And The Writer Is...with Ross Golan - Ep. 11: Mike Caren

Episode Date: April 10, 2017

Songwriter. Record Producer. A&R Executive. This hitmaker has done it all. You'd be hard pressed to find a person in the business who isn't familiar with the work of this heavy hitting creative. With writing credits such as Beyonce's "Ring Off" and A&Ring Jason Derulo's "Talk Dirty" and CeeLo Green's "Fuck You", amongst countless others, this songwriter's work is seemingly always on the radio. CEO and Founder of Artist Publishing Group...And The Writer Is...Mike Caren!  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey guys, this is, and the writer is. And I'm your host, Ross Golan. I've written with hundreds of writers and artists over the years, and my favorite part of each session is the first hour when we catch up about life and the industry, politics, composition, whatever. If you ask me, songwriters are some of the most worldly and intelligent people I've ever come across. So this is a journey of learning why people write songs, how people write songs. And most importantly, who the people are who write songs.

the songs. Now I'm co-producing this with my friend Joe London, who is nominated for a Grammy earlier this year for Best Country Song. He makes us sound like angels. If you want to listen to the songs we discuss in this podcast, go to Spotify and look up our playlist and The Writer Is or go to our website www.com. Also, I was a guest this week on our friends podcast, switched on pop. They dissect songs from a compositional musicology. standpoint. This week we did Shape of You for Ed Sheeran, so that was a fun time. Check that out on iTunes. And now to and the writer is. Okay, this week's guest is Mike Karen. Mike Karen is one of the most influential people in the music business. There are execs across the industry who are once

Mike's assistants. And there are writers who are at the very top whose first session came because of Mike Karen. There are artists who are playing Super Bowls and arenas who broke because of Mike Karen. And I guarantee I'm not the only writer in the music business that has a little Mike Karen sitting on his shoulders in writing

sessions. And that's because he's the Billy Bean from Moneyball for songwriting. That's what he does. He analyzes songwriting and production in such detail that he consistently consistently changes the game. As long as

as I've been in the music business, Mike Karen has had songs somewhere on the radio. But he didn't start in a vacuum. Mike is a hit writer and a hit producer. So you don't become the head of Warner A&R worldwide if you don't know a thing or two about songwriting. So without further ado, here is this week's episode of And The Writer is. Welcome to And The Writer Is. I'm your host, Ross Gollin. Our guest today is one of the most powerful people in the music music. music business. He's been listed in Billboard 40 under 40. He's president of worldwide A&R for Warner Music Group labels and runs one of the strongest independent publishing management companies in the world. Meanwhile, he's produced hit records and opened the door for dozens of aspiring writers,

including myself. From Los Angeles, California, this man is a master of the music industry. And the writer is the industry's entrepreneur, Mike Karen. Thank you. That was a nice setup. I'll take it. I figure I should start with something nice. I won't rip you to shit, I promise. I like you. First of all, we've done a bunch of these, and I kind of think you're like the Kevin Bacon of the music industry. Like everybody has a major connection to you. I don't know if you realize, do you realize how much you've impacted the beginning of writer's careers.

I don't know. I enjoy being around writers and artists at the beginning of their career. I mean, it's the energy and excitement and passion. Everything is new. And the first, you know, the first placement, the first hit, the first award, the first, I mean, it's just like you just, you know,

you feel the energy. You see it in people's eyes. And being around the superstars on the sixth album that are upset because, they're, you know, they, you know, casting blame for, you know, something for not being at the pinnacle at that particular moment when they, so unaware of, you know, even how lucky they are to, to remain in the business is just, it's deflating, you know? Sure. So, but it all really comes from, you know, having no relationships when I went into business.

Right. No one, no family friends, no inside track with anyone of any stature. And figuring that, you know, the only access I would have is to the, you know, to the, to the, to the artists and the writers and the producers that no one else is talking to. Yeah. And now I feel that was like a blessing because it. Yeah, I mean, I always say, I think your forte from my perspective has always been that you have never put a name before a hook. like you don't care who who gives you the hook

you'll just take it if it's a hit but that's a that's a that's a really confident way to look at the music industry because I mean we come across all kinds of people who at bravado think they know what a hit is

but you're picking out bands from the middle of nowhere I mean in my case I got a phone call from Alex your old assistant who's now one of your hit producers you know who then calls my manager of my band at the time and says there's some song called encore that you liked that somebody sent you for something whatever it was you guys found a way to track

me down to say hey why don't you come in to sessions and you didn't even do really a meeting you were like hey come in and let's write with i think the first one was like asher roth and maybe it was you know or it was like acon or it was flowrider or it's silo you know you don't never cared that I had zero credits. I mean, does that affect your, it has to affect some confidence sometimes when you're thinking, man, I don't know, I like this song, but this person is no track record, doesn't it, or no? I mean, Wolf, you said a few things. First, there's a quote that has been attributed to a lot of different people that I say all the time. Someone even made me a coffee mug on my desk with a quote on it, which is, you know, talking about music is like,

dancing to architecture. So I try to do as few meetings as possible. I try to avoid people taking it personally, but I really love listening to music. That's the part, you know, the best parts of this business is listening to great music is being around creative people with great energy, watching things, you know, coalesce and manifest

and become something from nothing. And so, yeah, I guess, I mean, I'm confident in my taste or my, ability to recognize melodies or lyrics, cleverness, understanding, you know, like connection with sort of human nature and psychology and all these things. I sort of, I try to, I try to describe it and figure out what it is. You know, I've been like reading about Maslow and his hierarchy of needs and how that relates to song concepts and what connects.

