Ashley Gorley, Madeline Edwards, Chase McDaniel Discuss Songwriting, Mental Health During Hollywood & Mind Nashville Event

On Wednesday (Oct . 22), 2025 Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee Ashley Gorley, and artists Madeline Edwards and Chase McDaniel spoke astir the value of caring for intelligence health, challenges and opportunities that non-performing songwriters face.

The chat was portion of a day-long event, Hollywood & Mind, which focused connected an array of topics astatine the intersection of music, the euphony manufacture and intelligence health. The lawsuit was held astatine intimate Nashville venue Anzie Blue. In speech with Hollywood & Mind laminitis Cathy Applefeld Olson, Gorley spoke of the interaction of the susceptible ballad “I Am Not Okay,” which Gorley co-wrote with Taylor Phillips and Casey Brown. The opus became a Billboard Country Airplay chart-topper and Billboard Hot 100 apical 15 deed recorded by Jelly Roll and the pb azygous from Jelly Roll’s Billboard 200 chart-topping medium Beautifully Broken.

“The artists are the ones taking that large archetypal gamble. I’m not a opus I’m putting retired to vigor to correspond myself, truthful it takes idiosyncratic similar [Jelly Roll] and similar different artists,” Gorley said. “Right astir COVID times, especially, I deliberation everybody got existent introspective…and determination were a batch of heartbreak songs, a batch of vulnerable, honest, songs astir what a messiness we each are, and those started sticking. People were responding to that,” helium says of the ballad’s absorption connected intelligence health.

Gorley recalled of penning “I Am Not Okay,” “It was an thought I had successful my phone…I thought, ‘Hey, that could beryllium a opus and helium would beryllium the person, if he’s down to bash it, to sing that… truthful recognition to him connected that. When you bash a opus similar that, that heaviness of it and it’s a ballad and past you ne'er know… for him to beryllium similar ‘I’m going to motorboat this medium with this’…It’s not a ‘roll down our windows’ benignant of song.

“I got to spot a mates of [Jelly Roll] shows,” helium continues, “and the signs… the information that radical attached to that thought… and that it doesn’t lick immoderate problems, like, ‘Hey, if you’re not okay, bash this and you’ll beryllium great.’ That was truly important. Lucky for me, we got to beryllium a portion of that and constitute it with an creator that was not acrophobic for it to beryllium his single.” Gorley besides precocious donated royalties from the occurrence of “I Am Not Okay” to motorboat intelligence wellness initiatives benefiting songwriters.

He besides related proposal for songwriters erstwhile it comes to mounting realistic goals successful an manufacture wherever accolades are the anticipation of truthful galore creators, saying helium has advised songwriters to not acceptable goals that they person nary power over.

“That’s the taxable of the past six months oregon so, and I request to perceive that, too,” helium explained. “I’ll perceive a writer say, ‘All I privation is simply a No. 1 [song] oregon a Grammy,’ oregon fill-in-the-blank of immoderate it is, and cheque successful and say, ‘Do I person immoderate power implicit that astatine all?’ I’m ever like, ‘Let’s constitute the champion thing, and if everybody misses it, they missed out. If we deliberation we crushed it, that’s what we tin thrust connected and if you don’t get the immoderate award, that’s retired of your control. You gotta beryllium cautious to marque thing substance excessively much. The enactment matters and let’s bash the champion that we tin successful a room. Let’s springiness it each we got, but you benignant of person to permission those results up to immoderate they are. You can’t power what play thing comes out, oregon what happens to a promo staff, oregon erstwhile Taylor Swift puts an medium out…there are a batch of factors determination that a opus has thing to bash with that travel into play. So that’s my informing changeable arsenic of precocious to a batch of writers.”

Gorley was past joined by singer-songwriters Madeline Edwards and Chase McDaniel — some of whom person addressed issues involving intelligence wellness successful their music. Edwards’s astir caller album, Fruit, delves into pain, loss, and reclaiming joyousness aft losing a loved 1 to suicide. McDaniel’s debut medium Lost Ones delves into his o...