We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Rafe Van Hoy a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Rafe, 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.

I started teaching myself guitar at age 10, totally obsessed from the beginning. Every spare moment, I was playing or studying—often with the help of educational TV shows like Laura Weber’s beginner guitar course. My dad, Roy Van Hoy, nudged me toward songwriting a few years later by handing me a complete lyric and saying, “Put some music to that.” I did—and that was the spark. From there, we started writing songs together and even bought some basic recording gear to make rough demos.
But the real leap came when my family made the decision to move from Bristol, Tennessee to Nashville to support my path in music. At 17, I was offered a five-year publishing deal—an apprenticeship, really—with the legendary songwriter Curly Putman (“Green Green Grass of Home,” “My Elusive Dreams”). That opportunity became my true education. There were no songwriting schools then, so I learned by watching, listening, writing, and co-writing with others far more experienced than I was. It was immersive and intense—an unofficial masterclass in creativity and craft.
What helped me the most wasn’t just talent; it was the willingness to constantly assess and improve my own thinking. Songwriting isn’t just about musical ability so much as a mental process. It’s about stretching your imagination, challenging your limits, and always trying to outdo your last effort. I approached it like a personal crash course in creative problem-solving, and I still do.

Rafe, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’m a songwriter, musician, and producer with a lifelong passion for storytelling through music. I’ve been fortunate to have a long career doing what I love—from writing songs recorded by some of the biggest names in music, to being inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, and receiving Grammy nominations along the way. But at the heart of it, I still feel a lot like like when I started out, trying to figure out how to say something real or different.
I got into the music business through persistence, a supportive family, and sheer obsession with music. I started out co-writing with my dad, then landed in Nashville as a teenager and never looked back. Over the years, I’ve written and produced songs that have appeared in many many records, films, and TV shows.
I’ve developed a large catalog of material across varied genres, as my interests, like many people, span a large range of styles and influences. I still love the creative process and I am still learning and growing.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

I guess my main mission has always been about connecting with a message or an emotion—in a way that hopefully resonates beyond just melody or rhyme. Whether I’m writing for an artist, a film, or my own catalog, my goal is to tell a story that someone else feels seen by, or just feels engaged with on some level.
Creatively, I try to draw on my experience but with a desire to stay fresh and interesting. I try not to settle into formulas. That creative aspect actually changes how I interact with the world around me, even outside of the music world. Songwriting teaches you to look at everything at all different angles.
It is a discipline that evolves over time, beyond flashes of inspiration, and gives me different perspectives on literally everything in my world. It changes and enhances my ideas on everything I do.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

It wasn’t a huge pivot, but I started out with a desire to be an artist/songwriter, performing my music on recordings and live . After my first solo record deal and another record deal as a band member, I realized that the creation of music and learning all the processes of recording were a better fit for me than the solo artist direction. I felt like my desire to be a recording artist at that time exceeded my level of development, and that my true joy was in the aspects of making music more than performing it. It drove me to hone my skills as a producer and an engineer along with my songwriting and playing skills as a musician. I actually went to my label and asked to be released from my contract to pursue those efforts.

At the time it seemed a bit scary and almost counter productive to walk away from the recording artist aspect of my career, but ultimately it felt like the best decision for me in the long run, and I have never regretted it. It also served to give me a skills and a valuable personal insight into the artist/singer side of recording and performing as I worked with other singers from then on, maybe even more than a producer/musician/writer who had never stood in those shoes.

Contact Info:

• Website: rafevanhoy.com , rafevanhoy.com/watch
• Instagram: @rafevanhoy
• Facebook: https://www.facebook