Laura Veltz Songwriter Interview - "Blue Strips," "High Road"

Over the past decade, Laura Veltz has been known as a top songwriter who has co-written country hits for Maren Morris, Dan & Shay, Lady A, Chris Young and other artists. But in the past few years, she has stretched out into other genres, which makes her one of the most unique and versatile songwriters working today.

Veltz now collaborates with artists in many genres, including pop, rock, R&B, hip-hop and Christian music. Although she’s still based in Nashville, she regularly flies to other cities to co-write with a wide range of artists. And impressively, Veltz has written multiple songs with several artists for their albums. She has had over 10 released cuts with Jessie Murph, Demi Lovato and Maren Morris.

This year (2025), Veltz co-wrote two songs that were pop hit singles: “Blue Strips” by Jessie Murph and “High Road” by Koe Wetzel & Jessie Murph. “Blue Strips” mixes pop, hip-hop & alternative for a cutting-edge song, while “High Road” mixes rock & country for a single that became a hit on multiple Billboard charts.

Notably, Veltz has co-written 11 songs that have been released by Murph—three songs on her 2024 album That Ain’t No Man That’s The Devil, plus eight songs on her 2025 album, Sex Hysteria. Veltz has become the songwriter that Murph enlists to help turn her creative freestyle ideas into radio-friendly hits.

In addition, Veltz co-wrote a massive 13 songs for Demi Lovato’s 2022 album, Holy Fvck, which made her the main songwriter on this project.

During her career, Veltz has also been known for writing many songs with Maren Morris. To date, she’s had a remarkable 15 released cuts with Morris. She co-wrote three songs on the 2016 album, Hero, five songs on the 2019 album, Girl, three songs on the 2022 album Humble Quest, and four songs on the 2025 album, Dreamsicle.

Originally from New York, Veltz co-wrote her first hit in 2013: “Drunk Last Night” for the Eli Young Band. Then a year later she co-wrote the hit “Lonely Eyes” for Chris Young. and in 2016, she had two hits with Morris: “I Could Use a Love Song” and “Rich.”

In 2018, Veltz co-wrote the big hit “Speechless” for Dan & Shay, followed by the hits “The Bones” with Morris and “What I’m Leaving For” for Lady A. She’s also had cuts with Kane Brown, Carly Pearce, Dierks Bentley, Cody Johnson, Jake Owen, Josh Ross, Idina Menzel, Callista Clark, Tim McGraw, Mitchell Tenpenny, Ingrid Andress, Maddie & Tae, Mickey Guyton and Joy Oladokun.

Here’s the video of Jessie Murph’s hit “Blue Stripes, which was
co-written by Laura Veltz.

We are pleased to do this new Q&A interview with Laura Veltz. She talks about her recent hits “Blue Strips” and “High Road,” and what it’s like to write in several genres of music.

DK: Hi Laura. When we last spoke for an interview five years ago, you were having hits with Maren Morris, Dan + Shay and Lady A. Can you talk about your music journey since then?

Laura Veltz: We went through a pretty big stretch as a whole culture over the past five years. We had an interesting resurrection and getting a flow after Covid, and country has taken its turns left and right since then as well. So I feel like pop-country became a little more dormant, and hyper-country became more prevalent. And I resonated with more pop stuff, so I ended up coming out to L.A. more often, writing with Demi Lovato and Jessie Murph and a few other artists. I’ve been working in several different genres—hip-hop, pop, R&B and Christian music. I’ve been spreading myself out and seeing what I can do, which has been a pleasure to stretch my wings.

DK: You’re now working with a wide range of music artists and genres. Is this a change for you, shifting from mainly writing for country artists, to now working in several genres?

Veltz: I found myself in a situation where I figured out how to write country in this very specific way that involves a lot of craftsmanship and a lot of rules. And I think at some point, it was like those were so ingrained in me that some of these other genres…it was like a playground, it was like a new spot for me to be able to apply all of this subconscious craftsmanship to different parts of my personality, to different parts of the world, to different parts of the American songbook. Particularly with the artists that I write for, they stretched me, which was the most fun. I made an entire rock record with Demi Lovato and that stretched me to a new place, and writing with Jessie Murph stretches me to a new place. And that excites me. I don’t know whether it’s invigorating for some to do the same thing over and over again really well, but I think I am more invigorated when I change and evolve and grow and remain a student of the American songbook. That’s what excites me.

DK: You wrote 13 songs on Demi Lovato’s last album. What’s it like to work with an artist like Demi and do so many songs together?

Here’s the video of Koe Wetzel & Jessie Murph’s hit “High Road,”
which was co-written by Laura Veltz.

