Making it in the music industry takes grit and a lot of patience, but also sound financial advice. Laura Veltz is a 4x GRAMMY-nominated songwriter and has teamed up with Tracy Hackney, a seasoned financial advisor for musicians, to bring you the tips and tricks of the industry. Joined by host and producer, Kevin Sokolnicki, the trio has interviews with some of the most prominent and up-and-coming songwriters and artists in the music industry.

This week the trio sits down with the tallest man to ever enter the Songwriter Soup lair: producer and songwriter Paul DiGiovanni (“How Not To” Dan + Shay, "The Ones That Didn’t Make It Back Home” Justin Moore, “Lose You” Jordan Davis).

Paul’s journey is a masterclass in the winding road of the music industry, traversing from the height of 2000s emo with Boys Like Girls ("The Great Escape”) to the final frontier of guitars in Nashville. He pulls back the curtain on the raw reality of starting over from scratch - trading TRL interviews and Taylor Swift collabs for a two-bedroom house shared by four dudes in East Nashville. Paul shares his moving-the-dirt philosophy, reminding every new writer that you have to show up for the bad days if you ever want to strike gold.

The crew digs into the nitty gritty of the producer-writer life, exploring why production feels a lot like getting a painful tattoo: a mix of initial excitement, mid-project agony, and a high that only hits once the ink (or the track) is dry.

Between his swoopy-haired band roots and his country success, Paul has plenty of perspective (and tea!) on the music business. It’s a candid look at why you need "that dog" in you to survive the industry’s toxicity and why winning the day in the room is the only drug that keeps the real ones coming back.

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