Aaron Raitiere is a songwriter with some heavyweight cuts under his belt. Maren Morris, Miranda Lambert, Ashley McBryde and Midland have all recorded tracks written by him and he shared a 2019 Grammy for co-writing “I’ll Never Love Again” with Lady Gaga, Hillary Lindsay, and Natalie Hemby for ‘A Star Is Born’. His new album, ‘Single Wide Dreamer’ is out today (May 6th 2022) and we were thrilled to grab 20 minutes with him to talk about the making of it and the stories & characters that were the inspirations behind it.
Thank for for your time today Aaron, what an exciting week! An album release and a debut appearance at the Opry on the same day!
It’s all happening right now! (laughing) I’m also working on an art show too. I just dropped 125 paintings off downtown so I don’t know which is causing me the greatest stress, the music or the art. The painting thing was kind of an accident, we had some luck with it and it ballooned from there, it beats digging ditches! (laughing)
You’ll be more known over here in the UK (for now) for the tracks you’ve written for other people, like ‘Tall Guys’ with Maren Morris and ‘Voodoo Doll’ for Ashey McBryde. Do you have a favourite cut that has been recorded by somebody else?
Oh man, I love ‘Voodoo Doll’, what a great song that is. There’s a song called ‘Enemy’ that I wrote with Muscadine Bloodline which I love. I was drinking a lot and messing myself up a lot at the time and I realised that all my problems were really just my fault, hence the chorus line of ‘My only enemy is me.’
There’s a rapper named Jelly Roll that has sampled it recently and turned it into a rap song, which has blown my mind. The songs that help people are the ones that I like the best.
A lot of people will ask you this, but ‘Single Wide Dreamer’ was produced by Anderson East and Miranda Lambert. What skills did they bring to the table?
Oh man. They both brought different things. Anderson played a lot of the instruments and did a lot of button pushing. He’s a great engineer who has worked on a lot of records. Miranda made sure just to keep it Country! (laughing) Every time we started to go too far down into a Pop or Rock n Roll hole she would bring it back to Country.
Anderson’s musical touch and Miranda’s Country expertise are what define this record. I’ve been writing songs with them and for other people for 15 years now, so the role reversal of the songs being for me was really interesting. I’ve had some of these songs for eight years, they’ve just followed me around so we decided that they just must be for me! (laughing)
Let’s hope there isn’t another eight years before your next album!
Oh no! Anderson and I are about eight songs into the next record already and I’ve got a pile of songs ready to go. I’ve got thousands of songs stored away, it’s just a matter of working out which ones are going to be the ones that push all the buttons. That’s half the battle, figuring out which songs to put out and which to sit on for a bit.
We’ve already put out a few songs ahead of the album, like ‘Dear Darlin’ but most were slower and you have to have the patience to sit with it a little, which some people in this modern age don’t have. You live and learn and what I’ve learnt is that you maybe need to put some faster, uptempo songs out first! (laughing)
Let’s pick up there then and talk about the title track, ‘Single Wide Dreamer’. It feels very biographical. In our review we describe it as being about a man out of touch with the modern world but very much at peace with himself.
Your review of the album felt pretty much right on. My co-writer and I, Jon Decious, decided to write a song about each other one day! I was pretty much living in his trailer after my house had burnt down and we were doing these writing exercises and so ‘Single Wide Dreamer’ is the combination of the two songs we wrote that morning, although his song was better and we ended up taking more of that than we did mine! (laughing)
Jon is my buddy and my favourite writer, we wrote a few tracks together for the album, like ‘Dear Darlin’. I try to write a song with him every day.
Was ‘Dear Darlin’ inspired by a particular woman or is it an amalgamation of stories and experiences?
(laughing) It’s about one particular person but I don’t think she’ll ever figure it out! (laughing) It turned out to be something that people relate to. All of the characters in my songs are real, some names have been changed to protect my safety, but the people are real!! (laughing)
‘At Least We Didn’t Have Any Kids’ is an intriguing story, then too. It has my favourite opening line in a song I’ve heard in a while.
We were supposed to be writing a song for Anderson that day and we were talking about making good and bad decisions and I shared the story of falling in love with this girl when I was 19 and we ended up going to Austin and getting each other’s names tattooed right there on our hipbones!!! (laughing)
We were together for seven years and we had a bunch of adventures but we didn’t have any kids and then all of a sudden we wrote the song! She got hers covered up with something like a mermaid and I got mine covered up with the state of Kentucky! She got the dog and I got the canoe! (laughing) Some of this stuff you can’t make up, which is why I feel it makes for great lyrics.
