Aubrie Sellers‘ 2016 album New City Blues — the record that, in part, led to her deal with Warner Music Nashville — takes its title from a line in its 10th song, “People Talking.” Co-written by Sellers and Mando Saenz, the song finds Sellers lamenting, “Sometimes I feel like I’m the new kid in town / That never had a chance to settle down.”
Saenz, a singer-songwriter himself goes way back with Sellers: Her stepdad, producer Frank Liddell, discovered Saenz and signed him to publishing and recording deals in the early 2000s. Below, he recalls writing “People Talking” with Sellers.
I’ve know Aubrie since she was a little girl. We wrote a few times together; maybe that was our second time to write together, or third.
She had the title idea … It didn’t take too long for us to write it — just kind of played some music. That’s one of the instances where you start with the title and build music around it. And she’s so great with melody, and lyrics too, it didn’t take that long to write that one.
An interesting thing about that one: You know, the title of her record is New City Blues, and they pulled that from an actual lyric within that song, so that was kind of cool — it’s kind of a title track; not really, but sort of.
Writing with artists can be cool just because you don’t have to really pitch [the finished song] to them; if they like it, they like it. And Frank, who also produced her record, really liked that from the get-go; he really thought it would be good to record, and they did, not surprisingly, a great job.
It’s hard not to [see Sellers’ parents in her, musically speaking], but then again, she’s very much her own thing. She has her own unique approach to music and sound, and I really think she’s a naturally gifted songwriter … She’s got the genes, but she’s also got a lot of integrity, and she’s very much her own person. It’s great to see her progress and grow the way she has, and I’m proud of her.
This Article Was Originally Posted at www.TheBoot.com
