Page 85 of One More Made Up Love Song
When Leo bought the space that now houses South Hollow Sound, it was a crumbling shell of a building, the former location of Lamplight Studios. Lamplight was a Nashville icon back in the sixties, with some of country music’s greatest artists coming through to record. But then it went bankrupt in the early nineties, and the building was shuttered and probably would have been condemned and torn down had Leo not stepped in when he did. He had to basically gut the entire space and start over to make it functional and up to code—new wiring, new plumbing, that sort of thing—but it’s obvious he worked hard to honor the vibe of the original studio. There are two isolation booths at the back, plus a state-of-the-art control room with everything Leo needs to mix and master tracks like the professional he’s become.
I could work with just about anyone in the industry, but using Leo to produce my albums is an easy choice.
“You wrote it,” Leo says. “I’ve just been your sounding board. Either way, I still think there’s something else making you happy.”
“Maybesomeoneelse?” Jace says, and I roll my eyes.
“Stop.” I lift the strap of my guitar over my head and position myself on my stool. “Are we working or what?”
Adam pulls up a seat next to the piano. “You’re working. We’re just here to watch.”
“And make fun of you,” Jace adds as he sits down beside Adam.
“That’s why I’m here too,” Wayne says from the opposite side of the room.
I roll my eyes one more time. “Fine. I get it. So happy to be your entertainment.” I strum my guitar and reach for the tuning pegs. “Give me an E?” I say to Leo.
The last time we were together, we worked on two different songs. One is mostly finished but the other still needs a chorus and everything past the first verse. For all their talk of only being around to watch, Adam and Jace were genuinely helpful the last time we were here. They probably deserve a writing credit as much as Leo does.
We didn’t do much writing when we were Midnight Rush. Not at first. We were too curated, too much a product of a record label who picked us individually to turn us into their vision of what a boyband should be.
But we’ve come a long way since then. And I’d argue we’re writing better music than anything the label executives picked for us when they were in charge.
“Which one are we doing first?” Leo asks. “You want to pick up where we left off last time?”
“Let’s play through ‘Golden Eyes’ first,” I say. “I was messing around with the bridge last night, and I think it’ll work better in a minor key. And I wrote a final verse too, so, let’s start there.”
Leo nods and plays through the opening chords. I sing through the first verse. When I hit the chorus, Jace startshumming a harmony line that sounds really great, so I motion for him to keep it up, and he joins in, singing through the rest of the chorus with me.
“That sounds good,” I say. “You know the second verse?”
Leo lifts one hand off the keyboard and slides a sheet of paper across the top of the piano toward Jace. “If you can read his handwriting,” Leo says.
Jace picks up the paper and nods. “Geez, man,” he says and Adam leans over his shoulder to look.
“Does that say heart or herd?”
“Or head?” Jace asks.
“Come on,” I say. “Context clues.”
“I guess a pounding head would be a very different kind of song,” Adam says dryly.
“I want to hear the bridge,” Leo says, hands still playing through the interlude between verses. “Are we doing this?”
I wait another measure, then I join in with the second verse, and by the end of the first line, Jace is singing too. After the second verse, we sing the chorus again, then I sing the bridge, followed by a key change that circles us back to the chorus a third time. By the time we finish, my instincts are telling me I’ve got a hit on my hands, and it’s making me buzz with a new kind of energy.
Sometimes writing feels like work. Sometimes it feels like magic. And this song—it’s magic. I can tell by the look on Leo’s face that he feels it too.
“Okay, this is where it changes,” I say.
“You lead and I’ll follow,” Leo says.
He pauses as I shift my hands and change keys, then he jumps in. “Yes,” he says, nodding his head. “That’s it.”
“And then the lyrics,” I say, pausing before singing,
“There’s no thunder, no big sign,