How does that relate to song concepts? Well, I mean, everything's loose. because there's no rules in the music business. That's great. You know, one of the best things about the business is that, you know, you can find an artist that, you know, the next great artist any day. Every day you wake up, I'd like check my email. There's all these songs and ideas that are in there that came overnight from Europe

or from the late night studio sessions. And any day can be like Christmas Day. And you hear something, you get something incredible that's going to make you a fortune or change your life. And in the same thing, every time you walk into studio sessions, some magic. happened. But as far as the hierarchy of needs, you know, if you're thinking theoretically how, what a hit is, a hit is something that usually emotionally connects with the most amount of people,

right? So I always use the example of like the I smoke cigarettes as something marginal. You know, I don't think there's going to be a significant amount of people singing along to a song called I smoke cigarettes that don't smoke. There may be a few like, you know, wannabees, I think that's cool. But even people who smoke cigarettes may not want to, you know, particularly, you know, broadcast that message out there. So then if you have a, you know, a song, I am a woman, right? Probably at best, you're, you know, 52% of the population can sing along. So you're starting to think about what, what does everyone agree with? And then there's so hierarchy of needs is first you need air, you know, water and, you know, and then once you've, uh, food, once you've, you know,

gotten that, that desire, that need down, you then seek protection, shelter. And then, you know, And the next level of the need is, I think, something that's like, you know, relationships. And you get up to, like, you know, to self-improvement and all these things. So at the core of it, we all have the same needs. And we all, once we've achieved those needs, we move, you know, we get to the next tier of the... So you're thinking that songs conceptually can be about these needs to touch more people, that that's the correlation? Yeah, I mean, I think that I think songs in general that really affect people

express an emotion that help them express an emotion that they have to say. Even they know how to say I love you, but they want a new way to say it because just saying, I love you over and over and over has a, you know, maybe a diminishing impact. So saying it in a different way or to a melody or something is valuable.

So you're helping people express, and so if you express something that only a limited amount of the popular, agree with, it has less chance to be as broad a hit. So if you're, you know, if you're, we had that, you mentioned Ashah Roth, I love college. Right. So that's a statement that people either agree or disagree with. The song has a ceiling to connect with, you know, people who agree with that statement or

think or want to express that statement. Did you know that when you were involved in that song? I mean, how did you know that at that time, at what point did you realize, oh yeah, this song has a ceiling. When you were writing, we're like, oh, this is a smash, we love this song? Or was it sort of a thing where you're like... I knew it at a ceiling, but I also think in like American culture, people love, they cherish their high school and college memories.

A lot of cultures, that's like, that's lame. But we have, you know, these successful movies that, you know... So you've now shrunken into a domestic few people who've gone through college and enjoy it. Where it's like a cherished, like, special memory in your life. A lot of people,

you know, they're greater memories. are not connected to school. It is an American culture thing. We do celebrate university in a different way than international. But yeah, so I thought it could connect with the people who aspire to, you know, look forward to going to college

and having that fun in college or remember, have the fond memories of college. But that's, and that's a significant amount of population. That's not everybody. Some didn't go to college and never wanted to or don't think it's cool. But going to that to every song. It's how many people will agree to this

And then how many people want to express this emotion? And is this presented in a way that they will express either because they feel that way or they want to be ironic or they want to be funny or they want to flirt? Like in the room with writers, I'm always asking when the lyric is, you know, I see you in the stars. I ask like turn to someone in the room, look in their eyes and try to get these words out of your mouth. And if you can, like, you know, if it's not conversational. Yeah, yeah. But it's weird because, you know, when you're saying that in a way that there are no rules to music and to writing, but yet I think of, when I think of the APG experience for somebody

who's learning how to be a writer, and I know how many people you've had come through this building. You know, first I was thinking it's like the Brill building, but it is more like a school. I feel like it's a school because on some level you literally have sort of, these are parameters that you should at least be aware of. Even though there are no rules, here are some rules or here are some things to avoid. Well, I've heard both the Brill Building and the school and I've realized we're more like a, you know, coaches on a team.

You know, you're not, you have a time with a great coach. He gives you some strategy. He gives you some drills. He gives you some things to take into consideration. But when you're on, you know, you're really on the court. you're going to use a little bit of what you've learned. You're going to take those things in a consideration, but you're going to be your own player.

Well, instinct as a writer is so much a part of it, and that's not something you can teach very well. You know, instinct is something you can refine, but on some level it's still your instinct. Absolutely. And I look at it more like we have no rules. We offer like sort of, you know, sort of a buffet of tools, of resources, really.

I mean, every writer, all those guys have a little Mike Karen on their shoulder somewhere. Like, I know every one of those guys at some point has been in a session where they've been like, where they've probably even vocalized. Yeah, but, you know, I remember that conversation with Mike and he said, well, what if you, if you ask a question and the person listening is going to want to, you know, is going to want to answer it. If you're going to, all these tricks that I still think of, even though I've been in it for a while now, you know, some of these things that are real like. like Karenisms. I always say, you know, the, we are in this computer era, you can save things,

you can try things two or three different ways, you can bounce them down and then listen to them next morning and see what feels good or you don't have to bring the whole band out to re-record the song anymore. Well, you're not, you're not, like, this isn't a precious canvas or a stone

where you're going to chisel it, and it's there permanently. You can have versions. You can even let the public, enjoy multiple versions of something and see what resonates with them. But yeah, I do have those theories that I share and I say, you know, there is like, I finally found the word for it. And now I'm, of course, going to forget it. But I think it was called an interjection where you, you know, a chorus, if you want people

to pay attention to a chorus and it to be a summary and it to be a statement and for it to suck people in, then you want to get their attention. So, you know, there is a human nature. How do you stop someone and how do you get them to pay attention? If you drop something and you want them to notice, you say, oops, and everyone turns around to see what happened. You know, if you're out of the street and you're trying to get a girl's number, trying to stop them, and especially if you're a construction worker, you know,

you're like, you know, you're going to use one of several, you know, sort of familiar ways to catch someone's attention. And, you know, so... Okay, so, you know, when you were saying, the first thing you said was that your parents weren't in the industry. You had no one who really helped you out in any of this. It was that you had to sort of grind your way into it. Who taught you this stuff?

I mean, who were the people who really pulled you from being a kid who I know you were doing, like, DJ stuff and obviously some production stuff? So how did you go from being, I'm a producer at home? Because at one point you were, and you were that obscure. guy, this can't totally be exactly how you imagined your career to turn out. No. Or is it?

No, I mean, it's just a thousand trial and errors. You know, when I was in high school, I didn't really understand, I didn't know about record companies. I was DJing and I started a little radio show in order to be able to have an excuse. I found out that labels

give free music to DJs on the radio. So I figured out a way to become a DJ to call labels to get the free music. And then I saw like a four track and how that could be an advantage for sort of making mixtapes. And then bought an A track and started recording my neighbors and friends of friends. And by the time, you know, halfway through high school, I was recording black IP songs. But I mean, they were just some kids from Pali.

