Inside Track: Ella Langley 'Dandelion'

Ben West Ben WestPhoto: Spencer Combs

The colossal success of Ella Langley’s ‘Choosin’ Texas’ and parent album Dandelion shows that traditional Nashville record‐making still works in the 21st Century.

Ella Langley is the latest country star to top the mainstream charts, and she is breaking records along the way. ‘Choosin’ Texas’ has spent 10 weeks atop the Billboard singles chart, while her second album Dandelion reached number one on both the US mainstream and country charts.

Dandelion was co‐produced by Langley, fellow country star Miranda Lambert, and Ben West, and largely engineered and wholly mixed by Dave Clauss. As West and Clauss explain, the album was made in textbook Nashville fashion, with emphasis on songs and speed.

"I grew up making a lot of indie rock music, which is often obsessed with aesthetics," says West. "You found a cool guitar line or you distorted the drums a certain way — some of my favourite records are like that, and I definitely nerd out on these sonics. But since I’m a songwriter as well, the most important adjustment I had to make to making music in Nashville was the realisation: Wait a minute, the number one priority here is communicating the lyric and making sure the music enhances the story.

"Ella is a perfect example. She’s a really honest writer, and when she sings, you believe her. Of course, the production around her vocal has to ensure that the lyric and story comes through. During the recording sessions everyone is really sensitive to that. The session musicians are not going to step on a melody. They’re not going to do something that would take attention away from that. And they know how to find the moments when they can briefly be a little more dramatic.

Dave Clauss. Dave Clauss."During tracking sessions, we move so quickly. Dave [Clauss] is set up for speed. The thing that bums everybody out during a session is when it doesn’t sound great right away in your headphones, or the playback vibe isn’t in the ballpark, and the engineer in the control room says, ‘Give me 20 minutes.’ That’s not the way Dave works. He’s balancing as he goes, and it immediately sounds like a record."

Clauss picks up the story: "The good thing about the studios that I often use in Nashville is that everything’s working, and the assistants are ninjas. They know the rooms, and are familiar with how I like to work. I send them an input list for my gear and the studio’s gear, and they set everything up before I come in. Because I know the rooms, I know where I want things placed.

"For a session start at 10am, I’ll get there 8:30am. The drummer may arrive at 9:30am. I then have 20 minutes to get drum sounds for any number of vibes. I often have no idea what songs will be recorded, so I need to have different drum sounds ready for any eventuality. If you would see me in that moment, just before the session, you’d think I am a lunatic, sprinting back and forth like crazy. It looks like I’m on crack, because I’m tweaking things so quickly. Everything has to work. If I don’t get everything ready by 10am, and people have to wait, it’s money wasted."

Work In Progress

Since he started working in Nashville back in 2012, Ben West has co‐written and/or produced songs for country artists like Lori McKenna, Brett Eldredge, Parker McCollum, Blake Shelton, Carly Pearce, Stephen Wilson Jr, Patrick Droney, Hailey Whitters, Ashley Monroe, Laci Kaye Booth — and Ella Langley. "My publishers and managers at Creative Nation set up a day for me in the fall of 2024 to write with Ella and Joybeth Taylor. Writing sessions are a good way for an artist to audition a potential producer. We had a great time, and wrote the song ‘We Know Us’, which ended up on the album, and another song that may end up on the deluxe version. I loved how Ella’s production brain worked, and it resonated with mine. She played me a bunch of great sonic references, like Ronnie Milsap, and some other records I hadn’t heard. It really set the tone. Her sensibilities are unique; I was like, ‘Nobody’s referencing Ronnie Milsap!’

"It typically falls to someone to record a ‘demo’ in the writing session. I’m usually tasked with making them, but at times I don’t switch the computer on, because I’m sick of looking at a screen. We’re all sick of screens. One of my buddies has been taking an old cassette recorder to writing sessions, and at the end of the day, he records whatever they wrote with that. Sometimes people simply record an iPhone Voice Memo at the end of a writing session, which is called a ‘work tape’. That’s enough proof of concept for a song. Other times, they will take the time in the writing session to properly record a vocal and later finish out a more fully realised version. That’s what Ella, Joybeth and I did for the songs we wrote together. I’m terrible with MIDI and programming, so I played everything live into Pro Tools, and gave the result to Ella, saying, ‘This is what I imagine the Ronnie Milsap vibe we’re going for sounds like.’ Sometime after that I was excited to be asked to co‐produce six songs with Ella and Miranda.

"There were so many great writers and producers involved in the various writing sessions for Dandelion. For example, Ella works really well with Austin Goodloe, who was involved in writing the title track, together with Ella, Joybeth and Brett Tyler. Miranda and Joybeth were also involved in writing ‘Choosin’ Texas’ with producer‐writer Luke Dick. Austin was a lifesaver, he recorded a fair amount of Ella’s vocals on the rest of the album too."

It’s About The Song

This composite screenshot shows the final Pro Tools mix session for ‘Choosin’ Texas’. This composite screenshot shows the final Pro Tools mix session for ‘Choosin’ Texas’.

According to West, it’s typical in Nashville that the songs are selected first, followed by the producer, and then the band. "Ella and Miranda had done a lot of prep work for the project before I came in, and they picked the songs. When they asked me to help produce those songs, my one request was to have Dave [Clauss] involved, because I can’t do anything without him. He’s an incredible collaborator. Then we talked about the band. Miranda suggested bassist Rachel Loy and her pedal steel player Spencer Cullum, Ella wanted her band leader Ben Flanders, and Tom Bukovac, both on electric guitars. I suggested the acoustic guitarist, Charlie Worsham, keyboardist Dave Cohen, and drummer Aksel Coe. That was the band for those first sessions we did, including ‘Choosin’ Texas’.

"Once the band was picked, Kelsey Granda, the production coordinator, booked the studio, Sound Emporium, and the musicians, for three days of sessions, in April 2025. The sessions are in three‐hour blocks, the first is 10am to 1pm, and the second 2pm to 5pm, with a 1‐2pm lunch break. Dave prepares the tech side beforehand, and brings in a pile of gear, compressors and microphones and whatnot. I’m a gear nerd as well, so we’ll have conversations about what to bring. No‐one’s heard the songs before the sessions, except for Ella, Miranda and I. Once the musicians have set up, we’ll introduce the first song to them, playing them a work tape or more fully formed demo, depending on how closely we want to stick to a preconceived approach.

"It’s easy to get...