#201 Matt Scullion
Matt Scullion has a chat with Rae Leigh about the journey as a songwriter from Austraia sitting in a ute witha broken casset player to living in Nashville chasing the dream of full time songwriter, to falling in love, coming home and working with iconic australian artists such as Lee Kerhnagan and many more having over 22 #1 Hits in australia and many more cuts, including Cold Chisel, along with recording and releasing his own music.
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Transcript
Rae Leigh: All right. Welcome to a songwriter Tryst with Matt Sullion and lovely to meet you. Thanks for coming.
Matt Scullion: Oh, thank you for having me on your show.
Rae Leigh: Tell us a little bit about who you are and where you come from.
Matt Scullion: My name's Matt Scullion and I've been in the music business ever since I can remember. And I've been very fortunate in the music business and, traveled the world in Australia many times. And, I got serious about songwriting probably the first time I went to Nashville, which was back in 1999
Rae Leigh: Wow.
Matt Scullion: and, yeah, went there on many, many, many trips back and forth, back and forth, back and forth just to learn my chops, so to speak and learn a little bit more about the craft that I love so much. I guess the doors really started opening for me probably about 15 years ago when. When Lee kernaghan approached me about writing with him, he loved, he loved what I was doing. So we ended up writing about 20 songs together over the years. I'm happy to say, I think six of them went to number one.That was great. And then that got me in with Garth Porta, fantastic. So I've done a lot of work on different projects with Garth over the years. And from the it's spiral, really, you know, doors opened and.
Rae Leigh: um,
Matt Scullion: I got to write with a lot of people and I guess become the, become the go-to, the go-to writer.
Rae Leigh: great.
Matt Scullion: And then I decided to go back to Nashville and, try and live every writer's dream of having the, uh, getting paid for what you do with the, with the great publishing deal. I had a lot of friends and I've still got a lot of friends that do it over there, and they're doing really.
Rae Leigh: well.
Matt Scullion: It didn't work out for me that way. I didn't end up getting that publishing deal. But I learned a lot in the process and I learned a lot and I learned that, um, it probably wasn't really what's happening in country music. Wasn't really the thing for me. It wasn't really? Yeah. It's not really, it's not really why I went
Rae Leigh: Yeah.
Matt Scullion: I went there. Um, I'm more of a, more of a storyteller and a lyricist and I just didn't find, I guess I just didn't fit. I didn't fit with, with, with the changeover of the guard, with what was happening in, in, in country music. So I decided to come back to Australia and just do it myself. And just write, write for myself and write about what I thought was important and do it the way that I wanted to do it and then release my own album. So, and that's not taking anything away from the, from the country music industry. I think it's fantastic what people are doing. It's just not really, for me. It's just not really my thing.
Rae Leigh: That's all right. I think you're a great example though, of success breeding success, and being able to work with people and build on that and, you know, take the lessons you, you go. I think there's not an uncommon story when I've talked to people about. having opportunities or maybe missing out on opportunities. And that crossroads where it's like, do I go down publish a record label or do I stay independent and stay true to what I wanna do or do I do what they want me to do? You know, that that's seems to be quite a common, point in people's careers. How do you feel about that? Do you wish you had have kept pushing for those opportunities or are you glad that you stood true to who you are and what you wanted to do as an artist?
Matt Scullion: Very glad, very glad that I stood true to what I wanted to do. Uh it's it's it's really, since I came back from overseas about six years ago now, I've, I've been very fortunate. Um, I've um, I've married my sweetheart and, we've bought a place and we live on a, we live in a beautiful part of Australia and, I'm writing music and. We're based up near Glen Inness in a place called Glenco
Rae Leigh: Glen. Yeah.
Matt Scullion: it's up in the Northern Tableland up, up, up where it snows. It's a very cold country, but it's a beautiful country and we live in a year roundhouse,
Rae Leigh: I can see that behind you. yeah,
Matt Scullion: yeah,
Yeah. That's a beautiful place and yeah. Uh, so no, no. And, and I just wanna elaborate a bit more on what I said before. Um, some people might take, might take it the wrong way. I, I think there's some great stuff. Great stuff in Australian country music now, you know, but, but for, for me, I just didn't feel that when I was over there, I just didn't feel that I could write about the subjects they were writing about and, and do it as well as they were doing that.
Rae Leigh: Mm.
Matt Scullion: You know, it's, it's, it's, it's got such a pop sensibility about it now, you know, and it's not, it's not, It's not the reason that I fell in love with country music. I fell in love with country music because of the stories and because of the honesty and the sincerity and, and, and the originality of the themes,
Rae Leigh: Yeah.
Matt Scullion: you know, it's just every now and then you'll hear a song and you'll go, whoa.
Now that's what I'm talking about. Now, there it is. There's that magic, but it's fair if you far in between, and I'm not blaming the artist for that, it's definitely the industry that's made it that way, you know? And, When you're in Nashville and you're trying to be that writer you're governed by the industry.
If you wanna make something out of it. And if you want a publishing deal, it's so funny, they they'll, they'll sign you for a song that you'll send them. That'll blow their mind and they'll go, my God. Okay. Now don't write anything like that.
You know what I mean now? And it happens like that all the time happens like that all the time, you know, they'll sign you because of an, an amazing concept and, and lyric you've come up with that is so different to anything that's happening, but then, but then they'll go, okay, that's great. But now I want you to write like this,
Rae Leigh: Right. Like the ones that are number one at the moment.