And then just try on there, trial and there. You still keep in touch with them? I mean, obviously there's some career. but do you guys keep in touch as friends or this is crazy what's gone on with our lives? I don't know if we've like really had that conversation in the will but we're in regular contact

and we laugh about things from people. We're still friends with a lot of people from 20 years ago from back then and you know it's such a small world. He had the faux rari which was a like a yellow forgot what it was. It was like a

just this yellow like 20 year old sports car that was all beat up that he had like a little kid on and it was a fake in his mind is the fake Ferrari the faux Rari but Amarari

It's like it would be They should do remix of that Exactly But in high school You said that Yeah so high school So I started doing marketing I didn't know there was an A&R department

That signed and developed acts I brought them some acts Because I felt like some of the acts that we were marketing weren't as good as other artists that were out there that were available. I didn't know that that was something you just, you know, you would make a full-time job. And then when we were making records, I just didn't understand things. I didn't understand why you had to spend $1,500. I understand I had a little studio from my high school in my house in my dorm room or apartment.

And I didn't understand why we always went to some big fancy recording studio where I felt like so intimidated. and the clock was ticking and it was burning $200 an hour. And, you know, because there's a lot of sessions that you spend 12, 14 hours on. And at the end of session, you're in your car riding home knowing that it was a complete waste of time and that you have nothing to show for it. And, you know, instead of feeling miserable, I feel like, you know, no big deal in a lower pressure situation. So everything was sort of an evolution of why isn't the business work this way? And like, you know, the publishing company was a manifestation of publishers used to call me and say,

hey, what record are you working on? Like, you know, who are you using? Who are the writers? Who are the producers? And I'd be like, oh, I found this kid at the Verizon store. And he's really talented. He's doing half this album. And they say, can you introduce me to him?

I'd introduce him. And then that person would call me, like, a few months later, saying, hey, thank you for introducing. That guy wrote me a huge check, right? And then, like, six months after that, or you. year after that, he'd call me, the same person would call back and say, could you manage me? And I say, why? And he said, well, I got that big check from the publisher. I appreciate that, but I need someone to do stuff for me. How old are you at this point? When is this? 20, 20, 20, 23, 24, 25? And people are just saying, you know, you're helping me make money and

you're, you never went to college then, I assume. I went to, I was, did a year and a half at NYU from like 7 to 10 in the morning and 7 to 10 night and I worked at length during the day. So you were in New York during the beginning of this, or did you come straight to L.A. after that year and a half? So I was in high school, L.A., worked for a couple labels, got an offer to work for Atlantic in marketing, but I had had to move for New York. I had just gotten into NYU. So I tried to do both at the same time. And I started a little 12-inch hip-hop label at that time I was doing as well. And then about a year and a half into that, I'd sort of burnt out.

I had just signed Twista. I got offered a job to, I had produced. A song for your own company. Two, I signed Twisted to Atlantic. But I was a marketing person. But I brought him in and we signed him. And then I had produced a record for the far side. And I had a job offer to come back to L.A.

And thanks. And so I turned in like a letter of resignation to Atlantic and they said, oh, if you want to do A&R and move back to L.A., there's actually a job available there to do that. And you don't have to leave the company. Who is your boss at that point? That was Craig Kalman, who was my boss for 17 years, believing it on. And then I went back and did L.A. full time.

And sort of, you know, Craig was in New York, Atlantic was in New York. I was kind of out here, you know, had to figure it out with these, you know, rappers I was signing at the time and trying to make records. Is that the same? I mean, I guess a lot of them were signed Traceons, Ti, Flyerada, and Wiz Khalifa, twist a I mean all these guys are sort of the same era when you're starting to sign them or like I don't know like how you go from you know a white kid from from L.A. and you have the most urban roster of anybody in music for a while you know it's crazy yeah well when I when I got in the

DJ it was that time of Tribe Call Quest and and leaders of a new school and a really exciting hip-hop time and then when I was doing marketing I was sort of noticing these new on the road with some acts through the south i was at the era of master p and i saw i went to atlanta louisville knoxville nashville memphis i saw through ohio saw what was happening with rap at the time and um and then there was you know and when i was figured out with axe was that there's all these a and rs in the office they'd all go to viper room like every night and they were always go to the rainbow room and they were like you know they would have a 200 different ways to to describe, like, a woman's body.

Like, they were the same guys. They were, like, all black. And, but they knew everybody in L.A. and New York. There was, like, a social club. I wasn't in that social club. And I, it came to my, I realized, you know what? I'm just going to ignore L.A. and New York. If there's a show, someone invites me to showcase, I'm not going.

Right. I'm just going to focus on the rest of the country. And so Twista was Chicago, Chikday and Trina were Miami at that point. There were no, there hadn't been a successful rapper since, Luke, since two live crew in Miami. So people didn't look in Miami as a place for rap. Were you flying in those cities or people are sending you records? I was finding them.

I was calling record stores and asking what local records were selling. I was talking to DJs. I was talking to the street team in the marketing contacts asking people what was happening in the market. I'd go to the market as soon as I heard. So that area was Chick-Dady and Trina. It was Nappy Roots from Kentucky. It was Twista.

It was some point. It became Tray Songs and Ti and Youngdrow. And that was the first 10 years. And in that time, there was all those publishing things. You know, people, producers, writers, I kind of discovered and got publishing deals. And then at one point, I was turning down all the management because I was like, I'm an ANR person. I'm not a manager. I'm not a super, you know, massager people person.

I'm like, you know, I'm like, I'm like. I'm like, I'm, you know, a guy who... Why is that? Why? Yeah, I mean, you've traveled around the country. You've met all kinds of different people. Yeah. And why don't you think of yourself as a people person?

Well, I think they're sort of like... What's diametrically opposed? So, yeah, so somebody who likes to listen to a lot of music and shut themselves in the studio and experiment is not the person who's going to be the social person. So you kind of have to know when you meet someone who's incredible social dynamic, they're out every night, that they're also probably not going to, you know, get back to you and give you comments on your music and constructive criticism and insights and know every songwriter's, you know, talents and be able to pair you with your yin to your yang.

It's one of those things that I tell. I tell writers, like, you don't want an A&R guy who likes all your songs. You want the A&R guy who, when you send your shitty song, they say, send another because they're willing to listen through your shitty songs because they'll find it or they believe in you as a writer. And somehow, I don't know when in your schedule you're listening to music, but you manage to at least come back with comments every time someone sends you songs. And even when you're not, you know, I'm not signed to you

and I still send you songs, you still have always responded with, this isn't right or this is cool, what if you did? And you listen enough to at least respond. and that's hard to do for anybody. To me it's essential because if I don't respond, if I don't give you some real clarity that I'm paying attention, I'm listening, I'm thinking deeply,

I'm not just skimming the surface, then you're not going to keep sending me to music because it would be a waste of your time. And so I want to make sure that the people I believe are talented know I'm fully engaged, I prioritize, I get back right away, I'm really thinking about it. That's such a people person thing. It's so interesting.

