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10 Questions with ... Brandon Ratcliff
June 9, 2019
Have an opinion? Add your comment below. I'm one of those people that can't really be inspired unless I have some piece of music that makes me feel something. So for me, that usually starts on the guitar. I kind of gravitate towards some riff or a hook. And now -- this is of one of those things I think you learn in writing -- I live by [a] title, the idea or concept of the song. It's kind of the most important part
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BRIEF CAREER SYNOPSIS:
24-year-old singer-songwriter Brandon Ratcliff grew up in Cotton Valley, Louisiana, as part of a famed musical family. He is the son of Suzanne Cox, part of the Country/Bluegrass band the Cox Family, and from his earliest memories has been surrounded by music and legendary musicians. While Ratcliff was encouraged to explore music from a young age, he would not decide to pursue a career in the industry until he was much older. After taking time to refine his craft, Ratcliff caught the eye of the music business in Nashville.
Ratcliff released his first single, "Rules Of Breaking Up," and was reassured he was on the right track when the tune was among the top five most-added songs at Country radio during its impact week. After wrapping up his recent run with Kelsea Ballerini and Brett Young on the "Miss Me More Tour," Ratcliff is gearing up to release his debut album, "Rules Of Breaking Up," produced by Shane McAnally. The album takes a musical journey through the stages of relationships.
1. What was it like growing up as a member of the Cox Family, presumably with famous musicians coming and going?
Really as long as I could remember, my mom and my uncles and my aunts would tell stories of the early road days. It's always been part of my life. Whether it was backstage at the Opry or the Ryman [Auditorium,] or random venues across the country, or sleeping on a tour bus [in the] third bunk when I was a little kid, all the way to hanging out with people like Alison Krauss, Dolly Parton, and Charlie Daniels. Life around music was always normal to me because, being a second generation musician myself, I was blessed to see this life through the eyes of my parents, my grandparents, and my family first which has fundamentally changed me and really just made me almost see life through a lens that doesn't allow you to see without music.
I remember little memories like Garth Brooks sending the tour bus to my little small town of Cotton Valley, LA to come pick up my uncle Sidney to go write songs with him for two weeks. Little things like that sprinkled throughout my life just shaped the way my whole family dynamic was. It really prepared me to see everyone who is in this business as a peer to myself. Because as much as I'm a fan of these people, I also grew up in this business, and I also love and am passionate about this since I do it myself. So that's an important thing, a trait to carry with you sometimes, to be a fan of everyone, but also be a peer with everyone.
2. Growing up in a musical family, did you ever seriously entertain the notion of doing anything else for a living? If so, what was it?
I was always a dreamer. Even in my earliest memories, and when I was in high school and thought I was going to go do stuff in the medical field or something random like that, I never really took any of those realistic lifestyle choices very seriously for some reason. I guess I was too big of a dreamer.
My first actual dream job was to play professional basketball. I was super passionate about basketball, and was a massive fan of the NBA, and honestly, I still am today. But that was kind of my thing. I always had high hopes for life and what I wanted to do, but it took me getting a little older and learning to write myself and learn what I wanted to do and say in music for me to know it was a viable option for me.
Me and my friends, we joke about it now that I do what I do. Life outside of this makes no sense to me. I don't know that I could ever do a normal job again. It would be too relaxed [laughs]. There is a weird sense of calm in the chaos.
My parents never really pushed me to be in the music business until I was a little older. My dad was actually the one to kind of push me out of the nest, and it's funny because he's actually not the music side of my family. My dad is more of the blue collar, hard-worker, go to school, do your job kind of guy, not the typical person who would tell you to drop out of college and move to Nashville, and he did that to me. There was a point in my life where really all I wanted to do was write songs. That was clearly my passion, and my Dad was the one who really saw that in me from even its earliest point. He was willing to say, "Hey, you move to Nashville on my dime. I'll pay for you to go up there and get your feet wet because this is what you're meant to do." So, having parents like that who will obviously support anything you want to do, it's powerful.
3. Do you feel like you face different challenges and pressures as a second-generation artist as opposed to first generation?
I've honestly never really thought about it. I do feel this innate connection to the very fabric of music sometimes because of who my family was. I really have been involved in music in some form or fashion basically since I was born. I never thought of myself that way until I got older and got into the music industry myself, on my own merit.
