When it comes to teamwork and authenticity, Savage Music’s newest publishing signee, Nell Maynard, is committed to both. Maynard, a self-described lyricist and hook-focused writer, continues to build momentum through collaborations and creative opportunities, with Savage Music helping to expand her reach.
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“I consider my job very much one of being on a team where the artist is front and center,” Maynard says. “I want to help create space for artists to tell the truth, because listeners can tell when it’s not real.”
(Photo by Orchee Sorker)
Originally from Colorado and currently based in Nashville, Maynard began writing songs at 15. Her road to music wasn’t a common one. She earned a degree in biochemistry, worked in an ER, and, after being accepted to medical school, withdrew during orientation week. That turn toward songwriting has paid off. Maynard has garnered cuts with artists including LEW (“Like A Boy,” “Jared”), Kate Yeager (“Fat”), Chris Housman (“Blueneck”), and Kelsey Lamb (“Trying,” “Happy Is”). She’s also been recognized as a two-time International Songwriting Competition semifinalist and a multi-time NSAI finalist and winner—credentials that underscore both her talent and work ethic are the real deal.
“As a writer, I want to be sonically a chameleon,” she says. “I want to put on different faces depending on what the artist and the room need.”
Maynard sat down with American Songwriter to discuss her musical journey, turning down the emergency room for the songwriter’s room, and how songwriting is a gift she needs to explore.
American Songwriter: Tell us about Nell Maynard and growing up in Colorado.
Nell Maynard: I was born in Colorado, and I grew up pretty much at the barn, riding horses, which is a passion I continue to nourish to this day. I started writing songs when I was 15. I was in the barn, actually, the first time a song came to me. All my friends were talking, and I was like, “Shut up, shut up, shut up. Something important is happening.” And I ran and got a piece of paper and a pen, and I had lyrics and melodies coming to me. I got home as quickly as I could and sat down at my piano in the basement and pounded out the first song I ever wrote.
AS: Do you remember what song that was?
NM: It was called “Obvious,” I think. It was about a breakup, which I had never experienced. But I was making it up.
AS: You started songwriting at 15, but you also have a degree in biochemistry, and even briefly attended medical school. What was the moment when you realized, “Okay, I have to follow the music”?
NM: Well, one of those gets a lot more social credit than the other. I’m a Capricorn, and I just wanted to be a good kid. I just wanted to be the kid I thought my parents deserved. I had a lot of wrong reasons to go into medicine, and they were very compelling. They took me a really long way. I got my degree, as you said, I got a degree in biochemistry, and worked in an ER for a year after I graduated college. During that year, I applied to med schools, interviewed, got accepted at one, and moved to Connecticut and started medical school. During orientation week, I dropped out. The dean was speechless. She was, I think, extremely disappointed, and that was horrible. But I sat in her office, and I was like, “I’m going to go. What papers do I need to sign?” And she gave me the papers and just shook her head, and I signed them, and I left. It was so scary.
AS: How did your parents, who are both physicians, feel about it?
NM: They were pretty hands-off about it. Well, my dad wouldn’t say that, because he drove me across the country to move into med school, and he felt like that was kind of a waste of two weeks when I dropped out immediately. He said, “I could have saved on gas.” Anyway, they’re largely supportive.
AS: You decided at that point to focus on songwriting?
NM: I kept looking at my life and thinking, there will be a point when I get to be completely inside songwriting. I felt like that was inevitable. I thought, because this feeling is so strong, this absolutely has to happen. When I got to medical school, I thought, this isn’t just something I finish quickly and then get to do what I want. By the time I’m finished with this career, I’ll be 70, and that’s not enough time to spend inside songs the way I want to. I just wanted to spend time in communion with song. It’s the time in my life when I feel closest to divinity, I guess, or I think people would describe it using lots of different words, but for me, it feels completely imperative that I spend as much time as possible during my life in conversation with songs and helping artists write songs. When I got to medical school, I realized that was not going to happen to me unless I made that happen to me.
AS: What was the most surprising thing about the songwriting community that you found when you got to Nashville?
NM: It was really astounding to me to have songwriting all of a sudden not be a thing that was weird about me. All of a sudden, it was the thing all of us had in common. It’s sort of this wonderful setting aside of the ego and being like, “Let’s just make the best song we can make.” And that is a feeling I love, and I think I’m always looking for.
AS: So when you write a song, and you go through the process, what is that like? Take us into the songwriting room with you.
NM: There’s a lot of listening. As a pure writer, I consider my job very much one of being on a team where the artist is front and center, and the artist’s story is front and center. I want to be the kind of writer who makes an artist feel comfortable enough to tell the truth, so that we can then put that truth into the song. Because listeners can tell when you’re not telling the truth, and songs don’t hit. But a more concrete way to answer it is to say, I am a lyricist for sure. A very hook-focused writer, a very concept-focused writer.
AS: How do you know when a song is finished in that room?
NM: I think a big part of being someone who makes art is trusting your own taste. A lot of times, that’s how I know when I feel like a song is done, because first of all, it doesn’t always feel like we’re making it. A lot of the time, it feels like it exists already, and we are pulling it into this realm. In that sense, when we get a line that is the line, I’m like, “That is done.” And sometimes I’m very willing to be like a dog with a bone, like, “We are not touching this. This is the way this line is meant to be.” And obviously, co-writing involves a lot of compromise, but how I know when I’m done is that I trust my taste and the taste of my co-writers in the room.
AS: Anything that you’re currently working on now, that you can tell us about, that’s in the works?
NM: Well, I signed a publishing deal with Savage Music Publishing. I suppose that’s the most exciting thing I can talk about right now.
AS: What drew you to Savage Music?
NM: Can I be candid? It didn’t feel predatory. It felt like this is a group of people who want the same things I want, who aren’t interested in taking advantage of me, who have my interests creatively at heart, and who have shared interests financially at heart. All of those green flags sort of made me want to keep having conversations, and then we ended up deciding on a deal.
AS: Do you have any advice for songwriters who are looking to maybe do the same path as you?
NM: Yeah. Especially if you’re in Nashville, it can be so easy to forget how lucky we are to love something this much. It can be so easy to forget what a gift, a passion is, and to have any meaning at all in your life, so many people live and die without. I think there’s a lot of business stuff that can get us down, and industry stuff that can get us down. But fundamentally, if you feel like it’s important for you to make songs while you’re alive, that is a gift.
Disclosure: American Songwriter and Savage Music Publishing are both owned and operated by Savage Ventures.
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