Coyle Girelli walked into Sun Studio in Memphis with an acoustic guitar and a few microphones.
Nothing elaborate.
No massive production.
No army of session musicians.
Just a singer, a guitar and one of the most historically significant recording rooms in American music.
He had spent years making records, touring the world and working with some remarkable songwriters. But something happened when he stepped into that room that caught even him by surprise.
He recorded a take.
Walked into the control room.
Soloed the room microphone.
And listened.
For about 15 minutes.
Not because the performance was particularly complicated.
Because he could hear the room.
The same room that had helped shape recordings by some of the most important artists in rock-and-roll history.
And suddenly Coyle understood something he’d never fully appreciated before.
The room wasn’t simply where those records had been made.
It was part of what made them sound the way they did.
For a British-born songwriter who grew up obsessing over American music, it was a remarkable moment.
And for someone whose latest musical chapter had brought him to Sun Records through an unlikely connection with legendary songwriter Mac Davis, it was also a circle closing.
Not bad for a kid who once had to spend half a day traveling just to buy a record.
Forty Minutes to the Bus Station
Coyle grew up in Otley, a small town outside Leeds in northern England.
There wasn’t much of a local record-shopping scene.
If he wanted new music, he had to work for it.
First came a roughly 40-minute walk to the bus station.
Then another 40 minutes to an hour on the bus into Leeds.
Then the record shop.
He’d spend time searching through the albums, deciding what to buy and trying to make the trip worthwhile.
Then he’d reverse the entire journey.
By the time he returned home, five or six hours could have passed.
All to buy some music.
Today, an entire generation can discover a new artist, listen to every album they’ve ever released and move on to something else before breakfast.
Coyle had to plan an expedition.
But that effort changed how he experienced music.
He’d bring the records home, put them on and disappear into them.
There was no skipping through 30 seconds of a song to decide whether an algorithm had made a good recommendation.
He listened.
Absorbed.
Studied.
And somewhere along the way, those records became part of him.
The Records You Don’t Understand Until You’re Older
Coyle’s musical education began at home.
His father had an extensive record collection filled with American songwriters.
Tom Petty.
Jackson Browne.
Bob Dylan.
Bruce Springsteen.
The kind of artists whose records can quietly teach a young songwriter about melody, storytelling and the difference between writing a song and simply putting words over chords.
Coyle wasn’t necessarily impressed as a child.
That’s fairly typical.
Parents have an extraordinary ability to make excellent music seem uncool simply by enjoying it.
But the records stayed with him.
Eventually he returned to them and realized how much he loved what he’d once dismissed.
There was another influence coming from a different part of the house.
Opera.
Coyle’s family is partly Italian, and the music of composers such as Puccini and Verdi was a regular presence.
He didn’t particularly appreciate that either when he was young.
Today, he loves opera.
Put those influences together and you begin to understand his approach to songwriting.
American roots music taught him storytelling.
Opera taught him the power of melody and dramatic emotion.
Then British rock and American alternative music came along and gave him something considerably louder to do with both.
Then Nirvana Changed Everything
Coyle grew up during an extraordinary period for British music.
Britpop was everywhere.
New bands seemed to appear constantly.
Oasis.
Coldplay.
And a growing list of artists making records that felt important to young musicians trying to discover their own identities.
Meanwhile, music from America was making an equally significant impression.
Nirvana became a major influence.
So did the Smashing Pumpkins and other bands emerging from the alternative-rock movement.
Coyle remembers hearing Nevermind and feeling that familiar shock of discovering a record that permanently changes your understanding of what music can be.
He described the experience in a way I particularly liked.
Once you’ve heard something that powerful, you can never return to being the person who hadn’t heard it.
It’s part of you now.
He felt the same way about Springsteen’s Born to Run.
Those records didn’t simply entertain him.
They expanded the possibilities.
And that’s something Coyle still thinks about when he writes.
A song begins as nothing.
An idea.
A melody.
A few words.
Then somebody records it and releases it.
Suddenly it exists in the world.
Someone you’ve never met might hear it.
