How To Make Your Creativity Beat The Algorithm (w/Live Performance) - Dylan Gossett - #1155

Chris Williamson (0:00)

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Thank you. Dude, unbelievable. So good.

Dylan Gossett (3:57)

Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_3 (3:58)

Good to see you.

Dylan Gossett (4:00)

That one's about Austin, Texas, obviously.

Chris Williamson (4:03)

Very timely.

SPEAKER_3 (4:04)

Yeah.

Chris Williamson (4:05)

Did you write most of Coal in 25 minutes? Is that right?

Dylan Gossett (4:08)

Yeah. Coal was written, one of the fastest ones I've probably written.

Yeah.

It started, I can kind of show you. So it started just with, maybe not this exact chord progression, it was a little bit different. I might have an old video of it I could show you. But I think it started with kind of that hook. The, I say pressure makes diamonds heavy. I was like, that's great. That's a song. We got to build around it and then yeah, verse by verse. And it was just, I remember I was like, had my phone typing on top of our dog kennel in the apartment at the time. And it was like right before we went out with like some work friends and none of my friends knew I sung, like at all. I didn't, I don't know. I just don't go around telling people. And Rolk Cole went out and Julia, my wife was just stoked on it. She was like, this is so sick. And she was just showing people like Snapchat videos of the song. She was like, you know, just, what do y'all think about this? And they're like, Dylan, you sing? And I was like, cat's out of the bag, I guess. And then didn't do anything with it for like a year or two.

Chris Williamson (5:13)

No way. You sat on a song that did like half a billion streams. Yeah.

Dylan Gossett (5:18)

For a year or two. I wasn't on socials. Like I wasn't putting anything out.

I didn't do anything until we were on a camping trip with my buddy Kaden and his now wife MK and my wife and I, Julia. And I brought my guitar and was just playing some songs. Kaden has like the best ear of anyone I know. He's like an A&R that doesn't work in A&R. And he heard Coal and he's like, please sing it again. He's like voice memo-ed it. And he's like, you got to do something. You have to do something. And my wife was like, Dylan, you should just post on TikTok. And I was like, well, I'm not, you know, I'm not a TikToker. I was like, I almost can't stand it. Like I don't, it's just not my thing.

But yeah, I started doing it. And then Coal became this thing, which is insane.

Chris Williamson (6:00)

One of my buddies, best man at his wedding, godfather to his kid, and he was playing.

We were at a friend's house who has a karaoke machine. And I don't even know why there was a guitar there. And he'd been doing exactly the same thing. I bullied him, bullied him. I was like, no, come on, come on. Because the choice was between him playing acoustic guitar with a beautiful voice, and one of our friends sad emo rapping. And I was like, hey, look, the decision is really easy for me to make in terms of oppression. The fucking floor, dude, is so low for you to get over here.

Dylan Gossett (6:34)

Yeah.

Chris Williamson (6:34)

So I'm interested, where were you in life when you were doing those lyrics? What is that song?

Dylan Gossett (6:40)

So I was living in Austin. I worked in, are you talking about Coal? Yeah, Coal. So I was living in Austin. I was working at the racetrack, the Circuit of the Americas down here. So I was, at the time, I was in event operations. I think I was, I started as an intern. I used to live there in a trailer in my parents' RV for months. I just lived at the job site. But yeah, I was working there and I just kind of been through a tough season. Like F1 season is just kind of brutal, especially for the outside guys. You're just, I mean, it's just like 20 hour days, that you're living out there when it's F1 time.