Greylan James is very much a writer and artist on the up. Having been signed to his first publishing deal by Nashville Songwriter Hall of Fame inductee Bob DiPiero at the age of 18, James appeared on Season Four of NBC’s ‘The Voice’. He was also featured in Guitar Center Magazine’s Brotherhood of the Guitar Top 100, which ranks the top guitarists in the world under the age of 21.
Hits for other artists include “Happy Does” by Kenny Chesney, ‘If That Ain’t God’ by Chris Young, and ‘Real Friends’ by Chris Janson featuring Blake Shelton. Last year James secured his first number one after co-writing ‘Next Thing You Know’ for Jordan Davis. His own portfolio is ever growing with songs like ‘Young Man’ and ‘Ain’t Thinkin’ Bout You’ following on from 2022’s ‘I Hope She Hears These’ EP and if you look at the track list of albums like Scotty McCreery’s and Kenny Chesney’s that are coming out this year you will find his songs on them. We caught up with him at C2C in London to talk all about it.
Greylan, it’s lovely to have you over in the UK. We last spoke around the release of ‘I Hope She Hears These’ (interview here) – it’s great to have you here in the UK.
It’s lovely to be here, thank you. This is the first time I’ve ever been to Europe, I’m having a great time. We did some shows in the Netherlands and Germany too.
Are you noticing any perceptible differences between the crowds here and the crowds back home?
Absolutely – I’ve been telling everyone that I’ve met that everybody just listens so intently over here, which, as a new artist is incredibly important to us because we are trying to tell our stories for the first time. To see people listening and digesting what we’re saying is so awesome, we’re not really used to that in the states.
I’m excited to play here this weekend but I’m excited to try and get back over here as soon as I possibly can.
Your last EP was in 2022 with ‘I Hope She Hears These.’ Did SHE hear them?
Oh, absolutely! (laughing) She definitely did. Those songs got me a record deal so, you know what? Thank god for her and all of the stuff she put me through. Those songs opened up a lot of doors and eventually brought me to here so thank god for the exes, right?
You’ve released a number of singles and songs since. Are you working towards a bigger project coming down the line or are you happy to stick to single releases for now?
I love releasing singles, especially in the age of social media where you are trying to spread the word and get as many streams as you can. I’m still in the ‘introduction phase’ of me as an artist in my own right so that’s important to get the word out. Once we feel like we have got a body fans out there I’ll be really excited to put a larger body of work out there.
I like the fact Big Machine are marketing you as a songwriter over here with Bluebird Cafe sessions in London as well as you being an artist too. Do you like that duality as well?
Absolutely. My songs that are out there are brand new so it’s good that there are songs I’ve written for other people that are well known too. It’s a great way to introduce who I am. It’s gives me some confidence to walk out on stage and play a couple of songs that people already know and love alongside some of my own that might be a little more unfamiliar right now.
You released ‘Young Man’ last year, which alongside some of my favourite songs of yours, like ‘Walls’ and ‘Damaged’ you wrote with Jacob Davis (Jordan’s brother) and Josh Miller. Are they your go-to writing team?
Oh, for sure! I write with those guys every two weeks. They’re fantastic. We’ve been doing that – every two weeks – for the past three years. We’ve written a ton of songs together and they’re such good writers in their own right. Josh wrote the brand new Morgan Wallen song that he put out there recently. I’m lucky to be able to get to write with them so regularly.
With Jacob being Jordan Davis’ brother – do you have to fight Jordan for songs now?
Jacob will be out on the bus with his brother and Jordan will ask him to play some songs and, obviously, a lot of them will be songs that we’ve written together. Jordan will often message me to say ‘why don’t you cut that song, dude, that one’s a hit?’ and I will be, like, ‘I can’t cut them all, I can’t put them all out, we have to wait!’ (laughing) Having Jordan around is like having your own A&R guy to give you advice on what’s good and what’s not, you know?
Tell me about the inspiration behind your song ‘Young Man,’ which is quite a heartfelt song.
My grandfather got me started on this whole journey in Country music when he bought me my first guitar at 5 years old. He raised me me on guys like Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash and introduced me to the roots of Country music.
He gave me a lot of advice growing up, on both the guitar and life lessons, and when he passed away it hit me hard and I knew that I wanted to write a song for him. So I wrote that song with Jacob and Josh, just talking about it beforehand the idea that he would call me ‘young man’ stuck as a title and we wanted it to be about all the life lessons he passed down to me over the years.
