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Songwriter and record producer Jeffrey Steele serves as judge on "Nashville Star."

By Bret Federigan
MSN TV

Now in its sixth season, "Nashville Star" continues its search for the next great country star. New this summer is award-winning songwriter and producer Jeffrey Steele, who serves as one of the show's celebrity judges. MSN TV sat down with Steele to talk about fan criticism of the show, his relationship with contestants Laura & Sophie and which of the contestants is the most authentically "country."  

MSN TV: You're the new kid on the block this year on "Nashville Star." At the same time, you're playing a huge role. How exciting has it been for you to step in as a judge this season?

Jeffrey Steele: For me, learning how to do this show is kinda like learning how to step into a brand new element. I'm used to doing what I do behind-the-scenes with no one really watching you. It's incredible to see how people respond to what you say and think, where before I had no "filter" or "edit" switch when I was working with a writer or an artist in the studio. It's definitely been an eye-opening experience, to say the least.

More: Get latest recaps and analysis

You mean it's been both a positive and negative experience?

You know, it's been a little bit of both. For me, what I do every day is work with singers and songwriters. So, the mentoring side, for me, is just golden. I love it. That's where I spend a lot of my time trying to help people to see what their dreams are, the reality of their dreams, and how to get to it. The other side, the judging side ... as a guy who's been doing this for 30 years and getting tomatoes thrown at him at every turn, it's not fun to criticize people, but you have to do it. And some of the worst criticisms I ever got in life turned my life around, as much as I hated to hear them and as mad as I was at the people who said them to me in the record industry. It made really go, "Hey, if you're going to do this, you're really going to have to step up what you do." Unfortunately, for me, it took 30 years. I've got to do this now in nine weeks.

From the very first episode of this season, fans of the show have flooded the blogs and message boards with criticism that the judges have been way too harsh. Are you sensitive to that perception? 

It's ridiculous. Everybody's a critic, first of all. That's the tough part of being a judge. Everybody knows everything about everything. And everybody knows the show is fake and the show is rigged and the talent is no good. I mean, I've been hearing so much stuff that people have been saying about the show. The show is the show. It's a TV show. People watch TV shows for ratings. It's gonna be a TV show, whatever that means, you know? All that's going to happen. As far as the negativity, one of the problems with a show like this and one of the problems with having celebrity judges or having anybody with something on the line or something they're selling, is that they don't want to come off as a jerk. So, they're going to say the nicest things they can and take advantage of their TV slot. The bottom line is that the crowd loves the contestants. You know what I mean? They're going to get their cheers from the crowd. As judges, we have to get inside their heads, get them under the microscope, talk about the little things that people might say we're out of our minds for saying. But we've got to go to those places to try and get the contestants to step it up. It's a nine-week show. It's not like a 30-year career. It's nine weeks, and then they're going to sing at the Olympics in front of 100 million people. So, we're trying to get it good. We're trying to make the most of the situation and what we have to deal with.

So it's not that you judges are mean. Maybe it's that the talent just isn't very good this year. That's been the buzz, you know. Is there any truth in that? 

The talent level is down and the bar has been lowered all over the world. The talent level is down everywhere. And, it's just so easy to gripe, you know. I tend to try to look at what's there and what I can do with it and bring to it. There are so many schools of thought on this. You know, I could get on the phone right now and call 20 people right now in Nashville who could probably outsing all those people on the show, every one of them. Is that a good show? I don't know. That's something I learned. I didn't know anything about a TV show until I stepped into this thing. Does it make for good TV when the judges are going, "Hey, you were great. Hey you were even better than you were last week"? There'd be no TV going on. It'd be just some guy patting some other guy on the back. There has to be some drama for there to be a TV show. At the same time, I'm learning as I go. I'm trying to figure out ways to really figure out the three-second bit that I get. I'm the type of guy, as you can tell, who takes about 10 minutes to get to his point.

I guess this all begs the question: Can you just "make" a country star?

Absolutely. That happens every day, just like with pop stars.

And I guess I'm referring to your mentoring relationship with Laura and Sophie. At least from my perspective, you're taking an unusually keen interest in developing their act. Maybe it's because they need more work than the other contestants. How has that relationship been?

It's ongoing with them. They're probably the least ready for this thing. But they've got some real talent. I don't know what the comments are about them, but I think they're really good. They have a really stylized sound. And what's charming to me about them is that they're really old-school. They sing a type of country that doesn't exist anymore in the country world. They're style is really throwback. There's a charm to it. I don't know if it's a novelty or not, but there's a charm to them. I think there's a record in there if they can keep their friendship together and be a little bit more professional about how they're going about this thing.

I'm telling you, though. Of the judges, you're the only one who's championing them. Laura and Sophie got pilloried last week by the rest of the judges!

It may be the mentoring. The fact that I am mentoring them might be giving me a special attachment to them. I'm looking at them going, "How can I make the arrangement of this song different for them, but still keep the integrity of the song? How can I still keep their sound intact?" You do that, but you still have to judge them. That's the hardest part of the show: You have to help them, but still be critical of them. I think they're still really young. I think some of John Rich's comments about them just not being ready are really true. I mean, I think, personality-wise, they've still got a ways to go. I mean, if you're not getting along ... You can run a career with two people not getting along for a pretty long time. We've seen that happen before. But when you're just starting out, it sure makes it hard to focus. I keep trying to tell them, shoot, you're getting the whole world handed to you on a platter right here. Some of these other acts, they have some pretty hard-core stories that have got them here. And they're just like trying to take advantage of every moment and opportunity. I tell these girls, "You guys are kinda just spitting in the face of it. You know, come on! You have a shot at this!" They have a decent shot, but the hardest thing for them will be keeping it together.

