INDEPENDENT HOUR: EJ SAFTNER

‍EJ Saftner is first and foremost a writer. No matter what the medium is, her soul is evident in her writing  - whether it's an album review, a novel or a verse - her poetic nature rears its head in unsuspecting and clever ways. A Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania native, she did not grow up in what she calls a “major music hub,” but her drive toward creative writing, specifically in music, was always bubbling inside of her.

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“Writing has always been the main thing for me. I love to write, I write to relax. I write to work…it’s very therapeutic for me which is how it started in connection with my other type of therapy, which is music.”

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Since beginning her songwriting career, EJ has collaborated in sessions and secured cuts with artists including Suki Waterhouse, Chelsea Cutler, Brynn Cartelli, Donna Missal, Two Feet and Cigarettes After Sex (Greg Gonzalez).

She is a spectacular writer, and she graciously agreed to share her candid story about the highs and lows of being a songwriter, and the advice she has for aspiring writers.

GA: How did you first decide you wanted to be a creative writer?

“I grew up with music in the house, but I was not drawn to songwriting at a young age or anything. Growing up in Pittsburgh, I didn’t see anyone who was a songwriter to be like, ‘Yeah, I want to do that.’ So the passion didn’t really start until college. I started off majoring in Psychology, but moved to a Public Relations major my sophomore year of college. There wasn’t a specific music or even entertainment adjacent major or minor at that point, but I always did extracurriculars involving music.”

Some of the aforementioned extracurriculars included working as a publicist for a local university band, volunteering at the university’s radio station (WEGL 91.1 FM) in marketing, promotion and as a radio host; interning with the College of Liberal Arts; and managing Sonic Nation, a contemporary band from Auburn University’s campus.

So EJ stayed busy, one might say. Her junior year of college had other plans, with March 2020 shifting her entire schedule and mindset. She had an internship lined up for the summer of 2020, but it fell through due to COVID-19. EJ, who never could stay still, found new passions in the thick of the lockdown.

“I spent all my free time writing. I didn’t know what to do when I lost my internship, so I decided to make an internship for myself.”

She created her own personal blog, SPILL., which reviewed music and general entertainment content. It started with album reviews for mainstream artists like The Weeknd and Dua Lipa, but EJ always had a heart for small, independent artists, so she reviewed many artists that spanned across multiple genres and paid no mind to follower count. Eventually, she started getting pitches from smaller artists and their publicists for music reviews and interviews, and inadvertently, created her own network of artists and industry members. She didn’t have a particular vision with SPILL., but it provided her the creative outlet to write and have a multimedia platform dedicated solely to her passion.

“[SPILL.] changed everything for me. I saw it as a way to practice writing, and honestly it just gave me something to do during that time.”

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GA: You had SPILL. and continued to write reviews, but what was the switch like from blog writing to songwriting specifically?

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“I knew no one was going to reach out and ask to do a songwriting session with me since I was seen as an interviewer and had no demos to present. I had to reach out to artists and publicists to write with me, but I was nervous.”

She reviewed artists like Nell Mescal, who was doing interviews with EJ in her school uniform at the time, but she mustered up the courage to ask if Nell would be interested in doing a virtual songwriting session with her, knowing she didn’t have the ‘proper training’ as a songwriter. She was hooked after her initial songwriting session with Nell, but worried as to what could be next.

“Once I made the ask, I realized I can do this really well actually.”

Through SPILL. reviews and poetry, she had written throughout her entire adult life, so songwriting started to feel like a natural fit for her, even if it wasn’t something she wasn’t initially comfortable in doing.

“I hadn’t fully tapped into the creative part of me just yet. I didn’t know if it was even viable - no one I knew did it, but why I love songwriting is because it feels more free. I’m not trained and I don’t have rules that follow me or inform how I write. I think that’s why certain artists like to work with me and why I think certain artists love it.”

After a couple of sessions with artists, she was hooked.

