Drew Ryder Smith: The Long Road to The Deep End

Drew Ryder Smith has been around music for a long time, even if you’re only hearing his name now. He grew up between Middle Tennessee and Muscle Shoals, got into radio while he was still a kid, worked for Sam Phillips, became a professional songwriter in Nashville, and eventually had one of his songs recorded by Merle Haggard. Along the way, he spent years writing and producing for other people, learning the strange little machinery of how songs move through the music business and, every so often, into history. His new album, The Deep End, brings the focus back to Smith himself. It’s a record about family, memory, old habits, disappearing places, and the things we inherit whether we ask for them or not. It’s also the sound of a songwriter who has spent years helping other people say what they mean finally deciding to do a little more of that for himself. Smith stopped by The Sharp Notes in Paramus, New Jersey, and we talked about where he comes from, the records that shaped him, Sam Phillips, Merle Haggard, Steve Earle, the peculiar business of writing songs for other people, physical media, and a trip to Abbey Road that, shall we say, produced more than a few stories. One of them involves a Beatle. We’ll leave it there.