It might become part of their life.
And they can never completely unhear it.
For Coyle, that’s the magic of songwriting.
The Band Started at School
Coyle’s professional career began with musicians he’d known since childhood.
He and his friends started playing together around age 12 or 13.
They weren’t particularly good.
Coyle is quite comfortable admitting that.
But they kept playing.
Eventually they became better.
By the time they reached university age, they had developed into a serious band.
They secured a production deal with Sony, which provided resources to record, tour and build a home studio.
That was an important step.
They were no longer simply kids playing music together.
They had financial backing.
They had recordings.
They had opportunities.
They also had interest from American record companies.
Although a full album deal with Sony never materialized, labels in New York began paying attention.
Eventually the band signed with Universal.
And Coyle found himself leaving a small town in northern England for New York City.
That is a fairly significant change of scenery.
Becoming a New Yorker
Coyle originally came to America because of music.
He stayed because America, particularly New York, became home.
He still visits England regularly.
His family remains there.
He loves English sweets and chocolate, perhaps a little more than his daily calorie intake would appreciate.
He’s also a devoted Manchester City supporter and returns when he can to watch matches.
But after spending so many years in New York, something strange happened.
England began feeling familiar and foreign at the same time.
He returns and notices the old buildings.
The pubs.
The castles.
Things he once took for granted.
Now he occasionally experiences them almost like a tourist.
Yet he doesn’t feel entirely American either.
He didn’t grow up here.
His childhood memories belong to another country.
So when I asked him where he feels he belongs, he arrived at a fairly simple answer.
New York.
He’s a New Yorker.
I understood that immediately.
I’m originally from Boston and spent much of my professional career in Nashville.
After enough years, you begin collecting pieces of different places.
You don’t entirely stop belonging to the place you came from.
You just don’t belong there in quite the same way anymore.
Coyle has found his version of home somewhere between England and America.
And musically, that combination makes perfect sense.
America Is a Very Big Place to Tour
Coyle spent roughly a decade professionally touring with his band before they went on hiatus around 2014.
They traveled extensively throughout America.
And he loved it.
The country is enormous.
That means a lot of driving.
But it also means every city offers something different.
Memphis.
New Orleans.
Chicago.
Seattle.
Each carries its own musical history.
Each has a different personality.
Even the audiences behave differently.
Coyle has noticed that major entertainment centers like New York, Los Angeles and London can sometimes be harder to impress.
They see everything.
Every touring act.
Every major artist.
Every new sensation.
The audience can develop a certain attitude.
All right.
Show us what you’ve got.
Other cities are more immediately enthusiastic.
They’re ready to enjoy themselves.
But Coyle doesn’t see one country as inherently better than another.
Audiences everywhere ultimately want a good show.
Although some could stand to stop talking during the quiet parts.
Please Stop Talking
Coyle has performed plenty of intimate acoustic shows over the years.
One voice.
One guitar.
A room full of people.
Ideally, those people are listening.
Unfortunately, not everybody understands the arrangement.
I mentioned Nashville’s Bluebird Cafe, where audiences are famously expected to remain quiet during performances.
Coyle appreciates that kind of environment.
Because when you’re performing a delicate acoustic song, having somebody conduct an unrelated conversation a few feet away isn’t exactly helpful.
So how does he handle it?
He calls them out.
Not through a complicated speech about respecting the arts.
He simply brings the room’s attention to the people talking and gives them an opportunity to decide whether they’d like to continue.
Or stop.
Sometimes subtlety is unnecessary.
Six Months With Duran Duran
One of the band’s most memorable touring experiences came when they joined Duran Duran.
For approximately six months, they traveled around America performing in major arenas.
For a young singer, that kind of opportunity provides an education that can’t really be replicated.
You can rehearse endlessly.
Study performance videos.
Read books about stage presence.
But standing backstage night after night watching a seasoned performer like Simon Le Bon work an arena is something different.
Coyle watched.
Learned.
Absorbed.
He saw how a frontman handles a large stage.
How to command an audience.
How to sustain a performance.
