Inside Track: Zach Crowell

Although he grew up aspiring to be a hip‑hop producer, Zach Crowell has made it big by leaning into his Nashville roots.

“My career took off when I began combining urban music, which I loved and had been doing for a long time, with country, the music I grew up around in Nashville,” recalls Zach Crowell. “As soon as I started being honest and making the music that was naturally in me, my career officially started. It also felt very natural because this was right at the time when country music started going that way, with the group FGL (Florida Georgia Line) making country with hints of urban music, and R&B and rap rhythms in their flows and melodies.”

FGL broke through in 2012, as one of several acts that reshaped country with crossover hits. Two years later, Crowell enjoyed his first major success, and went on to become one of the leading country producers in Nashville. To date he’s enjoyed more than 30 number one hit singles, and most recently a number one album with Jelly Roll. Crowell’s remarkable achievements are built on a unique set of skills and musical sensibilities that he developed as a teenager and while working as a hip‑hop producer.

Coming Up

“I grew up in Franklin, south of Nashville, which is where I live today. My family wasn’t in the music business, but I knew people who were, and I was aware that making a living from songwriting was an option. My dad is an amateur musician, who still plays guitar, bass and sings in the band he started at middle school with his buddies. He did not teach me to play, but we were constantly in record stores buying whatever new music had come out. Loving music seeped in my bones more than playing it.

“At high school I was the DJ with a big stack of CDs. In the ’90s I was in love with hip‑hop and R&B. It was when Tupac and Babyface were huge, and Southern rap took off, with No Limit Records and Cash Money Records. When I graduated from high school, I wanted to make music, and bought an Akai MPC2000, had Cubase, and started making rap beats. I had no idea what I was doing. I gradually bought more pieces of gear, and collaborated with people in Nashville. We had a small record label and put out independent music. That got me into writing R&B as well. I wanted to be Mannie Fresh, who produced a lot of the Cash Money Records stuff! By that time I was selling beats to rappers around town for $50 or $100, and in 2008 I sold some beats to Jelly Roll.

“My cousin is a successful country songwriter named Josh Hoge. I was his tour manager when he was a pop artist around 2007‑8, which led to me also writing pop music. He was collaborating with Ashley Gorley, one of the most successful country songwriters of all time. I eventually started writing with Ashley as well, and he signed me to Combustion Music in Nashville. I was supposed to make urban pop, but there wasn’t much of an outlet for this in Nashville at the time, so someone at Combustion suggested I try and write some country songs, and put me in rooms with other writers.

“I had been producing for 15 years in the underground rap music world, and was able to quickly make professional‑sounding demos in a normal room. I could make a song in 30 minutes or an hour that was fresh and innovative, and this led to me getting into rooms with more heavy hitters really quickly because I had skills that not many people had in the Nashville community. I would make beats on a drum machine and play guitar loops and edit them in a computer and make it sound all weird, which stood out in Nashville. When I showed up in the country world, what I was doing was new.”

Urban Music

Crowell’s first big placement was still in urban music, when he co‑wrote and co‑produced the song ‘Confe$$ions’ by Christian rapper Lecrae in 2012. The next year he was a writer and producer on the song ‘Strong’ by country singer Will Hoge, which was followed by what Crowell now describes as his big breakthrough.

“The song that changed my life wasn’t a number one song. It was a Keith Urban song called ‘Cop Car’ that died somewhere on the charts. I wrote that with a new artist at the time, Sam Hunt, and a buddy of ours named Matt Jenkins. It was a very different song that really stood out. The whole of Nashville was talking about that song at the time. It had a cool vibe and a bunch of artists wanted to record it, including Sam. But I’ve always been a mega fan of Keith Urban, so when he called I was not going to say no. He wanted me to produce it as well. It was a huge opportunity, because I had no money and no big credits.”

‘Cop Car’ was released as part of Urban’s album Fuse in 2013, and as a single in January 2014, earning Urban a Best Country Solo Performance Grammy Award nomination. “That song put Sam, Matt, and I on the map in the Nashville songwriting community,” recalls Crowell. “The other thing that changed my life was meeting Sam Hunt. His career started around 2014 and quickly became a big deal. He was making bizarre country music and sold a lot of tickets and a whole lot of records. I’m forever thankful to him.”

Crowell has been at the heart of Hunt’s “bizarre country”, having co‑written and co‑produced almost all of the singer’s 14 singles to date, many of which have been to number one, as well as most of Hunt’s two albums, Montevallo (2014) and Southside (2020), and his mixtape Between The Pines (2015). As a writer and/or producer, Crowell has also been involved in many other high‑profile country releases from artists such as Carrie Underwood, Luke Bryan and Dustin Lynch. His work on Jelly Roll’s two most recent albums revived an old connection between the two of them, and helped the rapper become a star by crossing over into country singing.

