Trent Dabbs – You Sing I Write

“The first writing session that we had was the easiest and most comfortable co-write you could ask for,” Trent Dabbs told me on a warm day in February in Nashville sitting inside his publicist’s office on Music Row. He, of course, was talking about his Sugar & the Hi-Lows bandmate Amy Stroup.

Dabbs, a well-known solo artist and producer, formed Sugar and the Hi-Lows with Stroup in 2012 after several productive co-writes where he recalls the songs were practically writing themselves.

“The more that Amy and I would write, the more inspired we felt, the more the songs were taking shape and getting better,” he adds. “I personally never felt like we plateaued as writers. We were only gaining momentum.”

Meanwhile, Stroup remembers her first co-write with Dabbs as being one of her favorite co-writes ever. One of the songs they wrote, “This Can’t Be the Last Time” appeared on their self-titled debut in 2012 after both artists decided it was time to start a band together.

While they’ve been together for a few years now, Sugar & the Hi-Lows’s sophomore album High Roller marks a new journey. The duo have further cemented their reputation as a must-see live act and dates opening for Kacey Musgraves continue to get their music out to a much bigger audience. The title track they wrote with Barry Dean, who Dabbs previously wrote Ingrid Michaelson’s “Girls Chase Boys” with, which also happened to be the first co-write for the duo.

“When he wrote with us, I could just feel that he was bringing out any shamelessness or quirks or anything that we had that we were hesitant to bring,” Dabbs admits. “I think that’s what makes a cool writer. We wanted to do a song that’s a straight up dance move that you can’t help but move around to. We played it at the Grand Ole Opry and no one was in their seat. There were people in the aisles. I felt like I was in The Blues Brothers.”

Stroup is quick to add that while writing “High Roller” she wanted to create a specific dance for the song inspired by her bandmates’ fancy footwork which is often highlighted at their live shows.

“I remember thinking, there are dances in the ‘60s, there are all these titles of songs, the shimmy and some of the ones we use in the second verse that we call out. ‘The Macarena’ was a huge song in the ‘90s. We were like, ‘Let’s try a modern day one that fits Sugar and the Hi-Lows.’”

So what exactly does that dance look like? The band show off some of their moves in the music video for the song above.

Highlights on the album include “Bees Love the Trees,” a title that Dabbs says was all Stroup’s idea. “I don’t know where in the world it came from,” he laughs, adding that it was a certain feeling they were chasing in their co-write.

“We were playfully calling out Music Row,” Stroup admits. “If you think about Johnny Cash style, if you remember, he released the Billboard article flicking off Music Row. There’s this badass sentiment, ‘We don’t need Music Row. Let’s be ourselves and see what happens,’” she says of the song.

While Stroup admits that they’re not flicking off Music Row per say, the song instead gives a nod to the rebels and artists who have forged their own path like Elvis Presley, Emmylou Harris, Jack White and Johnny Cash.

“There’s still something to offer when people seemingly don’t have all the attention of the corporate world looking on them. There’s still room for greatness coming out of these people time and time again,” she adds.

The album also includes “I Don’t Get High,” a song Dabbs says was an original way to tackle a love song, as well as “Right Time to Tell You” which is based around indecision. “If you listen to it, it feels like it has no finality but in the very last line it does,” Dabbs says. “It is about not wanting someone to leave, not letting them go. It’s a conversation I got from others.”

While Stroup admits that it’s scary to be so honest in co-writes, she says that writing with Dabbs allows her to say what she’s really feeling.

“There is some form of overcoming that, ‘Alright, this is how I feel and I’m just going to say it.’ Those are the songs that get me. I hope we can do that.”

Having frequently been compared to Carla Thomas and Otis Redding, it is this compliment that the duo don’t take lightly. In fact, Dabbs grew up listening to these classic singers and credits Redding and his father for influencing the band’s music.

“Listening to the classics like we did growing up and having a father say music isn’t good unless you can dance to it, helped us try to write songs that were more upbeat,” Dabbs said.

As for the comparisons to Redding and Thomas?

