We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Christina Meyer a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Christina, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Before we talk about all of your success, let’s start with a story of failure. Can you open up about a time when you’ve failed?
As a songwriter and creative, I’ve dealt with a lot of failures. Any time I submit a song to an opportunity; I am opening myself up to possibly failing. There is a slogan in the songwriting community that goes “Submit/Forget/Repeat”. It basically means that you can’t dwell on every song submission. You submit the song and then forget about that submission and move on to writing the next song. I have submitted songs for well-known artist projects, tv shows, movies and song contests and many times they have been rejected. Early in my songwriting career, those rejections would feel almost devastating. I took them as a personal rejection and thought they meant I wasn’t good enough and that my songs were crap. After several years of being a songwriter, I no longer take the rejections personally. It is not about me as a person. It just means that the song was not right for that particular opportunity or there was another song that someone thought was a better fit. I write songs because I love to do it and it brings me joy. Of course, I would love for my songs to find their place in the world and to reach as many people as possible. But I would still write songs even if they never brought me any monetary success or accolades. Songwriting is just something that I have to do.
I do have a fun rejection/failure story. I read and loved the book, “The Lovely Bones” by Alice Sebold. I found out that Peter Jackson was directing the movie adaptation, I am a big fan of the Lord of The Rings movies and Peter Jackson’s work as a director. I decided to write a song for the movie. I did some research and found the mailing address for Peter Jackson’s company in New Zealand. This was back when cds were still a thing, so I mailed a cd of my song to Peter Jackson to be considered for the movie. I got a very lovely rejection letter back signed by Peter Jackson himself. I still have that letter to this day. It was one of the nicest rejections that I’ve ever gotten.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I am a multi-genre songwriter originally from Chicago who now lives in Milwaukee. I have been writing song lyrics and coming up with song ideas since I was about 9 or 10 years old. I grew up going to church every Sunday and when I would get bored during the church service, I would come up with song lyrics. They were mostly Christian/Gospel songs at that time. I would listen to the church choir sing and get inspired. There was always a page for sermon notes in the church program and I would use it to write song lyrics. My parents thought I was taking notes about the sermon, so I didn’t get in trouble for not paying attention.
When I became a teenager, I fell in love with all different genres of music including rock and metal. I wrote my first full song with music, melody and lyrics at age 15. It was called “Middle Man” and was about how I often felt like I was caught in the middle of arguments between my mom and my sister. I didn’t play guitar yet at that time but I was able to sing the melody of the song and the guitar riffs that I was hearing in my head and make a recording of them with my tape recorder. I was an avid reader of Metal Edge magazine. They always had classifieds in the back of the magazine with different musicians looking for bands, etc. I found an ad for a session guitarist that you could hire. I wrote a letter to him asking if he could record guitar for my song. I sent him the cassette tape of me singing the melody and the guitar parts. He sent me back a full demo of the song with him singing the vocals. The sound quality of the recording was a bit rough but the song sounded exactly like what I was hearing in my head. I was truly blown away that this song I wrote was now something that could actually be heard by others. I decided that I wanted to learn how to play guitar but my parents wouldn’t pay for lessons. I tried to teach myself with some instructional guitar videotapes and books, but it didn’t go very well. When I got to college, I had a couple of friends who showed me a few chords but my guitar playing was still pretty crappy.
A few years later when I was in my 20s, I learned that some artists didn’t write their own songs. This opened up a whole new world for me as a songwriter and I had a new goal of writing songs for other artists. I am not a great singer and am also an introvert, so I never wanted to be a singer. When I was a teenager, I did have dreams of being in a metal band but always saw myself being the guitarist and more in the background. In my 20s, I also found some online music communities where musicians and songwriters could collaborate with each other. Musicians/producers would post projects of their instrumental tracks and songwriters could write lyrics and melody for them (also known as the topline).. This was my dream. I had so much fun writing in different genres of music and collaborating with so many talented people.
I eventually took proper guitar lessons and also learned how to record and produce songs in a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation). I also found some amazing music studios in Nashville that produced some great demos for my songs. I learned about opportunities and avenues to pitch my songs to artists and got a few independent artist cuts. A few years ago, I transitioned to focusing on writing songs for film/tv/ads. I have a diverse catalog of songs which includes pop, rock, funk and singer/songwriter styles. I collaborate with several very talented producers and artists to create different styles of music from anthemic songs of empowerment to moving heartfelt ballads. The goal is to create songs that meet the needs of music supervisors and their projects. I think my ability to come up with fresh ideas for songs and unique lyrics sets me apart from others. I am most proud of having song placements in the tv shows – The Young & The Restless, Whiskey Cavalier and the holiday movie The Holiday Exchange.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
The most rewarding aspect of being a creative is having an outlet for my ideas and creative energy. Music is my lifeline and truly keeps me sane. I write songs because I have to. I am constantly coming up with ideas for songs. They come to me in the shower, in the car, during a walk, while at work. I use my notes and voice memo apps to get my ideas down, so I don’t forget them. Writing songs also brings me joy. I love the process of collaborating with other artists and musicians. It is great to be able to bounce ideas off of each other and feed off each other’s creative energy. Also, the magic of creating something that didn’t exist before. There’s nothing like that feeling I get when I finish a song.
Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?
I wish that I had known about some of the songwriting organizations earlier in my creative journey. I also wish that a lot of the online communities that are available now had been around when I was first starting out as a songwriter. Some of the resources that have been game changers for me are:
Nashville Songwriters Association International
SongU
SongTown
Ctrl Camp
Produce Like a Boss
Make Pop Music
I took a class through Old Town School Of Folk Music on how to use the DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) GarageBand. I wish a class like this had been available much earlier in my songwriting career.
Some of the music/songwriting conferences that have been very helpful:
ASCAP I Create Music Conference
Durango Songwriter’s Conference
Sync Summit
REO Songwriter’s Retreat
Contact Info:
- Website: https://doctormetalmusic.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nikkinanametal/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/christina.meyer2
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christina-meyer-97910633/
- Twitter: https://x.com/nikkinana
