Deric Ruttan and the Hit You Haven't Heard...Yet!

 

Deric and me at The Listening Room in Nashville
 

One day about three years ago, I was sitting on my couch watching TV when I came across a 'Words and Music' interview Harry Chapman was doing with Canadian artist and songwriter Deric Ruttan. I immediately recognized many of Deric's hit songs recorded by artists like Dierks Bentley and Eric Church (list here).

On any given day in Nashville, you can hear hit songs performed by hit writers in venues all over town (we're kinda spoiled like that here). Sometimes you walk away inspired to write and sometimes you walk away depressed because you're reminded again and again how high the bar is set for songs and songwriters. In all my years of listening and writing, though, I can count on one hand the number of songs that touched me so deeply that I cried the first time I heard them.

Deric's song "That's How I Wanna Go Out" was one of those songs for me.

When he played it, I couldn't help but cry. It was everything real and honest about love, not that fluffy storybook stuff, the kind that hits your gut 'cause you know that's what you really want when it gets right down to it.
 

Deric performing- next to Rhett Akins
 

Tonight at Tin Pan South I had the chance to meet Deric and ask him a little bit about the song. He said he had the hook idea for awhile and had thrown it out at a couple of sessions before writing it with Lee Thomas Miller. He said that he felt Lee would 'get the idea' as a writer. Deric said the story and 'going out in the arms of a woman who loved me' came to them as part of the session.

Deric recorded his own Sunshine album in 2010, but said that he'd love to have someone else record it in the U.S. too. I think it's just a matter of time before someone does just that- in my book it's a sure-fire hit!