Matt Scullion: yeah. And, and, and I mean, you can try and do that, but if it's not your thing, then, you know, you're competing in a world where it's not really you, , and. And then you gotta scratch your head and go, you know? I got told many years ago by, by actually someone that you've had on your show. I won't, I'm not as good. I'm not gonna name prop, but someone that you've had on your show. And
Rae Leigh: there's 200 people, so
Matt Scullion: yeah, the, a recent one, actually, he said, he said the only thing worse than wanting a publishing deal is being in a publishing deal that, that you're not happy with.
Rae Leigh: Right.
Matt Scullion: You know, and, uh, so, and, and he was right. Cause I've been in a couple of those and a couple of record deals like that too. So yeah, it's, it's good to be back here and doing what I wanted to do and trying to make my own, my own path and my own road. It's a hard way to go because I wouldn't say my songs really fit commercial radio, but that's okay.
I'm happy with that. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm totally happy with just forging up my own path.
Rae Leigh: own. I'm I'm curious. Cause you've said a few times, you know, your, what brought you into country music and the storytelling. Where did that begin? What was your inspirations? How old were you? Why, why were you like so passionate about songwriting from such an early age? Where did that spark
Matt Scullion: Two things, an old green Commodor and, an old septic.
Rae Leigh: okay. That's where
Matt Scullion: it started from. My stepfather had an old green Commodor
Rae Leigh: Reagan
Matt Scullion: when I was a teenager and I'd heard a bit of country music, but I didn't know a lot about it. And back then you could get these, You could get these like readers send away for readers digest tapes.
And it was, the best million selling country hits or something like that. I don't know what it was. And anyway, had an old bring Commodor with a cassette deck in it. Anyway, we had this tape in it and got stuck in there and we couldn't get the tape out. So for the next 12 months, every time he jumped in the car, if you didn't listen to the radio, you listened to this cassette. And on this cassette was stuff like the gambler by Kenny Rogers. behind closed doors by Charlie rich Kana, Mala fella by slim. Dustin, let me think what else was on there? Kiss and angel. Good morning. I think there might have been, a Dolly Parton song, Jolene or something, all these great, cool stories, like really, really, really cool stories.
And I just fell in love with them. And then I, I started searching, searching a bit more for, I know I just fell in love with lyrics, but, but it took me a long time to. I guess to understand what a good lyric was a long, long time. You know, I, I, I, I look back at my old songs and I, I would never ever sing them because their lyrics lyrics are shit. They're terrible.
Rae Leigh: Well, you do get better. That's something that, you don't, maybe you don't realize until it happens. Cause I've definitely had different people on the podcast where they go, you know, uh, my lyrics come from God or the sky or whatever. And, and I don't, you know, they don't rewrite, they don't do anything and they don't do any education on trying to get better.
It's just, this is what comes through me and that is and that's one way of doing it. But I definitely relate to, since, especially even just doing this podcast and talking to people, you know, like I said, greatness inspires greatness, and I've been learning so much. And I've noticed a difference in my songwriting changing because I'm writing with different people and I'm, I'm learning so much.
And then I'm also learning to rewrite , which is a, you know, a fantastic thing. you rewrite
Matt Scullion: it's all, it's all in the rewrite.
Rae Leigh: yeah.
Matt Scullion: Anybody, anybody that says, look, it comes from God and I, and I never rewrite it and I blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I don't know about that. I'm good on him. Good on him. But, I don't know if you can get a song just bang and you never rewrite it again. I mean, I don't know how good that song's gonna.
You know, I just, I I've got a really good book that I can recommend, for anybody that wants to read, I've got, I'm looking at it now. It's called songwriters on songwriting for anybody out there. And it's, the author is a, it's a guy called Paul Zollos ZOLLO. Now this book, he used to be a, he used to be a, uh, journalist and he used to write for a new, a New York magazine, like a songwriting magazine.
And he's, I. Everybody who's anybody. And they all talk about the process of songwriting and the way they write songs. And it's amazing book. And I, I, I, you know, usually I only read books once and then I don't read 'em, but I read this all the time and, it's um, you can, you can look at people like, Leonard Cohens in there, you know, and Leonard talks about how, you know, he rewrote, um, what was his masterpiece? Um, hallelujah, 80 times.
Rae Leigh: Yeah. Did he ever finish it? Like not like there's how many verses are there for that one?
Matt Scullion: I don't know, but it drove him crazy in the end. It drove him crazy. And I was, um, and, uh, but then you look at Neil young and he says that he just writes some bang and that's, it leaves him alone. If someone can do that. Good on him. Good on him. But I've, I haven't I'm yet to meet the songwriter that writes, I mean, a great, great song. Where they didn't like, like, like look at that great song by that Miranda Lambert sings. Um, the house that built me.
Rae Leigh: Mm-hmm
Matt Scullion: Right. Amazing, amazing song. They've got the song of the year and one of the awards, 10 years, it took to write that
Rae Leigh: took, yeah, right
Matt Scullion: over and over and over and over until they got it exact. And it depends. It depends how far you want to dig with your lyrics. It depends what kind of a writer you want to be, you know, cuz there's music out. that's rhythm and rhythm and, and, and, and beat based, you know, rhythm and melody based. And some people like that. But if you wanna write a song, that's just got no holes in it and the lyrics are just freaking amazing. You've gotta keep going back to what I reckon. I I'm that's the way I do it anyway. I, I I just don't think you write that great song on one attempt.
