Following a viral cover of Chris Stapleton‘s hit track ‘Either Way,’ Heath Sanders earned a legion of fans, before releasing his EP ‘Common Ground’ this year – a sensational debut on Valory Music Co. Here, we interview Sanders about the project, his roots and his success.
Hi Heath, how are you doing today?
Not bad thanks.
It’s been a pretty crazy 2021 for you, better than most people’s?
Pretty awesome thus far.
This project is awesome. It’s so different and special and vitally it’s so rooted back in your roots and hometown. Is that something that’s always been important in your music?
Yeah, I think so, of course, I’ve been writing for about three years and I was kind of turned back to the story by my buddy Mark Alan Springer – he’s written some major hit songs – he’s an older gentleman, who took me under his wing when I first started coming to Nashville. He said, ‘Write what you know and you’ll never be pretending,’ so I went back to my roots as guides. The first place in my mind is home.
This all started with your viral cover of ‘Either Way’ that blew everyone out of the water. What does that track mean to you now? Has it taken on lots of different meanings?
Yeah, I guess, over the last three years, we’ve run into Chris a few times. He obviously has no idea the effect that he’s had on my life and probably thousands of others. Yeah, it’s cool, I’ve got a lot of friends her in town and I’ve been in town for a year and a half now and I had a buddy text me yesterday, who cuts my hair. Yesterday he texted me and said, ‘Hey man, were you that guy who made that Chris Stapleton cover a few years ago?’ It’s cool to meet guys and girls who I didn’t know were reflecting on it. It’s just really cool.
I’m now hoping for that Chris Stapleton collaboration at some point in the future. You’ve been in Nashville now for a year and a half and there’s so many incredibly talented musicians there. How much do you feel like your music has changed since being there and living and breathing in that songwriter community?
When I signed my publishing deal at Sony, I remember thinking I’m not sure I’m a good investment for you guys or whatever and he said, ‘Man, we’re signing up for the songs that you’ll write after three years in this town.’ You get to be around people like Casey Beathard or Rhett Akins and Jeremy Bussey – these amazing people. You can’t help but morph into that and learn from that and grow inside yourself. So yeah, I would say, not only my approach, but even the final product – the finished product – has substantially changed.
I guess it’s probably crazy to think how much you’ve changed in these months and during a pandemic! I can only imagine how much it’ll change when you get to have a regular group of songwriters together on a daily basis.
Yeah, that’s a good point.
How was the process then of putting together the tracks for ‘Common Ground’ and selecting the tracks? Were these ones you’d had in your back pocket for years or were they recent additions?
I guess, I wrote my first song four years ago. So, every song on the project are pretty new. I really just didn’t set out to write or anything, these songs kind of just fell in my lap. I kind of meandered my way through Nashville with different folks – very different styles – and these tracks all feel very different from each other. I wanted to show all sides of what we have to offer to the fans and then leave it up to them to tell us what they like.
Have you found people gravitating toward a certain style of yours?
It’s been exciting, I guess, to see the responses and see, because they’re such distinct tracks. People seem to be gravitating toward ‘Common Ground’ and ‘Old School’ – it’s been really cool to see people gravitate toward those songs that I love.
‘Common Ground’ is the one that I gravitate to the most. Can you talk a little bit about that song? Do you remember the writing room that day? Did you have that feeling that that would be the title track and things would evolve from there?
I love it. I love telling that story. It’s one of my favourite co-writes with one of my best friends in town, and so that’s always special. When we walked in that day, with Jeremy Bussey, I just told him like, ‘Man, I want something that’s got some some morality or something – that you can walk away from to feel like a little bit of a better person when you listen to it,’ and he says, ‘Man, I got this big title and I’ve been saving the the title for someone like you.’ Then when he said ‘Common Ground,’ I knew we had it and exactly the right title for the project too.
That’s a lot of pressure for one song, to be the title track with a dose of morality!
I always tell the story about how I’d never been north of Missouri. I’ve never been west of Texas and so my worldview up to three years ago was very limited and very small. Over the last three years, I met people from different states and got to know how similar people are – there’s as good of people in downtown Chicago as there are in my hometown, that’s really what the song represents. I wouldn’t try to step on toes politically or anything like that. I just want to be closer to tell my story about what I have learned about folks.
Well hopefully we’ll get you over to the UK soon and you can see that we’re just the same! Thanks for taking the time to chat today and congratulations on this project!
Thank you!
