Shy Carter has had songs cut by the likes of Sugarland, Keith Urban, Rob Thomas and Kane Brown. Sure, everyone loves Brown's ‘Heaven', which Carter co-wrote but he also helped Kane Brown craft ‘Learning', which is a far superior song to our ears! We first met Shy when he came over to the UK for the C2C festival last March and have been big fans of his since then, falling in love with his ‘The Rest of Us' EP which contains a set of melodic, impactful songs that really highlight what a great writer and singer he is. We were thrilled to catch up with him again at this year's Long Road festival, deep in the heart of the middle of England.
It's great to meet up and talk with you again Shy. I really enjoyed our London C2C chat and it's clear that you enjoy coming over to the UK. What memories were you left with from your last visit?
I was left with many great memories of y'all over here appreciating the music, man, and being excited to hear it. You guys have got such a good energy and as long as that continues I'll keep coming over here as much as I can.
Is there a perceptible difference between the European or British crowds and an American crowd? Lots of artists tell me that there is.
Yeah, I can tell the difference. It just seems like there is a little more excitement over here for the music because they don't get access to Country music as much or as easy as people do in the states. The USA is the land of Country music, man, it's all over the place and that's great and people are excited to hear it in America too but it just feels like there's just a little extra excitement here, maybe because there hasn't been the history or the amount on offer before.
Tell me about your recent Opry performance. Did you enjoy yourself and more importantly, did your daughter, Gracie, enjoy herself? (Shy carried her around with him during one of his songs!)
Oh man! I had a beautiful time, I loved it. My daughter, she's four, she's hard to please, man! (laughing) She's so sweet. She had a great time. I did my Opry debut and had a great time, went out into the audience and the whole place was singing ‘Hallelujah' and having a great time, you know?
My daughter said, ‘You walking out into the audience and I was calling your name and you didn't come to me!' I didn't know where she was sitting, I knew she was there but I was like, ‘This was my Opry debut, sweetie, I'm just trying to do my thing!' (laughing) Then she said, ‘You didn't come and I cried!'
I said this time, make sure I could see where she was sitting and once I saw her I picked her up and sang the rest of the song with her. I asked her if she had a good time, afterwards, and she said, ‘Yeah, but I thought you were going to come and get me on the next song too!' (laughing) I can't win, man!!!
Is she showing signs of being musical? It looks like she likes the spotlight!
She's definitely showing signs, for sure. There's a clip on my Instagram of me going live and singing to people and she was playing the piano whilst I was singing and she didn't know what she was doing but it still sounded like something, I can tell she's got a talent there.
When we spoke at C2C you told me there was a version of ‘Hard' coming down the line that I would love. It came and I do!! What a lovely thing to do, the grand piano version of it.
That was special man. We broke it down and you can hear it being recorded live in the room with all the emotions flowing. It's a song that I hope helps people when they are going through something and it helps them to think and process their emotions.
I recorded it out at the studio on my farm. That's where my magic happens, it's real nice out there and we've wrote a lot of good songs there.
When you write with Kane Brown does he come out there or do you go to him?
I usually go to him, man, he's a busy guy! I might go out on the bus with him whilst he's touring – you've got to catch him when you can because he's always got something going on. I did some background vocals for his new album ‘Different Man' but we didn't write as much this time around. I sang on ‘Thank God', which is the song Kane and his wife have done.
You have been writing with Tyler Hubbard recently, what was he like to work with?
He was amazing. Tyler is so cool, man, and we wrote a fire song!!! That's probably going to be the one I put out next. I was blessed enough for it to be for me……
Did you know that in advance of meeting up, that the song was going to be for you?
Right! (laughing) I didn't know for sure what we were going to do until I got there on the day and he was, like, ‘Bro, we are going to make a smash for you!' (laughing)I was , like, ‘Heck, yeah, man!' He knows what he's doing man. He loves the music and he's a skilled writer. I didn't even know he'd written other songs, like ‘You Make It Easy' for Jason Aldean. The guy's just got hits all inside him!
Have you been writing with anyone else recently?
Yeah. I wrote with Lily Rose the other day, she's off the chain. She's great. I wrote with a guy called Cooper Alan who's huge on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram. He's building a real big following with his songs. He's a wild guy and I wrote a good smash song with him, for him.
I'm still waiting for this duet with Caitlyn Smith that you teased at C2C to come out!
Maybe I'll let you hear a little piece of it, man! (laughing) It's gonna come out soon, we've recorded it, it sounds great, we're just waiting for the right time.
If you had to boil down everything you've learned about songwriting over the years into a piece of advice for a new, budding songwriter, what would you tell them?
I would tell them to stay focused and stay motivated. Have patience, that's really important, and never give up. If you write every day for as long as you can you'll get better too. You have to take care of your body and your soul and your heart at the same time, though, because if you don't do that your writing will suffer and you'll burn out.
The business side of things can create a lot of BS, man, it can weigh you down and you have to make sure you take care of yourself.
