With collaborations as a sought-after songwriter, including credits with and for Camila Cabello, Dan + Shay, Halsey and Keith Urban, Grammy-winning singer/songwriter Emily Weisband sits down with Variance’s Ethan Ijumba to discuss her career as a singer-songwriter, the process when collaborating and composing for herself and others, and most recent single and video for her newest track “Butterfly” featuring Little Big Town’s Karen Fairchild.

About the song, Emily explains, "For my entire childhood, all I watched were movies about meeting the ONE. The excitement, the rollercoaster of emotions, the rainbows and the unicorns, and everything feeling right in the world. As fun as the butterflies are when you’re first falling in love, they DO fly away and that’s when love becomes a CHOICE. I wanted to write a song about staying even when the feelings fade, and I’m so honored that Karen wanted to sing this song with me. We felt like telling this story from both the perspective of a woman in a new relationship and a woman who’s been married for years was a really powerful way to share it."

Be sure to watch the full video below as well a stream “Butterfly” on all platforms. 

Ethan Ijumba:
So, Emily, you've worked with Noah Cyrus, BTS, Camilla Cabello, and Thomas Rhett, among others. Coming out of Virginia, you get an eclectic mix of artists such as Ava Max, Chris Brown, D’Angelo, Jason Mraz, Ella Fitzgerald, Missy Elliott, and Timbaland among just a whole bunch of musicians and entertainers. Did you have any specific ones that you listen to music-wise, whether it's from Virginia or just in general that made you want to be an artist one day?

Emily Weisband:
Yeah, my dad plays music and my desire to bond with my dad is kind of what got me started singing and writing songs just around the house. I remember I was seven years old and there was this artist, Sara Groves, who was the musical guest at this church. I remember thinking as well as seeing this her playing the piano and playing the entire church a song she wrote and thinking, wow, I wanna do that. So I listened to a lot of her music growing up and I grew up loving musical theater, I grew up loving Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, timeless music that lasts that people still cover today like, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, and Perry Como I just grew up listening to all that stuff. My dad also loves country music so I listened to 90’s country and it was so cool to see all these different artists. It just depended on which artist I was listening to that. I would always pretend to be them. Especially female artists, I remember playing in that first Aly And AJ like Into the Rush album, I loved them and I specifically remember being like 12 or 13 with a hairbrush doing the classics or I had this little mini electric guitar just pretending I was then in a stadium. So I think the idea of performing and being an artist was always this attractive thing to me. It's just so exciting and thrilling and I loved putting on shows around the house, I was that kid who when all the family came over I'd be like, guys, let's go, put on the show. So I always had that personality, but it wasn't really until I was in Nashville that I decided that wasn't for me. I kind of suppressed it and just decided that even if I was an artist one day like I need something to say first and I didn't feel like I had anything to say I was just kind of making music to make music.

EI:
Before going deeper into that, was there a person or any specific source that discouraged you? Was it just yourself telling you you're not good enough? Was it someone else? Was it just the idea that this could be a lot harder than? Because everyone has a reason on why they do things, but no one voices on what made them not want to do anything? 

EW:
That's a great point. Well, before I moved here my dad was always like, it's a heartbreak town. He would tell me tales of how music broke people's hearts and its 'cause that’s the music industry; it's a heartbreaker. You hear “no” way more times than you hear “yes” and so I think you kind of have to be somewhat psycho to move to a town like Nashville or L.A. or New York, any city you would move to and try to make a dream come true you've got to be a little psychotic and think it's gonna happen. But when I got to Nashville, I initially was at Belmont and I remember recording a few things here and there and thinking like, oh, I'll make a little EP or whatever. It was my publisher, Rusty, he saw me play at a writer showcase, my freshman year of college and a year. He said, “Hey, you're not ready yet, but I see a lot of potential and you come to my office in a year and play me whatever you've been working on in the last year."

