We interview Savannah Keyes about her track ‘Ghost,’ writing with Kaitlyn Bristowe and more.
How are you holding up?
I mean I’m dealing with it, it’s been ok.
It feels like a million years ago now, but I got the chance to see you at Whiskey Jam in November.
So incredible! That was a fun week. Even just out in public feels like a million years ago.
I was so blown away by the energy you brought to that show and what you were about. It felt like everything that’s good about the Nashville songwriting scene comes through in your voice.
Thank you! That makes me so happy, Whiskey Jam is always a fun thing to perform in town. It’s a little intimidating though, I don’t know if you feel this way. I’m such a homebody, I’m the opposite to a barhopper. You sit there, and it’s amazing because there’s a lot of people there – it’s a great venue. Don’t get me wrong, I love to have fun with my friends and stuff, but I don’t go out out very often, so writing songs that are perfect for that situation is really tough.
I know one of your cuts came out yesterday with Kaitlyn Bristowe’s ‘If I’m Being Honest.’ You wrote that about a year ago?
Yeah, it was kind of a wild thing. So, her really good friend Jennifer Denmark, who is a co-writer on the song… If you know anything about her, she moved to Nashville about six years ago but she’d always grown up singing and dancing and I think it was always a natural progression for her to lean into music at some point. She was nervous – she’s great though, she’s an awesome girl and writer and creator. I was nervous though. I was a huge Bachelor fan – I’ve watched every single season. I remember when Jenn brought it up, like ‘hey Kaitlyn’s really getting into writing and she wants to put out some music, do you want to be a co-writer in the room one day?’ I was like ‘ok play it cool’ but I was secretly freaking out because I’m also a huge fan of her podcast and her scrunchie line. She’s so cool though, she turned up with no makeup and sweatpants. I love that because it already sets the tone of like ‘ok this is going to be really fun.’
‘You’re actually a human being which is really nice?’
She’s such a good human being, I’m really excited for her. I can’t believe that song reached #2 yesterday and it had only been out for 24 hours.
It’s nice also, I know she has a huge following, but that an organic song like that made it so far up!
Totally. I agree. That’s the thing, when she came in we said ‘ok, well what do you want to write about and what’s on your mind?’ She was really wanting to go for more of an uptempo summer vibe song. We wrote it a year ago and it was really beautiful outside. I know that feeling where you’re like oh it’s really beautiful outside, let’s write a song. We were like ‘ok cool, so what’s going on in your life.’ As she started opening up about it, it kind of ended up turning into this song. I remember halfway through, she was kind of explaining what was going on in her life at the time and I said ‘I have a title called If I’m Being Honest,’ I know that’s not a summer love song… She said ‘no, we should write that, we need to know what’s going on right now.’ It was so clearly something that she had on her heart. All of us, wherever we come through in life have to go through that thing. It was really fun. Thank you for saying that about the song that makes me really happy. I’m excited to see where it goes. I didn’t even know it was coming out!
It was a surprise release.
I don’t know if I’m just terrible about checking my email. I think I’m pretty ok at it, but I swear I live under a rock, whenever anything happens I’m like ‘oh interesting.’ I woke up and my phone was blowing up. It was a good surprise for sure.
I know you’ve been writing in Nashville for so many years, writing there since you were 13.
Yeah, I mean I’ve been around for a minute, it’s kind of interesting because I think that a lot of my friends I’ve met now that I collaborate with a lot went to school so they’re just now getting started. Sometimes I have to pinch myself, because I compare myself to people I was working with ten years ago but I feel really lucky to have the ball rolling and to see some hard work start to pay off.
Song Suffragettes, I know has also been a big part of your story. Can you talk a bit about how you got involved with them?
It’s kind of funny because I remember when I first moved to Nashville, a week after I moved there I was 16 and my manager at the time he said ‘there’s a show that they’re starting in Nashville, they’re all girls and a little older than you but they’re somewhat around your age. I think we should go watch, just so you can get inspired, maybe meet a couple of girls.’ We went to the show, my mom and I and it was literally in the back of 3rd and Lindsey, there were 15 or 20 people there. The show was awesome, the girls were so talented, Kelsea Ballerini was playing. I remember when she played ‘Love You Like You Mean It’ and everyone was like ‘oh that’s so good’ but no one knew what that was going to turn into. It was obvious that it was a great song but there are so many songs that you hear. At the time, although I’d been writing for a couple of years, I was still really insecure when it came to singing out my own songs. I think it depends what your influences are. There are a lot of girls in the organisation, Kalie being one of them, who’s inspiration is Alanis Morissette, I kind of missed that so for me growing up, I listened to a lot of country music with the voice and their song. I was always concentrated on getting the best vocal performance and making sure the lyrics were on point. When it came around to the writers round, that wasn’t what I led with, I wasn’t confident playing yet. Once I started playing out, they reached out to me and I had my appointment scheduled. A few days later, I was cutting an avocado and I kid you not I sliced my finger so bad I had a cast. It was so bad.