And how to make something practiced thousands of times still feel alive.
There were also memorable performances in Central Park.
New York has plenty of iconic venues, but performing in Central Park carries a particular significance.
Especially when you’re the kid from Otley who once spent most of a day traveling to buy records.
David Letterman and Michelle Obama
Another major moment came when the band performed on Late Show with David Letterman.
Coyle remembers that particular episode because Michelle Obama was also appearing.
There was Secret Service security everywhere.
The atmosphere was unusual.
The stage was legendary.
The opportunity was enormous.
And Coyle?
He was focused on doing the job.
Perform well.
Deliver the song.
Don’t waste the opportunity.
He didn’t spend much time appreciating the significance of the moment while it was happening.
He was already thinking about the next thing.
Later that evening, the band gathered with friends at a local bar to watch the broadcast.
That’s when the experience finally began to register.
He had performed on Letterman.
On a stage connected to an extraordinary history of televised music.
With Michelle Obama appearing on the same episode.
It’s the kind of moment that becomes more impressive in retrospect.
And Coyle recognizes something about his younger self.
He wasn’t always present enough to enjoy what was happening.
He was too busy moving toward whatever came next.
That’s a common problem in the music business.
You’re so focused on building a career that you occasionally forget to experience the one you’re already having.
Then the Touring Stopped
By 2014, the band had been working professionally for roughly ten years.
And Coyle was exhausted.
Touring burnout had set in.
That’s something people outside the business don’t always understand.
Traveling the world playing music sounds like a dream.
And frequently it is.
But the actual process involves long drives, constant movement, limited privacy, disrupted sleep and an extraordinary amount of repetition.
Eventually even the thing you love can become exhausting.
The band went on hiatus.
Not because Coyle wanted to stop making music.
Because he needed to stop living on the road.
And as soon as he stepped away from touring, he went into the studio.
Naturally.
Apparently He Can’t Stop Writing
Coyle initially began working on what he imagined might become another record for the band.
But the material started feeling different.
More personal.
More like something he should release under his own name.
He took additional time away and began writing for other artists.
Then the desire to release his own music returned.
So he did.
And kept doing it.
By the time we spoke, he estimated he’d released around five records since the band’s hiatus.
Another deluxe release was approaching.
Another album was already underway.
The touring schedule had slowed.
The songwriting hadn’t.
Coyle admits that if he doesn’t write enough songs, he becomes anxious.
That’s not necessarily the healthiest relationship with productivity.
But it’s a pretty effective explanation for why he continues making records.
He doesn’t really know how not to.
The Mac Davis Connection
One of the most significant relationships of Coyle’s career began with a television appearance.
Mac Davis saw Coyle performing with his band on David Letterman.
At the time, both songwriters were connected to the publisher Primary Wave.
Mac liked what he heard.
He reached out and suggested they write together.
Coyle eventually visited Mac’s home in Los Angeles.
They drank coffee.
Played guitar.
Wrote a song.
And discovered they enjoyed working together.
So they did it again.
And again.
There wasn’t a grand strategy to create a particular album.
They were simply writing.
Over time, the songs accumulated.
Ten.
Eleven.
Twelve.
Eventually there was enough material to recognize that something larger had taken shape.
An album.
And not just any album.
One carrying a direct connection to a songwriter whose work had helped define part of Elvis Presley’s musical legacy.
Learning From Mac Davis
Mac Davis was an important songwriter long before Coyle entered the picture.
His songs for Elvis Presley helped establish his reputation as a writer capable of combining memorable melodies with emotional directness.
That kind of craft doesn’t necessarily come from making music complicated.
Quite often it comes from knowing what to leave out.
Coyle absorbed a great deal from their time together.
Mac’s influences.
His approach to songwriting.
His understanding of what makes a song work.
And something else began happening.
The music they were creating naturally moved toward the world of early rock and roll, country and American roots music.
Roy Orbison.
Elvis Presley.
Johnny Cash.
Those influences weren’t necessarily part of a deliberate plan.
They emerged through the writing.
Only after stepping back from the finished collection did Coyle recognize how clearly the songs belonged to that musical tradition.
