Nashville musician Andrew Leahey is back on track following brain surgery in 2013, when a tumor was discovered on a hearing nerve. Recovery kept him off the road for a while, but now he’s picking up where he left off with a new album, Skyline in Central Time, scheduled for release via Thirty Tigers on Friday (Aug. 5).

Over the past few years, Leahey has balanced several careers—one as an independent rock ‘n’ roller, another as a side musician, and yet another as a freelance journalist who frequently covers country music. Leahey will showcase his new music (credited to Andrew Leahey & The Homestead and produced by Ken Coomer) on Thursday at 10 p.m. at the Basement in Nashville.

Leahey and MusicRow caught up over coffee in Germantown to talk about assembling the right team, chasing melodies, and keeping a positive attitude.

MusicRow: What was the vibe in the studio when you were making the record?

Leahey: The room itself was a brand new studio. Ken Coomer had built his own place in East Nashville called Cartoon Moon and we were his first clients. So I think it was a good combination of getting to know each other and getting to know his new space.

Plus it was the first time we had done anything that serious since the operation that I had. And he had an operation very similar to what I went through. He had a heart attack at Exit/In in late 2013, right when I was having my operation. He had stents put in and he’s good now, but he and I were both in an equivalent place, trying to do something cool and not waiting ‘til tomorrow but trying to get it done it now. We had 10 days to get 11 songs but I think that wound up helping us too. No time wasted.

How much rehearsal time did you do with the band?

It was my band at the time and we had a lot of rehearsal time. Ken Coomer played drums also. He came over to my house and worked with us on arrangements. We got it to the place where we were could walk in and knock it out in a couple takes. I wish we did that more. That’s the thing about touring so much. You discover what works with your songs and get them to the maximum level.

Most of those songs I had been touring on for a long time. We were planning on making the album in 2013, then I got sick, so we had to put the brakes on for a while. So, that was a long time coming. And then it took a year and a half to get the album placed, with Thirty Tigers on board.

You had a lot of business decisions that needed to be made.

Yeah, it took a long time to get the right team and take all the meetings, and to find a label that wasn’t afraid of the fact that I had a hole in my head, or that wasn’t cagey about loaning money to us.

I was trying to heal plus trying to work a lot to get my crazy insurance bills paid, and then trying to figure out how to take this album that I thought sounded great and to do something other than put it up on iTunes myself and say, “Hey, it’s out,” and then two weeks later it’s nowhere.

When you moved here, what did Nashville represent for you?

I probably mistakenly viewed it as a country-only town. I grew up in Virginia and then moved up to New York and interned at Spin magazine, which was my dream. That was awesome. Then Spin ended up getting sold and the editors I worked under either left or got kicked out.

So after a year and a half of bouncing around trying to get a music journalism job, I got an offer to go to work at AllMusic in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I moved there with my wife and spent a couple of years there before I moved here. Working at AllMusic was very cool. A lot of product came in and I was listening to a ton of albums and writing 300 pieces a year at least. I think that kickstarted my own songwriting engines again. I had allowed those to die down a good bit.

So I started writing songs and wanted to be somewhere that was more of a music town. I had already been to New York and that was too expensive, and I didn’t want to go to L.A. And I missed being in the South in a way that I didn’t I could. Nashville looked like a place that was more comfortable than what I knew, but also new to me.

One thing that struck me on this album is your strong sense of melody. Does that come naturally to you?

That’s what generally comes first. If I can chase down a melody without even playing it on an instrument for as long as I can, that makes me the happiest. Then you get a song that is driven by that. Once you get a guitar in your hands, you wind up unconsciously doing what you’re used to doing. Sometimes a good melody will dictate that you do just two chords for the whole song, but if you’re writing the chorus first, you would never allow yourself to be that simple. I try to let the melody guide it as much as I can.

There’s also an optimism I noticed in these songs and a lot of joy.

Yeah, it’s a story that has a good ending. I wouldn’t want to go back and relive that story, but it’s mine and I’m going to make the most of it and turn it into a source of light.

Sony/ATV Music Publishing employees are working just as hard to benefit their communities as they do to benefit their songwriters.

Over the past two weeks, 70 Sony/ATV Music Publishing employees volunteered nearly 300 service hours for six volunteer projects as part of Sony/ATV’s annual Community Outreach Weeks.

