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Listen "142 – How to Succeed as a Songwriter – with Award-Winning Singer-Songwriter & Producer Troy Kokol"
Episode Synopsis
Sometimes, it might seem like building a music career is all about the hustle. But sometimes, you just need to let the opportunities come to you.
In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I interview award-winning Canadian singer-songwriter Troy Kokol, who shares his journey as a songwriter and how he’s been able to make songwriting his full-time gig.
Download the PDF Transcription
Podcast Highlights:
00:34 – Who is Troy Kokol?
03:00 – Revenue streams you can create with songwriting
05:10 – How do you get into writing songs for others?
07:36 – When opportunities come to you (and not the other way around)
10:16 – Do you have a team helping you?
11:51 – How to write hits and become a professional songwriter
17:52 – Being prolific vs. being perfectionist
19:58 – Is writer’s block real?
22:56 – Getting passed analysis paralysis and staying true to yourself
24:07 – What are your thoughts on the Calgary music scene?
28:05 – Grants and funding for musicians
29:31 – What is Calgary Songsmiths?
33:21 – Concluding thoughts
Transcription:
D.A.: Today we’re chatting with award-winning Candian singer, songwriter, and producer, Troy Kokol. How are you today Troy?
Troy: Doing good. Doing very good, David.
D.A.: Awesome. Thanks for joining me. I was trying to learn a little bit about you for this conversation but you're a bit of a mystery online, so I would love for you to take a moment to share about your background, who you are, and what you're up to.
Troy: Yeah. So, I started late in the business. I didn't pay my dues like everybody else. I had a job and was just going about my life, and we had a fortunate break with songwriting.
It's a super long story but ultimately, what ended up happening was a song that we wrote was cut by a Canadian artist with a brand-new label, brand new artist, and it blew up. It did as good as a song could have in that type of situation.
And so, all of a sudden, we were thrust from doing a day job thing to like, “Oh, okay. I guess we're songwriting now.” And so, that was about 10 years ago. A little over 10 years ago.
And so, from there we just have evolved. It's evolved into songwriting. I started producing and then of course the more you start singing, the more you start doing your own stuff.
Right now, what we do business wise is pretty broad. I'm an independent artist as well. I mix, and master, and produce, and record all my stuff myself but I also produce, mix, and master for other artists. And most of the stuff that we do and most of the things that we have had success with are in the country pop genre but I do work in folk as well with folk artists.
It all feels new even though it's been 10 years. Like I say, I never suffered sleeping in the van down by the river. Nothing like that. I kind of have the best of both worlds. And so, yeah, I'm really enjoying it.
And we make our home here in Calgary and we decided to do that a long time ago. We could have moved south and that was an option but we decided that Calgary was going to be the place where we’re going to set our roots and just do what we could from our home. And so, we've been really glad to do that.
D.A.: That's awesome. It strikes me that there are a lot of opportunities in songwriting just from having talked to a few other people out there who are doing the same thing.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but sort of what I'm seeing is it actually offers quite a few different revenue streams, right? Because you could be writing songs for others and collecting royalties on that, but you could also be making your own music. And like you said, you're producing other people's music too.
So, creating more opportunities for yourself really allows you to draw from a bit of a bigger pool, right?
Troy: That's right. I think the other part of it is that when we got in the business, it was a different world. And now, especially because of the digital era,
In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I interview award-winning Canadian singer-songwriter Troy Kokol, who shares his journey as a songwriter and how he’s been able to make songwriting his full-time gig.
Download the PDF Transcription
Podcast Highlights:
00:34 – Who is Troy Kokol?
03:00 – Revenue streams you can create with songwriting
05:10 – How do you get into writing songs for others?
07:36 – When opportunities come to you (and not the other way around)
10:16 – Do you have a team helping you?
11:51 – How to write hits and become a professional songwriter
17:52 – Being prolific vs. being perfectionist
19:58 – Is writer’s block real?
22:56 – Getting passed analysis paralysis and staying true to yourself
24:07 – What are your thoughts on the Calgary music scene?
28:05 – Grants and funding for musicians
29:31 – What is Calgary Songsmiths?
33:21 – Concluding thoughts
Transcription:
D.A.: Today we’re chatting with award-winning Candian singer, songwriter, and producer, Troy Kokol. How are you today Troy?
Troy: Doing good. Doing very good, David.
D.A.: Awesome. Thanks for joining me. I was trying to learn a little bit about you for this conversation but you're a bit of a mystery online, so I would love for you to take a moment to share about your background, who you are, and what you're up to.
Troy: Yeah. So, I started late in the business. I didn't pay my dues like everybody else. I had a job and was just going about my life, and we had a fortunate break with songwriting.
It's a super long story but ultimately, what ended up happening was a song that we wrote was cut by a Canadian artist with a brand-new label, brand new artist, and it blew up. It did as good as a song could have in that type of situation.
And so, all of a sudden, we were thrust from doing a day job thing to like, “Oh, okay. I guess we're songwriting now.” And so, that was about 10 years ago. A little over 10 years ago.
And so, from there we just have evolved. It's evolved into songwriting. I started producing and then of course the more you start singing, the more you start doing your own stuff.
Right now, what we do business wise is pretty broad. I'm an independent artist as well. I mix, and master, and produce, and record all my stuff myself but I also produce, mix, and master for other artists. And most of the stuff that we do and most of the things that we have had success with are in the country pop genre but I do work in folk as well with folk artists.
It all feels new even though it's been 10 years. Like I say, I never suffered sleeping in the van down by the river. Nothing like that. I kind of have the best of both worlds. And so, yeah, I'm really enjoying it.
And we make our home here in Calgary and we decided to do that a long time ago. We could have moved south and that was an option but we decided that Calgary was going to be the place where we’re going to set our roots and just do what we could from our home. And so, we've been really glad to do that.
D.A.: That's awesome. It strikes me that there are a lot of opportunities in songwriting just from having talked to a few other people out there who are doing the same thing.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but sort of what I'm seeing is it actually offers quite a few different revenue streams, right? Because you could be writing songs for others and collecting royalties on that, but you could also be making your own music. And like you said, you're producing other people's music too.
So, creating more opportunities for yourself really allows you to draw from a bit of a bigger pool, right?
Troy: That's right. I think the other part of it is that when we got in the business, it was a different world. And now, especially because of the digital era,
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