And then an opportunity appeared that seemed almost too appropriate.
The Sun Records Connection
Primary Wave became involved in relaunching Sun Records.
The company was already familiar with Coyle’s recordings with Mac Davis.
And suddenly the project had a natural home.
Think about the connections.
Mac Davis wrote songs for Elvis Presley.
Elvis helped make Sun Records one of the most recognizable names in popular music history.
Coyle had spent his life absorbing American songwriting traditions.
And now an album he had written with Mac could be released through Sun.
That’s not a bad collection of coincidences.
Coyle certainly appreciated it.
He never imagined he’d become a Sun Records artist.
For much of his life, that wouldn’t even have seemed possible.
Then one day he had a vinyl record with his own name on it and that distinctive yellow-and-black Sun label.
Sometimes the physical object makes the accomplishment feel real.
The Room Is an Instrument
Which brings us back to Memphis.
Toward the end of the album’s release cycle, Coyle was visiting a radio station in the city.
He arranged to spend an evening recording at Sun Studio.
He took the final studio tour of the day.
Then the room was his.
He wanted the recording setup to remain simple.
An acoustic guitar.
A vocal microphone.
A microphone on the guitar.
And a room microphone.
The equipment included vintage RCA microphones and older compression gear.
Nothing about the session was designed to modernize the room.
Quite the opposite.
Coyle wanted to hear it.
After recording a take, he entered the control room and isolated the room microphone.
That’s when the realization hit.
He could hear the character of the recordings he had grown up loving.
Not because he was imitating Elvis.
Not because he was trying to recreate a particular performance.
Because the room itself had a recognizable sound.
He listened repeatedly.
The acoustic signature was unmistakable.
I’ve spent enough time in recording studios to appreciate exactly what he was describing.
We spend enormous amounts of money trying to control sound.
Acoustic treatments.
Isolation.
Microphone placement.
Equalization.
Compression.
Plugins designed to recreate rooms that no longer exist.
Then occasionally you encounter a physical space that does something none of the equipment can completely explain.
The room contributes something.
It becomes part of the performance.
That’s what Coyle heard at Sun Studio.
And it’s why those recordings can feel so alive decades later.
A Melody-First Songwriter
For all the history surrounding his recordings, Coyle’s actual writing process remains remarkably instinctive.
He hears melodies.
Sometimes while playing guitar.
Sometimes without an instrument.
Sometimes in the shower.
Apparently, a surprising amount of songwriting happens before breakfast.
He’ll hear a melody in his head and begin trying to understand what it is.
A vocal phrase.
A guitar part.
A drum rhythm.
He might sing the different pieces to himself before deciding how they fit together.
His voice leads the process.
Words usually come later.
Coyle describes himself as obsessive about melody.
He’ll refine it until it feels right.
Then begin working through the lyrics.
For a songwriter with such a strong interest in storytelling, that’s an interesting distinction.
The emotion often arrives before the story.
The melody tells him how the song should feel.
Then the lyrics explain why.
An Hour or Two
Here’s the part that might irritate a few songwriters.
Coyle often writes a song in an hour or two.
Not every song.
Some require considerably more work.
He remembers rewriting the chorus of one of his old band’s major songs four or five times before finally being satisfied.
But generally, he prefers to follow the initial inspiration until the song is finished.
Then he steps away.
Returns a day or two later.
Makes adjustments.
Or leaves it alone.
He doesn’t enjoy overthinking music.
I told him that when I write a song in an hour or two, my wife starts questioning whether I cheated.
But Coyle’s approach makes sense.
The initial creative moment can be fragile.
Sometimes the more you analyze it, the farther you move from whatever made the idea exciting in the first place.
Learning to Stop Overthinking
Interestingly, Coyle wasn’t always able to maintain that instinctive approach.
When he began writing for other artists, particularly in the pop world, the process became more formulaic.
Songs needed to fit particular expectations.
Structures.
Commercial considerations.
Stylistic requirements.
He began thinking too much.
Songs took longer.
