When songwriter Patrick Irwin moved to Nashville last year, he was entering a lottery. Each day hundreds of sessions take place where writers create a song demo to pitch to a publisher. Publishers then share those songs with labels and managers, who may share those songs with the artists. Even if a major country star records (“cuts”) the song, it still takes a stroke of luck for that song to become a No. 1 hit.
The odds of winning are extremely low. Recently, Irwin was in a room where his co-writers Sam Fink and Duane Deerweater tried something new. Instead of booking studio time or calling a “track guy” to produce a demo, one co-writer op …