I mean, maybe that's also because it's in a place where you're on your own listening and so you're in your zone and, you know, it's not, it doesn't have to be a conversation. I mean, I imagine that that's probably something that that's obviously an advantage if you're focused and in your own world responding to stuff. But that seems like a social interaction. You probably socially, when you're, to do this right socially, it's just also an investment of time. It's patience.

It's a lot of listening. And the other thing, I have this, you know, this a lot of opportunity on behalf of all the people I work with and I want to take advantage of it. So I probably, you know, the social thing, I probably blow things to things too quickly through to deliver for the people, but maybe not be as present as I should. But it's funny, you mentioned you don't want an ANR person

who likes everything. Yeah. you do, but everybody has that. It's called their mother. Right. So, you know, I want to meet the person whose mother hates everything and gives them construction feedback. And then they don't need me. That's right.

Exactly. So you go from, you know, I might be off, but as a sort of sole producer, I love college is kind of like the last one where you were primarily focused on being producer. Or at least the balance, I feel like somewhere. there was the shift between I'm not going to focus as much time in the studio as a producer and I'm going to get more into the business side. Yeah, I mean, producing for me is like... There's this category of things I have that include playing golf,

video games, being in certain types of TV shows on heroin and crack cocaine. Those are like things I never want to try because I know they're addicting. And they're probably, you know, you probably get hooked on one of them. So I would say the closest thing I have to that is actually making tracks by myself, just, you know, or with, you know, a musician because I'm not a great player and just, you know, sampling and chopping and doing drugs and just making records from scratch. And I love to do that. And I guess I've given up more and more of that.

I think, you know, at the time having kids that probably eat into that time, just as people's, you know, golf game probably goes down with their kids. So, but I also, you know, I think as a. as a DJ-oriented producer, that, you know, chopping stuff up and losing a lot of that stuff, that era has sort of changed a little bit. So now what I'm doing is producing in probably the way that has, you know,

that that was the A&R producer of the 60s, which is, you know, figuring out people's strengths and talents and putting them together and calling, you know, pulling someone in. I mean, I think I have probably in some ways a terrible reputation, in some ways a great reputation for, telling someone at some point, like, you probably hit the wall on this,

how about bringing in another producer to finish it? And it's sort of insulting to some people, and other people love it. They, like, you know, realize they want the final product, you know. And ultimately, you know, the traditional producer is somebody who gets something all the way to the finish line. Right. And sometimes that means recognizing, you know, the players on the team that it needs, you know, the one position is being unfulfilled and needs to come in.

But, I mean, that's, is that just a title change? Is record exec? Because, well, we know A&R guys who don't do this. So, I mean, do you consider yourself a producer? Because you're on these records as A&R, not necessarily as a producer,

even though you are doing the 1960s form of producing. I mean, is it hard to sort of compartmentalize the, I'm, You know, here I am. I'm an A&R guy. I'm the head of this company, that company, and I'm a producer and I'm a writer. I mean, how do you compartmentalize that? And how do the people you work with compartmentalize you?

Well, that's the challenge we all have is to try not to try to get ourselves not to departmentalize ourselves. Start not to look at somebody. He's a writer. He only writes. He's not an artist. He's not a playwright. He's not a, you know, a pie.

He's, you know, and, and we're in a world where there's, you know, first of all, we're in an industry where you can't, you probably have to do more than one thing to, you know, survive, but they're also interlinked and complementary. And to be, you know, a manager, you have to be a marketer and you have to be a negotiator. And you have, there's so many roles. So I would just say that, you know, I think my role is to be a utilitary player. Sometimes it's a fine song. Sometimes it's to match talent.

Sometimes it's to find somebody who can get what's needed done. And I try to get people to have an open mind that, you know, sometimes I'm acting as a publisher and sometimes I'm acting as a, you know, label. And it's, you know, I tried my best to do, to state my intention. And I think I have like a reputation for being direct and honest. So I think when I say, like, the reason I'd like to do this is for this. And that is there's no, you know, ulterior motive other than, you know, what I lay out, which is generally to get just the best product.

Because ultimately I think that's where it benefits everyone. And what kills me is those records that, like, somebody told me you never want an 11, 6, or 2. Like, you want to, you want a top 10, a top 5, or a number 1, you know? And so what kills me is why would a record end at 11 or 6? like or even you know three what's you know what stopped it what was wrong with it what could have been better what did we do right wrong in the promotion in the rollout in the recording and the artist's career that that the song would get to three but it wouldn't get to number one what's an example of that i actually know of a few under just from having talked to you guys like i'm like always the

biggest surprise to me is the fact the wild ones came out during maybe the best year of singles since i've been a professional song right now you know i mean that's call me maybe go T.A. and pay phone and we are young and all these great songs are coming out at the same time. You know, real classic songs in a way. And here's maybe the most classic flow writer song next to my house, of course. But, you know, when how does, why does that song not go number one? Like that's number two, yeah.

I have to remember exactly what was number one. Sometimes it's just, you know, it might have. been stuck behind goatea and that was just such a unbelievably perfect record in every way right like i i god i i flew to melbourne from new york like which is a long trip for a day to try to make that happen and that was what do you mean did you sign him or oh i tried to yeah it was in between being us and republic and um anyways long story but that was that was an experience but that song was just on within you know it was just one of those songs where in 30 seconds you're like this is the best I've heard in years.

And then every 30 seconds, it gets better and better and better and better. And you're like, there's nothing you could have done to make it better. It has the song evolved. It was exciting. It was interesting. The production was perfect. It made you just want to play it over and over and over again and never get tired of it. A lot of people make their judgment on a song on first listen, which I think it's almost

more important that after 10 listens or 20 listens, you're, you're, so excited to hear it again. But yeah, why Wild Ones? Wildwood isn't a, isn't a, a good example because I think it got to number two when there was just traffic at one. It was weird on that album because Good Feeling got to two, Wild Ones got to two, and Whistle was the one that got to one. Yeah, that's kind of surprising.

And yeah, I wouldn't have guessed that. But there was, I remember good girls gone bad, Cobra Starship. I have a theory with that one. You wrote on that too, right? I did it. I know it's J-Cash. I know it's... It was Kara and Gabe and yeah.

And Kevin Rudolph. We were putting... That was our very, very first little tiny room. We had at Paramount Studios and we were just... It was my gear from home. You know, my fiance had moved in. I got Atlantic pay a couple grand a month to put a room in. I put a minimum wage engineer.

