Deric Ruttan

Breakthrough

Deric moved to Nashville in 1994 to pursue his music career, spending his days writing songs and his nights scouring the city getting ideas and learning from local singer/songwriters. He got his break in 1999 when producer Steve Bogard heard one of Deric's tapes and liked it. Steve signed Deric to a songwriting deal and immediately began recording his first demos. After Doug Howard at Lyric Street Records heard his demo and Deric played five songs live for Randy Goodman, Deric scored a record deal with the label. In 2003, he released his debut album, Deric Ruttan.

In 2003, just as his first single [When You Come Around was released, he celebrated his first No. 1 as a songwriter when friend and collaborator Dierks Bentley took the Ruttan/Bentley/Brett Beavers co-write "What Was I Thinkin'" to the top of the charts in the US. The song helped set Bentley on the path to country stardom. (To date, Bentley has recorded six Ruttan co-writes, including the 2005 chart-topper Lot of Leavin' Left To Do.) In 2004 Ruttan's "My Way", recorded by Aaron Pritchett, was the most-played Canadian country song of that year. Capitol Nashville's Eric Church had an American Billboard hit with his and Ruttan's "Guys Like Me" in 2007, and cuts on other acts followed (over two dozen to-date), on artists like Gary Allan, Paul Brandt, Doc Walker, Jason Blaine, and The Higgins.

In September 2007, Ruttan was awarded his first Canadian Country Music Award (CCMA) for Songwriter Of The Year (along with co-writers Aaron Pritchett and Mitch Merrett), for "Hold My Beer", recorded by Pritchett.

"It wasn't just that writing songs for other artists was taking time away from me writing my next record", says Ruttan. "It was that suddenly I was known as a guy who'd written radio hits for other acts – the bar had been raised for me, creatively, because of that. I felt the next record I made needed to be really, really good."

It took over four years for Ruttan to follow up his 2003 self-titled release. In 2008 he released his second album, aptly titled First Time In A Long Time, which yielded four hit radio singles at Canadian country radio; the title track "Lovin' You Is Killin' Me", "California Plates" (co-written with members of Manitoba country band Doc Walker), and "Good Time", a duet with Ruttan's friend and collaborator Dierks Bentley. (The video for "Good Time" reached No. 1 on CMT Canada's video countdown).

At the Canadian Country Music Awards that September, Ruttan earned a total of four nominations – "Male Artist", "Songwriter", "Record Producer", and "Best Album," and closed the show performing alongside The Guess Who/Bachman Turner Overdrive guitar legend Randy Bachman. By the following year, "First Time In A Long Time" had garnered so much radio airplay that it earned Ruttan and co-writer Jimmy Rankin a SOCAN Country Music Award at the 2009 SOCAN Awards in Toronto.

Songwriting

Outside of writing for his own albums, Ruttan has co-written songs for many artist including; "What Was I Thinkin'" and "Lot of Leavin' Left to Do" by Dierks Bentley, "Hold My Beer" and "My Way" by Aaron Pritchett, "Guys Like Me" and "Hell on the Heart" by Eric Church, "Promise Broken" by Gary Allan, "Shotgun Girl" by The JaneDear Girls, and many more.

2010s