Meet Jordan Dozzi, The Aussie Songwriter Behind Some Of Nashville's Biggest Hits

Who knew that an Australian songwriter could take over the world of country music? Brisbane-raised Jordan Dozzi is the man behind numerous hits, from Morgan Wallen to ERNEST to Seaforth and Jordan Davis. Yet, he’s humble and generous with his advice for burgeoning songwriters.

In just a few years, he’s become one of the most in-demand songwriters in Nashville thanks to collaborations with ERNEST, Dylan Scott, Jake Owen, Larry Fleet, Chase Matthew, and, of course, his family’s band, Dozzi.

Last November, Dozzi landed himself at #15 on the Billboard Hot 100 with Morgan Wallen and Eric Church’s collaborative hit, Man Made A Bar. Closer to home, Seaforth and Jordan Davis’s track, Good Beer, was named Countrytown’s Song of the Day and went on to receive a nomination for the Most Performed Country Work at last year’s APRA Awards.

It’s fair to say that Jordan Dozzi contributes to great songs by artists who have become household names, even if he’s not a household name himself.

Man Made A Bar went on to land in the top ten in the US and chart in New Zealand and Canada. However, as Dozzi explains, he didn’t see so many people connecting with it during writing sessions.

“We [Dozzi, Rocky Block, Larry Fleet, Brett Tyler] really had no idea when we were writing it,” he tells Countrytown. “It was the first of five or six songs we wrote that writing trip, so we just kept chugging along.”

Dozzi admits that it’s “not always obvious” when a song has the potential to become a hit. “It's out of your hands whether it is [a hit] or not as soon as you finish writing it and send it off for people to hear,” he shares. So, I try not to put too much pressure on it. It will be a hit if it's a hit.

“I feel like being a rounded writer is very important,” Dozzi says when quizzed about his songwriting inspirations. “Songwriting is such a competitive industry that you need to be able to write for everyone. For me, I usually try to write the concept the best way for the idea, and then decide who the song is for after.”

Having grown up in Australia, Dozzi took an established love for rock music to Nashville. And with his inimitable accent, he has a “great icebreaker” for any room he enters.

As for the Australian acts who inspired his early career? Rock bands Powderfinger and Thirsty Merc.

Dozzi explains, “Growing up with classic Australian music influences like Thirsty Merc and Powderfinger that most people writing in country didn't have was a huge attribute and differencing point for me.” But it wasn’t easy to kickstart his career in Nashville—visa struggles and an injury affected his big move.

“I couldn't get a visa to America to write songs straight away,” Dozzi says. He ended up moving to play Division 1 soccer at Belmont University in Nashville, where he played for two years until he tore his ACL in his final match.

After the injury happened, he dropped out of college and signed a publishing deal with Big Loud. 

Dozzi says the partnership has resulted in finding a family away from home. “It's been a blessing to be able to grow and focus on songwriting and production as crafts at a place like Big Loud,” he says. “It's given me a family and a hub for healthy competitiveness.”

With Dozzi being such a successful songwriter in country music, we’d be remiss not to ask him for some advice for our readers who might want to follow in his footsteps.

He obliged, telling Countrytown, “Some advice would be to try and write the last two lines of the chorus first.

“Some people start with the verse or top of the chorus, which I occasionally may do, too, but 99% of the time, I try to start with the concept (usually the last line) and the set-up line (the second last line).”

You can listen to Apple Music’s playlist, Jordan Dozzi: The Songwriters, here.