Conner Smith enlists Hailey Whitters for a metaphorical game of 'Roulette': 'I knew the song was next level for me'

Conner Smith scored his first top 20 single when his swampy speedster, “Creek Will Rise,” reached No. 12 on Country Airplay. Its pounding beat and pickup truck motif probably made more than a few listeners think of Garth Brooks' “Ain't Goin' Down (Til the Sun Comes Up).”

But the follow-up — “Roulette on the Heart,” with vocal assistance from Hailey Whitters — feels like a country classic from the other end of the energy spectrum, the Brad Paisley/Alison Krauss duet “Whiskey Lullaby.” Like that ballad, “Roulette” pairs a male and female solo artist in a Dobro-heavy work built around a dark, doomy story. In “Whisky”, the plot depicts a double suicide with alcohol, fueled by broken hearts. Smith's concoction, carried at a slightly faster pace, draws on Russian roulette as a metaphor for the danger in a relationship with a wild woman.

Smith didn't have “Whiskey” in mind when he created “Roulette” in early December 2022, but he sensed a significance to his work from the start.

“When we wrote it, I knew the song was different,” he allows. “I knew singing was next level for me. It felt like a song to me – and it still does – that could go on for a long time, in a way that I don't think I've ever put out a song before. And so it was very important.”

Smith had his then-girlfriend — surfer Leah Thompson, whom he married on April 12 — in mind when he developed the title “Roulette,” which grew out of the inherent danger and gambling with a bullet and the extension of love to other.

“When you're in them [intense] relationships, the reality is you get married or you get divorced,” explains Smith. “You either find the person for the rest of your life or you get your heart broken when you fall in love with someone and that game, in itself, is roulette.”

Smith brought up the title during a write-up at a cabin in Tennessee owned by Thomas Rhett. He wrote two songs at the same time, “Roulette” and the title track on his EP How it looks from here, shifts about every half hour from one writing room to another. That is, it turns out, an ideal situation for him.

“I've been writing with him for a long time,” says songwriter Mark Trussell (“Your Place,” “Good Time”). “What I've noticed is that he kind of needs to go out and come back. It's good for him creatively to take a break and come back. And then he comes back really fresh, and he can just pick up a guitar and spit a whole verse. He's very good at doing that.”

Trussell and co-writers Jessi Alexander (“Light on the Kitchen,” “Chevrolet”) and Chase McGill (“5 Foot 9,” “Break Up in the End”) joined “Roulette.” McGill developed a folksy, foreboding guitar lick, and the group settled into a striking first line: “Picking you up is like picking up a gun/ Your kiss is the trigger.” The story unfolded chronologically from there, each sentence highlighting the protagonist's magnetic attraction to a romantic partner he knows could destroy him.

“This is definitely not your perfect, healthy relationship,” notes Alexander. “This is for people who play with danger and mystery and a bit of a volatile relationship. And it's a pistol.”

The chorus lifted the energy of the song, changing the pace and tempo of the chord changes to signal the arrival of the singalong section. “A lift doesn't always have to be a melodic, high or a cymbal in the chorus,” says Trussell. “So in this chorus, the melody moves faster and starts to roll a little more and the chords slow down.”

The second verse focused on an intimate moment between them, mixing a half-dressed sexual inference with another metaphor of the “foal steel” weapon. Alexander had a leading role in the tone of the turn. “I like edgy, I like edgy — you know, shock value,” she says. “I'm the girl who had sex with makeup on 'Mine Would Be You,' so I'm like, 'Bring it on. Let's do something edgy.” “

The bridge explained the danger implied by the rest of the song. Again, they created a subtle melody, using a variation on the last half of the chorus melody, maintaining continuity within the intensity of the verses. In the final chorus, Smith introduced an additional line – “Loving you, baby/ Is flipping off the safe” – continuing the symbolism of firearms in a unique way.

“The action of that creates a sense of danger, and I think that's cool because that's the game of love,” says Smith. The characters “obviously take it to a much deeper and darker place. Every time you get into a relationship, you realize you're escaping the safety of your heart.”

Smith became lead vocals and Alexander provided harmony for a demo that Trussell continued to work on after the session ended, using mostly acoustic instruments, including a reverb guitar.

Just days after writing it, Smith sang it during a WDAF Kansas City concert at the PBR Big Sky on December 7, 2022. A rowdy cowboy bar wasn't the best venue for an unfamiliar ballad — the patrons mostly ignored it — but when Smith was Finishing, fellow artist Withers leaned in to praise him for a “spontaneous” song with an unusual level of vulnerability.

“I thought it was nice to hear it from a man,” he says. “Immediately, as a chick, I connected with him.”

Smith's team had high hopes for “Roulette” when they recorded it in February 2023, with producer Zach Crowell (Sam Hunt, Jelly Roll) booking a studio band at Nashville's Sound Stage that seemed suitable for a commercial recording. in the country. Performance wasn't over the top, but it was still plenty. Smith and Crowell agreed that they should rely on Trussell's demo, so they repeatedly ripped parts from the tracking session. Thus, Trussell plays several instruments among the studio cats, and Alexander appears in some background vocal moments, although Whitters is the dominant female voice.

“That song was shockingly hard to do,” says Crowell. “It took a lot of different versions to get to this [final] version.”

This also applies to Whitters' vocals. She hit the studio somewhere between two and five times — even she isn't sure how many sessions that involved. She sang the entire song the first time, but as the production morphed, they developed more specific ideas about how to use her voice. She was willing to keep coming back.

“I knew how special the song was to Conner,” she says. “I don't think we knew at the time that it was going to be radio, but it meant a lot that he asked me to be a part of it, and I just wanted it to be right.”

In the final iteration, Whitters makes her first appearance singing harmony on the first chorus. She never sings as a solo star until the final chorus, when her entrance suggests that the woman in the song takes as much risk as the guy. “It definitely makes the reward better if you wait,” says Crowell. “It's a small prize when you finally get the whole chorus out of her.”

Valory released “Roulette on the Heart” to country radio via PlayMPE on April 8, providing a little “Whiskey Lullaby” to Smith's growing fame.

“'Creek' is a really fun song that works great live,” says Smith. “But at the true heart of country music, what I want to stand for as an artist, I think that kind of starts to reveal that.”