So I was probably 19 when that happened. When I went back to his office after that year and played him some more songs and he said, well, what do you want? I remember him saying, “oh, I want to be a songwriter and maybe an artist one day, but like, I don't know”. After that, he said, “listen, it will be a lot easier for me to brand you if I know what you want. If you're an artist too, I can't go to Thomas Rhett or Keith Urban or Lady A and say, “Hey, this girl she's the next big songwriter, I want to get her in the room with y'all, she's there for you” because, in the back of their head, they're going to be thinking is this girl here for me or is she doing her artists? Because if she's doing her own thing, saying all this I’m just going to write with some writers who are there for me, not in a selfish way, but just in a that's their business. So he was like here's the thing, you could be an artist there are a million girls in this town who are artists and they come here and they're great singers and they're cute and they do whatever, or you could be a songwriter and perfect that craft and I could get you in the room with big artists in a year and if you ever did organically sprout out of that process, we cross that bridge when we come to it you’d have a story to tell. Whatever artist kind of artist you are, is going to sprout out of what kind of songwriter you are anyway, and when he said that it just kind of really clicked in me of like, I don't want to chase some flashy character that is some artists when I don't really have anything to say at this point. He told me, I support you either way I just want to know what to tell people and if I tell them she's a songwriter and an artist too, it’s a little harder. It's like when a brand has a disconnect, you know, it was just a very streamlined brand so he could sell me properly. 

EI:
Since making the decision how was the process and what did you learn most from it?

EW:
It was honestly the best advice that I could have gotten when I dove into songwriting, we put it in literal legal writing in my deal that I was not complete a writer. I just went down the songwriting journey and I very, very quickly was confirmed in my decision as I started to write for more artists and go on the road with artists and kind of see their struggle and how making music is such a small part and the actual creative process is such a small part of being an artist. It's definitely the most fun part, but there's touring, networking, and a whole other world of things that artists have. So when I moved here to make music, I think that if I had chosen artist path back then, I wouldn't be making the music I'm making today because  I wouldn’t have been seasoned enough as a human to say any of that stuff and I also would have just been worn out on the grind that I just wouldn’t have a passion for, because I didn't feel like I had a story to tell. Sure enough within the first year of getting to see that not as glamorous side of an artist career, by getting to work with them behind the scenes I was kind of like, man, I got it good. I can just hide in the studio, be backstage, help these artists I felt so much purpose in helping them tell their stories and being a service to them in that way, I was very, very, very happy there. So, honestly, when I did shift into an artist's life it's been, like, a very funny journey doing that because I loved my strictly just writing life so much. 

EI:
So, since doing that, how do you feel about your current state as an artist and as a songwriter? Do you see yourself as one more than the other or used to prefer to write rather than record and release?

EW:
I'm absolutely in love with sharing my perspective in my story and my point of view and I am truly in full artist mode. But, I will say a huge part of my artistry that I think I abandoned in the first couple of releases I did is that part of my artistry is collaborating with so many other people and getting to help them tell their stories, to kind of insert my perspective into theirs to create this thing that, you know, the people of the world can listen to. So, I think in my past couple of releases, I've kind of just said, alright goodbye to collaboration, goodbye to writing for other people I'm just doing me now and it's a very lonely place for me just talk about me all the time and think about me all the time and to not make music with my friends and having to meet all these strangers and sell myself to all these strangers when I have a whole community here in Nashville, the part of the music industry that is my friends and know me and love me and support me. So I think my last release in this next era of music that I'm going to put out is truly to embrace the songwriting part of my career. It's going to be a big part of my artistry because it's made me the artist that I am is writing for all these other people and collaborating with my friends and truly learning how to empathize through that process to where I can create the music that I know is going to connect to audiences. After all, I've been practicing this whole putting myself in someone else's shoes to make music. So now to be able to do that through my point of view and celebrate that whole part of my career, I'm at this point, I'm writing for myself very faithfully and I'm also really starting to write with my friends again.

EI:
So regarding your artistry in terms of other artists and working and collaborating with other songwriters, is there anyone you aspire to collaborate with one day as well or just work with or write a song for or just sing with? 

