During C2C, we sat down for an interview with Shane Profitt to discuss joining Big Machine, his new singles and more
So my plane landed at 630,
So you haven’t had the chance to do a lot yet?
I haven’t done really anything, except seeing stuff from the car. I saw Buckingham, I saw some of the guards, Big Ben…
The movie tour basically?
I went into some guitar shops too.
We’re very excited to have you here. I feel like the last few years have just been insane for you. How are you processing everything that’s happening? I feel like it’s been a complete whirlwind.
I’m not processing everything that’s taking place. No, it’s a huge blessing, to say the least. It’s one of those things that, if this is a dream, don’t wake me up. I want to keep dreaming, you know, I’m just gonna continue living in my little bubble. Don’t pinch me. It’s a huge blessing just from getting my record deal and my publishing deal, having a song in the top 15 in the States. It’s just, it’s amazing.
I feel like every single you’ve released, you’ve been revealing a new part of your music, but also giving us some more of who you are as a person. You’ve been very intentional about plotting out the story you’re telling.
I’m very proud to say, I’m a songwriter before I’m an artist. At least for me, I don’t want to sing songs about stuff that I have no idea about. I’m writing about real stuff and stuff that actually matters. It is intentional and I’m very proud to say, the stuff that we’re actually going to be cutting soon, it’s a whole different side of me too. Since I got my record deal, and since I got my publishing deal, and I’m more comfortable, I’ve experienced a lot in the last two years. I’m very, very excited for the stuff we have.
I feel like authenticity is the main thing that I think of when it comes to your music – from start to finish. That comes through in the fact that, obviously, you penned all the songs that you’ve released. Is that really important to you?
Yeah. There’s nothing wrong with cutting outside songs, I don’t think, but I just don’t think it’s for me personally.
It’s almost like it would need to feel like it’s written by you in order to cut it?
At the same time, you look at what Cody Johnson is doing. One of my best friends in the whole world wrote ‘Dirt Cheap’ and I didn’t even know he had that. He didn’t play it for me, because he knew I would. If I have a song of that quality in front of me, that I didn’t write, I would be dumb not to cut it. I’m a firm believer that the music will always win and in that scenario the song will always win. If I did have a song of that calibre laid in front of me that I wasn’t a writer on, I absolutely would.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I look through the people that you’ve written songs with, and I really feel like you’re kind of building this community around your music. Quite often, when you you look through, newer artists who are on big labels, the same names come up, but I feel like you’ve kind of gravitated towards different people and the people that you’ve always written with, how much do you feel that’s true?
It’s 100% true. I’ll write with anybody that will give me a chance, because, you know, as an artist, people do tend to want to write with the artist, but I want to write what the songwriters want to write. You wouldn’t hear any of the music you hear without songwriters, so I appreciate them – probably more than they appreciate me. I like to switch it up, you know, I do have kind of my little posse, but, at the same time, going into the new year I told my publisher that I wanted to switch things up. I do like writing with the same people, once or twice a month, but also to get some fresh new people. It’s a lot of fun and some of this new stuff that I’ve been lucky enough to be writing, it sounds good. It sounds really good.
Obviously the latest release was ‘Two Down,’ can you talk a little bit about that? I feel like it goes back to that authenticity.
So actually, ‘Two Down’ was supposed to be a drinking song, wanting to go and talking about beer is how I had it in my mind at first. I sat down with some of the most talented songwriters in Nashville, Ben Hayslip being one of them, and he wrote a bunch of Morgan Wallen songs. You look at his catalogue, and it’s like, what did I deserve to be sitting here next to this guy, you know? So, my producer actually told me, he said Shane we’re in the studio, and we are cutting 9 or 10 songs. I can’t remember how many at the time, but he said, the one thing you’re missing is a love song. I thought about it and I said, ‘Man, I’m not in love’. I didn’t have a girlfriend at the time, but I kind of wrote it to whoever that girl would be in the future. We sat down and we actually wrote ‘Two Down’ in less than an hour. We had a track guy there and it was a lot of fun, getting to ride with some of the best guys in town.
You talked about not having that love song in your catalogue then, are you always looking to build out a full picture?
Absolutely. I think for myself, I always try to switch it up. I don’t want to write two slow songs in a row. I don’t want to write two drinking songs in a row. I always like to switch it up. But then again, the song will always land if it’s just really, really speaking to me. I’m always racing the idea, even if it’s five days in a row, and it’s still on my mind. I’m gonna keep pushing it out – there’s a reason it’s on my mind, I always chase the song.
I also wanted to talk about the one two punch of ‘I Am Who I Am’ and ‘Good Luck and God.’ I think it’s just such a powerful song. Can you talk a little bit about releasing that song? Country music does have a lot of faith in there, but it’s also quite rare to have that kind of song in the mix.
So, ‘Good Luck and God’ is one of the most meaningful songs I’ve ever written. In the first verse it says, ‘After two years of trying, she broke down crying because she was finally going to be a mom / Some call it good luck, but I call it God’. While we were sitting there in the writers’ room, writing that song, I forgot to turn the ringer off on my phone that morning and my sister had called me and I could hear it ringing in the room in my guitar case. We got stumped at some point in the song and I wanted to look at my phone and write some lyrics down and I had 17 text messages and 9 missed calls from my sister. I stepped out in the hallway. I thought something bad had happened, so I called her and as soon as she picked up the phone, I could tell she was crying. I was like, ‘Hey, what’s going on? What’s wrong?’ She’s like, nothing’s wrong. You’re not gonna believe it. I’m finally gonna be a mom. It’s little moments like that. I went back in that writers room and I said, ‘Hey, we gotta, rewrite this first verse’.
That’s a really special story. You must get chills singing that.
We just celebrated that baby’s first birthday, too, and he’s got to come to three or four of his uncle’s shows. So, that’s really cool. Anytime my sister or my mom is in the crowd, when I play that song, I can’t look at them. Anytime I look at my mom, and I see her crying when I’m on stage.
You’ve released these bunch of songs – what is kind of the goal for this year? Obviously, you’re here for C2C, but what else have you got planned for next?
I think my biggest goal for 2024, in general, would be just building my fan base, getting my songs in front of as many people as I possibly can and trying to touch as many people with my songs. I’m still shocked at the people that message me on a weekly daily basis, saying ‘hey, the song helped me through this.’ you know, we were just talking about Good luck and God – there are so many people that are trying to have a baby or or whatever it may be that message me on a weekly basis, and just say, hey, the song helped me through.
Well, we can’t wait for the new music. Thank you.
Thank you so much for your time.