“I didn’t have a huge network to start booking sessions immediately. It’s really difficult to get into rooms with people. I think a lot of artists like to do their work solo, which I totally respect, but I was lucky that I had a little cushion with the artists I met through SPILL., EJ confessed. And honestly, I really can tap into a delusional sense of confidence. I’m very insecure and emotional, as a lot of writers are, but I try to assign that little bit of confidence to who I am as a writer.”

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GA: What were your early pitches like to collaborate with artists through songwriting?

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“I started off in a publicist mindset because that’s how I was trained. Really long and drawn out DMs that were super detailed. In the early days, I was really convincing myself in the messages I was sending that I could do this. I didn’t feel like I had a ‘right’ or ability to do this, but I had to shift into the mindset that if I believe this, I can get other people to believe this as well. I couldn’t afford doubting myself or floundering because this is a competitive space so you HAVE to believe you can. Nowadays though, [the DMs] are very brief and to the point. I have a document that has my songwriter info that includes my headshot, released songs, demos and a little about me so I don’t have to draw it out as much. Pitching yourself is always tough. Self-promotion is always tough. But the biggest thing I think I did for myself early on was total confidence and belief that if given the chance by one person I could do it.”

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GA: How did you get into those ‘rooms’ with artists?

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“Honestly, I am a serial DMer. I have no shame. Like I said, I learned a lot from my blog days - you can pitch all day and never hear back - so the idea that someone doesn’t want to work with me or rejected me just really didn’t phase me. I’m aware that I’m not an artist, and yes I want to be a songwriter, but I knew I didn’t go to school for songwriting, so I didn’t have professors who could vouch for me or demos I could send out, so growing the network was tough, but I think people are more receptive than we give them credit for. People are really busy, but they’ll typically get back to you, and if they don’t? You try again. And it’s hard to try again, don’t get me wrong. It happened for me by one artist taking a chance on me, which was probably 3 years after I started committing myself to it. Probably the 300th or 400th article and pitch, somewhere in that range. It takes a minute [laughs].”

“Thankfully, my blog really was a vessel into songwriting. After certain interviews, I would pitch myself and sometimes the artists came back around to write with me. I take a lot of pride in interviewing artists with detailed research to support the interview, so I think there was a certain level of trust already there before a session. Because I didn’t have demos, I would pitch poems, which is how I visualize songs. I’m a very lyric driven, word driven person. I talk a lot [laughs].

“I kept a detailed list of artists or publicists that I had ever reached out to keep it organized so I could be a consistent presence in the back of people’s minds. And you have to remember, this is not an overnight process. I’ve been building these contacts for almost 6 years, but because of the time I dedicated to it, I get to get into these rooms or even just get coffee with some of these contacts that I have continued to put time into.”

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GA: What was your ‘big break’? What got you ‘in the room’?

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“So I was like, never in the room, like I truly never got in the room [laughs]. It was exhausting. Starting during COVID, there were a lot of virtual sessions and a lot of general getting to know each other and our writing. When I moved to Nashville, I thought it would be a bit easier, but I learned a lot of my artist friends had their ‘camps’ and structures in place, so it was a difficult part of starting out in a certain major music hub. Not only is it incredibly competitive, but people have pretty concrete communities and they have people already in place that they trust and work with often, which I understand is what every artist ideally craves, but those take a lot of time to cultivate, which can be difficult for songwriters starting out. Many of those early sessions in Nashville were literally my friends who were artists in my studio apartment. I worked an office job, so I did it any free moment I had. I wasn’t in studios, but I wrote every single day - lyrics, poems, or even just compiling ideas I was mulling over. I would serially DM like I always do, but wasn’t getting too many hits off of that. I was really trying to figure out if this was a viable path for me. I learned different production softwares and instruments to record rough demos, but I always continued to write lyrics and poems.”

