John Anderson Finds Kindred Spirit in John Rich

John Anderson photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Nashville.

John Rich photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Nashville

June 6, 2007 — John Anderson has a reputation for being a bit stubborn in the studio, but when John Rich began calling the shots on his new album Easy Money, John decided to sit back and let him take charge.

"A lot of making these songs work together came into play with the production, more so than on most of my other records — and that was all John Rich," John tells CMA Close Up. "Yeah, a few songs were pretty spontaneous, but for the most part John came to each one with an arrangement in his head. He directed us, the players and me, and we all believed in him. Nobody had a sour face as they were being told what to do, and in Nashville, with players this good, that's walking on eggshells, brother. And for a guy like me to watch that, hell yeah, I was taking notes."

By his own admission, John Anderson is a bit of a control freak. "After the second album, I became a producer and I didn't let nobody tell me a damn thing," he says. "But within an hour after John and I started our first session, I stood at the studio window watching him work and decided that I wasn't going to co-produce this one. I'd just keep my opinions and ideas out of it and let him go. He kept saying, 'Trust me, Uncle John, I'm not going to screw up your record.'"

For his part, John Rich insists that it was never his intention to seize the sole production credit for Easy Money. "I just wanted to get in there and do anything that would let me hear some new John Anderson music," he explains. "But I work real fast, so I think he saw me get in my groove and just let me do it. After we'd done a song or two, I realized I hadn't even taken the time to see how John thought about it. But he told me, 'If I hear something I don't like, I'll stop you.' And he never did."