Nashville’s songwriter Luke Dick on making his way in Music City

Every other Friday for This Is Nashville, I hop out of my host chair and into the passenger seat to ride shotgun with a fellow Middle Tennessean. Today’s ride is with songwriter and producer Luke Dick. He’s written songs for Miranda Lambert, The Highwomen, Dierks Bentley, Kacey Musgraves, Kip Moore… You get the idea.

Luke Dick is an approachable human being. If you Googled the definition of “down to earth,” his picture would be the first to pop up. He talks with the familiarity of an old friend and the experiences of a wise sage. Born and raised in Oklahoma, he grew up playing music in various bands. Moving to Nashville at the age of 25 — at the behest of a pseudo publisher — he found himself on his own after the publishing company and promises dissolved.

Fortunately, he found solace in Nashville’s songwriting community, although that didn’t stop him from asking himself serious questions.

“It’s hard to keep going when you feel like you’re good. But then, if nobody else in the industry is feeling like you’re good, then it’s like, ‘OK, what am I doing? Is this a passion or a hobby that I have to find another job in order to it’s going to make me money?'” he says.

Luke kept at it and soon enough his songwriting career began to grow, primarily because he was listening to his own artistic voice. Creative people know it as the voice that lives inside your head, the one that tells you to take an interesting idea and see it to fruition.

Now, he writes hit songs for the likes of Miranda Lambert and Dierks Bentley. He says he relies on the relationship he’s developed with the artists to create a song with their voice.

“(It’s about) knowing them personally, especially over the conversations that you may have had with them over the years,” he says.

The expectations of publishing companies can be demanding. On average, he writes one song per week and has to churn out 24 whole compositions. Throughout the successes he’s enjoyed in his career, he maintains the artistic integrity of a hungry newcomer.

“If you’re not walking into music thinking it’s going to be your financial answer to life,” he says, “that can be an answer to your creative soul and whatever that looks like.”