EW:
That was an amazing question and I hate this question, but only because I never answered in the way I want to and then I get off the thing and I'm like, damn, I should have said this. But I love, I love, I love, I love and I’m vibing right now to Giveon I think that would be so cool. I'm also a very huge Billie Eilish stan and probably a lot of people say that but I just think like her emotion and my directing could just be a very cool combo that I would love to explore one day. Truly, I'm a very versatile writer and so my dream collabs are probably from a whole range of genres. I truly do love them all and I would love to do a song with Adele.

EI:
With that being said, you've written for several artists, you've got Jeremy Camp, Lauren Alaina, Jordan Davis, Riley Clemmons among others. So if not to say a favorite, is there anyone you feel you work best with within a songwriting session?

EW:
Are you talking about just a songwriter or another artist? 

EI:
Let's go with both. 

EW:
Okay, songwriter-wise Cooper Brown, we could write every day and get an incredible song every single day. He's worked a lot on Little Big Town stuff and he's just, he's really talented, very musical, which is why I love working with him. Laura Veltz is a writer that I just, I'm always trying to bring her in on everything she is, like, therefore the artist, and I think that's what makes her such a great songwriter. She's written tons of songs from Maren Morris and  Lady A, and just she's incredible. Artist-wise, me and Sam Hunt speak a lot of the same language when we're writing, it's just very conversational, so I love working with him, Keith Urban is another one that every time we get in the room we get something great. You mentioned Jeremy Camp and we'll write three songs in one day when we get together, there have been times where we have taken a whole week and we'll get five songs in that whole week, and four out of the five at least will be on the record. We'll get on the record because we just, we seriously arrived me, him and this guy Jordan Sapp whose a producer. He does a lot of Christian stuff. So I mean, I truly like, I do believe in being an easy hang so I can usually get along with pretty much anybody and usually make magic happen with anybody just because when I go into a room I want to be what does this room need and I want to be that. 'm not going to get in like lyric wars or melody wars with somebody.  I try to be someone that people want to write this again because it's fun and easy and that kind of thing but those are some of my favorites.  

EI:
So then since you write for artists and genres ranging from pop, country, and Christian among others. Do you feel that you specialize in writing a specific category more than the other when it comes down to the genres? 

EW:
Honestly no, they truly are like food groups for me. You know, you can't just eat chicken all the time. You need to eat your veggies and you need dessert. I always say, my chicken is country music, my veggies are Christian music, and my dessert is pop. At the end of the day we're all human beings, so the very bottom underlying truth of every song all ties back to the same source. As human beings, we all feel the same stuff no matter where we grew up for what we believe, we're all feeling the same things and longing for the same things, and so it's not very hard for me to skip between genres. It all feels like a very similar process. There are just certain commercial rules that have to learn. So in Christian music, there are certain things you just don't talk about and I'm not ragging on Christian music, but I always say you can be broken but you can't say why and you kind of got to be fixed by the time you're talking about it. That's usually the rules there. and then in country music, I mean there's different rules there, it's like, you can talk about sex, but you gotta do it in like a PG-13 way.  Whereas I’m in a five-minute session last week, and it's like, “I have to wash my mouth out with soap after this”. But it's all the same emotion, it's all the same experience. It's just that I use a different set of rules when I'm writing each genre. I love writing country music because it's just such a storytelling situation. I love how emotional pop music gets and I like how positive and hopeful Christian music is so I do find a space for all of them. 

EI:
Is there anyone that you feel inspires you the most as a songwriter rather than just as an artist specifically, that made you believe? This is why I want to be a songwriter because of this person and how they create these kinds of images or just musical implementations and lyrics?

EW:
My lyric writing professor in college is Tom Douglas, he wrote, “House That Built Me”, he's incredible. So all of those kinds of classic Nashville hits. Hillary Lindsey was hot when I was going to college, I've always liked Nicole Gallien, and all these people that taught me how to write songs. My publishers made sure I was the shittiest writer in the room, but I always did kind of lean into the way that I write. But now, I'm finding myself being more inspired by writers and artists just because you've been in music long enough that you just kind of heard it all and you start feeling redundant, and then every once in a while you hear a songwriter or an artist who's just like, okay, that sounds different or what they're saying is different. One for me, I listened to the JP Saxe album yesterday and he just has a very unique way of speaking, you know, that he leans into and I admire and respect that as it was inspiring for me to listen to some of that music. Or someone like Kacey Musgraves who, when she came out on the scene, she was just really leaning into the way that she talks, the way that she thinks, and the way she grew up. I admire any artists who show that their music is an extension of who they are as a human. Rather than a fabrication of what they think their artistry should be so that's kind of been my go-to when I need some inspo. 