“I was really starting to hone in my style and feel confident in my writing, and in turn, my first ‘big break’ was meeting Suki Waterhouse. To this day I can’t even really wrap my mind around it. I was still writing reviews for different publications at the time, so when I got home from work one day, I listened to Suki’s most recent release at the time ‘Melrose Meltdown’ which I instantly loved, but honestly I had had a shit day and didn’t want to write about it. I inevitably wrote a review and put it up on a blog I wrote for, Early Rising.”

“I would typically DM the article to whoever I had written about and say something I specifically loved about their work. So, I DM’d it to Suki and didn’t think much about it, but I was shocked when she DM’d me back saying “Love this!”. My heart dropped. I remember being like ‘Ok I gotta shoot my shot.’ For some reason I felt like she would like my poems and be open to the idea of looking at them, but truly had no expectation. I honestly thought it could’ve been her manager responding just to be nice, so I was just a little embarrassed that Suki might not be the one reading my poems [laughs] but I had nothing to lose so I had to not care that deeply.”

“I sent her a poem and she asked me to send it to her email and then asked if she could take it into a session, to which I said ‘Fuck Yeah!’ A few weeks later, she sent me a demo, and she had taken bits of my poem and used it, and then asked me to rewrite the poem into another song. And since then, she’s never stopped asking what else I have.”

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“My first full session with her was when she had a stop in Nashville during her tour with Father John Misty in October of 2022, and it was instantly amazing. We just kept bouncing ideas off of each other and continued writing different lyrics after she left, then she invited me to come out to LA and New York, so I wrote with her pretty consistently, whether it be writing lyrics and sending it virtually or being in the room together.”

EJ is credited on Suki’s most recent 2024 album, Memoir of a Sparklemuffin, on four tracks: “Model, Actress, Whatever,” “To Get You,” “Think Twice,” and “Helpless.”

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GA: How do you think Suki shaped you as a songwriter?  

“She really adopted me and nurtured that creative drive that I had but didn’t know exactly where to place. She’s like an older sister to me and has always treated me with such respect from the moment I met her. She's very kind and very funny - I felt so comfortable from the jump. She’s very intuitive in her art, so I think she actually appreciated that I had no training. It was just what felt right to us. She validated a lot of my thoughts and feelings about songwriting. She’s a true collaborator.”

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GA: What is your process like in a session?

“It depends on the artist, other collaborators and overall style. What stays the same though - I write like a madman, so before every session, I go through all of my writings and ramblings, and pick out ideas to have, just to start with if need be. Sometimes, artists want to lead the room, but need help crafting their specific ideas. Sometimes they come in with no ideas and in those times, I can take the lead. Being a songwriter really is being the supporting act.”

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GA: What is your biggest piece of advice in sessions as a songwriter?

“My biggest consistency in sessions is being able to adapt and collaborate because the bottom line is: I won’t live with these songs the way the artist will have to. It has to be in their tone and has to be what they want to say, which I think is the most exciting part of collaboration because it really is a relationship. There’s a different level of comfort in each session you go into, so it’s just like practice with anything - the more I do it, the more comfortable I am. But on the flipside, I still tap into that delusional sense of confidence knowing whatever session I’m put into, I can do. I recommend preparation, but you cannot solely rely on that. You don’t want to not see past an idea because you’re stuck on something. There's an acceptance as a songwriter that the product is a sum of the individual parts, so if there’s a line I’m protective over but it is used in a context I don’t necessarily agree with, you have to remind yourself it’s bigger than you. And if some part you love is thrown out, a line or verse can always be saved and used for another project.”

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GA: What is your favorite part of songwriting?

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“If I can write something that one person can connect with, let alone if they [the artist] can fill a stadium or a small theater with those words, it’s a connection to people.”

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GA: How do you protect yourself as a songwriter?