And we just ran. round-the-clock sessions, experiments. And Aaron ran that session that got right round, that it was his idea to do the interpolation, and we got Cobra Starship that year. But I argued that the post-chorus repeated. If you listen to the song, they repeat the line, good girls gone bad, like 60 times or something.

And I argued that, you know, repetition is good, but there's a fine line where you just run the math after you've heard the song 100 times, You've actually heard that line 6,000 times. And like, you know, when you see some of the most of radio research is wacky and unpredictable, and I disagree with a lot of it. But that one was kind of clear. The song, you know, ascended, ascended, ascended, ascended.

And it hit this point where they measure burnout. And it just became, and immediately when they got the top ten, it just burned out and tanked. Because people were, like, tired. They were, like, pulling their hair out after they had heard the song a certain amount of times. Right. And it was that amount of balance between catchiness and repetitiveness. And it worked on the short end of it being very repetitive. So the second time you heard it, you were able to sing along.

Are your competitors slash contemporaries, you know, thinking of like Luke and Max and the people who run their prescription, MXM and, you know, probably what's going on in the Benny Stargate world and some of these different groups of people, they all have song math. Do you, is that a, I always talk about song math. Is that a universal truth in songwriting? Or is it, do you have your song math? Is that something you can teach?

I think it's like, if you're listening to that song, you're saying this was repetitive too much. And then, you know, I hear some of these songs, including one of mine that's doing well right now. And I'm like, that's a really repetitive chorus. It's kind of like, and it's sort of a surprise that it's doing, To me, I'm like, that's fantastic. I don't have other songs that I repeat a chorus that much.

But I don't know where the burnout rate is. You know, that's going to be interesting to see. You'll come to your conclusions and it will affect how you write the next one. But I think that whole different theories saw him at all the stuff. It's like, you know, it's like being an artist, you have like a straight-age ruler, but you're not going to use that in every painting. You have these tools and you want to, you know, you're creative. You don't want to write the same thing over or use the same blueprint.

There is things that work like, you know, you have a film. It's got almost every movie we see has three acts. And they have almost the same high concept arc to those acts. You have certain, like, laws of psychology. I always talk about there's these rules to advertising, actually, where it's like kids, when you're advertising kids, you want food to be fun and toys to be serious. And, like, you don't want to put, like, for a film,

you want to put a crazy person in a normal world or a normal person in the crazy world because a normal person, normal world is boring and a crazy person and crazy world's absurd. So you do have these things but generally you then throw them all out

and it's why I'm a big fan of at least a second idea started every day because it's like you may be in the first idea that's where you're sort of following some structure you feel some sort of pressure you want to you know

you call that a Hail Mary you want to be a productive that last hour you know you have only enough time everyone has to leave it this time time so you just say okay we finish this idea you've one hour first instincts go just enjoy it have fun and i can't tell you how many songs we have that have been cut in the last hour so what i try to do and i don't want to like you know give giveaway too much but i like you know having the studios

in the office one of the things i do is i give people there you know i try to stay out of them for a lot of times give people time to like you know not feel pressure not to have someone over their shoulder. But I try to dip in and see when they've got that first idea to a point where it's an idea and it's down and then, you know, and then push them to the next idea. Because you can, you know, when you say that that last hour, it could be, that last three hours, it could be, that last hour could be the third idea. When the first idea is like enough where you have it, you can save it, you can revisit it with fresh ears. But I feel like a lot of sessions, they just run on too long and people just, when you've looped a song forever,

you start hearing it in a way. And we have the technology that allows you to, you know, go out. Like in our new facility, it's in a, like, you know, a culturally relevant, populist place, not in a back corner, like in Burbank hidden in some place. And I want people to get out, you know, to go take a walk between songs, to go down the street, come back, go have coffee, whatever.

Somebody said that to me. Just walk through a door. It's amazing how much, even if you, It's why everyone we know has written their best lyric while they're pissing or while they're showering or something. It's not an environment that they have to focus on something else or you're pissing on a wall, you know. There's this book about creativity that was debunked, but it had all these interesting things about, you know, hot showers and being relaxed and your creative ideas, you know, clearing out your mind. Well, the guy used some quotes that he attributed to Bob Dylan, that were Bob Dylan says he never said.

And so it was sort of like taken off the shelves because it was, but there were a lot of theories about what drugs were like are conducive to writing hits. You look at these eras of, you know, soul music versus disco music and the drugs people were doing and, well, you know, uppers versus downers, all the stuff. But being in the shower, and I noticed, you said being in the shower are pissing, I noticed that the real hits, like,

are the ones that just pop into your head while you're doing one of those things. You clear your mind, you're not thinking, and this earworm coming back. You're like, wow, that was a really sticky earworm if I'm not thinking of anything. Or the first thing when you wake up in the morning. You just came out of sleep. You wake up and all of a sudden,

you're like, you know, this little melody is stuck in your head. You're like, wow, that's, you know, that thing survived the night's sleep. One of the thing that's crazy about you, that there's probably, one of the things that's crazy about you. I could just go. There's like this long list I have. But half of the people,

that we've interviewed have it are not good singers you know and and that you must hear these ideas and then for you to get them out is a very peculiar like uh prospect because you know it's one of those things that you you'll you'll come into a room and say no it needs to be like and you try to sing it but you're you try to translate it is that how how do you deal with that it's it's hard because i can't sing people all make fun of me because i do try to Because what am I going to do? Not get the message out? Or worse, I don't do my best articulate it.

And then someone, I'm very sensitive to people's time. So I don't want them wasting time, their own time, without enough information. So I actually try to, you know, if I can't, I can hear the notes. So if I'm singing it too low or trying not to that, I like actually point my finger a little higher. This is what I'm trying to get. But I can get the cadence down. And then I try to, you know, they say, you know, people can,

it's so dangerous to use words to describe music because if I'm talking about something that's really hard and heavy and has like an aggressive track, like you could be thinking, you know, a Skrill-like song on someone else could be thinking a Metallica song, you know, like you actually have to play the music. And I, you know, that's where DJing comes in so handy

and you can say, like, you know, I'm looking for this sort of run or this sort of, you know, oscillation or whatever, listen to this, you know, song from 72 where it does it. Now you've got to actually be careful about that because there's, you know, this whole lawsuits that can happen just from a

reference or so. Does that scare you? I mean, obviously it scares the shit out of me. You know what? It scares me on behalf of songwriters. So here's the truth of what happens, right? You write the song, you have, you know, minding your business, you're trying come from the soul and

happens to have some sort of, you know, similarity to something or some you know, person who knows nothing about music comes to some conclusion and um you get sued because it's a hit they they may be suing because they know it's not that similar but they think that they're gonna you know you're gonna you're gonna pay them to go away because the truth is your money is frozen like you know and as a songwriter you know you know you know i don't know if you know i don't know keep going sorry well it's just gonna it's like it's almost like becomes um blackmail you know you have a you know

half a million coming to you. You have your, you know, you've been scraping nickels together to be, because, you know, it takes so long for income to come as a songwriter. And then you finally have this money coming and someone comes out of woodwork saying it sounds like X, Y, Z. They know it doesn't, but they know that if you, you know, to get your million dollars, they have to go away.