I don't really know, honestly, if I put any extra pressure on myself. I guess I maybe used to when I was younger. Now, I kind of almost embrace it. There's a part of me that's accepted who I am, and a big part of that is definitely my family's history. That's definitely given me great heritage myself. I would like to think [it] built a great foundation for me to find my own artistry.
This feels so full circle to me. [My Mom and I] get to hang out and talk to each other on the phone about cool stuff that I'm getting to do now that she got to do 20-something years ago for the first time too. Whether it's playing arenas, or going on radio tours, or doing CMA Fest week and the Fan Fair thing, all these things I'm getting to do the first go around she went through this just a short lifetime ago. It's kind of fun to get to do this thing and almost see her live it twice through me. Recently I was on tour with Kelsea Ballerini and Brett Young, and also in the thick of radio tour, and I remember just thinking about all of those old stories my mom used to tell me about being on the road, even when she was pregnant with me, like six months pregnant going on the road. And I'm thinking to myself, "Jeez, she was a road warrior! That's so crazy."
4. You turned down a publishing deal at the age of 20 to work on your craft further -- a risky move. What made you pass it up?
It is, honestly, very risky and I can remember in the moment not really wanting to turn it down. Luckily, again, [I] pay homage and give credit to my family, but also people in my life like Alison Krauss, who I was lucky enough to live with when I first got in town. Having people like her around, I like to think, in some way gave me a leg up in my decision-making skills, or maybe gave me some kind of foresight.
I always pride myself on being a very self-aware person so, at the time, I knew I was meant to do this and wanted to say something [with my music], but there was a part of me that didn't really know what I wanted to say yet. Sometimes it's good to get in the game, but sometimes it's also good to really carve your own thing out and take away some of those outside voices. For me, especially now with the hindsight, you look back and you think, "Well, thank God I didn't do that." But at the time I was just lucky to have people in my life who shed some wisdom on me to grow as a young songwriter and an artist and find who my team needed to be, fully in my own identity.
5. Growing up around Bluegrass music, did you learn to play many instruments?
From a very early age my mom wanted me and my brothers, even if we weren't going to be musicians, she always wanted us to know how to at least play and have knowledge of music. I give her the credit for really establishing a fandom in me at an early age, but also a real understanding and education of music when it comes to songs and artists, and music in general. My mom put me in drum lessons first when I was really young. I love to make things kind of groove, and love things that just make you want to dance, so I think my Mom was on the right track. I moved on to piano, and then, eventually, I found guitar, and that's been my main instrument ever since. I really play guitar with very rhythmic phrasing, so that has always shadowed my instrumental side.
My mom even has this joke that she's said for years. She played the mandolin in her band, the Cox Family, and she said I got my rhythm because she used to do the mandolin chops on her stomach when she was pregnant with me. You never know, I guess there could be some science to it.
6. What does the songwriting process look like for you? Is there a certain formula you follow each time, or do songs all come in different ways?
I love talking about songwriting so much. It's my favorite question, honestly, because the process is so fascinating, and honestly [has] changed a ton for me as I've written in town for the last five years. Moving to Nashville is really school for songwriters. It's the first thing you start learning as you start speed dating this town and meeting tons of writers. It's not really a formula, more of a pattern that you feel comfortable with, and everybody has different ones. The co-writing process in Nashville is learning people's instincts, and some people's way they write songs are vastly different than mine. That usually makes for a bad co-write.
I'm one of those people that can't really be inspired unless I have some piece of music that makes me feel something. So for me, that usually starts on the guitar. I kind of gravitate towards some riff or a hook. And now -- this is of one of those things I think you learn in writing -- I live by [a] title, the idea or concept of the song. It's kind of the most important part.
When I was younger, writing songs was just grabbing a guitar and strumming around and meandering through some lyrics and melodies and eventually, maybe, you kind of hit this thing and kind of go, "Wait, I think that might be something" That's one way to write songs. As I get older, the thing that's more efficient than that is finding something that inspires me, and then looking for an idea. Usually in the songwriter world, that's the title, like "Rules Of Breaking Up," for example. When you have that title, it's a little like plugging the address of a place in on your phone, like, "This is where we know we've gotta go."
7. Tell us about your single, "Rules Of Breaking Up." How did the idea for that song come about, and why it was chosen as your radio debut?