They worked with the Nashville Humane Association, which is committed to finding responsible homes, controlling pet overpopulation and promoting the humane treatment of animals. Sony/ATV staffers spent time playing with animals and bathing puppies. A few puppies were even adopted by some of the Sony/ATV volunteers.

Staffers teamed with United Way’s Stuff The Bus Days of Action to help collect and distribute school supplies to at-risk children in the Nashville area.

They also worked with The Next Door, which provides services for women and families impacted by addiction, mental illness, trauma or incarceration. Sony/ATV staffers organized closets, made encouraging cards, and served lunch to women participating in the program.

For Nashville’s Zoo at Grassmere, staffers worked with the horticulture staff to pull weeds and pick vegetables. The vegetables were later sorted and given to the animals to eat.

The Nashville Public Library recently launched the Studio NPL learning lab, which offers technology-driven learning environment for teens ages 12-18. Sony/ATV Staffers helped teens with photography, live instruments and music production.

Staffers worked with Cumberland River Compact, which aims to enhance the health of the Cumberland River and its tributaries. Staffers canoed down the Cumberland, picking up trash and helping to beautify the river.

Sony/ATV’s Vice President of Global Human Resources Angel Stewart commented “Volunteering is one of our team building efforts and one of the most highly-rated activities amongst our staff. Not only does it strengthen our team, but it also connects us to each other and our community. I’m proud of our employees and their involvement and dedication to these causes.”

U.S. music rights organization SESAC Holdings and Swiss collecting society SUISA are forming Mint Digital Licensing, the first transatlantic alliance between organizations that represent musical works on behalf of music publishers, songwriters and composers.

Starting in January 2017, the two companies will work closely together to license and administer the rights to use musical compositions in online music services under a joint venture. The collaboration aims to strengthen the competitive position and value of the music entrusted to SUISA and SESAC Performing Rights by copyright owners in the international online music market.

John Josephson, Chairman and CEO of SESAC Holdings said, “Mint Digital Licensing represents the first step in SESAC Holdings’ plan to build a multi-regional licensing platform at scale. The key to our success will be an unrelenting focus on our customer’s needs, access to the most comprehensive and accurate data available in the market and a best of breed technology solution. Like SESAC, SUISA is a leader in technology as well as a dependable and experienced partner. Together, we will significantly improve online licensing for creators, copyright owners and DSPs.”

Andreas Wegelin, SUISA CEO, added, “This partnership allows SUISA to expand its position in the online arena and remain autonomous in the long term in this competitive market. Furthermore, we will benefit from significant economies of scale in terms of data and IT infrastructure. In recent years, SUISA has invested heavily in updat-ing its IT infrastructure to be better positioned for the challenges of copyright licensing for the distribution of online music.”

Mint Digital Licensing will offer digital music services single source licenses for reproduction, distribution and performance rights for both SUISA’s and SESAC Performing Rights’ repertoires as well as the repertoires of music publishers seeking to license their catalogs across Europe and beyond.

It intends to provide licenses to online service providers such as YouTube, Apple, Spotify and others as well as administer licenses negotiated directly between music publishers and digital music services.

The integration of SUISA’s and SESAC Holdings’ expertise, data assets and technology allows a variety of improvements in multi-territorial licensing:

• Increased Song Matching: Continuous matching improvements and increased matching rates ensure that rights holders will be identified and properly paid in a timely manner.

• Greater Transparency: Easy access for rights holders to review and manage their catalogs, licenses and royalty reports.

• Faster Payment and Reporting: Substantially reduced file processing times will allow for even faster usage processing and royalty payment to copyright owners.

The joint venture’s database will include approximately 11.5 million documented works by SESAC Holdings and 4.5 million by SUISA, over 21 million sound recordings pre-linked to musical compositions by SESAC Holdings and 4 million by SUISA and over 60 million sound recordings by SESAC Holdings and 36 million by SUISA, which will form the basis of Mint Digital Licensing’s offerings.

SUISA and SESAC believe the cooperation, combination of data and pooling of repertoires embodied by the joint venture is consistent with the European Commission’s expressed wish for cooperation among music rights organizations to enable users to negotiate licenses with as few companies as possible. This new, multi-territorial platform will maximize efficiency for music users, music publishers, songwriters, composers and other rights owners while vastly improving transactional transparency.