The Pro Files: Pam Sheyne
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“Recognize what your strengths are and educate yourself on all areas of your business, so you understand how it works as it’s changing all the time.”
Pam Sheyne wants to help you do just that.
With over 50 million records sold, and songs performed, recorded, and released by artists like Camila Cabello, Demi Lovato, Lindsay Lohan, Jessica Simpson, Corrine Bailey Rae, Seal, Sinead O’Connor (including the #1 Billboard smash hit “Genie In a Bottle”, that launched Christina Aguilera’s career), Pam knows a thing or two about writing a good song. And she wants to share that knowledge with you.
This coming October a select group of writers will gather in the desert, at the Ace Hotel in Palm Springs. And along with fellow camp founder Richard Harris, Pam will take these writers through the paces of writing a good song, in the first-ever SongWriter Camps.
Pam sat down with HitSongCoach.Com’s Chen Neeman, to talk about the camp, the music, and the importance of mentorship.
CN: Tell us a little about how you came up in the business.
PS: I was born in New Zealand and grew up listening to a lot of music, but my parents loved country music in particular. My first two concerts were Dolly Parton, and then my sister took me to The Beach Boys and I was hooked. I was 15 when my father passed away, and it had a significant impact on my life as we were very close. I was unhappy at home and turned myself inward to my music. A year later I decided to leave high school to go and live with my sister in London. She helped me land an office job, but I soon found myself looking through “Melody Maker” in the hope that I might find a music job on the side. I auditioned for a hotel band and got the job. I was only 17 years old then and underage, but they kept it quiet, and that was my foot in the door. I left my day job and worked at music full time. That job led to freelance work, gigging all over the country, getting in the back of vans with a bunch of musicians to play functions and weddings, but I loved it. I did a summer season in Monte Carlo and then eventually it led to session work and touring as a backup singer. I was offered a world tour with the Pet Shop Boys in 1991 which took us all around the world for six months, and that was a huge turning point for me in my career. After I came off tour, I turned down more session work and touring to concentrate on getting an artist deal, and a good friend introduced me to a guy called Nigel who had just set up an independent publishing company in London and was looking for writers and artists. I later married Nigel and he managed me for 25 years.
CN: How did you get started writing songs? How did you develop your craft?
PS: I’ve been playing guitar and singing since I was a child but after I got my first publishing deal in London, I took a few writing trips to Nashville and that was one of my biggest learning curves as a songwriter, especially as a lyricist and topliner. It really is such an education working with Nashville writers, they know the value of crafting a song and emotionally moving their audience. My groundwork in those early days was done working with anyone who would take a session with me, and then I found the collaborators and teams it worked really well with and honed it down to my favorites. I specifically enjoy working with an artist in the room and helping them articulate and craft what they want to say in a more universal way.
CN: You do a lot of artist development and working with young artists. What does it take to breakthrough?
PS: These days it costs a lot of money to break a new artist and the labels are not spending as much on developing artists as they used to. A new artist or band that already has a huge following and great social media numbers, is more attractive to an established label, so a lot of the groundwork needs to be done before a record company is interested. Artist development is falling more on managers, producers, and songwriters these days, and I find that really exciting. The temptation is often to follow a trend of what’s currently on the radio or in the charts, but it’s important for an artist to find their own unique identity, to stand out from the crowd and to be experimental with mixing genres of music. I remember when Alanis Morisette first came out with “Jagged Little Pill.” I believe she changed the way artists and songwriters wrote lyrics, she was a game changer and her lyrics had a fresh honesty and attitude.
CN: What would be your advice for songwriters coming up today, in the new music and media world?
PS: It depends on your goals, but always work to your strengths and try to do a bit of everything to find what you are specifically good at. Don’t just pitch to artists, don’t just write for film and TV, for trailers or the gaming industry, try your hand at every opportunity that comes your way and open up your network of people as it’s still a people business. Get out of your comfort zone and out of your studio. Get your face out to gigs, A&R meetings and business events and be your own best advocate. Think globally, your music may be more suited to a different market, there are endless opportunities all around the world so maybe you just have to travel to find them. I used to take writing trips regularly, and that opened so many opportunities for me. I wrote Genie In A Bottle on one of those trips when I was financially at my lowest so you never really know when you’re going to get a home run. Once you are more established and start getting a track record of your own, you can get in the room with the heavyweight collaborators and artists who have a better strike rate. It’s a ladder climbing process, but I believe at the end of the day the song is king, so focus your energies on crafting each and every song you write, and make it the best it can be.