Rae Leigh: Yeah. Yeah. Fair enough. So what, what is. Your, I agree with you. what is your, you said you like to story tell, but is there a specific thing that you find is the Matt S Scion, like line of truth amongst your songwriting and what it is that you are always looking for when you are telling a story?
Matt Scullion: Australia
Rae Leigh: Aussie, Aussie as
Matt Scullion: AIE Aussie the, the things, the things that, but not in a Bogan way in, a, in an original way that, that really sums up. what you're talking about the subject matter, you know, I love writing about Australia and there's so many different things to write about. There's so much out there.
There's so many funny things we do that make us Australian. What makes us Australian? What tastes Australian? What looks Australian what's smells Australian. And what is Australian? What was Australian? What is Australian now? What will it be tomorrow? All these different things that make, and to me, that's my. I guess that's my calling. It took me a long time to find my calling a long time.
Rae Leigh: did you work it out? When did you realize that's what it was
Matt Scullion: when I met my wife, who was obviously, yeah, she's she's uh, if you listen to my song, AIE, as she's Aussie, as Shaz
Rae Leigh: okay.
Matt Scullion: calling Barry Baz and Sharon Shaz it's Aussie. Well that shares
Rae Leigh: Oh, so her name's Sharon
Matt Scullion: anyway. Yeah, Sharon. Yeah, I was, I was living in Nashville and I met her on one of my return trips. Cause I'd come back every year and play, play some gigs and play the Tamworth country music festival and visit my mom for Chrissy and stuff like that.
You know, and I met her at the gig. I was doing up at Newcastle and we where she lived and we just, yeah, we clicked and kept the long distance relationship going over, over, Skype for a long time, you know? And, but around about the time I, I was feeling like I. I don't know. I, I, I loved Nashville because of all the cause it's because it's music 24 7, it's all it.
It's always music and you don't have to look for it. I loved that about it, but I just didn't feel like I was, um, I didn't feel like I could make a difference. You know, I felt I could write really good songs, but I didn't feel like there was a, there was a place for those songs to be heard apart from me singing them in songwriter bars.
I didn't feel like there were songs that were gonna get cut by, by, by people. And that's what I was writing to do was to get songs cut, you know? So I was feeling like I needed to come home and then meeting Sharon.
Rae Leigh: and
Matt Scullion: I'd been long distance dating it for two years and she pretty much turned around and said, well, look, if you don't come home soon, that's it
Rae Leigh: Oh, well, that's a long time to wait for someone.
Matt Scullion: but we did Ronda, but we did Ronda do an away 1, 1, 1 time
Rae Leigh: you have a song about that?
Matt Scullion: And I did, I wrote a song over there and I called the song Hawaii.
Rae Leigh: Nice.
Matt Scullion: Very, very original. I wrote it with Sharon. Actually, I wrote it with this with Sharon that was on her bucket list to write a song. And, and there was a UK ukulele with the, with a Palm tree on it in one of the Airbnb places we stayed in and I'd never played ukulele before, but there was illegal UK chord book sitting there on the, on the coffee table.
And I went, whoa, picked it up. How hard can it be? And we wrote a song called why, but anyway, um,
Rae Leigh: I love
Matt Scullion: back to the, yeah, getting back to the, to the question, so yeah,
I felt, I felt I, that, that what I was doing was really good, but I didn't feel like it was, um, I was either, I was either, behind what was going on or I was ahead of it.
I don't know. I don't know. Or maybe I was, I was re redundant. I don't know. I don't know, but I knew what I was writing was really good, but I knew it just didn't. It just wouldn't, it wasn't cutting it in today's market. So.
I thought it's time to come home. And, and I had written, um, back in 2018 was another, this was around about the time too. Well, 2000. Yeah, I'd written a, uh, song with Travis Collins and Amber Lawrence called our backyard, which ended up winning three golden guitars. And I won the golden guitar for the song of the U as a songwriter.
And it was staring me right in the face all the time. What I should be doing, I should be writing about what I know and.
And I know Australia better than anyone because I grew up here, you know, I know it. Well, what, I don't know it better than anyone, you know, it just as well, because you are from here too, you know, your husband knows it just as well, but I know it.
Rae Leigh: British. She doesn't know anything.
Matt Scullion: Oh, okay. Fair enough. You'll have to
Rae Leigh: He's the one that I have to, I have to get the spiders out of the house cuz he scares him.
Matt Scullion: oh, right. They were not fair enough, but, yeah. What was I saying? So, yeah, that, that there was a few things that led me to where I am now. And, I've always loved Australia more so since being away and, and seeing it missing it really bad. And, and then coming back, and the first song I wrote when I got back was Aussie as,
Rae Leigh: mm, wow.
Matt Scullion: But, but that took me two years to write.
Rae Leigh: Right.
Matt Scullion: I wrote that wrote that with a fellow called Paul gr and from simply bushed. And originally we, he was doing an album and he was gonna do an album and I was gonna produce him. We talked about it and, that never eventuated, but that was the song we started. And then in the end
it wasn't quite finished and I wanted to do an album. I said, I wanna record that song. If they're not gonna record it, I'm gonna record it. So I finished it and, yeah, I recorded it. And that sort of got me on the path to what I should be
doing.