Veltz: Well, you’re speaking of magic to me…I don’t know how I ended up in that situation. I do know that Demi and I resonated strongly with each other, and I feel like I was the lucky one who found her at a low point. Then I think her art put her back together and healed her, and I got to witness every step of that. The rock record that we made was one song at a time…just one more stage of healing, and then one more stage of healing. She was going through her sobriety journey, which I know was incredibly challenging for her. I got to be a part of that…I got to hold her hand through that. And I got to be a safe place for her to get every emotion out. That was one of the most successful experiences of my life. If you define success as just being there for someone who needed someone, I got to be that someone. And that experience with Demi will be a highlight on my reel for the rest of my life.

DK: I’m a fan of Jessie Murph’s music, and I read you wrote eight songs with her on her new album (Sex Hysteria), and three songs on her previous album (That Ain’t No Man That’s The Devil).

Veltz: That was an entirely new experience for me. She’s a very young woman and she has a sense of flow on the mic that is so particular to her. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anyone so free right at the mic, so we have a very unique writing style. There’ll be either a band in the room making music and she’s singing with the band…just literally stream of consciousness, notes and words. My job in that setting is to string together what is happening in the room and assembling a song, and it has been such a pleasure. It requires so much trust—it requires so much trust of Jessie, it requires Jessie to trust me. And the way it works in the room is the most unusual situation I’ve ever been in. We’ve written so many songs in such a short period of time because she’s so prolific. I cannot express to you how talented she is.

DK: You and Jessie have a big hit with “Blue Strips.” Can you tell the story behind writing that song?

Veltz: The day we wrote “Blue Strips” was one of our signature days where a hundred songs were happening all around. I think we started 30 songs in that one evening, and we picked a handful to finish and “Blue Strips” was one of them. A lot of what you hear in that song is her stream of consciousness. That’s a remarkable thing when you think about how much the world has latched onto that song. I mean, her natural intuition about music is special. And the fun part for me was that it was a very late night and she and I were in the studio jumping around, being so goofy and so excited about this little bop we made. And there’s some footage of it on online that is just too cute. It’s just us being so excited about this song because we were like…this feels like something. I think she teased it on TikTok shortly after she wrote it.

Here’s the video of Maren Morris’ hit “The Bones,” which was
co-written by Laura Veltz.

By the next day, there was already inertia around the song. So some of her fans are like, “Oh my God, if you’re going to tease this, please put it out.” And this was one of those that came out. So I was excited, and we had some incredible experiences with that song. There are some high profile people who love that song. It’s been very flattering to see Lana Del Rey bopping to it, and hearing Elton John speak of it is crazy. It’s been a pleasure to be a part of something that has put her in a bigger arena, and I think it’s only up from here. She is a future icon.

DK: I’ve looked at some of Jessie’s song titles and ideas, and it’s not your typical ideas. There’s a song called “Touch Me Like a Gangster” and one called “Bang Bang (The Ballad of Amy Fisher).” So how do you go deep with Jessie, to help her bring out these unusual ideas?

Veltz: You know, I think I am a connoisseur of unusual ideas. I enjoy the challenge of pulling something absolutely off the wall into the commercial space where an average listener can digest it, enjoy it, and dance to it. I also like challenging a listener to lean in lyrically, and Jessie enjoys that too. So we have a lot of fun together pushing the boundary. We both have sort of a weird bone (laughs), and I think that we both believe in high art, if that makes sense. Everything she touches has such intention around it, and the fact that I have someone that cares at that level about the quality of the music, because you know being an artist is hard work. You have to sell it, and you have to be the look, and you have to be this and that. But when she’s in the studio, everything else melts away and we are artists. I feel like I’m making something that’s going to stand the test of time for that little girl. And I think she’s had that intention for a very long time, and to be that young and understand the value of high art. I think her joy is around making someone hear something new, making someone think something new, making somebody consider a new perspective, and obviously her sense of humor is just so signature, and I happen to adore funny women.

DK: I also like the hit you had with Jessie Murph and Koe Wetzel on the song, “High Road.” How did that song come together?

Veltz: That song is an unusual story. It was almost complete before Jesse and I had anything to do with it. Koe had intentions of putting it out, and then he wanted Jessie to feature on it. Then Jessie wanted to write her second verse, and there were a bunch of iterations, and we had to keep muscling it to make it so that she was as excited about it, because she won’t put things out if she’s not excited about it. So we rewrote that second verse a handful of times. But when we got it, we knew we had it. I’m very rarely a part of such a small portion of a song…that verse is my only contribution. The song was already amazing, and I’m so lucky I got to pop on a song that was destined to win, and I think it won five times as much because of Jessie’s contribution. So it’s exciting.