CN: You have been mentoring aspiring artist and songwriters for years. What are some of the techniques you use, that could help them better their craft?
PS: Everybody’s process is different. A song can either start with a story, a track or melody idea, an instrumental riff or a chord structure but more often than not, I start with a title and work from there. If there is an artist in the room it has to feel genuine and they have to relate to it, but as a top liner, a concept or title is my favorite way to get going on a song. How do you know where you are going to if you don’t have a destination? I personally like to map out some ideas, a bit like an essay, sketch out a beginning, middle and end. Look for a payoff line and then work on the best angle that makes your title hit home. The angle for me is the most important because that can often make or break your idea, one slight tweak can take it to a different place. We are human beings, so we want to feel some emotional value from a song, we want to relate and be moved in some way, so it’s important to dig deep emotionally. One of my favorite parts of songwriting is editing, and I find that a lot of writers overlook that really important process. It’s the tightening up of the phrasing and lyric, the little details, the arrangement, the harmony, that can be improved tenfold by just spending a little more time on it.
CN: How Important is a mentor for a songwriter?
Most professions require some sort of further education and expertise, but if you’re a songwriter, you don’t really need to know how to play an instrument or even read a note. You can just be a good ideas person and be good with words or have a laptop and know how to put great tracks together. In the creative world, whether you are a painter, sculptor or songwriter, it makes sense to learn everything you can about your craft, and some tried and tested techniques from successful, experienced people in your field. I really wish I’d had a songwriting mentor early on in my career, I had some great publishers who guided me on my path, but a creative mentor would have taken me to a whole different level and having the support from someone who understood the highs and lows of the business would have been valuable. Creative people go through many more knocks than successes, and it can be hard psychologically, so having someone to look up to and guide you, is something you should grab with both hands. With the onset of the digital marketplace and no updated laws yet put in place to protect creators, it’s been a tough time to sustain a living for a lot of songwriters out there. You often think it’s just you that is suffering from the effects of streaming, but it’s the whole community. I’m a founder member of SONA (Songwriters of North America), an advocacy group who have been fighting for creator’s rights for 3-4 years now, and we have been working really hard, building our community of songwriters and educating them on what we have to do to stand together and be a bigger voice. We are a community of people who care deeply about each other and the future of our industry. After all, songwriters are the foundation of it. Without songs, there is no music industry.
CN: Lastly, can you tell us a little about SongWriter Camps taking place this October?
PS: My business partner Richard Harris and I have both been mentoring at various songwriting camps over the years, and we are extremely passionate about the craft of songwriting. We actually met at the Hawaiian Song Festival 10 years ago and have become really good friends. We’ve been talking about doing one of our own camps for some time now, and it just made total sense, so our first one is coming up October 15th-18th in Palm Springs. The focus is “aspiring artists and songwriters,” but it’s also for any songwriter who wants to brush up on their skills and build a new network of collaborators. We’re planning on having around 30 attendees over four days/three nights at the mid-century Ace Hotel Resort, and we are shaping up nicely with people coming as far as Norway, Switzerland and the UK. There will be masterclasses on the craft of songwriting, then they will be put into their collaborative groups each day and will write to a brief. In the evenings they get to perform their songs and hang out and sing around the campfires on the resort. We are already planning on other camps for next year, and each one will be geared towards a different theme.
Pam will join HitSongCoach.Com for a live FREE online song critique session, on Sunday, July 15th at 12 pm Pacific Time, at www.facebook.com/HitSongCoach/
The first SongWriters Camps retreat will take place October 15th through the 18th, at the Ace Hotel in Palm Springs. Find out more, and apply here: www.songwritercamps.com
SONA (Songwriters Of North America) is a grassroots advocacy organization founded in response to the abysmal licensing rates being paid to songwriters by music streaming companies. Find out more at www.wearesona.com and join the fight to #GetTheRateRight.
Award winning and multi platinum selling songwriter/producer Chen Neeman's songs have been recorded by artists such as Miley Cyrus, Demi Lovato, Selena Gomez, Joe Jonas, Zendaya, and The Muppets, among others. Chen is dedicated to helping aspiring songwriters learn how to write better songs through personalized one-on-one coaching sessions via Skype, FaceTime, or in person at his L.A Studio.
Find out more about Chen’s Pro Songwriting Coaching, at HitSongCoach.com