Yeah. And they can just be a needle in your side and hold up that money for years. So, you know, you're going to peel off something to pay, which is just so, you know, it's gross. It's just so unethical and so gross. And what choice do you have? Is there a way to eliminate that? Or is that just sort of, that's just life?

I think there has to be, I mean, I think there has to be a fear that bringing these frivolous, completely frivolous things, not doing the diligence, not having, you know, legitimate, legitimate claims needs to have a cause. you need to dissuade people from having something that's, that's, that has, that they haven't done. I mean, I've talked to people with claims and sometimes I've said, like, how much, you know, how many third parties? I mean, how many people have you gone to for counsel on this? Or is this strictly your own opinion? Right. And they say, is my opinion, my, my lawyer agreed. Your lawyer who knows, can't play an instrument knows nothing about music.

And, and I'm like, you're going to, you're going to, like, affect somebody's family and their life for some. something that you haven't even done your own diligence on. And they have a lawyer who's working on contingency who thinks he's just going to get paid to go away. And there's no repercussion because if their lawyers doing it on contingency, they're not out anything if they lose. They need to be some sort of damages for it. Is that something that has to go through politics or is that something that? Yeah, I don't know. I'd have to get like a, there have to be a lawyer, but there should be the interest on the money that they're holding up or something.

There has to be something to it. There has to be some cost to it. I mean, there's a cost of people are paying legal fees. Sure, of course. But what lawyer is going to tell you, don't hire me to do this? Right, of course. Are there people in the industry? There are a couple things that you actually mentioned that I had written down before.

One was, you really enjoy the art of business. You really like the negotiating. I don't know. I happen to really like the business side. I like dealing with it. I like hearing about it. I like understanding this issue that we're talking about now with insurance or the idea of frivolous lawsuits. But a lot of people who are creative, and if you're as a producer, we know a lot of producers who can barely get out of bed and show up to the studio, let alone study, read books about how the psychology of business.

where does the desire to be a good negotiator come from? And that seems like a correct analysis of you. Am I wrong? Well, I would say most, I enjoy being creative. And the thing I learned early in music business is that you can be pretty creative on the dealmaking side. I mean, you can really be creative in any type of business. But I think the first publishing deal I did was with first or second

was with a writer who had been a successful artist in his past. He wasn't a successful artist at the time. And, you know, I made him an offer and he said, well, considering, you know, my successful artist career, I think, you know, it should be more, you know, offer should be more substantial. And I said, well, you know, we're only talking about working on third party records, not on your own artist records. And he said, and I said, you know what, maybe I could offer you a publishing, deal that excludes your own artist records.

But I didn't know that it existed at the time. And then as I sort of investigated, I found out, you know, you can do anything. You can do anything. You can do a deal that's only a song somebody writes on Tuesdays, you know? It really could be, you know, and then so all of a sudden, the unlimited. Yeah, exactly. Unlimited potential for what's out there and how things are structured. And I think it's important to find a recipe for success, for something.

someone for honestly planning out. I mean, I know I always go up against the fact that I know what other people's pitches are to new artists and I know I cannot pitch a bold face lie. And I'm not saying that, you know, other people do that even intentionally. But you meet with an artist in November, a new artist you're interested. And the, they want to hear that their album's going to be out in the spring and they're going going to be on tour in the summer. Yeah.

Right. That's what they want to hear. They're looking for someone to tell them that. somebody could tell them that is it possible you know it's possible to win the lottery

it's possible to do it you know a lot of things your odds are yeah you can release it in a vacuum but no one's gonna right I've done I did a study of all my artists from zero to gold

of all the acts I've signed and I've had 19 that have gone gold or platinum and the average is 2.8 years to reach that a point did you do that math or did you actually hire someone to do it

I did the math I looked at how when I signed them, when their first album and gold, sometimes it wasn't their first album, sometimes it was a second, and then I averaged it out across a bunch of acts. I think I only averaged out from the acts that were successful that got there, not including the ones, because then there would be infinity. Right, of course. You know, and not saying that they couldn't make a living or had success

unless in that time period. Right. Well, there's an industry between zero and gold. Yeah, exactly. not the same industry that you're focusing are aspiring. It's not what people have in mind when they're signing a record deal. Of course. And so,

realistically, you know, it is going to be a time period. I actually have this whole theory about artists. So many artists were dropped by major labels and signed again. Like we're successful. Alicia Keys, 50,000. We have, I mean, just Atlantic,

Bruno, Fun, Ed Sheeran, Cilo, T.I. All these artists we've had success with. Charlie Puth, they were all signed and dropped. And I think the number one, reason is a lot of these mega artists were so immensely talented that people recognize it very early in their career but when they sign them the artist the manager the a and r the label all have this internal clock of two years right and they all think that something needs to happen in two years

or everyone starts to feel like something is wrong in the formula and maybe some of those acts the real timeline from being signed from raw talent and not actually figured out your sound your performance, your, your, your, your, um, collaborators, your essential things. Maybe that time period's actually four years. And so people are really on this window where they get signed, 18 months, two years, they get dropped and they, and they, and they, the second deal on about the year, two years, that's that four year window. One of it is because they've run out of money.

Either the label spent too much money or the, or the artist doesn't have enough money and you as a label are saying, I already paid you. So you're sitting there and two years into it. You're like, either I have to find a way. to continue to put money into this. Exactly. So then you face the conundrum where you are then realized

you're in this marathon and you may need this money to last for four years and the way you're doling it out seems stingy. But when you know you're in what's best for the artist and what's best for the company because you need to make it work for that period of time.

It's tricky. Well, this would... All right, so one of the things that bothers me as a writer is that songs that haven't been released they have this infinite lifespan until they get cut. Sure. But in this generation, once a song is released, unless it's sampled, it's rarely cut again.