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“I do not have a pub deal currently, so my biggest piece of advice is to:

#1: Get a lawyer. Get a lawyer, Get a lawyer, Get a lawyer, Get a lawyer, Get a lawyer. I am so thankful that I have an amazing lawyer that I love who specializes in songwriters, and it was truly kismet to have met her. You need to have someone you can ask questions to because songwriter's deals are often not presented to benefit the songwriter, especially long term. It can be really scary when you see a big sum of money, but you don’t know what the back of it might look like, so some sort of legal representation or someone well versed in the community is vital in understanding your own rights versus what people are presenting to you. I’m currently independent, like I mentioned before, but thankfully I have an amazing community of advocates, so I’m honestly in the same boat sometimes trying to figure out how to approach certain conversations about pub deals.

#2: Protect as much of your own intellectual property from the very beginning. Do your due diligence and keep a detailed account of your writing. It can be tough as a creative to worry about those things, but at the end of the day, it’s a product that people are selling and marketing and those people have other interests outside of protecting your property, so you have to do it for yourself.

#3: Keep track of the sessions you’re in, the songs you’ve worked on, organize your notes from each session. Unfortunately, you’re not going to get exactly what you want from each project - the different deals from different sessions are not cookie cutter, so make sure you are as prepared as possible. There are shitty instances when you get cut out of things and having to fight for 1 or 2% of something when you potentially might not even get that, but having references of being there and having a detailed account is very important.

#4: It is so rare to get one hit song and be set. You have to be light on your feet and adaptable to knowing it’s all part of a larger process. It takes a very long time, so being open and purposeful about the collaborators you choose will set you up in the long run.”

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GA: It’s a grueling business - what makes you carry on?

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“It’s the only thing in the world I want to do. It’s a cliche and sometimes silly, but I want to be a writer. I write other projects outside of songwriting because it’s an impulse and my favorite thing. With songwriting specifically, it connects me with people in ways I could’ve only ever dreamed of before. I just love sitting on people’s couches and listening to their lives and relating to them while figuring out the puzzle of articulating certain ideas to make them honest and real, or silly and fun, or petty and mad. It’s fantastic sprawling on people’s furniture, eating their food and creating something real. It’s a constant expression of emotions that I can channel in a healthy way and have people hopefully relate to. It exists way beyond me, which is an amazing feeling.

“Being at Suki’s show in NYC recently was surreal. I turned around and saw people with their arms around each other singing lyrics I worked on, on an album I love for an artist who I was a fan of way before I decided to be a songwriter, but now I am sitting in the front row of her shows.”

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GA: What are your biggest pieces of advice for songwriters starting out?

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“I knew if I never gave this a chance, I would never forgive myself, so if you have that in you, go for it. It’s not glamorous, it’s not a career for seeking all the credit for art, so you have to love it. Follow your intuition - there are really no set of specific ‘rules’.  If you think something sounds cool, write it down, see where it could fit or whose voice it could be in. Surround yourself with true advocates. I’ve been very lucky with the people I’ve met, specifically and most recently in New York. Also, you don’t have to go to school for it - creatively I feel more free, but technically, you go through an education phase either way, whether it’s in school or in a session. It’s all very stylized based on the type of session you’re in. I honestly love the fact that I don’t always know what I’m doing.”

“If you’re discouraged, you have to remember these “rejections” are almost never personal. Things come to fruition, but I’m not going to lie - it is really tough. It’s incredibly difficult to navigate the ins and outs of this industry, and it’s truly day by day. Writing is the thing I love most, and I can't let it go.”

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EJ currently resides in New York, NY. To this day, she still does interviews for publications like  1883 Magazine where she interviews artists, actors, and creatives. She is a champion of songwriters and independent artists. She doesn’t believe her growth as a writer has stopped, and she continues to take shape as an independent songwriter.

You can listen to EJ’s so-written songs in her Spotify playlist here. In 2024, she released her independent poetry book, ‘write it down so you don’t forget’ and shares ‘A POEM A DAY’ on her creative writing substack.

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