We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Grant Maloy Smith a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Grant Maloy, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

In my world, I have to write songs, create various arrangements of those songs, record them, then go out and perform them in front of audiences. For me, the creation of the songs themselves is the most essential part of the entire process. When I was younger I would get an idea for a song and then write it as quickly as possible. But when I got older I raised my standards significantly, and I realized that I had to do everything in my power to write the best possible songs. So now, I get an idea and then I develop it over a period of not just days, but sometimes weeks and months. I have the patience now to write three or four versions of the same song in order to achieve the best possible results.

I think the biggest obstacle that I faced was my own impatience. Once I learned the value of creating the best possible song, regardless of how long it took, everything changed for me. I got much better when I learned discipline in my writing process.

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 was introduced to music at a very young age – but it was a mash-up of the Beatles, Mozart and my Grammy’s “mountain music.” She was from Kentucky and she instilled in me a love for the early Bluegrass of the Stanley Brothers and Bill Monroe, among others. All of these very different influences came together in my young brain to make me who I am now as a songwriter and arranger

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

Because streaming has destroyed the physical sales market, the best way that people can do to support independent artists is to buy their music and merch directly from them. I used to sell a lot of CDs and LPs, but those days are over. What really helps me is when people buy directly from my website at www.grant-maloy-smith.com

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

The most rewarding thing for me is to hear people in the audience at a live show singing along with me. There is nothing quite like the feeling that people have listened to my recordings enough times that they know the words – and they wanted to come see me play live – and want to sing along with me from the audience. That’s quite amazing and humbling, and sometimes it almost brings me to tears.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.grant-maloy-smith.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/grantmaloysmith
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thegrantmaloysmith
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/grantmaloysmith/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/grantmaloysmith
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/grantmaloysmith