Rae Leigh: Yeah. Awesome. I'm glad that you, you stuck with it and you didn't just give up on it.
I think there's a lot of songs can end up on the cutting room floor, which, is
Matt Scullion: If they're good enough, you know, if they're good enough, you know, I write a lot of, I start a lot of songs that, that just don't get finished. I, I, I guess. I guess they've really gotta matter. And you gotta think about, I, I, I think to myself, you know, when I'm playing to my audience, are these songs gonna,
are they gonna care? Is it, is it, is it gonna relate and are they gonna care or is it just another one of those songs that I've heard this a hundred times before? It's gotta, it's gotta have something special about it. You know, that's the way that I look at it. It's yeah.
Rae Leigh: And, and you've talked a lot about co-writing. When did that start for you? Are you a big co-writer or do you do 50 50 on your own? Or what? What's your process
Matt Scullion: I, I was a big co-writer for a long, long time, and I had to get confidence writing with myself again. And I, I, I started out writing on my own. And then, when I moved to, uh, I was in Darwin for a long time. full time musician up there. And, and then I came down to Tamworth in 2000. I think it was about 2001, 2002.
And I started co-writing a lot down there and that sort of got me on the path. I mean, I was doing a little bit, cause I'd been to Nashville before that, but I hadn't had a lot of experience in co-writing, but I started doing it yeah. Around the early two thousands. And for a long time, that's all I did. I co-written with right with everybody.
And. And then, yeah. And then when I started writing for myself again for, um, these last two albums, I was always asking my wife, you know, is this, is this good? Am I, am I, you know, am I, am I delusional here? Or is this, is this actually good? Because usually when you co-write, you've got someone you can, you can bounce off and go, Hey, is this a stupid line? Or is it actually really, really original and good, you know, or is it really corny? Is it too out?
Rae Leigh: too
Matt Scullion: So now I've, I I've learned to, I've learned to trust myself again, so,
Rae Leigh: That's good. So you just kind of needed that confidence again. So what was the journey to getting back out there and doing your own albums again and, you know, finding your own feet?
What, what was that drive?
Matt Scullion: Just, just, just wanted to, just wanted to, and I, also,
another
thing I learned by living overseas is that, It's not like it used to be being a songwriter. You know, the, making a living out of it is very, is a lot harder than it used to be, because there's just not the, there's not the money around that.
There used to be like, cuz most people stream these days and not, I mean, I just heard that the streaming companies have put it up a couple, couple of percent. So I think we're getting, um, I think we might be getting one and a half cents now for 10 plays. Who knows?
So anyway, it, another thing I came to the realization was that, um, you know, and, and, and it was from watching a lot of friends too, you know, it, it, I was happy being a songwriter, being just doing the nine to five. I was really happy with it. I liked the lifestyle, I loved it. And,
I just couldn't see a way of making a living outta it unless you're getting, unless you're getting on the, um, Unless you're getting on the big, big albums, the real big albums, the albums that are selling,
Rae Leigh: but
Matt Scullion: you know, I mean, I, I
Rae Leigh: exactly,
Matt Scullion: you know, I had, I had, um, you know, I had, I had,
Rae Leigh: I had,
Matt Scullion: I think, eight songs on one Lee Keigan album, you know, and, um, that still didn't pay much because it's not.
It's not, that people don't buy albums. Like they used to, they stream, he he's, he's got millions and millions of streams don't get me wrong. I I've. But it's not, it's not paying, it's not just all about the money. No, but I mean, you've you,
Rae Leigh: But you need to be able to make a living. Yeah,
Matt Scullion: Yeah.
Rae Leigh: It's not like it's, it takes time to do this. It's not really, I mean, I think a lot of people would say, oh, it's just a hobby, but you can't write good songs like that and get good quality unless you're putting in the time. And the.
Matt Scullion: Exactly. Exactly. It's hard to, it's hard to have a, it's hard to have a full time job and, and write songs, you know? Cause yeah, you're right. You're right. You've gotta have a lot of time to stare into space
Rae Leigh: Well, so many people in the country industry that I know of, like a lot of artists, they are, they are working another job. They they've got something else.
Matt Scullion: It's honest, but it's honest. And, and, uh, I, I there's, there's a couple of ways you can go about it. You can do covers right now doing, doing, doing covers. You could do a couple of cover gigs a week and, and, and bring as a soloist to bring only a thousand bucks a week or whatever, you know, which is great.
That's enough money to live on. It's very soul destroying, but, and trying to have your music heard. Your song's heard in a place, where people are there just well wear where you're a jukebox basically, but that's okay. Cause that's what you paid to be when you're a cover act, you've gotta realize this, that that's what you paid to be.
If you wanna do your own music, the best way you can do your own music is to hire a venue and get people in. And then they're there to. Sell tickets. But unfortunately until you get a big name, you're not gonna get many people there. So having a little casual or part-time job is not such a bad idea. But it depends.
It depends if you can handle being a cover artist. And then, because then you, you've got a lot of time to write songs, so there's all different ways to do it. And there's no rights and no wrongs. There's no rights and no wrongs. It's it's however you find your own way. And I remember going to.
Rae Leigh: see,
Matt Scullion: Years. And years ago, years ago, I, I was, I was probably 20 or 21 or something.
And I remember going to this big, uh, music conference thing or whatever it was. And I can't remember the artist, but he was the in artist of the day. It was in Sydney. And, uh, and I remember talking to one of the, one of the, record execs or whatever, and I'm telling him, oh, blah, blah, blah, this and blah, blah, that.