It’s been a special song and one of the first releases I’ve done since I got my record deal.
What difference does having a record deal make to you now?
First off, my mum is incredibly excited about it!
The kids from high school are jealous………..
The kids from high school think I’m absolutely rich now which is, obviously, not the case! (laughing) Honestly, it feels like a large vessel for my songs. The distribution and reach for my music is something beyond what I could have done for myself and being on the Big Machine roster, which is absolutely loaded and stacked with such great artists is awesome.
I really loved ‘Jesus and Joan Jett’ that you wrote with and for Kasey Tyndall. That was a really rocky, powerful song. You let your love of the guitar come out on that track for sure.
We sat down to write that song and Kasey is, obviously a leather jacket queen, so it was great to be able to lean into that side of me that loves the electric guitar too. Being a Country music writer I have to spend a lot of time writing slower or with little Bluegrass feels but that was a day that we were able to plug in an electric guitar and just rock out! (laughing)
I also really love ‘Burns Like Her’ that is on the new Randall King album. That one seems to be you guys channeling your inner Dierks Bentley.
That’s so funny that you say that because I wrote that song with Adam James and Mickey Reaves and at the time, Dierks was looking for songs for a new album so we sat down and tried to write a song with that in mind.
We wrote the song but it never managed to get to Dierks and it was always one of my favourite songs just sitting there in my catalogue and every time someone would ask me to play them some songs that I had I would also sing that song so I’m so pleased Randall ran with it. I saw him in Germany last week and was able to thank him for recording it.
We have to talk to about ‘Next Thing You Know.’ The moment I heard that song I knew it was going to be a smash hit – did you feel like that once you’d written it?
Not at all! The day we wrote it Jordan only had about an hour and hour to write as he was recording. He had one song left for the album and he was like ‘I’ve got so many ballads in the pile for this album, I need an uptempo smash.’ We just couldn’t figure out an uptempo song to write at all and I had the ‘Next Thing You Know’ title but the idea was a little different and Jordan perceived it as a ‘life’ song.
The song was us rambling about what comes next each time you grow in life. Next thing you know you’re talking to a girl, then you’re moving in together, then you’re getting married… right? I was talking about how my parents’ love seemed to have rekindled as they’d got older and had more time back to themselves again in that last part, which was emotional to me. It was definitely a therapeutic process but we didn’t know it was going to change out lives!
We didn’t hear anything more about it and then Jordan told us it was on the album but it wasn’t supposed to be a radio single and it was the fans that really drove the song to Country radio.
Randall King has a song called ‘Right Things Right’ and Conner Smith has ‘Meanwhile in Carolina’ that tell 3-4 part stories similar to ‘Next Thing You Know.’ There should be more story songs in Country music I think?
When the song went number one I was talking to Chase McGill and Jordan and Josh Osborne and we started talking about ‘The Good Stuff’ by Kenny Chesney and we were speculating whether or not we were the first writers to put out a song like that since ‘The Good Stuff.’
I know Kenny has been a big influence in your life and the rest of the Knoxville mafia like Kelsea Ballerini, Morgan Wallen, Rodney Atkins. How’s that group going?
Kenny has a new album out very soon and I had the pleasure of writing the title track for him, with a close friend of mine, Heather Morgan, who is fantastic…….
Have you also not written ‘Porch’ with Heather, which is going to be the closing track on Scotty McCreery’s new album?
You did your homework, dude! (laughing) That’s another song I’m excited for people to hear because it’s another life progression song, similar to ‘Next Thing You Know.’
It’s the last track on the album so you know that he considers it to be a ‘big’ song?
When we wrote that song it definitely felt like it had something to say. It was about two weeks after he had his new baby and it really meant something to him.
As far as the Knoxville Mafia goes, everybody is crushing it and it’s really exciting to see so many artists coming out of that part of the state and the country. We really are the country music capital of the USA! Dolly Parton, Chet Atkins and even further back than that. It’s an honour to be mentioned in the same breath as all those legends.
What’s the touring plans for the summer? I know you’ve been out with Old Dominion recently.
I’m going back out with them again, yeah. Hopping on a plane when we get back to the states and heading down to Key West to play some shows with them. I’m going out to do some shows with Adam Doleac throughout Spring and then there’s a lot of festivals in the pipeline – I’m going to be as tanned as hell come August! (laughing)
This year is really the first year that I’m beginning to feel like people know my songs, you know? People are actually coming to see me play whereas in other years we’ve just been building it all up. It’s time to start spreading the word, man!
