Paul Cauthen released his latest album, Book of Paul, last week. Like other LPs in the Texas native’s catalog, the record ripples with Cauthen’s God-given swagger and gift for rhythm. Safe country music is not what Cauthen makes. Perhaps that’s what put the man known as “Big Velvet” on the radar of a certain pop star who was releasing a high-profile country album back in 2024.
In a new interview on Rolling Stone’s Nashville Now podcast, Cauthen recounts how the unnamed artist — who is clearly Beyoncé — came to him looking for songs for Cowboy Carter. According to the “Cocaine Country Dancing” singer, the superstar heard his music thanks to an assistant who worked for Beyoncé’s family and, as it turns out, went to high school with Cauthen.
“She started playing my stuff and the family started loving what I do. And then their producers came, found out I was in Silverlake in California, and showed up in a black Suburban,” Cauthen says. “Three producers come out and listen to what I’m doing: ‘We love that one, we love that one…’ I was doing this for my record in a way, and now we’re going to move in for doing it for a big pop star.”
Cauthen and his collaborator Beau Bedford changed gears. “Beau and I pivoted and started churning out songs,” Cauthen says. “It kind of put me in a whole different writing space, writing for a big pop star. I put a pop-centric edge on my own honest writing and what I think is true. It really pivoted for me in a cool way.”
In the end, none of Cauthen’s songs ended up on Cowboy Carter, but some saw the light of day on his own 2024 album Black on Black. “I think we wrote some songs that the said artist should cut… but there’s a lot of people in line and I love to see that the people that were little bitty songwriters before that had a platform and it helped them,” he says. Watch his full interview below.
Download and subscribe to Rolling Stone’s weekly country-music podcast, Nashville Now, hosted by senior music editor Joseph Hudak, on Apple Podcasts or Spotify (or wherever you get your podcasts). New episodes drop every Wednesday and feature interviews with artists and personalities like Vince Gill, Lainey Wilson, Hardy, Charley Crockett, Kings of Leon, the Black Crowes, Carly Pearce, Brandon Lake, Breland, Bryan Andrews, Noeline Hofmann, Devon Gilfillian, Gavin Adcock, Amanda Shires, Shooter Jennings, Margo Price, Ink, Rival Sons’ Jay Buchanan, Halestorm, Dusty Slay, Lukas Nelson, Ashley Monroe, Old Crow Medicine Show’s Ketch Secor, Clever, and authors Marissa R. Moss, Josh Crutchmer, and Jonathan Bernstein.
