Songwriter’s fest returns for third rendition
IF YOU GO
You might not recognize a songwriter’s name or face because music and lyrics are often what linger most.
Ada-born rocker and Nashville-based songwriter Zac Maloy realized this when he was glancing at the portraits on the first poster for the inaugural Oklahoma Songwriter’s Festival, which is returning for its third rendition.
Although the festival stretches between April 13-14, it’s the closing Saturday concert Maloy’s most excited about.
“It’s sort of a waste to put our pictures on our concert poster,” Maloy said. “What I’m sort of getting at is that you have to come to the show. Photos don’t do the songs justice. I promise there’s not a show like this in the state of Oklahoma this year. There just won’t be because there can’t be.”
The show in question ismoving out of its comfort zone at the ACM@UCO Performance Lab and into the Tower Theatre for the first time this year. The rest of the songwriter-focused weekend is pretty simple. Festival co-founder Maloy invites songwriters from Nashville to get a taste of Oklahoma’s songwriting scene with a free panel discussion and closed-door writing sessions before the concert finale.
“It’s gonna be a crazy night,” Maloy said. “You’re gonna literally hear (Bowling for Soup’s) Jaret Reddick tell the story behind writing the theme song of ‘Phineas and Ferb,’ and then you’re gonna hear Bob DiPiero talk about ‘Southern Voice,’ which was a Tim McGraw No. 1 hit a couple of years ago.
“Travis Hill is an amazing guy, too, and he wrote ‘Anything But Mine’ by Kenny Chesney. In my mind, that’s one of the best country songs ever written.”
It’s up to Maloy to help corral the talent onstage and organize the “in the round” performance where songwriters discuss a song’s inspiration before playing it. I caught up with the former Nixons frontman on the phone while he was taking a break from helping Creed’s Scott Stapp with a new record.
Here’s a few highlights from the interview.
Q: You’re based out of Nashville these days. Can you tell me about the challenges of organizing a concert event back in Oklahoma when you’re 600 miles away?
Zac Maloy: I’m busy, and I love it that I’m bouncing around on any given day from working on the festival to ... editing vocals for a band that I’m producing and then later this week I have a monthly writing session with Tom Douglas and David Hodges . ... If I had to do the same thing every day then I’d probably go a little nuts.
I will also say that I have a bunch of amazing people helping with the Songwriter’s Festival: my sister (Tava Sofsky) and Lindsey Flowers at the Oklahoma Film and Music Office. They might as well be called co-founders of the event because they’re super crucial to everything that we’re doing . ... There’s tons of great people in Oklahoma City that have helped get this thing lifted off the ground.
Q: Would this festival be really difficult without their help?
Maloy: Yeah, more like impossible . ... I took a couple months off and sort of breathed after last year’s event, but we really do brainstorm about it year-round. I think it shows. I think that the quality of the songwriters that wanted to come this year speaks to that. One of the songwriters from the festival’s first two years, Marcus Hummon, told me the he’s bummed to not attend this year.
That says a lot about Oklahoma City, and how they rolled out for the event. Me and my guys got on the plane after last year, and they all said the same thing, “Wow, I didn’t know that about Oklahoma City. I didn’t know that a community was there that was so tight knit and into music.’”
Q: In addition to a concert, you’re putting on a panel discussion at Tower Theatre. What can people expect from that?
Maloy: We’ll tell our stories about how we got where we are in the music business, and those stories are always intriguing. We’ll have what I think is one of the most important things for aspiring songwriters and that’s a Q&A session . ... We take a lot of joy throwing out a lifeline to people who might have no idea how to, well, fill in the blank. How to register a song for a copyright, how to get a song heard or how to write a song.
Q: You’ve been reuniting with members of The Nixons over
the past couple of years. Do you think that public interest in the band continues because of the strength of your songwriting?
Maloy: I guess the answer has to be yes. My whole point of this festival is that it all starts with a song. In the case of The Nixons, quite frankly, it probably did start in earnest with that afternoon I drove over and said, “Guys, I wanna write a song about my sister. She moved to Los Angeles, and I miss her. Here’s what I think the verse should be.” That song (1995’s “Sister”) along with a lot of hard work touring and smashing guitars really did a lot for me. It’s the reason I’m literally walking down Music Row right now going from one session to another.
It’s actually kind of funny that you bring that up because Ricky Brooks and I hadn’t spoken in 15 years.
Q: That’s a long time. Was that the case with your other bandmates?
Maloy: John Humphrey, Jesse Davis and I had wished each other happy birthday on Facebook and texted if we heard our songs playing in a grocery store or whatever. I asked those guys to get up on stage with me at the Oklahoma Songwriter’s Festival in year one, and in some ways the festival is responsible for those reunion shows in at least some way. I should say that Jesse is gonna get up on stage with me this year, and there might be another Nixons surprise happening that night, too.
Q: Anything else we can expect for the festival’s concert?
Maloy: I should also say that we’ll feature local openers: Levi Parham, Emily Faith and Andy Adams. They’re gonna do a short round of songs before us. Then the out of towners will get up on stage and do our thing.