Wyatt Durrette III, Matt McGinn Discuss Taking Top SESAC Honors

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Earlier this week, SESAC honored many of its star writers and artist-writers, including Wyatt Durrette III and Matt McGinn. McGinn was named Songwriter of the Year for his work on songs including Kane Brown’s “Homesick” and “One Thing Right,” while Durrette was honored as a co-writer on Luke Combs’ “Even Though I’m Leaving,” which was also nominated for Song of the Year at Wednesday evening’s CMA Awards. MusicRow spoke to the writers about their accomplishments.

McGinn says he signed with SESAC around 2015, after meeting with Lydia Schultz and former SESAC exec Shannan Hatch.

“They made a great impression on me and that decision to sign with SESAC just keeps proving itself right,” he says. “Everyone over there is great and it is just very family-oriented and they do a really good job.”

SESAC’s president and COO Kelli Turner surprised McGinn with the news of his recent win at her home, where McGinn visited under the ruse that he was picking up a cake. McGinn calls his contribution to “One Thing Right” a “happy accident” during a writing retreat.

“I was upstairs writing the chorus with Kane and Jesse Frasure ,and then went downstairs to write another song for the record, and he and Jesse and Josh Hoge finished the song,” McGinn recalls. Brown later invited rapper Marshmello to be part of the track and it has been certified 2x multi-Platinum by the RIAA.

SESAC Songwriter of the Year Matt McGinn

McGinn also co-wrote Brown’s hits including “What Ifs” and “Heaven.”

“‘What Ifs’ was awesome and it did a lot of good things for all of us,” McGinn says. “And then we all wrote ‘Heaven.’ We all connected as writers and I’ve been lucky enough to continue to get to be a small part of the team.”

When asked what advice he has for new songwriters, McGinn says to thine own self be true. “I think the best advice I was given was from Shane McAnally. He said just to stay yourself. I’m a huge fan of all these writers that are far more successful or have just been doing it longer and have amazing track records. But they’re better at doing their thing than you are. And I feel like for a long time I tried to chase people and be a young version of them and that just doesn’t work. So I think the best advice was to figure out what you do best, and do it the best you can, because no one’s going to do it better.”

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Meanwhile, Wyatt Durette III was honored as a co-writer on the Song of the Year “Even Though I’m Leaving.”

“It was a good day,” he says of the writing session, which took place at Southern Ground studios. “I was in the mood to write that kind of song. My son was getting up around the college years and my father is getting up in years too. I was thinking of the idea of writing a song about, even though you go out and leave, I’m always right here. And that was my idea. Luke had that title, that hook, ‘Even though I’m leaving, I ain’t going nowhere,’ that he had been holding on to and it fit.”

“So we were like, ‘Okay, let’s write that.’ And then two to three hours later, we had it. It was one of those where you’re looking at each other and go, ‘Wow, this is powerful.’ You can kind of tell and everybody gets a little wide-eyed about halfway through the song, but yeah, it was great. It’s a lot of fun.”

SESAC Song of the Year winner Wyatt Durette III

The track depicts a young boy who is afraid of his father leaving the room at night, with the song‘s storyline revolving around scenarios of loss, culminating in the father’s death.

“We are all big fans of old country, and love story songs. And that has disappeared a little bit. Not saying the other stuff isn’t great too, but just that [style of songwriting] doesn’t seem to be as mainstream,” Durrette said.

Durrette grew up listening to country and bluegrass music, and wrote his first song around age 10. “Writing was always a release. I never really wanted to be onstage or anything like that.”

Durette was running a bar in Atlanta when he met Zac Brown. Their musical kinship eventually helped bring Durette’s music to Nashville. Durette spent many years on the road with Zac Brown Band, and co-wrote many of the group’s hits such as “Colder Weather” and “Highway 20 Ride.”

Durrette was introduced to Luke Combs by River House Artists’ Lynn Oliver-Cline, who previously served as PRO rep for Zac Brown and Durrette, before becoming day-to-day manager for Zac Brown Band. Durette’s co-writes with Combs resulted in “Beautiful Crazy,” which earned Durrette SESAC’s Song of the Year honor in 2019.

“I’ll never forget the first day I wrote with Luke, when we wrote ‘Beautiful Crazy.’ Because someone had told me, ‘You got to be careful with Luke. He can sing any lyric and it will sound amazing.’ But music wise, we really liked the same kind of music, but more importantly, he’s a songwriter, a really good one. And he really cares about getting the song right. And he really cares that his songwriting peers consider him a good songwriter. And I think that’s why he’s having all the success.”

Durrette is unique in Nashville circles, in that he doesn’t play an instrument when he writes songs—no guitar, no piano. “I’ve never played an instrument in my life. For me the words and melody come at the same time. Like whenever I write anything, I sing it as I write it. So with Zac—because we’ve written hundreds of songs—I would just start singing and he would follow where I was going. And then we’d slowly make it a song and then bring it to the band and they would put their thing on it.

“Finding a melody, I think that’s one of my strengths. Because I don’t play an instrument I don’t get caged, thinking that this chord has to go to this chord and this melody can’t happen. And so it makes my mind a little bit easier to chase out-of-the-box melodies.”

Jessica Nicholson
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