The writing became less enjoyable.
Eventually other writers reminded him of something he’d known before the business complicated it.
Pick up a guitar.
Write a song.
Let the idea develop.
Don’t interrogate every decision before the song has a chance to exist.
He returned to that approach.
And became happier writing again.
That doesn’t mean he refuses to edit.
Quite the opposite.
Coyle will continue adjusting lyrics almost until the final vocal is recorded.
If a line bothers him, he’ll fix it.
If the story doesn’t quite make sense, he’ll return to it.
But he tries to separate the initial act of creating from the later process of refining.
That’s an important distinction.
The Final Lyric Is Never Really Final
Every songwriter knows the frustration.
You finish the song.
Record it.
Spend time getting everything exactly right.
Then, three weeks later, you realize one line could have been considerably better.
Of course.
The perfect lyric arrives after the record is finished.
Coyle knows the feeling.
He’ll continue tweaking words until there’s no longer an opportunity to change them.
Then occasionally realize the obvious improvement after it’s too late.
Welcome to songwriting.
Apparently nobody has figured out how to prevent that.
Writing for Someone Else
When Coyle writes with another artist, his process changes.
The session often begins with conversation.
Sometimes a lot of conversation.
How’s life?
What’s happening?
Who’s broken your heart?
What are you struggling with?
Coyle jokes that the first hour can resemble a therapy session.
But that’s where the material comes from.
The songwriter isn’t simply manufacturing a generic emotional statement.
He’s trying to understand the person who will eventually sing the song.
Sometimes a particular experience produces a lyric.
Sometimes a phrase reveals a story.
Then they begin building around it.
Of course, songs don’t always end up with the person they were originally written for.
Another artist might record one.
And interpret the lyrics completely differently.
Coyle is comfortable with that.
Once a song enters the world, listeners and performers bring their own experiences to it.
The meaning can expand beyond whatever the writer originally intended.
That’s part of the beauty of the process.
From Rock Records to Musical Theater
One of the more interesting developments in Coyle’s career is his growing involvement in musical theater.
At first glance, the jump from alternative rock to theatrical songwriting might seem unusual.
But consider his influences.
Opera.
Classic American songwriting.
A lifelong obsession with melody.
An interest in dramatic storytelling.
Musical theater is hardly a stretch.
Coyle particularly admires the work of Rodgers and Hammerstein and shows such as Cabaret.
He appreciates how musical theater combines melody with character and narrative.
And he finds writing for characters surprisingly natural.
In some ways, easier than writing for himself.
When the Character Gives You the Song
Musical theater creates boundaries.
The character has a particular personality.
They’re experiencing a particular event.
They have something specific they need to communicate.
The song has a dramatic purpose.
For Coyle, those limitations can actually make writing easier.
The options become narrower.
The emotional target becomes clearer.
But theatrical songwriting also requires a different kind of discipline.
Lyrics often need to sound conversational.
They can’t always be as abstract or poetic as a standalone pop song.
The audience needs to understand the character.
The words must move the story forward.
Too obvious, and the song feels contrived.
Too poetic, and the audience may lose the point.
Coyle enjoys finding the balance.
And considering how much he values melody and emotional storytelling, it’s easy to understand why.
Logic, Pro Tools and the Art of Getting Out of the Way
Coyle’s home recording setup is relatively straightforward.
A Universal Audio Apollo interface.
A computer.
Logic.
Enough equipment to capture ideas and build arrangements.
He previously used Cubase, as many European musicians did.
But when he moved to America, Pro Tools was everywhere.
So he learned it.
He never particularly enjoyed writing in it.
Too many steps.
Too much technical friction between hearing an idea and getting it recorded.
Eventually Logic became his preferred environment.
I can appreciate that.
I’ve spent a substantial part of my professional life working in Pro Tools.
It’s an extraordinarily powerful platform.
But songwriting and engineering aren’t necessarily the same activity.
When an idea appears, you want to capture it before it disappears.
You don’t want to spend the next ten minutes negotiating with the software.
For Coyle, Logic provides a comfortable middle ground.
