Laura Veltz's Songwriter of the Year Grammy nom enriches her 'secret powers'

"I love being a secret weapon to help people sell things. It's fun."

Two weeks before potentially winning the inaugural Songwriter of the Year Award at the 65th Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, it's 9 a.m. and renowned, award-winning songwriter Laura Veltz is speaking to The Tennessean as she sits at a table onstage at Nashville's iconic songwriting round haunt, The Bluebird Cafe.

She's many things -- 42 years old, prematurely salt and pepper-haired, a wearer of festive, oversized pink sunglasses and bearing a forearm tattoo of a sunflower among them.

However, she's not a "secret" weapon anymore.

"With Demi Lovato ("when we write, it feels like two kindred porpoises, swimming through the wind"), I wrote a song about [sex] (2022's "HEAVEN") and with Thomas Rhett, I wrote about losing friends when you're a kid (2021's "Heaven Right Now"). Both songs have heaven in the title -- they're dramatically different things."

Couple those with her work with Ingrid Andress ("Pain) and frequent collaborator Maren Morris (she's a songwriter on Morris' 2022 album "Humble Quest"), and her success is warranted.

However, that only begins telling a much larger -- and incredibly more important -- story.

Alongside a group of crucial female Nashville songwriters, Veltz has emerged as an engine ushering in country music's mainstream crossover growth and cushioning the upper echelon of the music industry overall from the shift to streaming-first and COVID-19's promises of commercial peril.

On the surface, February 5, 2023, is a night intended to highlight Adele, Beyonce, Lizzo, Megan Thee Stallion, Pusha T, Harry Styles and Taylor Swift.

However, if the night highlighted Brandy Clark, Nicolle Galyon, Natalie Hemby, Lori McKenna, and Veltz instead, Grammy-winning artists like Brandi Carlile, Dan + Shay, Little Big Town, Morris, Kacey Musgraves and Tim McGraw -- all whose success has been aided by their songwriting -- likely would give the moment a standing ovation.

Between them, they're somewhere near having written songs that will eclipse being streamed trillions of times. The person singing the song is essential. However, in the two-dimensional world of the now firmly digital-led music industry, the pen -- moreso than the person -- puts the groove in our hearts.

Statistically, at present, Veltz is at the forefront of that group. Thus, she's one of the first best songwriters of music's modern age.

"We're not writing lyrics, were penning poetry," Veltz says. "We're writing risk-driven poetry that will go down as the history of the power of this era. Imitating sounds and styles that have previously worked waters down our storytelling capabilities. Re-setting the bar of success where the risk is worth emulating is exciting."

Veltz considers that growing up differently than the other quartet named ("I feel a sense of reckless abandon because I grew up with no reputation worth losing -- I'm just helping to write honest stories") offers her the ability to be versatile enough to work with a plethora of artists seamlessly in an empathetic manner.

In June 2022, Evan Bogart, a Grammy-winning songwriter and chair of the Recording Academy's songwriters and composers wing, stated that the Songwriter of the Year Award was birthed to give songwriters "cover of the Rolling Stone"-type acclaim for cross-genre excellence in crafting melodies and lyrics.

Typically, songwriters are only honored in the presentation of the Song Of The Year award, which deals with a song's composition. However, Songwriter of the Year denotes the power of singles over albums in a streaming-led marketplace where a great songwriter could quickly achieve five hit songs that they only wrote or wrote and produced.

The award represents a stunning but refreshing moment for the rest of the music industry. However, in the country genre, it's representative of a decade-long moment for female songwriters crafting songs that defy genre delineations and have evolved from viral pop culture crossover moments to consistent all-genre streaming leaders.

Moreover, when casting that work in comparison to two movements -- Taylor Swift's half-decade-long run of 100 million singles and 40 million albums sold, plus Grammy Song of the Year wins for Sam Smith, Ed Sheeran and Adele between 2015-2017 ("Stay With Me," "Thinking Out Loud" and "Hello") -- how Veltz's emergence from "secret weapon" to "superstar" makes sense.

Since 2012, an easy-listening pop veneer has been cast over a particular underbelly of No. 1 singles in country music that bear a striking influence from the work of Adele, Sheeran, Smith and Swift in various manners -- songwriting included.

From Hemby's work on Little Big Town's "Pontoon," through Clark pairing with Kacey Musgraves on "Biscuits," plus Dan+Shay's collaboration with Galyon on "Tequila," a consistently platinum-plus selling and radio-friendly standard had been set. However, upon the onset of COVID-19, market indicators combined with astonishing (but necessary) surges in digital, radio and streaming engagement.

Though Laura Veltz's pairing with Jimmy Robbins for Morris's 2019-released COVID-era favorite "The Bones" was strong enough to be a hit unto itself, its unprecedented boost from streaming made it a quintuple-platinum selling hit. It was a radio chart-topper for two weeks, but it helmed the sales charts ten times longer.

Veltz places much of the song's crossover success on how Morris' intellect and vocal tone engage in a constant, conscious battle between coloring notes in country, pop and soul inflections. The universality of Morris' vocal instrument pairing with a specifically pop-aimed song that describes a type of love that's structurally sound but fraught with emotional imperfections creates a unique sound with a genre-agnostic appeal.

Regarding how country music's legendary songwriting processes and styles can be evolved into a recipe that could -- if Veltz wins on February 5 -- be seen as the blueprint for Songwriter of The Year-level success, Veltz offers a knowledgeable perspective.

"It starts with structured songwriters mixing with vulnerable artists and telling sensible stories in clear-minded, well-crafted material. Also, it's learning to have the gratitude that earns you the gift of peak performances from unnervingly perfect vocalists."

"A long time ago, I made peace with the fact that I didn't realize anyone knew what I was doing. However, this is happening and I'm glad I'm alive to [witness it]," says Veltz. "I'm still just content to be here doing my s*** regardless of if I win [for Songwriter of the Year] or not -- that's not to say a girl can't dream of winning, but I'm happy otherwise."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Laura Veltz's Songwriter of the Year Grammy nom enriches her 'secret powers'