying, and then at the end of the day, he was like kind of uncomfortable with the way it was going vocally. And it turned out that he just had a vocal issue. And so what they used to do back in the days, and you understand this, they would cut.
If they were going to release an album with 11 songs on it, they would report 15 or six.
Rae Leigh: Right.
Alan Roy Scott: And so therefore when it came down to it, sometimes they would say, well, these four aren't going on the album because these are the best 11 or other reasons. So in the case of my song, it didn't go on the album. Cause he just didn't like his vocal that day and they didn't, we sing it, they just let it go.
Rae Leigh: Yeah.
Alan Roy Scott: And that's an almost because I, I spent the whole day and Quincy Jones and I had, I got redeemed with
Quincy Jones because, um, I had, uh, three years ago, Barbara Streisand, son did an album, um, named Jason Gould. And, um, that was a great experience I wrote with Jason and, and, and, and three songs. I have two songs on the app.
Uh, three songs anyway, um, and the album was called the dangerous man. And I actually, I got to meet Barbara Streisand because that's her son. And he invited all the writers to go to the Hollywood bowl on her last night at the Hollywood bowl. And the thing I have to two things to say about my meeting, Barbara Streisand, one, she was very
Rae Leigh: Yeah.
Alan Roy Scott: She's very short, like way short. And she says to all of us, she goes, thank you for taking care of my son and writing those lovely songs and my son in. And it was so beautiful. Like any mother who loves her child, it was
Rae Leigh: yeah,
Alan Roy Scott: That was beautiful. But anyway, we were at a screening and I was with my friends who had written other songs in the album.
And I, you know, I mean, Quincy Jones was there and I walk up to him and he's talking to my two friends and blah, blah. And I said, well, I'll go up and say to him, Hey, Hey Quinn, Hey que you remember me? Ray Charles back then day. And then, you know, and I said, Hey, you know, I wrote a song on this album too, and it's called dangerous man.
And he goes dangerous, man. That's my favorite song. That is like, that is like every song writer's dream.
Rae Leigh: Yeah.
Alan Roy Scott: my favorite song.
Rae Leigh: To give approval.
Alan Roy Scott: he puts, his arm around me. He goes, yeah, man, John Robinson played. And he was like, treating me. Like I mattered. That's every, that's every song writer's dream.
Right.
You know? Yeah.
Rae Leigh: And he's got that sort of attitude
Alan Roy Scott: yeah. And then Ray, Charles was
the day he was having his
trouble, but he said, you know, you can tell, everybody was seeing
that here. You can imagine what a cool guy he was to be around for a day.
Rae Leigh: Yeah.
Alan Roy Scott: so I've, I've just been around him, all kinds of amazing people. And, and, and, and with my cultural exchange projects, the music bridges, I mean, you know, I can, can, my Cuba project was just a whole story in itself.
And we all met Fidel Castro in the middle of the night, in his military uniform and have lobster Thermidor. And
Rae Leigh: Yep. The music bridges Cause that's for me is something that, um, I guess through this podcast, I'm connecting with songwriters from all over the world. What's the music bridges thing
that
you're talking
Alan Roy Scott: so, so music bridges was, was okay. So what music period, cause I haven't done. They're very difficult to do, especially in our world. And they were high budgets and a lot of luck involved. So I couldn't, I haven't done one in awhile. Actually. The biggest one I've tried to do, my biggest failure was I spent 10 years trying to do a project in Jerusalem.
I'm using bridges in Jerusalem. So the core of music bridges. Multi collaboration, 2, 3, 4 way collaboration with, I created music bridges to try to prove that you could write songs together from people in politically turmoiled situations and show that musicians and music and get along with politics.
Doesn't that's why I started with the Soviet union. This was 19 90, 89, and it's like how crazy to think that I could go to the Soviet union and bring a bunch of songwriters to the Soviet union. But I happened to have a friend, a finished gentleman, my partner on Tetto five lane. And, you know, you have to know your history, but Finland always was involved with Russia and Soviet union and Estonian.
So on day app and to know a lot of people in Moscow and in Estonia. So unlike hardly any other songwriters. I could do it. I could actually organize a project and take a bunch of songwriters to Russia when that was un-doable. But the idea was to bring cultures together through the artists, songwriting with the additional focus in the beginning of intentionally choosing places that were politically in turmoil like Russia.
And then, and then I did Ireland when that was still Northern Southern Ireland, when that was still a big issue. That was a big
one too, you know,
Rae Leigh: Oh, that would have been so cool. Yeah.
Alan Roy Scott: and I did that.
It does. And so my biggest one was, was Cuba
because that was, that was the time when, when, bill Clinton said people to people in the late nineties when they're trying to open up.