And he goes, mate, I don't want to hear excuses. I haven't got time for excuses. Just. Just do it. And i, I walked away feeling really with my tile between my legs and really angry. And I thought, yeah, dare you say that, blah, blah, blah. And then I thought about it and I thought, no, you know what is right? It's a bloody hard industry.
And it's a, and you're better off if someone's honest with you because there's a lot of people that piss in your pocket and. You want someone who's honest and tells you the truth and you just gotta get broad shoulders and you've gotta take it. You know, if you really want to, if you really want to compete in this business, you know, you've gotta find, you've gotta find your own sound.
You've gotta find your own path. You've gotta, there's already a, there's already a, a bloody Taylor swift in a Shinai Twain and a and a and a, and a Lee Keigan and a, and a Luke Combs. There's already those guys. You don't wanna rewriting songs like them because, because you're not, you might get on radio, but you're not gonna last,
Rae Leigh: gonna, yeah.
Matt Scullion: you know, I, I read, you know, as soon as you start writing for trends, by the time you release that song, the trends changed.
So why not? Why not? Why not just be honest with yourself and don't listen to the radio. Don't listen to it. Screw the radio, screw YouTube, screw all those places. Don't listen to. 'em lock yourself in your room and write your own music and, and just be, and, and trust yourself and trust your gut. And, just be honest. Yeah. Be honest with yourself and give it a shot, cuz you never know.
Rae Leigh: That's good advice. Speaking of secondary incomes, you're doing coaching now. I see. Yeah. is that, is that kind of, the goal is to kind of be able to pass on some of this wisdom that you've learned along with obviously another income stream.
Matt Scullion: Never, never, never done it before to tell you the truth. I've talked to, I I've been invited to go and talk at seminars and stuff like that about writing, but I've never done it before. And, and someone said to me a while ago, you know, you should, have you ever thought about doing songwriting lessons and nah, no, I don't wanna do that, blah, blah, blah.
And then I thought about, and I thought, well, yeah, why not? I mean, if people. People want to want to want to pick my brain and, and wanna write a song with me, you know? And, and, I can't, I can't promise them that I can teach them how to write a song, but I can, I can definitely give them a different way to look at it.
And it might make them think sometimes that's all you need is just to, maybe you you're learning or you're frustrated and you're in a hole. Maybe you just need to look at it a little differently. You know, and, and just sort of see the song from a different perspective, I think really helps sometimes.
Rae Leigh: I don't know about you, but often after I've written a song, I will. You know, put it in a draw for a couple of weeks, just so that when I do go back to it, I've got fresh ears. But it's funny because especially even the production process, I hate that process. , I'm usually never happy with the song and then I'll just release it and then, you know, later on, I won't listen to it for a while and then I go back to it.
I'm like, oh yeah, it's pretty good. Like, you know, um, what, what's your kind of process around getting fresh ears on your own music?
Matt Scullion: Yeah. Okay. I'm one of these people that play my music live before I release it. There's there's but there's, uh, what's the word I'm looking for? There's there's there's danger with doing that. That's danger's not the right word. I'm I'm just.
Rae Leigh: right word. I definitely,
Matt Scullion: funny
Rae Leigh: sing all my songs before I record them. Like it's you gotta test it on the crowd first, right?
Matt Scullion: yeah. But, but, but there's, you can get your songs every in, in today's technology, everybody's always filming stuff that you do, you know, and then you can have your song out there online before you release it and you don't want it there,
Rae Leigh: Yeah,
Matt Scullion: but you've gotta, and sometimes people can steal your ideas, you know?
So you've gotta be careful. At the same time, I think by singing your songs live, you really get, you get to see people's body language and whether, and whether what you are doing is right. You know, so I do it all the time and also obviously playing it for playing it for friends and family. And my wife's a great, my wife's a great editor, you know, and if, if my mom gets excited, I know I'm onto something, you know?
Rae Leigh: Have the biggest fights with my husband. When I try to write with him, we we've written one song together and it was a murder ballad.
Matt Scullion: Oh, cool. He all right. Okay.
Rae Leigh: So yeah, no, we we've decided that that's not a safe place for us to go to.
Matt Scullion: yeah. Fair enough. Fair enough. But yeah, look, look, it's it's it is a hard one. You gotta just trust yourself sometimes, you know, and, uh, you don't always get it. Right. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm writing for a new album now, which I'm going in the studio with Shane Nicholson in February to re to record my next.
Yeah, he was fantastic to record my next album. He, he does all my albums. But I don't even run them past him.
I don't, I don't, because I'm not, I'm not going there. I'm going there for Shane's. Um, I mean, he's an amazing songwriter, but I know what I wanna say. You know, I know, I know. I know how, um, I want my song set out.
You know, I just want his, I just want his, his, his instrumental ex um, yeah. His touch on it, you know? And, um, so I, I usually know by the time I go into the studio,
I've
got my songs pretty well, the way I want them. And I know, and I know that they're, I know that they're what I wanna release. He might come in and change it, change a phrase here and. And, and I'll go, wow, that's awesome. I never, I never thought about singing it like that. That's that's all, now I'll stick with what I got, you know? Um,
Rae Leigh: it takes confidence to be able to do that.