I was in a room with two of my best friends in the world, the guys that I co-wrote the rest of my record with, Pete Good and AJ Babcock. We were writing another song, and the words "rules of breaking up" just kind of slipped out of someone's mouth in a casual conversation. Everyone stopped talking and was like, "What are the rules of breaking up?" We immediately forgot about the other song we were writing [and] just went down this road of, "What are those rules? What would those rules look like? What are those things you're supposed to do after you get out of a relationship?" We started listing things out in the verse, and that's kind of why the verse ended up being so "talky," like, "Can't go out and hope to see her 'cause you gotta give her space / Can't go back to being friends, it don't work that way." The verse kind of just lent itself out to that way of listing things out conversationally.
Once we hit that melody that we thought "Rules Of Breaking Up" would go over, we wrote that chorus really quickly, because when you get a melody that strong, it pulls you in the right direction. The lyrics fall in the pockets.
There's so much about this job of being a musician that I love, whether it's playing for 5,000 on the arena tours, or hearing your song on the radio. But the birth of a song -- that moment where you know you have something, you're chasing it, and the inspiration is just right in front of you -- is honestly one of the most sensational feelings in this business. It is such a magic moment.
To answer the second part of your question, how it became the single, honestly, I think the song kind of chose itself. The day we wrote the song, one of the first things I remember saying is, "This sounds like such a thematic title, like the title of a book or a record." It's very conceptual, that title. It encompasses a lot of stuff -- the good, the bad, and the ugly of relationships, or the good, the bad and the beautiful. As time went on, that song became such a theme that everyone could connect with on our team. The song was just begging to be the introduction to what we do. And with the guitar riff in the beginning, it really introduces, sonically, our sound in a very, "Hi, nice to meet you," way. This is who I am.
8. You are currently working on a full album. What can fans expect from that?
We actually have finished the entire record. I wrote, over the last three years, a collection of probably hundreds of songs. Of those hundreds, about 15-20 really became the main group of songs, and we ended up cutting 10 of those songs and made a full-length record. Over the last year or so, we've recorded that record, some at Ocean Way Studios, some in Sound Emporium here in Nashville. It was just an incredible process making this whole record. It was a dream come true for me.
I have an old soul, as you probably can tell, so just getting to make a full-length record in this day and age where everything is so microwaved and thrown together was a dream come true. Me and my creative team really just spend so much intimate time with this -- making it, pushing its corners as far as we could, but also making sure that it is completely cohesive. I'm just honestly excited for more layers of this record to get out, because it all amazingly fits into the theme of "Rules Of Breaking Up." Just the sounds and the vibes of this record are all over the place in a good way, and that's the way I love listening to music. I love versatile music, so I wanted to make a versatile record. My hope is when people listen to it they obviously enjoy it and have a lot of fun, but I also hope that it hits every part of your palette.
9. Your sound has been described as having hints of country, R&B and classic rock, and Stevie Wonder and John Mayer were two of your big musical influences growing up. How would you describe your music to someone who has never heard it before, and how did those influences help shape your sound?
I'm a songwriter, so my artistry is fueled by lyrics and melodies being put together -- kind of the way Nashville has always really crafted a song from the earliest days back to Merle Haggard all the way up to George Strait and the '80s and '90s Country. The way that Nashville writes a hook and presents that lyric that can be played on a record or all the way stripped down to an acoustic guitar, I pride myself on writing songs like that. Beyond that, the music I grew up listening to always made me want to move. I loved really deep grooves [in] rhythm sections, whether it was Pino Palladino and Steve Jordan with John Mayer, or just Stevie Wonder himself. I think there are always going to be tinges of R&B and soul in my music.
10. You've been around music and the industry since before you were born. Do you ever find time to escape?
Me and my wife are actually both very, very active people. My wife is like a super athlete. She is one of those people who just has insanely great genetics and just also takes care of herself. She could probably beat me in anything nowadays, but we both love any kind of sports. She's actually never played golf, but we just got a little golf simulator in our apartment, and she's recently just been crushing it. It's to the point where I'm scared to take her to the golf course because I know she's going to destroy me [laughs]. Anything athletic we love escaping to. We're huge basketball fans, so the NBA playoffs are happening right now, the finals, and every time they are on me and Lexi are just glued to the couch watching. We're all about it.
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