EI:
So then regarding your songwriting style, you involve a lot of personal and relatable themes that gives listeners a connection to your art and an emotional depth such as, “Out of this car”, “Love 2 Hard, or even “Psychopath” you kind of like really play on not just your emotions, but it kind of has a connection for other people to relate to. So when writing for others, do you find ease when writing from your perspective as well as theirs? Or do you find a struggle a bit when you approach it as let me hear more from what you're saying and how it can kind of like put it into words and them into lyrics? 

EW:
You know when I was just writing songs for their people solely, it was a lot easier for me to just help to get in their shoes and walk a mile in those, I found myself being more of an editor than anything else. Unless an artist just needed some support, I loved being in a room and watching an artist kind of drive it and be able to edit thinking, I think this could be better what if it said something like this or. But the main focus of what we're doing being their experience and then me trying to find that underlying truth in that experience that I could expand on, kind of like when you're talking to your friend at dinner and they say, oh this happened, dude that happened to me one time, and they said to me, me too you felt like this after, right? But just the way you talk at dinner you're expanding on it, so many lyrics come out of a conversation like that and you just kind of go off of that. But as I started putting out my music, I'm finding it harder and harder for me to get in the room and not feel very attached to my specific point of view on what we're writing about. I actually had to get very intentional about truly just being there for another artist because I've really kind of taken to me being able to control what's being said, how it's being said. I'm a very personal writer, but my constant journey is finding that thing that is so real to me and finding that shred of truth in that story that is true for everybody and then making that the heart of the song and just decorating it with the details of my life so that the heart is really what people can connect to when they hear the song. I enjoy doing it for me more than I enjoy doing for other artists at this point, just because I really embrace that. But I learned how to be empathetic in that way through writing with other artists and that's why that process I need to be a balanced human.

EI:
Speaking on your collaborating, you have a brand new single as well as a video featuring Little Big Town’s, Karen Fairchild. How exactly did this song come about regarding its influence on the composition process and the overall ideology behind it? 

EW:
Yeah, I’m in a relationship with an amazing guy we were friends for a few years before we started dating. So it was definitely a are we sure we want to ruin our friendship situation. But, I've always hated love songs, and honestly, I was dreading getting in a healthy relationship because how am I going to write on a song still without being heartbroken. So I've just been trying to lean into what relationships are, what my relationship is. Because, I've never believed love songs anyway their all like, I'm obsessed with you, like, you're everything to me, blah, blah, blah. It just never connected with me in an honest way of like, “really, you're obsessed with somebody all the time? Good for you girl but that's never been me”. So, I just don't believe in love songs. I honestly hate them when artists want to write them, I'm like, write that for somebody else. The never-ending trap to write a love song that doesn't sound freaking cheesy or just resorting to let’s just have sex. So anyway, I was kind of just thinking dating Dylan, I kind of realized like, “wow, just cause you to start dating somebody who doesn't mean it's all rainbows and butterflies all the time” now it’s a choice. Do we want to have a great night? Do we want to make magic happen tonight? Do we want to make romance happen tonight? Or doing on our phones on the couch? And sometimes just sitting is romantic. It's like safety and you have the comfort to do that. But I thought me and the love songs like they're cute, but like if I'm going to write one I want to write about the real side of love that the songs don't necessarily talk about and the movies don't necessarily show. For me, that was not a breakup, it's not a get-together, it's the mundane when the butterflies are, are gone and so I wrote that down and my phone and I wrote with Alysa Vanderheym and Steph Jones. They wrote this song. I did a couple of projects about ago called You're Cool With Me. Um but I write with them a bunch. I threw out the idea and we all just. Lisa started playing guitar we started vibing and we wrote the song in like 45 minutes was very fast And um, yeah, it was just very simple and honest and like, you know, it came quick and I showed my friends and he loved it and we were writing with Karen Fairchild one day and he said, “Em you got to show Karen that song that you wrote that you showed me” and I was like, “oh yeah, I'll just send it to you I don't want to bombard you”. So I texted it to her and she would text me every couple of weeks like for three months about how she loved this butterfly song, I think she kind of wanted it for a Little Big Town originally, and I was like, yeah, I'm going to do it. I remember sitting in my room and getting a text with her like 10 pm that said, “I’m obsessed with “Butterfly”, I've been listening to it for months and I still can't stop”. And I was like, well why don't you just sing it with me? But she was like, okay, cool, when can I come to the studio? She was very humble and I think she just really connected with the song from the other spectrum of it; I'm kind of new in a relationship and she's 15 years in 20 years in whatever she is. So, being able to sing about this very real part of love from the perspective of someone who's new in a relationship and someone who has been in one for a while, just seemed like a really beautiful bridge to join generations of people, in the fact that love is all the same.

