“Who’s this?” a voice said on the other line.

“It’s Mitch Bradford. I’m a singer-songwriter in Los Angeles. I want to make a record at your studio.”

That’s how the path to getting my next record made began.

When I left Sam Phillips Recording Studio in 2018 after making Love is Kind, I never imagined how difficult it would be to get back into a studio to make new music.

I had gotten a taste for the studio vibe, the mastery of studio musicians. I fell in love with the feeling that you could lose yourself inside a windowless room, trading ideas with musicians on how to arrange a song and having the time of your life.

So I cold-called studios, producers, doing anything to get myself back and give life to my next set of songs.

No one wanted to bite.

One Nashville producer even hung up on me when I told him I liked Niall Horan’s last record.

Then I met Jon.

Jon is Jon Gilbert. He made Mt. Joy’s first record – one that I admired for its fresh sound and great lyrics. Mt. Joy was an L.A. band, too. All good things.

So I connected with Jon and we agreed to meet, probably both nervous about whether this was going to be a good fit.

The musician-producer dynamic is a lot like dating.

You go out for coffee, talk, share inspirations and interests, and then circle each other for weeks, trying to determine if you can commit to this person.

In your heart though, you either click or you don’t – and you know in seconds whether you're going to be a thing.

_____ Part II of this post continues next week.