Here’s the video of Dan + Shay’s hit “Speechless,” which was
co-written by Laura Veltz.

DK: I’ve looked at your songwriting credits, and I liked the songs you’ve co-written with other artists such as “Indigo” with Mickey Guyton and “A Bigger Man” with Joy Oladokun & Maren Morris. Do you take a lot of pride in songs that may not become hits, but are beautiful or special in their own way?

Veltz: I love that you said that, and I love talking about that. I host a podcast called Songwriter Soup that is for new songwriters, and I talk about this subject a lot. Something we get to play with as songwriters is relativity. If you can call something a hit, by definition a hit is a song that’s heard a trillion times. But I don’t know as an individual if I can quantify that as more important than writing one song that means so much to one person or two people or five people. I’ve really ingested that theory…I lived that theory. I know there’s a time to write a song for everyone and there’s a time to write a song for one person. And “Bigger Man” is a great example. Joy Oladokun has become a dear friend of mine. I met her in the writing of that session. I was the officiant at her wedding, which was such a privilege.

I know there are people on my street in my neighborhood, who don’t know I wrote that song and then they realize I wrote that song. And I find out from individuals how much that song meant to them, especially at such a tumultuous time in history. We are continually in a tumultuous time and songs like that are important. Speaking of Maren, we were nominated for a Grammy for a song that hardly anyone heard. It’s called “Better Than We Found It.” It meant something to people who needed to hear that particular message. I happen to consider those things to be of equal value. I’ve had big hits and I think they’re incredible, but when when I know I wrote something important right that that is an individual person’s stepping stone to something new…that means something to me. And not only do I feel that’s important, but it’s a dangerous thing in a way to flirt with the idea of being a staff writer and making a hit your only goal. Like you’re missing the memo if that’s your only intention. I know I’m in a privileged position to say that because my lights are on and there’s a roof over my head. And I hope for the future that whatever needs to be figured out in Washington, D.C.—songwriter rights are crucial because the song won’t be written anymore if all we’re writing are songs to serve the radio because the radio is the only thing that pays us. It’s wrong. We need to find a new way to incentivize a songwriter…to write something of great importance, right? Because that’s art, and I believe in art.

DK: You have a podcast called Songwriter Soup. Can you talk about this?

Here’s the video of Demi Lovato’s song “29,” which was co-written
by Laura Veltz.

Veltz: 1 would love to. My financial advisor, Tracy Hackney, and I started talking one day about all the funny sort of mistakes that songwriters make because the way money is made is so weird. It’s like a feast or famine…it can get really squirrely. And he and I were chit-chatting about it, and then all of a sudden he was like, “We should write this down.” So we wrote we wrote a book called Songwriter Soup. It evolved into this podcast—it’s how not to lose your mind and your money in the songwriter business. So we talk about all of these subjects that touch every songwriter every day. These little subjects like FOMO and stealing and songwriter insurance and wills and how to save, and how to allow that first pop of the check last long enough to get to your next hit. So it’s a bunch of money and mind thoughts.

Instead of putting out the book, we decided to walk through it episode by episode, which we’ve done for the last three years and we now have about 60 episodes. And every other episode is an interview with one of my colleagues, and coincidentally some of them are Tracy’s clients. He is a financial advisor to a lot of people on Music Row. So we sit down and we chitchat and it’s not as much a biography style. It’s more like a vulnerability bomb. I want the next era of songwriters to realize that this shit is hard and we know it’s hard. It’s not only hard emotionally, it’s hard financially. It’s such a mess because you have to find this balance of sobriety about the time it takes and you have to be confident at the same time, and those things toggling back and forth can be tricky. So I talked to my co-writers about it. On this season we have Shane McAnally and Brandy Clark and Gabe Simon, and we’ve got Tayla Parx coming on. It’s all these legends and just the idea of the next generation being able to humanize these people and see themselves like the future versions of themselves as possible. That this dream does work, but man, your expectations have to be put in check so that it doesn’t beat you up, because this job can really mess with your head. And I’ve also known lots of writers who get to the end of their careers and they weren’t having any fun.

So the biggest pillar of the podcast is to have a fun day as often as possible. Enjoy this luck ride of being able to make stuff every day even if you’re making almost nothing. If you’re making a ton, just try to make it a joyful experience because it is the luckiest job on earth, and there’s so few people who get to do it. And the idea of it not being fun is a scandal to me. It needs be fun because it’s just the best.