Matt Scullion: Yeah.
yeah. It, it does, but you know, you've,
Rae Leigh: know,
Matt Scullion: again, it's working out, it's working out. Who are you? Who do you want to be? You know, I mean, and this isn't a songwriter thing. This is an artist. This
is a
Rae Leigh: an artist. It's a different thing. Yeah.
Matt Scullion: And
that's why, that's why for a long time, I was quite happy being the songwriter because, because it was so much easier, I didn't have to worry about all that artist crap that you gotta go through, you know, there's so this image, there's all this social media crap.
You gotta be all over all the time, which, which takes your time. And it takes away from the important things like sitting there with a cup of coffee, staring into space. They're the important things, you know,
Rae Leigh: no, I get it. I just want to sit still and be able to write a song
Matt Scullion: That's what I mean, that's it. And you know, you, you write a song and you, you write it with a really good artist and you think, great. Now you can go and deal with
Rae Leigh: it. Yep.
Matt Scullion: Let me know if you send it to me when you've recorded it, you know? And, and, and then you, and, and then hopefully I'll, hopefully you'll release it as a single and a video and, and I'll get some royalties from it, you know, it'll be nice.
Um, but, uh,
Rae Leigh: yeah, so
Matt Scullion: being the artist is definitely wearing another cat, you know? Um, and when you're the songwriter and the artist. You know, you, you, you it's, it's a big, big job. It's a big job, but it's, but it's very satisfying when it does come off.
Rae Leigh: does. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And sometimes surprising sometimes the successes come from the places you least expect.
Matt Scullion: Yeah, that's right. That's right. Put, put it out there and believe in it and believe in it. And don't follow trends and, and. You know, um, there's a lot of things that I want to teach. I don't wanna give too much away in what I'm gonna teach people about writing. And, and again, it depends on the writer that comes to me.
If it's someone that wants to write songs, then we won't talk about the artist thing. You talk about the pitching side of things and how to get songs to artists and maybe how to get a pub, how to get a publish you're interested and all that, and how to demo your songs up and write song. And of course you gotta write it first.
It's gotta be good.
And if that, and if that person's an artist and a writer, well, then I guess we could, we can, we can go into the stuff that I've learned over the years. Um, having good record deals and crappy record deals and, and,
Rae Leigh: There's so much to
learn. Isn't there
Matt Scullion: there is, there is so much to learn and if I can, you know, if anybody's interested, absolutely jump on my site and, and, and send me an email and, um, and look, I might not be the right person for everybody. You know, that, um, who knows you might get something out
Rae Leigh: We'll definitely put all the links into the description of the podcast. One of the things that I like to ask everyone just at the end of the podcast is, if you. Right. Co-write with anyone in the world, dead or alive. Who would it be and why?
Matt Scullion: Kelly cause he's the best
Rae Leigh: Okay.
Matt Scullion: he's amazing. He just blows me away. I would pay to up with that, man. He's just.
Rae Leigh: he
Matt Scullion: he's just he's he he's exceptional.
Rae Leigh: He's your
Matt Scullion: And, uh, he inspires me, but Don Walker was another guy. He's just amazing. Yeah.
they're, they're, they're probably two of the ones that come straight to mind. I've written, I've had the, I've had the, for the, the great fortune of writing with a lot of my heroes. I, I got to write with Richard Clapton while I was in Nashville. I wrote with, uh, Ian Moss from cold chisel. And, uh, I was over there and a friend of mine, Sam Hawley hooked it up for me, Sam, Sam lives over in Nashville.
He is a good mate of mine. And we wrote this really cool song. And I took the idea into mosey, this really cool riff. And he ended. Recording it exactly the way I wrote it, which was cool. So, um, and then he, uh, and I'm thinking I might get a song on an EAN Moss solo record. This is good. And anyway, I'm in a songwriting appointment one day. This is about six months later
Rae Leigh: yeah.
Matt Scullion: and I get this text message. And it's for me and Moss.
Rae Leigh: Yep.
Matt Scullion: And, he goes, Matt, just wanna let you know that chisel are releasing a, another album. And, um, I usually always sing two songs on every album. The boys love shoot the moon. That was the name of the song. So congratulations mate. You got a call chisel cut.
Rae Leigh: oh my God. That's amazing.
Matt Scullion: this was about, this was in 2015,
Rae Leigh: Wow.
Matt Scullion: so I, I put the phone down and. Am my two American co-writing people of, of, of the Moines. What's up now? What's up? I said, I just got cut cold chisel. They went cold. Who
Rae Leigh: Oh, really?
Matt Scullion: I'm like, you're joking. I said, well, okay.
Rae Leigh: No,
Matt Scullion: if, imagine a journey got back together, Steve Perry and journey. Imagine if they got back together and they were like that big, I went that big,
Rae Leigh: Yeah. Wow. They,
Matt Scullion: are the, the biggest. Of all Australian bands of all time. They are the within Australia, they are the band, you know, um, that, that will be remembered. And, uh, so anyway, I went out that night and I was really, really happy.
I, it went out right in a good song that day. And then I thought, oh, I'm gonna go out and have a few celebrate, two drinks. And so I went down to mid tech. I went down to Midtown and Midtown in Nashville where I usually go all the songwriters hang out
Rae Leigh: Yeah.
Matt Scullion: and I was sitting there and I couldn't find one Austral. anywhere to celebrate with
Rae Leigh: No one knew who could choose her.