Crossing Paths

There’s been a common theme in several recent Inside Tracks, with producers like Andrew Watt, Charlie Handsome, Sean Cook and Nevin Sastry starting out as guitarists, becoming interested in production through hip‑hop, and then crossing over into other genres. Crowell’s career has followed a similar path, except that he did not start out as a guitarist. “Charlie is a great guitar player, and has a rock background. So he plays country riffs in a different, fresh way. I’m not a great guitar player, so I have to make up for this in some other way. We all try something that makes us stand out a little bit, and I’ve realised that for me it’s the fact that I come from the underground rap world and have a hip‑hop record label background and did all the things associated with it, like pressing CDs, printing flyers and passing them out, and making our own music videos. I was also a tour manager. So I have a manager brain. I also think a bit like an A&R. A lot of songwriters are just focused on the song, but I can step out and look a little more at the bigger picture.

Zach Crowell works mainly from his own home studio in Franklin, near Nashville.

“I also do my own engineering in my studio, and have mixed about half of the hit songs I’ve had. I like to do everything myself, and again this comes from the DIY mentality of the rap label. I play guitar and keyboards and sing just enough to get by. I probably play more than a typical hip‑hop producer who relies on Splice. But I’m not a studio musician by any means. I can fumble my way, but I’m not shredding on guitar and I’m not shredding on keyboards. With digital you can play your parts and put them into place and add other bits and put pieces in and stuff. So, rather than be really good at one or two things, I can do a little bit of everything, and that is what makes me stand out.

“I’ve always had my own studio, starting with my very first apartment, when I had the MPC in the corner. I don’t like commercial recording studios with the big consoles, the booths, and the secretary out front in the hallway. I’m a bedroom studio guy. My dream in life was to be in the music business and be married and have kids and do music from home. I have that now and I couldn’t be more thankful. I have an awesome home studio. It’s cosy and I get a lot of compliments about it. Plus people like coming to your house. Nashville is very much a community, where everyone roots for each other, and people like seeing my wife and my kids when they come for sessions.

Zach Crowell: I leave the TV on all the time. If you solo and zoom in, you can hear it on every guitar track I record!

“I try to do everything at home. People come to my house for songwriting and recording sessions, though when I record a drummer or a whole band, I’ll go to a studio downtown, where someone else engineers. But I then immediately bring it back home, and work on it here in Pro Tools. I have a UA Apollo x8 and x16, so my interface is 24 channels in total.

“My main vocal mic is a Sony C800G, which is great, going into an API 512. I have some other mics, including a Shure SM7 and an Audio‑Technica AT4050, which is my main mic for recording acoustic guitars. I’ve used all the Royers and other mics on guitars, but I’m an Audio‑Technica guy. For electrics I use the Fractal Audio amp simulator. I rarely mic up a cabinet. For the music that I make, I can’t tell the difference between a cabinet or a simulator. For bass I use the Avalon U5 DI.

“I have a ton of mic pres that are all permanently plugged in. My Yamaha U1 piano is recorded using two Audio‑Technica AT4033s, via Neve mic pres. I can press record in Pro Tools for any keyboard or sound module or mic at any time. I hate having to get cables out and plug them in. My bottom line is to have a professional mic going into a professional mic pre, and I leave it at that. I’m more concerned with the shape of the chord or the tone of the vocal going in, rather than the gear grabbing it.

The Yamaha upright piano in Zach Crowell’s studio is permanently miked up using two Audio‑Technica AT4033s and ready to record.

“I have the C800G because once I started making money in the country world, I thought, ‘That’s the one all the rappers use.’ So I got it and I love it. But in the end it’s the vocal. I don’t care if it’s recorded with a Neumann or a C800. I like having good stuff, and it makes me feel professional, like I’m competing at a real level. But I can’t really tell the difference, and envy people who can. Many people think that Quincy Jones or Dr Dre had a magic button. But at the end of the day, it’s about the artist. It’s about the writer. It’s about the music. It’s about the hands on the guitar.”

Too Many Keyboards

Although he de‑emphasises the importance of gear, there are things in Crowell’s studio that he feels passionate about, like his Yamaha NS10 monitors. “Years ago I had big Alesis speakers that sounded terrible, so I went to a store called Nashville Used Music. The employee there convinced me to buy a set of used NS10s, but for rap music they are no good without a subwoofer. I thought I’d made a big mistake, but once I got my KRK subwoofer, I fell in love with the NS10s. I’ve been using them for 20 years now, with a Samson Servo 260 amp. I love them to death. I have some other monitors, like Mackies, and Yamaha HS8s, which I take with me on the road. But in my studio, it’s NS10s 100 percent of the time.