And so I, I mean, I believe me, I mean, I had Mick fleet with Jimmy buffet, Bonnie Raitt. I mean, I mean, I had Peter Buck from REM with me. I had, I I'm 50. Uh, the chiefs and we all wrote songs with Cubans, all collaborated songs and did a concert of the collaborated songs and got to go have a private reception at the Del Castro.
So that
was my,
Rae Leigh: That's crazy. You're doing all the things that apparently are, a Connell scene,
religion and politics and music and not supposed to go together. And yet you've, you've done it.
Alan Roy Scott: are, but but, the, but the common denominator is the power of music is the universal language. You see, I wanted to give you the Genesee. You understand? I just didn't have this idea in the middle of the night while I was eating popcorn. I had been going since the early eighties in the eighties, the first time I ever left the left, the country was 1984.
I went to Japan for a thing called the Yamaha world popular song festival. So all through the mid eighties, there were these festivals that were like a, they're the same thing as you're a vision countries competing against each. And so I went everywhere and I went to a lot. Yeah. Those in the communist countries, I won the grand prize in Poland in 1986 with an American singer, with our song hero of my heart.
And all the judges were Russian, Chinese, et cetera, et cetera. And my singer did so good that the judges couldn't not give it to us. The grand
Rae Leigh: Wow.
Alan Roy Scott: It was so political. You can't imagine like your, like your vision. So I went to all, but the thing I got out of all those competitions incompetent in Kazakhstan and Czechoslovakia and iron, all those places was while you're not performing and competing, you're hanging out with all these writers and artists and you just jam and you just become friends.
And that's kind of the part of your vision. I most was looking forward to not, not the silly costumes or the telephone. Being in the green room, hanging out with all those people and making plans to work group of people. That's what it's
about for me. And so there for music bridges, the idea was what if I could show this fun that I'm having by being in Kazakhstan and my best friend's from Mongolia and that woman's from Uzbekistan and that person's from Belgium.
And we're all sitting here just jamming and playing music and not thinking about the politics of it, or I'm not supposed to get along with you. And I said, what if I did distill that? And I could take it back to LA and work with the celebrity world and give them some of that. And that was the idea of it.
The Genesis was taking a bunch of, as Quincy Jones said, leave your ego at the door. And we were little taking a group of people that have forgotten about that simple joy of it because they have, you know, tours and managers and they're making zillions of dollars for their record company and their life is, is.
Rae Leigh: Stress.
Alan Roy Scott: That's what the people love the most when I would bring him to those places and they could have, that's why scuba was so sexy. I got all these major celebrities, but they would come for expenses only because they wanted, they'd heard about how cool it is to have the experience of not having to worry about their, their tour or their next album.
And they would just go and write and have fun for a week with other people like them in this, it was just a really timely concepts at the time
when I came up with it. And so I did a bun. I did, you know, seven or eight of those in a 15 year period.
Rae Leigh: Okay. Well, we've been
sidetracked from the
question,
Alan Roy Scott: Uh, what, what
Rae Leigh: an amazing story. So,
Alan Roy Scott: to the question.
Rae Leigh: So the question was going to be
that's. Okay. I wanted to hear it, so I let you talk, but, um, the question was going to be, if you could co-write with anyone in the world, dead or alive, who would it be and why?
Alan Roy Scott: Wow. Wow. You ask tough
questions, right?
Rae Leigh: I promise the last one.
Last one.
Alan Roy Scott: No, no, you can. I'm loving this. I'm in, I'm having a good time. You're
awesome. I'm not knocking. I'm teasing you. I'm not
complaining. I'm just
Rae Leigh: Sorry. You can tease
Alan Roy Scott: Um, probably for me.
Wow. I, I might have to say Billy Joel, because I'm a piano guy and I love him and what he, and I've loved so many of his songs as a songwriter and the fact that he could do amazing music and playing piano.
And he wrote all his own lyrics. I mean, did it all, and, and I just admire his, his talent so much. And he's kind of a humble guy. He's like a schlub. Whenever you see him on interviews, he's like your Italian friends from Bondai beach, you know, he's like such a regular guy, you know, and I. I just don't don't I, I really feel unfair that I said that because I can't possibly only pick one.
So you made me pick one. I did, but there's so many others. I would
answer the same thing
Rae Leigh: I thought it would be a hard
question for
Alan Roy Scott: it was and
Rae Leigh: Billy Joel is
a good,
Alan Roy Scott: and I made myself
choose one and I, and I almost regret it
because so many others that I
Rae Leigh: Yeah. And we'd probably be here forever if, if we did go through everyone because you're right. There's so many amazing people that, you know, you never know the magic that would come
from your soul and your songwriting
ability mixed with someone else. I think that's why, that's why I love to write with so many
people.
Alan Roy Scott: that's the man. That's the beauty of it. You don't ever really know.
Right.