Matt Scullion: no one, the cultures all, and I had to celebrate on my own
Rae Leigh: Sounds like we need to open up a bar in Broadway, in Nashville called the Aussie Aussie as or something
Matt Scullion: or yeah,
Rae Leigh: the Aussie bar. Yep. So that we can all know where to go.
Matt Scullion: that, call it or call it oil, something like that. I don't know. Yeah.
Rae Leigh: just call it Aussie, Aussie, Aussie that everyone else would know what that means. And if they wanna feel Australian for a night, they can just come to that bar.
Matt Scullion: Yeah.
Rae Leigh: And it's all Australian country music. That's sorry. That's a,
Matt Scullion: there used to be a, there used to be a Azzie bar there and I, um, yeah. But it was before my time and yeah, the close down by the time I moved there, but they used to be a Aussie bar where all the, um, the Australians used to congregate and, and drink fosters
Rae Leigh: I was gonna say, they'd
Matt Scullion: and eight, an eight, an eight, an eight, eight meat pies. Yeah.
Rae Leigh: Oh, And that's what you want. And I mean, if it was now, you'd also wanna have a decent coffee.
Matt Scullion: I guess it being a songwriting podcast, um,
I love songwriting. I mean, song, writing's great thing about songwriting. You can do it all. You can do it for the rest of your life. You know, you can, I keep writing and I feel that the older I get the better I'm getting at it.
And , I guess the beauty of what I do and the beauty of the songs that I write, I mean, I can sing them when I'm 80 years old. It doesn't matter. They're not. I, I don't have to be up on stage jumping around to sell them, you know, they can be, they're very lyric based and that's what I love is to write lyrics.
Um, actually the melodies things I struggle with sometimes.
Rae Leigh: I'm the opposite. , it's a melody that comes to me first
Matt Scullion: Yeah, no, no. I feel that, um, I feel that lyrics, I mean, I can, I'm, I'm, I'm good with lyrics and melody, but, um,
I, I just find with, with melodies, especially when I'm writing my own stuff, I've gotta be careful. I don't plagiarize myself, you know, cuz uh, so I actually actually write lyrics a lot easier than I do melody.
I find it harder to find, to find a new original melodies, something that cuz it's obviously a marriage of, a marriage of the emotion of the lyrics. That's gotta fit with the med. So it's finding.
Rae Leigh: that
Matt Scullion: My wife will often say, yeah, that's really good, but that sounds like something else you've written. And I'm like, damn bugger okay.
Back to the drawing board and then trying to find a melody. I do end up finding that melody, but I have to really, really dig. And really, sometimes it takes me a long time to really find something that will match. Because my, my initial instinct wasn't right. And that's hard because you write, then you write those words to that melody, you know, and, and you gotta find, sometimes you gotta change the change, the cadence of the, of the words and the RH structure and stuff.
Yeah.
Rae Leigh: Yeah, no, you sound like, um, the type of person that I, yeah, I, I always love that. Like I like, like you said, with melody, you gotta dig deeper. I have to dig a lot deeper and it can take me a long time to find the right words or, you know, especially there's verses to get that message across. I'll usually have the idea in that.
The, what I wanna say but how, how to say it, it just isn't
Matt Scullion: but you know, that's okay. That's okay. Like, I, I always say don't be in a hurry. You know, if you really wanna stand out, if you really wanna stand out your songs have gotta be. Fantastic. They've gotta be great, you know, and if you really wanna stand out and you can always tell when you listen to new songs and new artists on the radio, you can tell the ones that have put their time in at this song and you go, oh, geez.
That's cool. Oh yeah. I that's really good how you went there. I love that. You know, and, and, and they're the songs that stand out, you know, but they're the ones you gotta dig for, you know,
Rae Leigh: I
Matt Scullion: but, you know, put your gloves, put your gloves on and dig. That's what it's all about,
Rae Leigh: And collaborate. And yeah, don't be afraid to try something just because you wanna do it. And not, it's not necessarily the, you know, the trend. And I like that advice that you've given right throughout this podcast is, you know, don't follow your gut essentially, and do what
Matt Scullion: follow your gut. And when you co-writing, don't be scared to throw stuff out, even if you think it's stupid because, just Chuck it out there, throw it out there. I'd rather write with a writer that's throwing out silly lines than saying nothing at all, throw 'em out there because you might think it's a silly line.
But part of the line that you've said. The other person might go. I never thought about it like that, but not, I don't think you're saying it the right way, but I love where you're going. And then all of a sudden the song takes a different twist. But if you hadn't have said that the song wouldn't have taken that twist, so don't be, that's another thing don't be scared to find that co-writer, that you feel comfortable with, that you can throw those ideas out, you know?
Rae Leigh: you gotta get comfortable really quickly and throw the out, out the door. Is that right?
Matt Scullion: Oh shit. Absolutely. Yeah, no songs it ego doesn't write songs.
Rae Leigh: no ego doesn't really belong in the music industry or the arts industry at all. Because that would, that would, uh, imply competition, which I don't subscribe to. I know a lot of people do, but it's not part of my artistic.
Matt Scullion: no, that's it. That's the one.
Rae Leigh: All right. Is there anything else you would like to share? We have space and time now.
Matt Scullion: Oh,
Rae Leigh: anything we've missed?
Matt Scullion: not, not, not really. I mean, as I said, I'm not the, I'm not really the kind of. Bragger, but I will give you a nice little interesting story to finish the podcast.
