Caitlyn Smith Takes The Reins On Her Career As Producer

Caitlyn Smith serves as the sole producer on her third album, High, available now via Monument Records. It’s an undertaking only a handful of women in the country genre have done before, including Gail Davies in the 1970s and ’80s, Alison Krauss in the ’90s and Lari White in the ’00s. Smith credits the pandemic for a shift of perspective and for the decision to produce her music solo for the first time.

Like many artists, Smith was forced to slow down once Covid-19 hit. She was slated to have a busy year with the release of her second album, Supernova, on March 13, 2020. Her press tour and headlining tour were both canceled and Smith and her husband, Rollie Gaalswyk, began to question why they remained in Nashville. The couple decided to move back home to Minnesota with their two young sons and build their dream home. In the midst of her down time, Smith began writing songs that she says were “slower and dreamier.”

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“The removal from Music City and the process of slowing down brought me to a quieter and slower place for my brain to create in,” she tells me. “I was also doing a lot of my own demos and creating a lot by myself and so that opened up this little voice that goes, ‘Hey, what if you try producing your own record now?’ and I couldn’t get it to go away.”

At Smith’s album release show at Brooklyn Bowl Nashville on April 7, she discussed her decision to produce an album solo for the first time. “I learned so many lessons, but I think the biggest one is never, ever be afraid,” she told the packed crowd. “Just take a chance.” She says she’s grateful for the community she’s surrounded herself with and the women that pushed her into the producer chair like songwriter-producer Jenn Decilveo and engineer Gena Johnson.

“Some incredible women that I look up to have inspired me on my journey,” Smith says. “A project like this and the undertaking of producing it solo was really terrifying but allowing myself open to the possibility that I might fail and stepping into that vulnerable space of, ‘This might not work out but I’m going to throw myself into it anyway,’ created so much growth.”

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Smith says producing also sharpened her ears and taught her to trust her gut. She hopes that her foray into it might inspire other women to feel empowered and to try their hand at producing as well.

The statistics on women producers are incredibly low. The University of Southern California’s 2021 Annenberg Inclusion Initiative annual report found that women represent 2.6% of producers in popular music. It’s a stat that Smith has noticed firsthand.

“When I first moved to Nashville over a decade ago there were no female producers,” she says. “I wonder how different my path would have been had I moved to town and saw two dozen females producing records. I bet I would have thought a lot earlier that I could do it.”

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Smith says embracing the producer role and being so involved in the sonic landscape of her music was exciting and freeing. During the process, she learned not to be afraid about taking a chance on herself. Her advice for women contemplating the producer role is to become a student of records. Ahead of stepping into the producer chair for High, Smith says she spent three months intently listening to records of all genres and studying the sounds and instrumentation of each. She says she dove headfirst into consuming music so she could decide what she liked and what she didn’t like.

Songs like the captivating title track, which Miley Cyrus originally recorded for her 2020 album Plastic Hearts, showcases Smith’s power as both a vocalist and a producer. Smith wrote “High” with Decilveo and it eventually wound up in the hands of Mark Ronson, who played it for Cyrus. Smith says she always heard a full production, gospel element and fiddle for the country song.

“Writing the song, I had a version in my head that was big and fully produced,” she says. “Miley’s version came out and I was so proud and excited with what they did with it, but I still had my version in my heart and my head and really wanted to release that.”

Album highlights include the haunting “Maybe In Another Life,” upbeat single “Downtown Baby” and the heartfelt “Dreamin’s Free,” a song inspired by the drastic slowdown that the pandemic had on Smith and her husband Rollie, also a songwriter and musician in the singer’s touring band. On the song she sings, “We ain’t rich but the dreamin’s free.”

“We were set to promo the record [Supernova] and tour like crazy and we had a really big year planned and all of a sudden it just came to an abrupt halt, and it was really difficult,” Smith says. “It was difficult to let go of our plans and our dreams and so this song came from a Zoom session with our therapist. He encouraged us to take time to dream together.”

It was an exercise that also helped Smith’s producer dream come to life as well. Now that her first solo produced project is out in the world, Smith says she won’t shy away from the role again. She likens producing to a playground in the studio and says she’d love to produce other artists going forward as well as her own future works. As for other women toying with the idea of becoming a producer, Smith encourages it.

“The best thing you can do for yourself is allow yourself the space to try things and not be afraid to fail because failing is part of the process,” she says. “Delight yourself in the journey of it. If it’s a dream that you have, put yourself on the path and don’t let yourself give up.”