EI:
So this song marks your third collaboration since previously working with Taurean Wells and Drew Baldridge. When collaborating with others, are you particular in terms of who you work with? Do you have a specific mindset like it has to be this person because it sounds like this in my head and hear how you want it?

EW:
When I started intentionally making music as an artist, the first couple of projects I did, I did not include collabs because I wanted to solidify my voice in my point of view and just kind of like get my story out there and get my voice out there a little bit. And so that when I did do a collab I wanted it to be very clear to the people listening what I brought to the table. I just felt like it would emphasize the magic of me collaborating with somebody even more.

EI:
So In a way a good kind of selfish.

EW:
Yeah, it was kind of selfish, I just didn't want to water down, I didn't wanna I didn't want to be a collab whore or chase any cloud or flash. I wanted to set my intention with my audience and say I have some stuff to say. I'll do it by myself, even like, I don't need anybody else to help me say it. Now that I've kind of done that, I'm really embracing my friends. I mean that's my biggest thing is like I want to make music with people who are in my life who I know do I make music with and know we can make magic together. Of course, as I evolve as an artist and go deeper into this journey, my hunger to collaborate with people will grow, but especially in the beginning stages of collapse, I wanted it to be for people who hear my collabs with people to know that I know these people in real life, we were there in this music you're hearing is authentically coming out of both of us. 

EI:
Basically, you didn't need a Ty Dolla $ign or DJ Khaled-based career to start as featuring Emily Weisband over and over and being a remix junkie.

EW:
Yeah exactly It's not like, oh I paid this person to be on this song and it sounds like this and it's whatever, we would probably never talk on the phone in real life. When I’d rather have it as I have something I want to say, they have something they want to say and we've joined hearts on this song, and here's what it is and how it sounds. So, I am looking forward to doing more of that, more collaborations, meeting new people, and collaborating with new people. I'm not saying I'm closed off to any of that, I'm just saying at this stage I'm at in building my fans and building my story and my point of view, it was important to me because I didn't want to fabricate, the whole collab process in the beginning.

EI:
So, regarding your credits as a songwriter and artist, you got our RIAA certified Records, accumulated millions of streams, as well as a Grammy Award. Do you have any set goals or expectations as a writer and an artist respectively that you're trying to obtain or achieve? 

EW:
Well, definitely touring is under short-term goals, touring would love to start meeting the people who are listening to my music and putting it in new ears, and just being able to connect in the way that I set out to do. Long term I want to win. and EGOT the Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony. When I'm 50, I will be living in New York writing musicals, there's no 100% when I will be doing it I'm just gonna keep sharing my story and music and doing what I do and doing it with my friends and I'm really trying to just do what I love and be happy and not let the grind take over the happiness because it is the coolest freaking job, and I want to bask in that. 

EI:
That’s amazing and honestly and hopefully, it's all going great things that we see from you and thank you again for your time.