Adam Shoenfeld was 14 years old when he wrote his first song.
“The title of the song was actually inspired by my girlfriend at the time,” the accomplished Nashville guitarist chuckles during a recent interview with The Boot. “I have come to realize that the songs that are more true to my heart are easier to write than the ones that aren’t. I mean, I’m the guy that cries at the downbeat during a concert. The feel of music means something to me.”
When the music mastermind sat down to write a song back in January 2021, Shoenfeld was looking to go down deep into that tender heart of his and come up with a song that not only spoke to him, but would speak to all who listened it.
“Originally, the title of the song was ‘We All Need a Friend’ and it was just really a song of hope,” remarks Shoenfeld. “It wasn’t ‘The Sky is Falling Down’ yet.”
That is, until Shoenfeld’s wife and SunKat bandmate Katie Cook walked in the room.
“I played the song for her and I kind of sensed this before I played it, but she told me that I had two very different songs,” he remembers of the track, whose addictive guitar lick was ultimately inspired by the hum of an ordinary clothes dryer that co-writer Deano Brown brought to him. “And then, she started singing and that’s when ‘The Sky is Falling Down’ came to me. And it actually was a cooler way of capturing that sentiment.”
Premiering exclusively on The Boot, “The Sky is Falling Down” title may have some assuming that the song focuses in on the somewhat rocky state of affairs in the world today, but it steers far from that.
“There’s a hidden line at the end of the song that says, ‘Look at the good all around you,’” mentions Shoenfeld, who ended up finishing the song alongside songwriters Cook and Deano Brown. “I think that’s the moral of the song. We have to take what good we can find and build it back up. And I think that good is still there. We just had so much division and craziness over the last few years. I think people are just hyper focused on the negative. I just want people to know it’s going to be okay.”
He takes a deep breath, seemingly recognizing that often one must have faith that things will turn out the way they are meant to. It’s certainly been that way in Shoenfeld’s career thus far.
Inspired by the music of legends such as Tom Petty and The Beatles, Shoenfeld has touched virtually all sides of the Nashville machine during his years in Music City. He penned tracks for other country artists, including Faith Hill’s “Mississippi Girl” and Big & Rich’s “Real World.” He’s served as bandleader and lead guitarist on every one of Jason Aldean’s records, has toured with Tim McGraw, and played guitar on over 45 No. 1 songs. And if that’s not enough, he also earned 7 nominations for the Academy of Country Music’s Guitar Player of the Year.
But one thing he had never done was release an album of his own.
“I have written my own songs from my own personal artistry and heart for many years, but I just don’t think the timing was ever right,” Shoenfeld says of contemplating a possible solo career. “The planets just never seemed to align.”
The past three years offered Shoenfeld the time to focus more on his own projects, including the rock band Digital Brains, music duo SunKat, and pop supergroup Project: Ghost Outfit. It was these projects that seemed to up his confidence in an important and needed way, directing him to his studio basement to begin work on his first ever solo album titled All the Birds Sing, in which “The Sky is Falling Down” will soon live.
“It’s not country, it’s not rock…who knows what it is,” he contemplates aloud of the album, which is scheduled for release in January 2021 via Lozen Entertainment Group/Copperline and one he co-produced alongside Cook. “I don’t care what people say it is. I just know that my heart and soul is in it.”