Songwriter Spotlight: Justin Weaver Talks Aldean, Meghan Trainor

justin weaver

Though producer and songwriter Justin Weaver has long called Nashville home, even non-country fans are sure to know his songs. Within country, Weaver’s hits include Brantley Gilbert’s “Bottoms Up,” Kip Moore’s “I’m To Blame,” and a slew of songs with long-time friend Jason Aldean – outside of country, his Meghan Trainor song “Like I’m Gonna Lose You,” which features John Legend, is climbing the pop charts.

Weaver grew up a rock fan – Alice in Chains, Nirvana, Metallica – and had begun exploring songwriting at 12, but found country a more welcoming home. “I never really understood those rock songs – they’re all about drugs, and I didn’t do drugs at 13 years old,” he laughs. “So all of a sudden I found these songs about life, and I was like, that’s kind of cool, I can relate to these. So I put away my Skid Row CD and bought Mark Chestnutt’s Almost Goodbye.”

As he got older, he began to perform. “When I was 14 or 15 I got a house gig in Macon, Georgia, playing in an Italian restaurant,” he says. After a couple months, he and his band caught the ear of a club owner, who asked them to play four nights a week at his venue. Through the remainder of high school, Weaver spent Wednesday through Saturday nights from 9 p.m. until 2 on a stage. “I remember doing my math homework on my breaks in the back of the club sitting under the TV and the lights,” he says. “That’s how I met [Jason] Aldean – he would get up on Friday and Saturday nights and sing a couple of songs each set.”

“After high school I graduated and Jason said, ‘Hey man, do you want to actually go out and start playing other places?'” Weaver continues. “I was like yeah, so we skipped out on college, freaked my mom out. My dad would run sound, Jason’s dad would book us.” Weaver and Aldean toured for close to three years. Aldean then moved to Nashville and signed a publishing deal with Warner Chappell; Weaver remained in Georgia and went to college, earning a degree in business. “I got to write songs through that,” he says of Aldean’s deal. “[Aldean] would come down in college and we would write, I would come up and we would write.” The pair’s writing included sharing rooms with heavyweights like Jeff Stevens and John Rich.

Weaver finished college, and that same month got married and moved to Nashville. He wrote five days a week, doing text editing and building websites for financial support until he landed a publishing deal. His first cut was with Aldean, with the song “Even If I Wanted To.”

“I had started that before he got there,” Weaver says. “I remember he was like, ‘Man, can we come up with some stuff, we need a great song for my album, I got one slot left, I cut on Monday,’ and it was Friday. We’re sitting there in my garage and I was like, ‘I can’t think of anything, I don’t know,’ and that’s how it started. The lyric is ‘I’m on the brink, I can barely think, with all these thoughts running through my head. Wondering if I did you wrong, no way I did you wrong.” It was turning [to be] about a girl, but initially the song was about not being able to write. Then Jason came in and and I played him that verse and he said, ‘Holy crap, I really like that! Let’s finish up so we can play video games.’ So we wrote it right there.” Video games ensued, as well as the cut on Aldean’s 2005 self-titled debut.

“I think [writing] with an artist is more focused,” Weaver shares. “It depends on the artist too – do they have a grasp on what they want to do – which can be tough, it’s a hard thing. I love that part, the discovery. You miss a lot, that’s what’s tough – I write a lot of songs that won’t get cut because it won’t end up being what they are chasing, but I am helping them find it. It sucks when it’s ‘Oh yeah, that’s not what we’re doing but thanks for that,’ and it’s cool when it’s the opposite and you land on what they want.”

One such moment that clicked was with “Like I’m Gonna Lose You.” “I have a single out now that really means a lot to me, the song is really near and dear to my heart,” Weaver says, referencing the Trainor and Legend duet. “It was actually reggae,” Weaver says. “It was still a ballad, but it sounded like it had a reggae thought.” Weaver, Trainor, and Caitlyn Smith wrote it long before Trainor had a solo career, and it wasn’t until much later that she came back to the song to record it for her debut, Title. Producer Chris Gelbuda constructed the vibe that’s present on the record, and Legend joined the song after that. “I had never heard that as a duet until he sang it, he was the one with the duet idea,” Weaver says. 

Weaver is currently producing as well as writing – a friend heard his demos and asked him to produce a full record – and he has continued to do so with various projects since. “When I first came to town it was kind of a necessity,” he says of creating his own demos and learning to produce. “Not many people were building tracks like that, but I had to because I didn’t have a demo budget.” Weaver taught himself to use ProTools, and more recently went through the process of mastering a solo project to understand the process through which mastering engineers go. Now, when he’s in writing sessions, he’ll often build the track throughout the write to be sure to capture the vibe. 

Take a listen to some of Weaver’s co-writes:

 

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