As the producer behind career-making records and singles from artistically daring country stars like Little Big Town, Eric Church, Zac Brown Band and Brandy Clark, Jay Joyce is one of the most in-demand music whisperers on Music Row. The thing is, he doesn’t work on Music Row, and he hardly sees himself as a country producer.
“[People] think the first record I ever made was Eric Church’s record,” says the 55-year-old Music City vet. “I made probably 100 albums before that.” Joyce looks like he could’ve been the lost fifth member of The Replacements as he sits behind the mixing board of his cathedral-like Nashville studio, stabbing out another cigarette butt. The ashtray piles higher as the conversation goes on.
Joyce moved to Nashville from his native Ohio in the late ’80s to make it as a rock musician, playing in such bands as In Pursuit, Bedlam and Iodine. And as a producer, his rock credits rival his country credits. He’s helmed records by Halestorm, The Head and the Heart, Coheed and Cambria, Cage the Elephant and The Wallflowers, to name a few. Currently he’s working on local popsmith and Rihanna collaborator Mikky Ekko’s next record.
You’re fairly low-profile. Is that for any particular reason? I get to do a lot of music that most people don’t. [Most producers] don’t get to bounce around like I do. I think it’s maybe because I don’t have, like, the “he’s the this guy’ [reputation]. … I think it works to my advantage to not [self-promote]. I don’t need it. I don’t have a shortage of people coming here wanting to work.
Is part of it that you’re the one behind the scenes? You don’t want to be the one out in front? Yeah. … When you’re in bands, you spend two or three years touring, building a following, cutting a record, writing the songs, and then it doesn’t work out. I did that three or four times — starting over. And in the meantime I was making records for friends. I was always the guy who had a four-track; I was always interested in [the production] side of it a lot, and always used that as my songwriting tool, as opposed to sitting around with an acoustic guitar and a notebook.
You moved here to play in rock bands. Nashville’s a pretty rockin’ town now. Nashville’s what we always wanted it to be [in the ’80s and ’90s]. For a long time, I was one of the only guys making rock in town.
Where do you fit in as a country producer? Applying [other stylistic elements] is a lot of fun. I don’t know country. I didn’t grow up on country, it’s not my language. If it’s the right artist, though, they get away with murder just for some reason. … I think I make my records — if they happen to be in the country market, cool.
So the country artists you work with are the ones who can get away with making music that’s outside the margins? A lot of artists go through the school, you know, Belmont, and they learn music business, and it’s just destroying everything. … Because they do all the right things and they’re trying to get this career, and I’m like, “You know, you might get there and just turn around and look around and go, ‘What the fuck did I [do]?’ You’re playing [CMA Fest] and it’s not even you because you’ve been trying to get this so-called success. That never happens. I’m not successful. That’s where it gets funny, because I know Keith Urban, he’s not successful. He’s still trying to do that next thing, man. … We always say around here, “We’re never gonna make it.”
