Canadian Musician - September/October 2020 | Page 58

PHOTO: FLORENT CARMIN
WRITING
Donny Anderson is a platinum-selling artist and songwriter. Collaborations and career highlights include his work with Rachel
Platten, Alannah Myles, a European number one, a Billboard U.S. number two-charting album, Canadian charting singles, and
placements in various films and series. Donny’s latest single “Lovin’ You” featuring Canadian icon Divine Brown is available now.
Donny is currently working on his full-length artist project due for a 2021 release. For more information,
visit: www.donnyanderson.com.
By Donny Anderson
From Song Camps to Singles:
The Power of Co-Writes & Collaboration
Songwriting camps are an experience
unlike any other – likeminded creative
people brought together into
a situation that creates an unmatchable
energy, an incredible high, and
usually results in some of the most amazing
creative work simply because of this process.
Songwriting camps are an opportunity to
either collaborate with people you have never
met, or collaborate with familiar people in a
different environment than an everyday studio
session or co-write. I’ve been able to participate
in songwriting camps all over the world and
feel like some of the best songs I’ve created
have come out of them.
The Basics
Whoever is facilitating the camp will choose
several writers and artists to bring to a specific
location to collaborate. The camps usually
range from one day all the way up to a few
weeks. Each day, you get paired with different
co-writers and producers. Some could also be
artists who might be looking for songs for their
next release or producers that have ideas for
major label artists that need songs. Whatever
you choose to write or whoever you want to
write for is fair game.
The Benefits
My latest single called “Lovin’ You” is a song
that was born out of a Songwriter’s Association
of Canada (S.A.C.) songwriting camp held at
Revolution Recording in Toronto. The day that
“Lovin’ You” was penned, the organizers (Murray
Daigle and Bobby John) had put me, producer
Arun Chaturvedi, and artist Rykka together.
Arun had several tracks prepared to listen to
and we decided to work with the track that
ended up becoming “Lovin’ You.” Rykka and
I are both songwriters and recording artists
and we agreed that whatever we wrote that
day, we just wanted to have fun with it. No
preconceived ideas or plans. We wanted to
see what happened when we created from
that mindset and let all three of us immerse
ourselves in the creativity.
Some time after the camp, the organizers
and the S.A.C. reached out and asked if the three
of us would be interested in releasing the song
as a single. They would get behind it to represent
their songwriting camps, the process,
and support the release. We all agreed that this
song had potential and was a great example
of what could result from a songwriter’s camp
and decided to move forward with the release.
Arun and I then got together several times
following the decision and tweaked the song
into a somewhat different production than
what we had, exploring different production
ideas and sounds. Through the production
process, I had the idea of bringing in my dear
friend (and Canadian legend) Divine Brown to
help elevate the overall sound with her stunning
voice. We have collaborated for many
years previous to this, but this was a perfect
storm of sound and circumstances to have us
collaborate for an official release. Divine came
into the studio as Arun and I were finishing
up production ideas and added the finishing
touches to the song with her vocal, turning it
into the release that’s out today.
The Release
We intended to put out the single in April
2020. The distribution partner (Flying Colours/
Believe Music) had been secured, and the
official release date had been decided. We
were organizing release plans as the onset of
COVID-19 was happening, so we all agreed it
might be better to hold back the release until
May 29, 2020. We thought that the pandemic
may have slowed down by then and life would
have resumed to a somewhat normal state.
As the story goes, life is unpredictable and
we had to roll with the punches.
As April passed, I considered pushing the
release date back even further but I had already
built an entire team around the song. The release
was already organized and preparations
for PR and distribution had already begun. I
owe a huge thank you to the S.A.C., Flying Colours,
H.A.U.T.E Creative, and Auteur Research
for standing by and helping to navigate such
a difficult time and situation to get the single
out into the world during such chaos.
All things considered, the release went off
without a hitch. Being in such an unprecedented
time, I decided to quietly release the single
to radio after the initial media push just to see
what would happen. “Lovin’ You” has unexpectedly
found some great success at radio. It made
the Yangaroo/DMDS top 10 Most Active Indies
in the first week of sending to radio, coming
in at the number six most active indie release
at radio.
To me, the success of a song not only starts
from a seed, but can grow into something
that gets people excited and finds its way
into the world with a whole lot of potential
support behind it. I truly believe in the power
of collaboration and the stars aligning to
make great things happen. Whether it’s
a heightened experience with the initial
creation process at a songwriter’s camp or
the people that you surround a song with to
help make the journey to release day, there
is undoubtedly the most incredible power in
co-writes and with collaborations.
58 CANADIAN MUSICIAN