Of course, when they’re playing they like you to play for yourself. It allows them to have more girls onstage and the energy that comes when an artist plays along with themselves. I messaged them and said ‘hey I really want to do this but I cut my finger and I can’t play guitar, can I bring a guitar player in?’ They said, ‘hey don’t worry about it, we’ll get you another time. It was so sad. Fast forward a couple of months, I have a really great relationship with Taylor guitars, they’ve been really supportive of my career. They were doing this ‘Change the Conversation’ show with Reba McEntire at the Bluebird. They said ‘hey, we’re going to have this group of girls play this writers round and we want you to play too’ I thought, with Reba that’s amazing.
I cancelled my whole life. I showed up and it was Song Suffragettes, Kalie and a few others. It was the first time that I had met Kalie. It was great and after that they said ‘do you want to come and play our show?’ I played a couple of shows with them and then I went to Bentonville, Arkansas on a mini tour with them. I remember on the way there with them in the car, that story got brought up and they were cracking up because they totally thought I had faked it. I was like ‘what?’ Now that they know me it makes a little more sense. It’s been really fun, I’ve met some really good friends through it. There’s this misconception that we don’t want other girls to win. I have to give props to the guys over there because they really built this thing from the ground up and I’m just happy to be a part of it.
Your single ‘Ghost’ was the first track I heard of yours last year. I loved the lyrics and your vocal, can you talk about that song?
Yeah, I mean that one was one of the older ones. Every artist has a group of songs that they’ve written that they think is something. It takes a while to get off the ground. At the time, that was one of a group of songs that sounded cohesive, but it was actually the oldest one of that group. It’s so weird, I’m not sure why I decided to release it third. It just felt like a natural progression, I love that song. I had just started working with a new producer that ended up being a really great collaboration. It was actually his title. I had just started a new relationship that was getting more serious than I had anticipated it getting so quickly. My natural tendency is to pull back. He said that it’s a lot like this title I have. I was hesitant at first because I think that title has been thrown around a lot in country especially. It’s a great analogy with a lot of different things, but I like how literally we took it with how our generation ghosts when it comes to dating. It ended up being really fun. It was a really fun day and I didn’t really anticipate what that was going to turn into but I’m really glad that that was the song. Being independent, it’s tough to know what to do, I had never released before. I think that next time I do it, I will do things a little differently. I’m glad that that song was the one I ended up leading with, I felt like I knew what I wanted to do with that song from day one and that made it so much more fun. I’m glad that you heard it!
So I guess what’s your plan next, are you planning on releasing more music?
I mean we definitely were going to release in the spring actually, obviously with everything going on that got pushed back because of safety reasons. I’m sure we could have found ways around it, but if the music is good it’s still going to be good in a couple of months. I’m hoping that if in the fall it gets a bit better, we can plan something around then or early next year. I’d love for it to be out sooner than that. There’s something I’m working on the side that I can’t quite reveal yet. In the meantime, we have got those ‘Live from the Bathroom Floor,’ Instagram Live shows. Our guests next week will be Madeline Merlo who wrote Lady Antebellum’s ‘Champagne Night’, Abby Anderson and then Lauren Jenkins. It’ll be really fun. That’s all we can tease at the moment, new music is ready, it’s just a question of putting it together in a timely manner.
Final Few
If a biopic was written about your life what would be the opening track? I don’t know, I’ve never thought about that. One of my favourite songs ever written is ‘Drops of Jupiter.’ I think that’s what it’s going to be.
Would you rather give up songwriting or performing? Performing.
Favourite song to dance to? Ooh, I Wanna Dance with Somebody.
Complete the sentence..
Music is… inspiring.
Country music is… heartwarming.
Savannah Keyes is… a nerd.