You sing a lot about normal people down on their luck, about resilience and about seeing the silver linings. Is that who you are? Does that reflect your philosophy in life?
I mean, if you ain’t looking up, you’re looking down, I guess. (laughing) My mom has just retired from nursing after a 40 year career and she said she really didn’t mind what it was that I did with my life as long as I tried to help people, so I figure that’s what my songs should do.
Picking up on your Kentucky origins and the characters in your songs, do you think the label ‘Redneck’ is a slur or a compliment.
It’s interesting you ask, because there’s obviously the line ‘redneck white and blue’ in ‘At Least We Didn’t Have Any Kids’ and I decided that I wanted to change the line after we recorded the song, mostly because I thought it was too generic rather than being offensive to anyone. ‘Hillbilly’ is thought of as being offensive these days and maybe ‘redneck’ is on it’s way, it’s not there yet but I wonder how long it will be? I could see how you could throw the term into the politically correct arena, for sure.
The label said to change the song after it had been mastered would cost $3000 so I decided it would be better to just talk about the term after instead! (laughing) I’m a brown haired, brown eyed white guy from Kentucky who likes country stuff – nice to meet ya!!!
You are the authentic author of the songs from your life and your experiences. That’s what draws me into the album in the first place. You’re not pretending to be something you aren’t, like one of those city boys from the suburbs riding round Nashville in a F150!
You’re right. Half the battle of writing songs for other artists is making sure they are telling the truth. There was this guy in town one time, playing in a Blues band. He was from suburban middle America but he’d grab his slide guitar and sing about being down in the Delta, you know? (laughing) We were like (shouting) ‘You’ve never been to the Delta and don’t even know where the Delta is!’ (laughing)
Speaking of authenticity, what was it like working with Erin Enderlin on ‘You’re Crazy’?
She’s busier than ever these days! She’s one of the co-writers that I sit with that really just brings the song out of you. I talk a lot more than she does! (laughing) She listens and then a song comes out! There’s something about her presence in the room that doesn’t intimidate a co-writer, she has a real gift for getting songs out of people. ‘You’re Crazy’ is one of my favourite songs to play live because I drag out the front part into a jam session!
And then ‘Time Fly Will’ was written with Shane McAnally and Natalie Hemby! Talk about being intimidated by writers!!
That was the only time I’ve ever written with Shane. I see him around all the time. Natalie and I write all the time, she’s one of my favourite people, one of my best friends. I was pretty nervous going in to write with Shane, you know, he’s got 40 number ones. I was telling myself that this was the day to not screw up! (laughing)
We weren’t trying to write a song for me that day. When you write with Shane and Natalie you’re trying to write the song of the year or the biggest song that ever was, you know? (laughing) I started to feel like it was my song and then Natalie came by to sing on it too and she was like, ‘hell yeah, this is your song, put it out.’
I wouldn’t be against a bigger artist hearing it and cutting their own version of it. Lori McKenna recorded ‘Humble and Kind’ before Tim McGraw and writers like Travis Meadows recorded ‘What We Ain’t Got’ before Jake Owen recorded it.
On a scale of 1 to 10, how nervous are you about making your debut at The Opry this Friday? (May 6th 2022)
Man, last week I would say a 2. This week I would say 6. It’s starting to pick up a little bit. I’m only playing two songs and Anderson is going to be up there with me with a guitar so if worst comes to worst he can play and I’ll just hold mine and try and sing the songs! (laughing)
It’s only the Grand Ole Opry, I don’t know what the big deal is!!!!! (laughing) We’re gonna play ‘Single Wide Dreamer’ and ‘Cold Soup’. I haven’t played ‘Cold Soup’ a bunch but the Opry is a ‘song’ crowd and that one tells a good story.
Best of luck with the album release, with the Opry and with the art show, Aaron. We can’t wait for you to come over to the UK and play some songs for us too.
I can’t wait. I’m 40 years old and I’ve never been to Europe. My Grandma was from Paris, so it would make sense for me to finally come over and play for y’all. We’re in the middle of talking about dates right now as it happens. I’ve been here in Nashville for 17 years writing songs, you know, it’s time for me to get out there and start playing them.
Buy Aaron Raitiere’s ‘Single Wide Dreamer’ Album
