Check Out Trent Willmon’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Trent Willmon.

Trent, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I grew up in west Texas, and I moved to Nashville to play bass for another artist. When that ended, I worked on farms, rode colts, and trained Steeplechase horses until I landed a publishing deal at Seagayle Music. While writing there I started a band with songwriters Clint Ingersoll and Granger Smith (Earl Dibbles, Jr.) and played all the dives downtown, and had a house band gig in Lewisburg outside of Nashville. We played mostly covers but a few originals, one of which, “Beer Man”, became sort of a local crowd favorite. A few labels came out to see us play, and I signed a deal with Sony in 2004 and put out 2 albums, but got dropped in the Sony/BMG merger along with 90% of the Sony roster.

In the meantime, I had several songs cut by other artists including Eric Church, Montgomery Gentry, and Steel Magnolia. In 2010 I met a young artist named Cody Johnson and started writing and recording with him and since then we’ve recorded 8 or 9 albums together. In 2011 I got custody of my daughter and stopped touring, mainly focusing on writing, producing, and raising my daughter. I’ve produced several artists over the last 12 years. Mostly, I write and record with the artists I produce. I still play a handful of shows a year, and my wife and I live on a farm west of Nashville.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
There were many times I thought of quitting and moving back to Texas, but I’m stubborn. It was tough when I first moved here because it seemed like everyone I met was an artist and a songwriter. I came to town, a big fish from a small pond, and realized I was surrounded by people much more talented than I was. But it raised the bar, and eventually made me better. My first jobs in town paid $8/hour; I lived in a shack with no running water, on friends’ couches, in a tiny camper trailer, in a barn loft…when I signed my record deal with Sony I was living in a 12’ by 14’ shed behind a friend’s house. Even while on the road touring I was barely scraping by, trying to pay a band, a manager, an agent, and a bus lease while burning up the highway coast to coast.

After I lost my record deal I was devastated and jaded. After an artist loses their deal, they are just “used merchandise”, and nobody in town will touch you. I came very close to kissing Nashville adios and moving to Mexico. Seriously. That was my exit strategy. I was was done with Nashville. But then I got custody of my daughter and met Cody Johnson. Since then I’ve worked with some incredible artists and have lived my best life so far. Funny how we sometimes have to fail at our own dreams before God reveals our real purpose in life.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I’m a songwriter and music producer. Basically, I look at producing like being a building contractor, helping a client build a house from the ground up. When I start working with an artist, we discuss music style, direction, who they are as an artist, who their target audience is, and what they want to say with their music. The biggest challenge is matching a song to an artist that will connect with their audience in an impactful way.

Sometimes the artist has a clear, detailed idea of what they want and how to get there, sometimes they leave a lot of that up to me. We will write songs, find outside songs, rewrite songs, map out each song individually, hand pick and book the musicians, engineers, studio, and spend countless hours tracking the band, doing vocals, overdubs (recording and adding tracks to the originally recorded tracks), background vocals, tuning, editing, mixing, re-mixing, mastering, etc. Sometimes it takes a while to develop a level of trust and good communication with an artist because everyone has a different personality, and a different comfort level co-writing and working in the studio. I learn something from every artist I work with. I’m constantly learning, so I’m always a student of the craft. At the same time, a lot of my job is being a mentor; I’ve seen every aspect of the music business: I’ve been a struggling nobody, a recording and touring artist, a publisher, a band leader, a side musician, a hit songwriter, a shitty songwriter, a father, and husband, and I know first hand the highs and lows, the struggles and insecurities, and the overwhelming rush of triumph at that moment in the studio when you know you and your team have created something timeless and spectacular.

I feel like my experiences give me a lot of realistic perspectives when I work with an artist, and hopefully, I can help them avoid some of the mistakes I made along the way. I have a trustworthy team around me of publishers, writers, engineers, musicians, administrators, and label partners, and every project is a team effort. It’s “all ears on deck”.

The whole team is comprised of pros that set ego aside and stay laser-focused on the end goal: recording a great song that will impact the listener and escalate the career of a talented artist.

What matters most to you?
What matters most to me is family and friends. And sometimes your friends are your family. Having lived in Tennessee for 24 years, I’ve built a family around me of non-relatives, since all of my family and a lot of my closest friends are in Texas.

I spend as much time as possible with people I love and look up to, most of them are older and wiser and I feel like I’m always learning from them… these are the moments I try to soak in and cherish. And I do love working with and helping younger artists. At the end of the day, or the end of my trail, hopefully, I can look back on my life and say I contributed. I think it was Churchill that said, “we make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.”