After 30 career-making number one cuts, Ross Copperman has unleashed his own artistry again with his brand new project – Somewhere There’s a Light On – that sees him bring back his pop side. Here, we interview Ross Copperman about the project and his incredible career.
Hey, Ross, how are you doing? Congratulations on this new EP, Â it must be so nice to finally be getting out there and pursuing your own artistry again and pushing the boundaries – as you’ve always done with your music. It must feel really gratifying.
I’ve always looked at my life and career in chapters, like five years is this chapter and then it’s time for the next chapter. I’d written 30 number one country songs, which was my goal for a long time to hit that mark and now I’m like, ‘okay what’s next?’ I’ve got to keep moving forward. It’s fun and cathartic for me.
It must be a crazy thing, because obviously as a songwriter, the goal is to get a number one and then it happens and you get more of them. When was the conscious decision to go back into your own artistry? Was there a particular song or a particular moment that you were like, no, actually this is what my soul needs right now?
That’s a great question. It’s funny that pandemic really threw me into it, because I was just at home and I had time to really dive in and think about more. ‘Somewhere There’s A Light On’ has always stood out to me – that song encompasses everything that I want to say as an artist. I want to encourage and I want to offer hope, because I was that kid that felt like there was no hope. I always needed that reminder that somewhere there is a light on burning, dark as your days are. I’ve always gravitated towards writing songs like that. To me it was like ‘God if I ever do this again that song needs to be my North Star.’
I think we’ve all needed that song over the past year.
Well that song has been going around for three years and nobody ended up cutting it. We got so close, Kenny Chesney almost did it, but it just never happened. Finally, I  thought we can’t just let sounds like that sit on my computer.
It’s interesting hearing you say that Kenny Chesney would have cut it, because obviously hearing your voice on it and the sound and the production that you’ve created on it, I can’t hear it as a Kenny Chesney song and that feels very alien to what we’ve got.
Yeah, but you know, if I recorded ‘Setting The World on Fire’ you would feel the same way. I mean, every artist puts their own stamp on things when they get older – that’s what makes a country artist great to me. Kenny is the best at taking a song and making it feel like it was always a Kenny Chesney song.
I completely agree. I was reading an interview where you talked about feeling that you had to kill off the pop side of your artistry in order to be taken seriously as a songwriter and producer. Can you talk a bit about that, because obviously hearing this project that infusion of genres is so important?
Well, when I first moved to Nashville 13 years ago, it was a different climate. It was different, it was definitely more of an old school mentality, it was more country. It was more like, this is how it goes, I shook it up a little bit – I started creating my own demos and producing my own sounds. You used to just work with a Nashville band and cut in the studio. I was starting to make my own versus things and I did feel like I needed to kill off that pop-side of me, because the old Nashville was very country, then for a long time it was bro-country and then we’re doing this LA pop-country and now it’s coming back with Luke Combs.
The genre right now makes me excited because it feels a lot more broad and diverse. There’s so many different things that we all consider country – you’ve got Brittney Spencer to Luke Combs to Kelsea Ballerini. It’s so diverse and it’s refreshing to see people collaborating outside the genre too.
Yeah, the gates are wide open – you have Justin Bieber singing with Dan + Shay, it’s wide open which I love.
So, for this project, how did you go about choosing songs for the project? Over the years, you’ve built up an incredibly talented group of songwriters that you work with – are their particular people that you gravitate towards for your own artistry?
I haven’t changed my process. So, I still just go in and try and write the best idea, but the songs that generally speak to me are a lot of times the songs that I write with Josh Osborne or Ashley Gorley, Jon Nite and the people that I’ve always loved writing with. I’ve loved the songs that we write. It would make sense that those are the people that I love the songs for myself with. They’ll always be my favourite writers.
Was there anything you wanted people to take away from the project? Obviously, it’s bringing back this sound you wanted to bring back, but was there something that you wanted to achieve for this project?
You know, this project is definitely just the beginning for me, I already have a plan for the next year of music coming out. This project was kind of just a real introduction to how I wanted to make pop songs for everyone to be able to enjoy. Sometimes pop songs are hard for everyone to enjoy. I’m a 38 year old dude and so sometimes it’s hard for me to get into the Machine Gun Kelly stuff, or all these new pop acts that I don’t know about because I wasn’t out partying last night.
I wanted to create pop songs that could cover all genres, truthfully a lot of my songs are now relying on a guy that’s in my mind.
Credit again to the sound that you created with your producer. You’re already talking about the next project then, do you have any ideas yet around that?
Yeah, I have a collaboration coming next month and then I’ve got a song that I co-produced with one of my favourite bands of all time. Then I’ve got some Christmas songs coming and then another collaboration coming with a country artist.
2021 is your year!
It’s good, I’m just going to consistently continue to put out songs and probably put a second EP out at the top of next year and just grow this. I want to just build this to the point where I can tour a decent size.
It’s exciting. I mean, obviously, as we said, at the top, you’ve had so many number one hits. Do you think that those will take a backseat for a while or do you think that will continue? I mean, you’re a songwriter, it’s in your blood, but do you think that will take over?
I’m not slowing down at all, I’m gonna be just adding things. I’m going to be working on Dierks new album, finishing Darius Rucker’s record, so it’s full steam ahead. It’s just this lane over here of songs that don’t fit into the can.
Working with all those artists must make you realise who you want to be as an artist, because they’ve all had different styles.Â
It’s actually helped me write even better, because I actually stopped singing demos over the last eight years, I was even singing demos and people didn’t know. I’ve started singing demos again and it’s kind of changed the way I write songs a little more. There’s a little more of me in songs now.
I’m in this a little more now, I can feel myself.
I guess the final thing I wanted to ask you about is that everyone talks about how much their songwriting has changed during the pandemic, do you feel that it has changed your approach to songwriting at all?
It has changed it in a lot of ways. You have to be a little more self sufficient and a little more versatile. You have to sit here and be able to dig in on lyrics with somebody or you have to be able to sit here and just really present a full sounding melody and track. You can’t just show up and be like, ‘oh, what do you write about?’ You’ve got to be like ‘I have these three ideas. Let’s see what feels right.’
You always have to immediately be on your A game.
Yeah, full steam ahead.
Thank god we’re now finally getting out and be able to do things in person again. Can’t wait to finally get to see you back in the UK again – London is waiting for you as soon as you can come back. Thank you so much for taking time to chat with us today.Â