Yeah. And you go back 30 years and or, you know, 50 years, going back to Bob Dylan, you have some of these songs that are cut by 50 different artists. And that will change. And it'll just take somebody to change it. Somebody will have success with the cover. somebody will have success you know you'll get hot as a writer all of a sudden you're unreleased songs

that people were ignoring they all like them now but it's not the unreleased songs it's the songs it's the songs that basically got dropped it's the fact that I you know I have you know if I have a song that there are songs that you've liked of mine that an artist has released the one that I wanted that Rixon cut and put on that appreciate it appreciate it's a great

example of that that song is a is a great song that sold very few records and the song's still great. Well, here's something that we do on the record side and the publishing side that's an industry problem, right? I think appreciated it's an amazing song.

You know we, on the version we worked on, we tried a bunch of different productions. That code hasn't been exactly cracked. So the song is a incredible song, massive song, still hasn't been produced. So not only doesn't need to be covered, but it needs to be covered with a new arrangement or production. And so you need someone who not only,

understands that everything comes in cycles and is this great wealth of songs that have been but also can hear them and reimagine them and then here's the trickiest part right you then have to get producers that are willing to produce that don't participate in the in the publishing which we have to shift the government has to shift there has to be a even balance between publishing income and record income or you know performance from master income that levels it that then encourages producers to work on records again because that's where the covers are going to come from. And same thing on the other side, though.

I still think of the fact that the fact that writers don't have control of the masters at all is really, it works from the Grammy is down. I mean, I always say that every year that the Grammys come out, you know, put it on social media, that every year that the Grammys don't include songwriters in album of the year categories is the year they don't understand how albums are made and this is the wrong era for that kind of thing and that philosophy of these songwriters have these songs being you can have a song cut by all these different artists which is where that really comes from is just fictitious now it's just not really how it works and we don't own any percentage of the

we only make money if the song makes money and without any sort of album cuts out there we don't We don't get anything. We just don't make any money. There's no middle class for songwriters. If you write hits, you're stoked. And underneath that, it's kind of screwed because these songs have just limited value and a producer can demand $40,000 for a track.

It is tricky. I mean, you know, it's the same. Well, it's not the same in television, but it's becoming that way in a film. It's a zero-sum game a lot of the time. There's a lot of people who are... What do you mean? How is it the same? Meaning that most films are either hugely successful or they lose a lot of money and no one anyone on a participation basis is not seeing a dollar from it, you know?

Yeah, but the key grip still gets paid something. So even if, you know, the fact that I go into a session and there's no, that if the, if the song gets cut and if there's an exclusive use of that song for its initial release, then there should be money. that's trickled down to the writers of it and not specifically just to the producer. The producer is also a writer in most cases, so they can participate in that as well. But there should be something that reflects the work that the writers put in for every cut, besides a split of $9.1 per song.

It's definitely tricky. It will be very hard to get to a perfect scenario, but yeah, there's also. the producer fees, what a producer's role is, what a songwriter's role. Sometimes the producers are using the songwriters to produce vocals to, you know, that they're more involved in the production than just a writer credit would lead you to believe. I mean, especially when it comes to writing to tracks, which is sort of a dying art in a way.

As Savin said to me once, he's like it's like writing a screenplay to special effects. See, I would sort of disagree with that in the sense that it depends, like, on the sound and style and where the innovation and how the ability to execute is a production and the groove and the feel at the time. Because, like, there's the one rule I know is that there's no rules, you know? And sometimes the inspiration is going to come from sitting at a piano. And sometimes that is going to continue to lead to a lot of, you know, middle of the road, mid-temper. And there's just something in the brain that, like, is, you know, is you're just not going to write a drum and bass song on a guitar. And it's like it's or some new genre that doesn't even exist as of now.

You know, so I would just say like there's, you know, you got to remember, it's the, the Brian Eno, what was it called? Oblique strategies, you know, sometimes the greatest things just come from doing things differently. Right. You know, whatever your routine is. I say that to writers all the time. Like, whatever is your biggest struggle, you know, the thing you try to avoid you don't want to do,

is probably what you need to do the most. It's like, it's like, it's what's going to round you out. I try really hard on varying rhythms. It's one of the things I've learned a lot in the last couple years, is really getting better and better at how I use rhythm as a writer. It's like, it's always been, to me, that's always been my Achilles heel. been a really good melody writer, a good lyric writer. But rhythms are always something that's like an interesting thing.

Understanding counter rhythms, I understand syncopation better. Getting into that has really been sort of a useful tool. Yeah. But do you have a favorite kind of producer or a favorite kind of writer? I mean, you have so many under your umbrella. One of the right hits. My favorite kind of writer is the one that, has the highest bar, you know, and figures out a way to get there.

You know, Ed Sheeran and Bruno and Charlie and just guys who are like, they're open-minded but confident and they don't get high on their own supply. They realize that, you know, what great is and realize it's not going to come easy. I mean, I remember seeing a lot of writers that I thought were just sort of mythological beings that just, you know, coughed out smashes, and everyone that I got a closer look on worked their ass off. And when you finally got into it,

it did not come easy. It took work, you know? Would you have built any of this differently? Now that you see how successful APG is, I mean, obviously I know that we didn't even get into the A&R for Warner Records, which is a massive role. You know, would you've done any of it differently? Or is this sort of...

Yeah, here's the greatest thing. The hardest lesson that took the longest that I'll share and everyone will ignore, which is that, and this is so hard, you can learn it, you can agree to it, and then putting it in a practice is almost impossible, that people evolve, and that, you know, just like we were saying, how you got to not, you know, label somebody and classify them, it's that you have to continue to be, have an open mind and revisit at them because where someone is at 17 and at 18 and at

20 and at 22 and where they are before they've you know before Lucas has matched with Spielberg or like you know I mean Bernie Toppin found Elton John or you know Bruno Mars found

Peter Hernandez found Phil Lawrence whatever you want to say that like the ying and the yang and the chemistry like everything changes Ryan Lewis and Macklemore Listen to, you know, that before. Well, yeah, McLemore's stuff is out there separate. So it just is something else.

And you have to like, it's so easy to say, I heard that guy, I saw him in the studio, like, he does this and that's what he is. And here's my, here's my, you know, description on him. And that's it. A year from now, you have to listen to him and say he could be totally different, especially in these formative years of people's career. So it's like to see every artist once isn't enough. Every year. We've said that. It's so hard.