Rae Leigh: do
Matt Scullion: So a fair years ago, I'd written a song
I written a song with, with Lee Kegan and a good friend of mine, Laurie Minson who lives in Tamworth written a song called scars.
And it was the very first song I ever wrote with Lee. And it was for his planet country album, which was a, a huge album for him. And so Lee invited me into the studio. To play guitar on the album with the, with the great, the great Glen Hannah, who's no longer with us. So it was amazing sitting beside Glen all the time while playing guitar with him.
And, um, anyway, long story short, the songs are due at, and it's got a very close harmony, like say a, a big and rich song where they sing really close to each other when they're, when, when they're singing. So I did the, I can't remember if I did the lower or the high part. I think I might have done the high.
And in the studio. And then Lee said to me, after he goes, Matt, I really like the way you've done that. How would you feel about, um, gonna release it as a single, how would you feel about being the other singer on the song? I mean, I'd be an absolute honor, Lee. Thank you very much. I'd love to do that. Anyway.
I was getting ready to go back overseas, fly over to Nashville and I was at the airport and I get a call from Lee. He go, Matt, you going, he goes, I know you're going overseas. I just wanted to catch you before you jumped on the plane. Um, he said, I got some good and some bad news for you. I said, well, you better give me the bad news first.
He said, unfortunately, mate, um, you won't be singing on scars anymore. I went, oh, I was looking forward to that. He goes, but di Benley will will. So he'd um,
Rae Leigh: it's not a bad person to be added by
Matt Scullion: a, he was a mate with Dirks and, uh, he played Dirks had. Actually that's what had happened. Um, Lee was recording. He was using, um, some extra musicians from Nashville.
He he'd recorded it in Australia, but he was using some extra musicians. And I think Brett beavers was the, um, producer and that's who that in, in Nashville and that's who Dirk's users and Dirks happened to be in the studio. When they were doing their live cross and Lee was up in Australia watching and conducting it and saying, no, I think that the fiddle needs to go like that.
Or the steel guitar needs to sort of develop that. And they were putting down the, doing some recording to scars and Dirk said, said, yeah, Lee. And he sort of said, mate, what a great song, awesome song. And Lee said, well, Lee being the opportunist, you know, which is fair enough. So am I,
Rae Leigh: be yep.
Matt Scullion: Got got talking to him later and, and, and, and, um, Dirk showed his interest and Lee said, well, would you like to sing on the, uh, would you like to sing on the, uh, on the song and sort of that's how it came about.
And that song ended up going to number one,
which was fantastic. And I got to be, I got to be at CMC rocks, the hunter, before it went up to Queensland and, uh, when Dirks was out and I was backstage when Dirks was there and Lee and Dirk sang it on stage and they gave me a big shout out. So
that was a big
Rae Leigh: well, that's nice. They kicked your vocals off the song, but they gave you a shadow and that's amazing.
Matt Scullion: I still got the songwriting credit, so it was lovely.
Rae Leigh: well, that's, you know, that's pretty big deal. So I'm, I'm really glad you had that moment. And that is what a career is built on. Isn't it, there's more and more moments like that.
Matt Scullion: It's all about moments, you know, moments. And, uh, I've had I've, I've had plenty of those wonderful songwriting moments. I've been very blessed, but I've worked very hard too.
Rae Leigh: Absolutely. It's not something that comes easy and I definitely know that it doesn't come easy. And anyone who is listening, who wants to be a songwriter and thinks it's gonna be easy, um, go get a real job or something that's nine to five. Because it's, it's something that you have. It has to be a compulsion is a compulsion.
Isn't it?
Matt Scullion: Cause you gotta love it. You gotta
love
Rae Leigh: gotta love.
Matt Scullion: it's you gotta love it because, because there's not a lot of money in it until you, there's not a lot of money in it, but then there is a lot of money in it, you know? And it's, um, it's something that you do because you love. Um, and the way you've gotta look at it is I'll do this because I love it.
And if I can make some, I make a living out of it. Well, then that's the cream. That's the cream on the
top.
Rae Leigh: absolutely amazing. Well, you've been. A pleasure to talk to, and I feel honored that I've been able to speak to you and, and learn so much from you and, and get to share this with everyone on the podcast.
So thank you so much for giving me your time and, um, anyone else who wants to spend some time with you and, and get some, you know, personal feedback, they can check out your coaching that you're gonna be doing as well. It's all on the website. Yeah.
Matt Scullion: It's all on my website. Yeah. It's very easy to find and they can just contact me and, uh, yep. I'll actually reminds me, I better update my website and get it all looking good. So when they do jump on there,
Rae Leigh: It's very generous of
Matt Scullion: stuff like that.
Rae Leigh: Well, that's my husband does that stuff.
Matt Scullion: Oh yeah.
Rae Leigh: if, if, if you look at song,
if you look at songwriter Tris website, he's done an incredible job with, with that website. And I, I cannot take any credit for it. I'm just pretty face in the person who talks too much.
Matt Scullion: Well, you doing want a great job, right?
Rae Leigh: at talking too much to thank you very much.
Matt Scullion: No, no. I mean, at, at,
Rae Leigh: no.
Matt Scullion: host of the
show.
Rae Leigh: I appreciate it. Thank you very much for sharing. And, um, it's very inspirational and I'll, I'll let you know when it's ready to come out.
Matt Scullion: Awesome.
Okay. Cheers.
