Old Dominion recently celebrated the number-one success of their Gold debut single, “Break up with Him” — a song that the entire band co-wrote — and three of the five guys also wrote the band’s hot new single, “Snapback.” Two of them — Trevor Rosen and Matthew Ramsey — say that there’s kind of a “magic zone” when it comes to good songwriting. (AUDIO INFO BELOW)

• Look for “Snapback” and “Break up with Him,” both from Old Dominion’s terrific album, titled Meat and Candy.
• Be sure to follow the guys on Twitter @OldDominion!

  Old Dominion’s Trevor Rosen and Matthew Ramsey talk about the sweet spot of songwriting. (:36)
Trevor: “If you can make something different — not for the sake of being different, but somethin’ that is just unconventional but still make it universally hooky and catchy, then I think that’s like the magic zone. It’s like, that’s what drove me to Nirvana so much was just like these weird chord patterns and this dissonant kind of thing, but it was so hooky…”
Matthew: “Yeah.”
Trevor: “…and catchy. It was almost like, hooky like The Beatles, but just crazy and dissonant, you know, so I think if you can make anything really different but still find that thread of just universally likable melodies, and you know, you can find that happy zone while bein’ different, I think that’s like the bull’s-eye for me.”
Matthew: “Yeah.”