Luke Spiller | "How I Wrote That Song" Presented by BMI, Beasley & HD Radio

We are our own worst critics. Luke Spiller knows this as well as anyone. Despite churning out a successful run of crossover hits with The Struts for more than a decade, he’s still never sure if a song will land until he lets other people in on the art.
“That’s one thing I’ve learned,” he says in this episode of How I Wrote That Song, “that you simply do not know. The only thing you can do… is keep pushing and pushing, and then something is gonna surface, that you might not even recognize the quality within it, until you really start to show it around and people react to it and get drawn into that.”
Take their earliest hit, “Could Have Been Me.” The track is from the Struts’ debut album Everybody Wants, and it elevated the band from UK club favorites to global rockstars. But Luke never could have guessed that this song would be the catalyst.
He explains to Radio Sara, “I remember when we finished it. I was outside having a cig with Ads (guitarist Adam Slack) and I was like, ’Is this any good? …I mean, it’s alright’. And that’s the funny thing with some of these singles. When they happen towards the end of your creative process of creating an album, by then sometimes you can be overtired, over traveled, and you really just don’t know what’s good anymore. ‘Could Have Been Me’ was one of those ones for sure. My hands were up in the air, like, ‘It’s a great song, but I don’t know’.”
It ended up not only being a hit, but Luke jokes that it’s “the song that keeps on giving.” High-profile placement in sporting events, commercials and movies exposed the band to an entirely new audience. In 2021, the song was covered by Halsey for the Sing 2 soundtrack - a children’s movie - and he noticed that “all of these little kids were showing up with their parents” to the Struts’ concerts.
“I thought to myself, have I got to tone the show down now?” he says with a laugh. “But then I thought, f- it, and I did what I did and didn’t dumb it down. And you see the kids’ faces, and they absolutely love it.”
Hear more stories behind the band’s most popular songs, plus Luke’s thoughts on musical ad-libs, collaborations and more, in this week’s How I Wrote That Song.
FOLLOW US:
Instagram: / bmi
Twitter: / bmi
Facebook: / broadcastmusicinc
LinkedIn: bit.ly/1XVWvWo
www.bmi.com
ABOUT BMI:
Celebrating over 80 years of service to songwriters, composers, music publishers and businesses, Broadcast Music, Inc.® (BMI®) is a global leader in music rights management, serving as an advocate for the value of music. BMI represents the public performance rights in over 20.6 million musical works created and owned by more than 1.3 million songwriters, composers, and music publishers. The Company negotiates music license agreements and distributes the fees it generates as royalties to its affiliated writers and publishers when their songs are performed in public. In 1939, BMI created a groundbreaking open-door policy becoming the only performing rights organization to welcome and represent the creators of blues, jazz, country, and American roots music. Today, the musical compositions in BMI’s repertoire, from chart toppers to perennial favorites, span all genres of music and are consistently among the most-performed hits of the year. For additional information and the latest BMI news, visit bmi.com, follow us on Twitter and Instagram @BMI or stay connected through Broadcast Music, Inc.‘s Facebook page. Sign up for BMI’s The Weekly™ and receive our e-newsletter every week to stay up to date on all things music.

[@hereforthestruts3987]

Great stuff thank you Sara and Luke!

[@chriscruz-americanfolkrock9115]

Thanks for this...

[@jewelrymaker141]

🥰🎶 Love this interview with Luke & Love #TheStruts music! 🎶🥰

[@kitcarbp777]

Great work Sara. Luke and the Boyz , thank you for grinding it out all these years. You now know when you look into the crowd at our faces that it’s the best validation of all that hard work. Can’t wait to hear the new album. See you again in November in the US! All the best.

[@horribleneal9503]

Horrible Neal digs it!