We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Georgia Edgeworth. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Georgia below.
Hi Georgia, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.
I moved to Nashville to follow the dream of country music. For years and years I tried to get a song cut, I tried to get a record deal, I tried to get a publisher to sign me and I just kept falling short. I even busted my vocal cords trying to impress a publisher at a show and he still didn’t sign me. I couldn’t sing for a year after that and had to have vocal cord surgery. It was a sign from above that after making country music for 10 years, it was time to take a break. I was Mom of 2 young boys and honestly was busy enough! That’s right, I was a MOM trying to do the music business, but that’s another story for another day! During the break I started listening to other genres of music and some amazing albums came out like “Night Visions” by Imagine Dragons and “Some Nights” by Fun. I couldn’t stop listening to these albums and was blown away. I thought to myself “what if I made songs like this?” “Could I make songs like this??” “Am I crazy for thinking that?” after 2 years of contemplation I decided to buy my first D.A.W.(Digital Audio Workstation). This is what producers use to make music these days and I started to learn how to use it. It was one thing to learn the technology, but how can I make the technology work for a simple songwriter like myself? How can I make this “sing” and not sound like a robot made the music. After much trial and error I finally made some songs that sounded like actual songs. Little by little, year after year I noticed that the songs were improving and finally I was on to something. Fast forward and I developed a little side project that was NOT country music and it caught the ear of a pop producer in Nashville who decided to help me with my project. We called the project “ELIA EX” “Elia” comes from my late grandmother’s side of the family and “EX” means I’m an ex country singer, among being an ex of other things and people as well. I was moving on and I was shouting it out loud. In fact I moved on so much that I wrote a song about my experience in the country music industry and released it in 2019. It’s called “This Town” and is one of my most downloaded songs to this day. My project got signed to a sync deal and now I work with several sync publishers. My songs from ELIA EX have been in Xbox Campaigns, Ad Campaigns, Network Promos and TV shows like “Ted Lasso”. I am focused today on songwriting and producing other artists like Samantha Tieger, Anna Graceman, Alaina Cross,Tabitha Meeks, Brittany Pfantz, Em Rossi, and more. I feel really blessed to write with amazing talent in Nashville and to be a part of the smaller pop and alternative music community. Leaving country music was a risk, learning production was a risk and overall I’m so glad I took that risk!
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I got into music mainly when I moved to Nashville and got connected with other songwriters. I found inspiration from so many artists I grew up listening to. Also to mention that my late father was in the music business and I grew up with him having a studio in our home. I used to go to sleep listening to kick drums pounding over my head late at night. I guess you could say that music is genetic in my case!
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
I had to unlearn that I am not enough. So many people in the music industry rejected me over and over. I was rejected by 40 music publishers on music row in Nashville. All of them said a lot of the same things. Those meetings were hurtful but helpful. I learned that I can improve and that some of the things they said were true and I could write better and take more time to improve. Songwriting is a craft and I truly believe in the 10000 hour rule that is required. In my case it’s been way more than 10000 hours:-)
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
The most rewarding aspect of being an artist is getting to express your feelings through art. When I wrote my song “Breaking You” it was a time of sadness in my life and I realized that sad things don’t have to completely bring you down, but they can be the very thing to make you better. On the other hand sometimes it’s fun to write silly songs like my song “Bad Boy” was really written about my new puppy at the time who kept “messing” everywhere. I thought “you’re such a bad boy you make a good girl wanna cry”. haha Nobody knows that song is about a dog, but hey! Men can be dogs right??
Contact Info:
- Website: eliaex.com
- Instagram: @eliaexmusic
- Facebook: eliaexmusic
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCI6GBJTzDWPOP3dsG6Sz34A
Image Credits
3 pictures( blue background and the 2 white background) are credits: Emma-Lee