“I have a bunch of guitars and I’ve maxed out on keyboards and sound modules so much that I’m actually selling some on Reverb, like my Oberheim OB‑6. I just sold my Roland Jupiter‑8. Being a 2000s R&B guy, I got a Roland Fantom X8, a Korg Triton, a Yamaha Motif, an E‑mu Proteus 2000 and Planet Phatt, a Korg M1, and a Roland Juno‑60, which to me is the best synth ever made. It’s hard to beat. I’m a Roland fan, and the Fantom has been my main keyboard my entire life.

Zach Crowell has amassed an impressive collection of keyboards, including many ’90s and ’00s models that he remembers nostalgically from their first appearance!

“I love all those ’90s, ’00s urban music sounds and try to squeeze them into country songs. Sometimes I can, sometimes I can’t, depending on the song or the artist. Those are the keyboards I dreamt of when coming up, so I’ve just been buying them. Of course, I have all the soft synths in the computer as well — reFX Nexus and all the Spectrasonics Omnisphere and Native Instrument stuff. I learned years ago to surround myself with instruments and sounds, because you never know when you touch the right one at the right time that is going to inspire you. I like to be surrounded by sounds.”

Roll Call

Crowell’s studio was one of the places in which Jelly Roll’s last two albums were recorded. Whitsitt Chapel (2023) was a Billboard US album chart number three, while 2024’s Beautifully Broken reached number one. Crowell (co‑)produced 11 of the 13 tracks on the former, and 11 tracks of the 14 tracks of the standard edition of the latter album. He also has co‑writing credits on several of these songs.

“Jelly Roll started dabbling with country on Ballad Of The Broken [2021],” explains Crowell. “It really connected with people, so he then wanted to make a full country album, and as we knew each other, I was an obvious choice. During his entire career, Jelly had pieced albums together from various different sources with many different producers, but in this case they needed one person at the heart of everything who could deliver the entire album in a month. We made it happen, and Whitsitt Chapel became a big record with some really big songs on it.

Zach Crowell’s work with Jelly Roll on the albums Whitsitt Chapel and Beautifully Broken has helped to make the rapper a crossover country star.

“The new record, Beautifully Broken, was written and recorded more all over the place. We helped put together some writing camps here in town, and Jelly had writers on his tour bus. Getting vocals from Jelly was much harder this time around because he’s so famous and often away. So I made a couple of trips to meet him when he was in LA and we cut vocals at a big studio there. He and I also cut vocals here in my house, in both places using a C800. I’d say half of the tracks I produced were built piece by piece in my studio, and the other half were recorded with a band at [drummer] Grady Saxman’s studio.

“I really enjoy working with Jelly again. He’s a buddy. Of anyone in the music business I’m still working with he’s the one I’ve known the longest, ever since I sold beats to him for 50 bucks in 2008. To now be flying on private jets with him to sold‑out arena shows and doing Joe Rogan and all that stuff, he and I are just giggling the whole time going, ‘What’s happening?’ It’s unbelievable that his life has turned into that. Ten, 12 years ago, he watched my career take off, and he was still grinding in the underground, being a broke artist. So thank goodness he was able to then surpass all of us and turn into a superstar. It’s fun to see him do that!”

Stone Circles

One of the standout tracks of the album is ‘Heart Of Stone’, which Crowell produced and co‑wrote, and is a good example of his process. “This one came from a writing camp. I had about a dozen writers and I rented an Airbnb outside of town. People were spread over different rooms, and Jelly would bounce from room to room. In Nashville, every producer has their own mobile rig and engineers their own session, and they cut the vocals and build the tracks on the spot. My mobile rig consists of a laptop, Apollo Twin interface, Shure SM7 mic and my Yamaha HS8 monitors. It’s all I need.

“I was in a room with two great songwriters called Blake Pendergrass and Shy Carter, and had the basic idea for the song. I had a chord progression and a couple of melodies and some mumble lyrics. Everyone liked the idea, so the three of us and Jelly wrote the verse and chorus that day. At the end of the writing camp we put all the songs in a pile to see which ones would rise to the top. ‘Heart Of Stone’ was one of them, so a month later Jelly, Shy, Blake and I finished the song at my house.

“I then completed the production. Nathan Keeterle came in to replace my guitar parts. The next day I went to Aaron Sterling’s studio, Sound Of Sterloid, and had him play drums on a few songs. ‘Heart Of Stone’ was one of them. I then edited everything together at my studio and made it sound good. Jelly leaves the production process up to me. Every now and then he’ll chime in and say something. But for the most part, he trusts me to be me and I trust him to be him.”

