When Morgan Wallen released his wildly anticipated 37-song fourth studio album, I’m The Problem, on Friday, it had already produced a handful of No. 1 hits for him. And one chart-topper for songwriter Chris Tompkins. A staple in the Nashville songwriting community, Tompkins scored six co-writes on I’m the Problem, a code he had to crack on his own. None of Tompkins’ Wallen cuts were co-writes with the singer. And “Lies, Lies, Lies,” which he co-wrote with Jessie Jo Dillon, Josh Miller, and Daniel Ross, is Tompkins’ 17th No. 1 hit.
He also co-wrote “Crazy Eyes” with Miller, Dillon, and Ross. “LA Night” came with Miller and Travis Wood. Tompkins penned “Dark Til Daylight” with Rocky Block and Jimmy Robbins. “If You Were Mine” was a four-way write with Dillon, David Garcia, and Geoff Warburton. And Tompkins wrote “Revelation” with Trannie Anderson, Rodney Clawson, and Nicolle Galyon.
Tompkins, whose other chart-topping hits include Carrie Underwood’s “Before He Cheats,” Luke Bryan’s “Drunk on You” and Dierks Bentley’s “Drunk On a Plane,” humbly chalks the Wallen cuts up to luck. But it’s more than that. He was open to instruction, willing to adjust, and had the tenacity to dig until he figured out what Wallen wanted for this album. While Wallen said he told a handful of songwriters what he wanted for I’m The Problem, Tompkins wasn’t one of them. Tompkins used to write for Big Loud, where Wallen is signed. When he pitched “Lies, Lies, Lies” to Seth England at Big Loud, England told Tompkins that Wallen wouldn’t listen if he didn’t remove the trap beat. So, Tompkins and his co-writers reworked the song.
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“Once we took the drums out, we were like, ‘Ooh, that’s a thing,’” Tompkins said. “From then on, I started sending him songs with no drums on them. It got back to like old school Nashville, just like pitching work tapes.”
After his success with “Lies, Lies, Lies,” Tompkins started chasing Wallen cuts. England was key to Tompkins’ process. He’d send new songs to England, partner and CEO at Big Loud. Sometimes it took England two weeks to reply to Tompkins, but the songwriter knew he could trust England to get back to him. Tompkins didn’t send one song at a time. He might send eight, and England would reply that he’d send five to Wallen. Wallen might like two of them.
“If it’s working, you’ve got to chase it, right?” Tompkins said. “It was really fun. We wrote a bunch of good songs. People are already recording all the songs that he didn’t record. It was just a really inspiring time.”
Tompkins focused on writing songs for Wallen for at least one year. He tried different sounds, including finger picking with minor tones, Fleetwood Mac-sounding songs, and Eagles-type stuff. Some of it stuck and some of it didn’t.
Chris Tompkins Tried Everything from Trap Beats to Fleetwood Mac
“I was like, ‘I know he’s not gonna make an album just the songs we’re writing, but what different areas can we hit?’” Tompkins said. “My thought process was like, ‘Well, we got that. What would go good on the album with that?’ I thought about it like I was writing an album.”
Even though Tompkins has known England since he was an intern at the company, England didn’t give him much direction. Tompkins never knew where his songs stood – if they would make the cut. He asked England what kind of songs they still needed, and England said he didn’t know.
“He was like, ‘Just keep writing,’” Tompkins said. “I was like, ‘alright, alright.’ I think he was just giving me the freedom to see where it went.”
Tompkins also thinks that what England said was true – that maybe all Wallen knew was that he wanted to record something different. He just didn’t know what it was. In the 19 years since Tompkins charted his first No. 1 hit, he learned how to anticipate an artist’s next move. This time, it paid off.
“It was like that perfect storm of life,” said Tompkins, a happily married father of two. “It was, ‘Oh, shit, I could do this.’ It was exciting. He’s such a big artist. Financially writing for Morgan Wallen is a good thing, but it was never really about that. I love his voice, and I just felt inspired. He was loving it, so I kept doing it.”
(Photo by Leah Puttkammer/FilmMagic)
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