“You realize that you’re a ripple on a wave in an ocean and you’re just lucky to be in the ocean. I am thankful to be in the ocean and have influence on anyone,” he concludes.

Sugar & the Hi-Lows sophomore album High Roller is available now.

I first learned about 10 Out of Tenn seven years ago while researching for an interview with Matthew Perryman Jones, a Nashville-based singer-songwriter. Part of a collective of songwriters based in Tennessee, he told me of his decision to move from Atlanta to Nashville and how close-knit the songwriting community was in Nashville. I’d come to realize that years later after countless trips to Music City for work and fun, convincing myself more and more each time that it’s a city I need to live in.

During my recent trip there for Country Radio Seminar, I spent some time with singer-songwriter-producer Trent Dabbs, the founder of the 10 Out of Tenn tour concept and compilation albums and Amy Stroup, also a songwriter and one-half of the duo with Dabbs, Sugar & the Hi-Lows. They told me all about how 10 Out of Tenn formed and this Friday, April 24 the songwriter’s collective celebrates 10 years together with a performance at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium. You can purchase tickets here.

“It came about really when my wife and I were driving back from a road trip in Jackson, Mississippi and I was listening to all these different local albums and realized that all these people were so good and some of my favorites,” Trent explains. “They were all local so it morphed into the idea, ‘What if we put them all on a compilation and let everyone know that it’s not just gospel and country music here?’ I like to rate things out of 10 so I came up with the quirky name.”

He explains that during the first tour the idea of having everyone play on each other’s songs wasn’t completely dialed in and the tour included two bands and four solo artists. The next tour consisted of more solo artists and everyone played on one another’s songs. Trent admits that he didn’t have high expectations the first year and never imagined that 10 years later they’d be celebrating such a big milestone.

“I think what made the beauty of the whole concept work was not having high expectations,” he says with a laugh. “We were just excited to tour with people that we love. The camaraderie of those people in the community that was present the whole tour just made it that much more special.”

Amy Stroup is the newest member of the collective and recalls first seeing a Ten Out of Tenn show while she was in college.

“I remember seeing it and thinking, ‘Oh, wow there’s a different possibility in Nashville of how you can do music. It’s not just country or gospel. There’s a really unique independent movement,'” she recalls. “I was 100% inspired by it. Trent and I were co-writing, we started co-writing a couple years before I was a part of 10 out of Tenn so I was very familiar with Trent and Kristen and the work that they were doing for artists and trying to create a different genre for Nashville to be known for, a collective idea.”

Amy says Ten Out of Tenn gave many musicians, including herself, the ability to stay in Nashville and make music as well as collaborate and work on each other’s records.

“We were lucky that it was all natural relationships. I don’t think if you just cherry picked a bunch of artists that it would work, if at all,” Trent adds. “I think the sincerity of it made it what it was.”

Amy explains that there isn’t a Ten Out of Tenn tryout, and instead the artists collaborate rather organically, many having written together in the past or sang on each other’s records. “We’re already working with these people, we already love them. Why don’t we tour together? There’s enough of us already naturally working together and cheering each other on,” she says.

Matthew Perryman Jones shared the same beliefs seven years ago when I asked him how the Nashville music scene stands out from the rest of the country.

“You think of Nashville and you think of Music City. Most people just think of country music. When I first moved here, there was this really cool, underground group of artists and songwriters that were amazing and inspiring. This town, even in the last three years, has just beefed up its artist roster.

“People are moving here from other cities, even from New York and L.A. because the music scene definitely has more of a communal sense to it, people really support each other. In a way, I guess it’s different from other cities in that there’s definitely more of a concentration of artists here and the community is definitely really big and supportive. Not to say it doesn’t exist in other cities, I’m sure it does, but I think it’s a little more prevalent here. I think it’s helped me too, in a sense, because it’s a really inspiring city to live in.”

The Ten Out of Tenn show on April 24 will feature music from Andrew Belle, Butterfly Boucher, Trent Dabbs, Andy Davis, Katie Herzig, Tyler James, Matthew Perryman Jones, Jeremy Lister, Erin McCarley, K.S. Rhoads and Amy Stroup.