It's like you, you know, people are as successful as the day you meet them that you see someone who's homeless and you don't realize that they were rich one. They could have been rich one day or somebody who's rich might have been homeless or just the idea of anybody. I mean, it's so easy to look at them and view them as I met you being a very successful, you know, record exec. You had this building already, you know, but the idea that there was a time where you were probably sending out songs that weren't very good. you know is like it was a long time ago so it's people who met you then

that's what's cool about the you know the will I am thing I'm still I'm still dealing with that there's I mean I started it's in the business of 16 I was at Atlantic at 17 or sorry 15 I was at Atlantic 17 A and R at 19

and I made so many mistakes in the first 10 years there's definitely people who still hold those against me and like assume I'm just you know still the way I, you know, the things. And half of it was, I didn't, you know, I didn't know.

I did things the best way I knew how to get them done at the time. And things, you know, things happen in your life. You have to reevaluate and have an open mind. That's it. It's a constant open mind all the time. Well, two things. One is you have to put that top 40 that you guys used to always keep above the urinal. Oh, that's a good point.

Because that was something that when I first started coming here, I used to look at that list and it used to really inspire me because everybody who pisses in this place would have the top 40 right in front of their face and you'd see in italics all the ones that

Atlantic APG probably now Warner would have and you'd look at that list and you'd think, man I want to get on that list you know like you have to bring that up especially because I have a bunch on there now but you know it's like I went in it and I was pissing I'm reading some shitty

sign and I'm like, come on, man, that top 40 has to be there. That shit inspired me. I love that. I mean, that's one of my main focuses now as, you know, moving into the larger role and managing a larger group is how to continue inspiration. One of the things we've been doing for our writers is every month we have each A&R person and actually every employee of the publishing company pick a song or two that inspired them over the last month.

What about it is a special? And we send it to all our writers. And, you know, one, we can't, we assume, like, our writers hear the same things we hear, but a lot of times that doesn't happen. And second, it helps for the writers to get to know the employees and what their taste and tone is. And somebody, oh, somebody likes this, I'm going to send them that idea. Or I'm going to ask them how I can get involved in this style of music or whatever it is. So I'm trying to do that. We tried the poster series.

That was, you know, we have a couple of them. The next one, I want to be all about inspiration. Yeah, that educating is, I mean, that's one of the things that I've always admired about you, and I think it's been good for all the writers that you've come across, is that it's about education. I mean, you really come in here and you talk about, there are times you say, you know, those kinds of post-courses are gone, and because you're listening to music more than anybody that's coming out

because people send you so many songs, that you're listening to a lot of these things, and say this trend is moved on, this trend is moving forward, And whether you're right or not, it's constantly about evolving, like you were saying, and that evolution has really affected a lot of writers in this industry. I have a list of titles that I share with my writers now to avoid. And they say, why should I avoid this? I was like, well, these are the titles that I'm getting eight songs a week with the same title.

And no artist is taking it. And even though the title could work, of course, there's no rules. It could work. but there's so many songs being written with the same title that you're more likely to have a song and then your competitor comes out with the same title because there's hundreds of songs being written. I can't imagine how many Netflix and chills or whatever it is.

And then it's titles that never ever ever work, although I'll challenge someone to write a hit song called Boomerang, but somehow I get a song called Boomerang every week. Every week is a song called Boomerang. Well, there's a gimmick. The gimmick song right now is really difficult. I think it's easy for people to still look back and say, I want my umbrella. And they try to come up with a multisyllabic word that everyone understands.

And they just go and they try to write that. And that's just not really where concepts come from. A compelling concept about a boomerang, you know, is a very difficult thing. It just becomes a club record that nobody's listening to. Nobody's listening to that song. A lot of writers, they... That's really funny, though. Boomerang is...

Yeah, because I know some... some of your writers who have that song already and maybe even release that song. I'm sure they've all tried it. Yeah, right. Exactly. You kind of get it out of your system at some point. But yeah, there's those ones. But the multisyllabic, I think people, you know, they understand that that works and it's

cashy and they don't really know why. Fair. And then when they... Appreciate it. I try to explain that with writers, too. It's like, it's okay to be... It's not okay to be wordy, but it's okay to be wordy, but it's okay to... use a lot of notes. If you have multisyllabic words stringing together, it can be a very simplistic

phrase and it can cover a lot of real estate. The more you have these multisyllabic words, the more you can take up space without it being wordy. So if you look the wordier your song, the more rhythmic your song, the bigger the words in a way have to be in order to offset that. Well, another way, another reason why it works so well is because Because if you're trying to get someone to sing along, they logically can sing along the first time they hear it. So if I say Cal, you're going to finish Fornia with it. The same way, if I say one, two, three, you're going to say four. Same way if you say A, B, you're going to say C.

And those things, those spelling, left, right, left, or, you know, hot or cold, black. You're going to, there's just the brain works. So if you, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if you, if, if you, if, if you, if, if it's a bunch of one-syllible words, they're going to out with them and to challenge someone's thoughts, you're going to go against that. And if you're going to, this is, this is, this is what it's like to first-sillow. If you, if you, it's, if it's a bunch of one-syllable words, they're going to have to hear the song several times to, to, to, to, to, to, to. I'm smiling because this is what it's like to first meet you and you have explained a lot of these rules so many times and it still works.

Those rules are rules for a reason on some level. I try to use the word rules. No, okay. There are tools for a reason. But you understand the pitfalls of them and how to use that to your advantage as a writer. but it's one of those things that you don't there aren't a lot of in our people who are that involved in the art of song craft and so much fun i just enjoy it yeah yeah well thank you for uh this is fun for this

i appreciate it thanks for listening to this episode of and the writer is if you want to hear music from this songwriter i just interviewed be sure to check out our spotify playlist or visit our website at and the writer is.com. If you like what we're doing, please subscribe to us on iTunes. You can also like us on Facebook and Twitter. And The Writer Is is produced by Joe London, edited by Miles Bergsmow, and published by Big Deal Music.

A special thanks to Jeff Sparger, David Silberstein from Mega House Music, and Michael White. Here's a sneak peek of next week's, And The Writer is. he was like he couldn't believe that these two skinny Norwegians and made this music. So it was just like a chemistry that was instant. And again, it doesn't matter where you come from in music

as long as you share the same compassion and references and love for music. And he quickly understood that, oh, these guys know what they're doing. And vice versa, we were just breathtaking by his talent and his voice and his writing. Until next time, this is Ross Bowling.