Rae Leigh: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um, but that, that's pretty much it you've shared so much. Thank you so much for joining me and sharing so much of your wisdom and stories. Is there anything else that you would
like to share before we finish up and you've got the, the
Alan Roy Scott: Uh, wow. Just, well, let's see. Um, how about,
um, How about, um, just saying that I think that being a songwriter or an artist too, but being a songwriter is a very beautiful and noble thing to strive to achieve in the world. And the world needs us, all of us. And it's okay. If you're someone who thinks I love songwriting, but I also want to make some serious money or I want to be rich and famous.
That's fine too, you know, but I think that the world needs the healing that music offers if you stay with it. And I think it's a noble profession, you know, and, and I think that you should never be deterred because of, of the factors of how much money you'll make or won't make, I think you just do it because it's something that matters.
And we are the ones that keep that going.
Rae Leigh: That's absolutely beautiful. I
Alan Roy Scott: there,
Rae Leigh: put a tear in my eye. You spoke so beautifully. Thank you.
And it's so true. it's it's something that we all need music and to be able to gift that.
Yeah. Oh, absolutely. That's that's beautiful. Thank you so much. Um, I really appreciate your kind words and I'm really looking forward to sharing this with everyone at some very inspirational and I appreciate it.
Alan Roy Scott: Well, it's been my pleasure. You're a delight and thank you for having me. And, uh, you know, I have no idea if anything I've said will resonate with anyone else. Cause I do babble and I do go on tangents and I do speak very fast sometimes when I get excited, but by the way, that's called passion. So I'm sorry for that.
Rae Leigh: I don't ever be sorry for
Alan Roy Scott: I do, I do know I get wound up like the top and I start babbling along, but it's because, um, I really, I love what I do and I love to talk about these things if given that opportunity. So hopefully. Offered valuable insights.
Rae Leigh: I love speaking to you. And it's so inspirational and, um, I've learnt So, much just from this one conversation. Um, not just even from everything else that you've done with the ASC, so yeah. Thank you for all your hard work. And I know that you're never going to
Alan Roy Scott: wait a minute, let me, I can't leave without a plug for the aSCU. RNRs right. And this is a
Rae Leigh: Oh yeah.
Alan Roy Scott: but so Lisa Butler, you are my goddess.
Lisa Butler. You are my guys ASC. I didn't even get to talk about Oz. I didn't even get to talk
about Oz and my AHS
Rae Leigh: talk about it going,
Alan Roy Scott: Oh my
Rae Leigh: what do you want to say about
Alan Roy Scott: I love Oz. I've been going, I've been there 12, 14, 15 times.
I've been at the ASC five times. I go all the way back to writing with Ian Moss from cold chisel met Matt. Don levy was my publisher at Peter music. I used to go and stay with them in
Bondi beach. And I have so many friends and I've so many fun and I just love it.
What Oz is and what oz is about. And I just have so much appreciation.
And again, Lisa will, and not just all the people that help make ASC work and Terry Rowe and the rest of those, but Lisa Butler, it's her baby. So this is my big fraught to you directly that I adore you. And thank you for doing SC and you better bring me back. And Joe here.
Rae Leigh: I didn't think you could, um, stop her from inviting you back. She's absolutely in love with you. And I think everyone at the ASC
Alan Roy Scott: Well, I love, I love, I was so disappointed not to get back to us. I
Rae Leigh: All right. It was
Alan Roy Scott: I had it, you know, and I have my friends in Tazzy and I have my friends up the gold coast and I was going to go up to the gold, goes and visit tazzy and visit my friends out in Margaret river. And then,
Rae Leigh: Yeah, no, That's nice. I got to write with Oscar Don levy, you know,
Alan Roy Scott: oh, he's. he's.
Rae Leigh: you ever met him?
Alan Roy Scott: I known him since he was four years old. What are you
Rae Leigh: Really that's crazy.
Alan Roy Scott: remember the little Oscar with his little guitar when he was like four, what are you talking about?
Rae Leigh: We
Alan Roy Scott: He's a
Rae Leigh: two and a half songs
Alan Roy Scott: Oscar is a lovely person.
Rae Leigh: Yeah, he
Alan Roy Scott: And it comes from his father was a, he was just like my mentor, my us, my Ozzy mentor,
Rae Leigh: Yeah. Awesome. No, there are good,
Alan Roy Scott: anyway, so you can edit this down so that you can
Rae Leigh: I will,
Alan Roy Scott: Ozzy stuff because you can't do an Ozzie podcast without not including my eyes part.
Rae Leigh: well, we kind of say we're international, so we have 50% Australian artists or songwriters on the show and then 50% from the rest of the world.
Alan Roy Scott: Well, I, I hopefully covered some of the rest of the world and most of it, but I did
Rae Leigh: you did now. You really did.
Alan Roy Scott: a direct Ozzie plug there at the end, you know?
Rae Leigh: yeah. No, thank you.
