Local Talent: Scot Sax

When Faith Hill and Tim McGraw sang their Top 10 single “Like We Never Loved At All” at the Wachovia Center earlier this month, it was more of a Philly moment than you might have imagined. The song, co-written by Ardmore resident Scot Sax, represents the biggest break in the singer-guitarist’s decade-long career.

Sax, 36, got his start in the mid-’90s with the band Wanderlust before moving on to performing solo. Over the years, he became known for crafting a particularly smart and passionate brand of pop, a style that helped earn him a gold record for the song “(I Am the) Summertime,” off the American Pie sound track. Still, much of Sax’s work has been what he calls “song plugging,” creating and refining material for everyone from Jennifer Love Hewitt to Joey McIntyre.

Then, a few years ago, Sax dropped off some demos at a publisher’s office in Nashville. “My then-manager told me it was a waste of time,” he chuckles. But after just two months of collaborating with writers John Rich and Vicky McGehee, Sax learned Faith Hill had optioned their first song. “I thought, ‘These Nashville people work fast,’” he says. “And I remembered what my manager said: ‘Waste of time!’”