He can build the song at home.
Then move into a proper studio when it’s time to expand the production.
Restoration Sounds
For several of his recent records, Coyle has worked at Restoration Sounds in Brooklyn.
It’s part of a larger musical community he’s developed in New York.
He’ll arrive with the songs.
Bring in friends.
Record drums.
Piano.
Additional instruments.
Whatever the material needs.
Coyle is comfortable handling vocals and guitar himself.
He can manage some basic piano.
But he’s equally comfortable admitting there are musicians who can do the other things considerably better.
So he invites them in.
And lets them contribute.
That last part is important.
He doesn’t want every musician to simply reproduce something he already programmed into a demo.
He wants them to bring their own ideas.
Their own instincts.
Their own musical personalities.
Sometimes a drummer hears something he hadn’t imagined.
A pianist introduces a new texture.
An arrangement shifts.
The song becomes better.
That’s what good collaboration should accomplish.
Don’t Hire Great Musicians and Then Tell Them Not to Play
I’ve always appreciated artists who understand the value of the people in the room.
If you’re hiring talented musicians, give them some room to be talented.
Certainly, the songwriter needs a vision.
The song needs direction.
But there’s a difference between protecting an idea and suffocating it.
Coyle understands that.
He brings the material into the studio and allows the musicians to explore.
He’s willing to hear something better than what he originally imagined.
That takes confidence.
It also takes humility.
The song is more important than proving every idea came from him.
The Boys From the Band
Near the end of our conversation, I asked Coyle about his unsung heroes.
The people who had supported him.
Helped him.
Stayed beside him through the career.
He didn’t reach for a famous name.
Not Mac Davis.
Not a record executive.
Not someone connected to Sun Records.
He chose the musicians from his original band.
The friends he’d known since childhood.
The people who had started playing music together when they were around 11 or 12 years old.
They learned together.
Got better together.
Signed deals together.
Moved to New York.
Toured America.
Played arenas.
Performed on television.
Then eventually stepped away.
But they never entirely disappeared from one another’s lives.
In fact, when we spoke, they were discussing making music together again.
All of them were still in New York.
All those years later.
That’s remarkable.
Because bands often end in a way that makes reconciliation difficult.
Personalities collide.
Money complicates things.
Creative differences become personal differences.
Eventually the people who once wanted nothing more than to make music together can barely tolerate being in the same room.
Coyle’s story seems different.
The band needed a break.
Life moved forward.
But the friendship survived.
And now, perhaps, the music might return.
Coming Full Circle
There are several circles in Coyle Girelli’s story.
The child who didn’t appreciate his father’s American records eventually became an artist releasing music through Sun Records.
The young songwriter who grew up hearing opera eventually found himself writing for musical theater.
The teenager who had to travel hours to discover new music eventually toured the world performing his own.
The kid from Otley became a New Yorker.
The band that began with school friends might still have another chapter ahead.
And the songwriter who spent years chasing opportunities eventually learned that sometimes the most important thing is simply being present enough to appreciate them.
That’s what makes his experience at Sun Studio such an appropriate place to begin and end this story.
Because there he was.
A songwriter who had performed on Letterman.
Toured with Duran Duran.
Worked with Mac Davis.
Released multiple solo albums.
Built a life in New York.
And written music for other artists and the stage.
Yet the thing that stopped him in his tracks wasn’t a massive crowd.
A television camera.
Or a record contract.
It was a microphone capturing the sound of a room.
He sat in the control room listening to that room microphone over and over.
And for a few minutes, he wasn’t thinking about the next tour.
The next album.
The next song.
He was simply listening.
The same way he’d listened as a kid after making that long trip into Leeds.
A record.
A sound.
A discovery.
A moment when music makes the world feel different than it did a few minutes earlier.
Coyle Girelli has spent most of his life chasing that feeling.
And now he gets to create it for other people.
Somewhere, somebody might hear one of his songs for the first time.
And just like Coyle said about the records that changed his own life, they’ll never quite be the same person who hadn’t heard it.
That’s a pretty good reason to keep writing.