Crowell produced, but was not involved in the writing of, the album’s lead single, ‘I Am Not Okay’ which went through a different process. “That song was written while Jelly was on tour, and the demo was just piano and vocal. It was very soft and very lovely and enchanting. But the lyrics are painful. It’s not an enchanting song, it’s a heartache song. So I made the decision to turn it into a band song. I asked Nathan Keeterle to play one of those rubberneck guitars, and he played some cool licks, all of which gave it a bit of a different sound. It encouraged the band to play in a different way. The band tracks were recorded at Saxman’s studio, in one day.

“I then took the recordings home, edited them and got Jelly to sing on them. I typically get him to do the verses, and the chorus, six, seven, eight times, and I’ll comp it from there. I get 90 percent of Jelly’s final vocal from that initial session, and then later we go in one more time for a final polish, like fix one note in the bridge, and so on. After we had laid down the vocals for ‘I Am Not Okay’, I thought that the track would be great with some strings, so I called David Davidson who wrote a cool string arrangement, and recorded it. He sent me a 150‑track session with string overdubs, with close mics and far mics and room mics and so on. I worked that into my session, and finished my rough mix.”

Mix Mode

Tracing his entire process from a more technical perspective, Crowell explains that his perspective and focus gradually change. “There’s 100 percent a shift. When I’m in the room with songwriters, I’m just trying to make sure that the vibe is good and we’re all having a good time. When playing a guitar part into a mic, a lot of the time I leave the speakers on with a drum loop playing. When you solo the guitar, you can hear that, or you can hear people talking in the background. I don’t like to put headphones on and tell everybody to be quiet. That’s a vibe killer. So I’ll record a good enough guitar part or a good enough piano part to write the song, and for a songwriter or artist to sing a demo vocal over. Then once they leave, I’ll fix things and I’ll have session musicians lay down final tracks and later the artist comes back in to sing the final vocal.

“I care less about the sonics at the beginning of the process, but by the end, that’s the only thing I care about. It’s a big evolution. At the same time, and this has been the case throughout my whole career and it’s become the norm in the industry, I’m mixing 10 seconds after we’ve started a song. I try to use effects and treatments that will be my final choice. For me, mixing is part of the songwriting process, and it’s part of the production process. I’m not going, ‘Oh, I’ll fix that EQ later.’ If I can, I’m fixing it in the moment, and I’m keeping it. It’s part of working in Pro Tools.

Zach Crowell is a strong advocate of the use of templates, and his own Pro Tools template has evolved through many years’ fine‑tuning.

“To make this possible, I’m a big template guy. My Pro Tools template has been an evolution of 15 years of doing ‘Save As...’ I now have one big, massive template that has tons of stuff to make tracks with synths and drums with Toontrack Superior Drummer and Native Instruments Maschine, and so on. There’s also all sorts of guitar stuff with basic EQ and compression. Then it gets down to the vocal part of the song, which has several vocal chains and aux tracks, and three or four different busses for background vocals and gang vocals and stuff. I have a Master bus, and before that a Music bus, which all instruments go to, and a Vocal bus, which all vocals go to.

“My vocal chain evolves from artist to artist, but generally it starts with [Celemony] Melodyne, whether I’m tuning by hand or not tuning it at all, or Antares Auto‑Tune. After that is the Waves Rvox and then the Eiosis E2 De‑esser. Then I bus it out to a vocal bus, where I do a little EQ with the UAD SSL E Series channel strip, UAD LA‑2A for compression, and the Waves PuigTech EQP‑1A. Those six or seven plug‑ins are my typical vocal chain. Then I have three busses that I send vocal to if needs be: reverb, delay, slap delay. The Valhalla Vintage is the main reverb I use. It’s so good, it’s really hard to mess that one up. For the Jelly song ‘Heart Of Stone’ I used the UA RealVerb ‘church’ preset. For delays, I for the most part use the Soundtoys stuff.

These three plug‑ins form a key part of the vocal chain from Jelly Roll’s ‘Heart Of Stone’.

“I mix a decent amount of the songs I produce, but other ones get sent out to mixers, most of all Jim Cooley, who is one of the top guys in Nashville. What I like in working with him is that he builds on top of what I have already done. Typically, when I’ve finished my rough mix, I got it sounding pretty good and it’s pretty close to my vision. Jim enhances things and also makes sure the song has maximum impact. I guess we all have figured out how to do this since the loudness wars. Country used to have little low end, but we’ve also in country learned how to use computer processing to get our mix louder and really make use of the super low end. I think every genre is making use of the entire frequency spectrum now.”