Are they too young to handle the pressures of this show?

They might be. And that's one of the things you try and tell them when you're mentoring them. You try to make them aware of what it is they're exactly involved in. Look at LeAnn Rimes. She obviously went through a lot of her own drama growing up, when she first broke in as a 13-year-old. I'm sure Taylor Swift is going through a lot. But Taylor's proven herself to be a pretty strong person. Look at someone like Miley Cyrus. She's starting to get thrown into the fan, so to speak. But she's showing herself to be a really great person. It's not just all that. It's how they're dealing with their friendship. They've gotta have that more than anything else at this point in the show in order to keep going. It shows onstage. When they crack, you know, it shows.

Unlike some other singing competition shows, the winners of "Nashville Star" haven't gone on to become big-selling artists.

There's been a couple of hits, but nothing much beyond country radio, so to speak.

Why has that been the case?

I don't know. There's been some pretty good talent. So there you go. It goes back to your first question about people complaining about the talent not being good, that the show's taken a nosedive and how we've gotten rid of the wrong people. Here we have Season 1 winner Buddy Jewell. He's one of the greatest singers in Nashville for years, doing everybody's demos, singing all their songs for them. He gets on the show -- and he had a pretty good career starting out -- but he hasn't really maintained anything year after year, bam-bam-bam. What it comes down to is that you can make a star. You can't fool all the people, but you can definitely make a star. The main thing in the country industry is you've got to have a great song. The artist can go as long as the songs are great. In most cases, a song will define the artist. It will run that way, not all the time, but a lot of the time. If you develop one of these singers who's a pretty good performer and pick the right songs, you've got something. And that's pretty much what they've been doing here and everywhere else for, you know, a hundred years.

I know that John Rich is going to produce the winner's new album. Are you going to get to work with the winner, as well?

I believe I'm going to work with the losers. And I would rather work with the losers.

Really?

In my mind, as a producer, I'm not going to be defined to a record label or a particular contract. I don't know the depths of what the winner's contract is. I just know that they get one. It may be one of those all-encompassing deals. I think the ones that lose the competition have the best shot at recording success. They get to the final weeks and get all that exposure. And then they're free to go make any record deal they want to make on their own terms. They can be more dialed in to the music they want to make. There's a little bit more freedom to it. That's what I'm all about as far as being in the studio. I look at some of these acts and say, "Yeah, man. I could definitely work with this."

One of the recurring phrases we hear on the show is: "That just wasn't country enough for me." For many viewers, like me, who don't have a strong background listening to country music, that can be confusing. What do you all mean when you say something or someone is "authentic country"?

That's a great question. And, it's a tough one to answer because it's like a five-level answer. We're in a time now when there have been so many influences that have come into country music that have changed the dynamic of it. There's pop. There's rock. There's Southern rock. There's R&B. And they're all valid. You've got Rascal Flatts. You've got Sugarland. You've got Keith Urban. And you've got George Strait, Brad Paisley, you know, traditional country. As a producer and a writer, I can tell when I don't think something is going to translate to country audiences or when a song just doesn't sound authentic to me. And when I say that, it doesn't mean hillbilly. It doesn't mean from the Ozarks. It doesn't mean you're from a small town. For God's sakes, I'm from Los Angeles! I grew up a country guy in the middle of the San Fernando Valley. My dad was a blue collar guy who loved country music. I played in rock bands on the Sunset Strip. But I had a thread in me that got country music and got the stories. I had an appreciation for the history of country music. I mean, country music has a great history. I think a lot of these young artists have no background in country music whatsoever. They're just coming from wherever they come from musically and just sing a country style. There's just a background check as far as knowing the history or at least having some sense of what goes on in this genre. And that's not there! And it's not authentic. You can't change that. It's either inherent or it's not. You can see it. You can see it in a girl like Ashlee. She's definitely way more on the pop side and a little bit more of a rocker. But she's got a country side of her that is really real. I mean, it's not where she's from. It's just some thread that's in her. It's hard to explain. Anybody can have a hit song. I'm looking for how something is going to translate over time. I'm looking for someone who can translate country music past the show. In the end, country is about the fans and the believability of the fans.

From my perspective, Gabe is the guy who seems the most country.

Is it because he's wearing a hat?

Well, it could be. It could just be his inflection. He's my pick to go all the way.

See, the package does play into it. You know, where he's from. He's from Texas ... blah, blah, blah. I'm with you, though. I think he's the standout of the guys.

And there were some contestants like Justin. He didn't seem country at all to me.

Anything that happened a week before the show started, I had no idea about because I was the last guy on this train. I know a lot of people were like, "They must have got an underwear model just for the show." I don't know how they got these guys.

Well, our recap did lead with the words, "Underwear model ..."

You know, Justin wasn't country. And there are still a couple on there that aren't. And I'm still waiting for some magic to happen. A lot of people are waving flags on certain contestants, and I'm going, "I don't see this. I don't get this." And I'm probably the most liberal, talent-wise, of anybody up there. I'm a guy that grew up listening to the Police and U2 and Merle Haggard and George Jones equally. I'm an open book. I cover all styles of music. I feel like, however, I know country when I see it. And that's all I can go on. That's what this judging thing is. It's my opinion. I can only give my opinion. I try to do my best with that.

It looks like it's going to be a crazy next few weeks for you guys.

It's been a crazy week. I'm sure it will only get crazier from here on out. Let the madness begin.

"Nashville Star" airs Mondays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on NBC.

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