And The Writer Is...with Ross Golan - Ep. 17: John Ryan

Episode Date: May 22, 2017

This immensely talented songwriter has quickly become a household name in the pop songwriting world. Credits on Maroon 5's "Don't Wanna Know", Pitbull's "Fireball", and Jason Derulo's "Wiggle" are just a few of the reasons. Perhaps the most notable is his longstanding work with British boy band, One Direction. If you've ever heard a One Direction song on the radio, you've most definitely heard this songwriter's handiwork. He has an astounding 39 One Directions cuts and has co-written all of the singles from their last three albums including “Drag Me Down”, "Best Song Ever", and "Story of My Life”. And The Writer Is...John Ryan! 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.

write 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. Oh, and if you enjoy this podcast, please rate us on iTunes or whatever your preferred podcast listening site is. We really appreciate that effort. All right, for this week, we have a true genius, John Ryan. I don't even want to go too far into how I feel about John because you'll get it from this conversation. But before we get into the conversation, I just wanted to say something about stitches, the song by Sean Mendez.

It won song of the year at the BMI Awards. We didn't talk about it last week, but we should because the entire song is published by our co-producers, Big, Deal Music, who also publishes John Ryan. So we talk a lot about Casey Robinson, the senior vice president of Big Deal Music, also lived on my Hall freshman year of college. We talk about David Silberstein and Jeremy Levin from Mega House Music, who are not only co-producers of this podcast and not only managers for Joe London, but also managed a good portion of stitches. So congratulations to them as well. So without further ado, here is one of my my favorite episodes we've done of And The Writer is John Ryan.

Welcome to And The Writer is. I'm your host, Ross Golan. Today's guest is one of the few 100% writers. What I mean is he can write and produce a hit alone. He doesn't need anyone. And yet, he's one of the best collaborators in the business. His musical ear is impeccable and his compositional memory is virtually flawless. Just for some context, he wrote the last nine, one direction singles

and produce the one before that. So let's go at 10. From the great state of New York, this guy has been instrumental in defining huge artists like Maroon 5, John Legend, Pitbull, etc. And the writer is always the most talented person in the

room, John Ryan. We were just talking about there's a plaque in Joe's studio that has wiggle and fireball, and we'll get into that but you were saying that you wrote you guys wrote

wiggle fireball and headlights all in the same weekend all in the same like 18 hours anyway just to give context who are all the artists and like tell them like how does that how does that happen and it's Jason Derulo for wiggle Jason Derulo was wiggle pit bull was fireball

and then who did headlights headlights was Robin Schultz yes right um you did that one weekend we did that in like literally 48 hours. It started off with some jet skiing. Yes. Shout out to Andrea Schuller accident for hooking up the jet skis. Before we wrote anything, we just went out and just ripped

jet skis for like three hours. Then we got back and we were like yes! Did you guys write lyrics while you're out in the jet skis? I'm like, oh my God, it's been agreed! What was your pre-chorus? Yeah, exactly. No, it's weird how when you're having fun, that somehow translates to fun records.

Yeah. And then we drank some fireball and then we made fireball and then we just Kind of kept the ball rolling. I like it. All the balls. Yeah, all the balls. I feel like this whole episode should be you playing Hall & Oates records or something like that. I mean, if this was a call-in show, everyone should just, like, they should call in whatever song.

Yeah, make requests. And you should sit at this piano and you should just play. Because I don't think people realize that you might actually know, like, all, like, the Holo notes, like, cattle. I'm not that big of a Hollenotes guy. No, I don't know. I play maybe like four or five tunes. Yeah, okay. Name another person you know that can play two hollow notes records.

Do you know what I mean? Like, it's crazy. Anyway, I realized that we just had our five-year friend anniversary. I went back. Pound it. Pound it, baby. Thank you for having me on the show, too. It's an honor.

You're welcome. Pleasure and a privilege. Ah, yes. So we met in 2012. So you found your way out to Malibu, California by 2012. I did. But just before you get to that, like, you start in New York. Rochester, New York.

Yep. Small town. Small town hero. Yeah. There you go. Does everybody from your home know what you do? Sort of. Not really.

They don't, I mean, they might know that I'm, like, out here and in the biz, but they don't actually know what I do. It's like, oh, he's doing music. He's doing the music. Well, Rochester is, like, a really good music town. Great music town. Because they have... Great jazz fest. Yeah.

You know, it's great. Why did you end up at Berkeley and not at school in Rochester? Eastman's there, right? My parents were just super supportive. I was the third kid in my family. So at that point they were just like, you know, do whatever you want. Did they all do music? No, super musical family, but no one else went to music school or, like, wrote songs or anything.

And Berkeley was, like, the only school I applied to and got in and just went. What do you mean? A musical family? Like, everyone kind of plays and sings and, like, no songs. and knows the Beatles, and my brother's like a great piano player and drummer, and my sister plays violin, and my mom plays piano. It's like, just musical. You kind of just brush over the Beatles, but I think you actually may know how to play every Beatles song. Yes, I do. I mean, that's not an exaggeration. I didn't grow up

listening to the Beatles either. I didn't listen to the Beatles until I went to Berkeley. Okay. Yeah. I mean, my, I knew like Beatles won. My dad had like the hits album. Right. So I knew like want to hold your hand and stuff, but. Right. Only I got to the Beatles and like Gat High and my friend showed me like Revolver or something and I was like, what is this? Yeah.

It's the Beatles, man. I've never heard any of the songs. And then my whole brain just went What's it? I mean, I think the Beatles are compositionally so complex and people don't recognize it because the melodies are seemingly simple, which is the genius of it. But why do you why did you gravitate to Revolver

and to the Beatles in what was probably 2004? 2006 yeah yeah I don't know man it's like it's like it's like watching an old TV show it's like what Seinfeld or something if you if you weren't into it and it's it's hard to get people even now I have friends that are just like I don't get the Beatles or like I don't get the stones or like old rock shit and it's hard to like play those records because like the piano is all the way to the right and the drums are all the way and the mix is like off and it like doesn't sound modern it's like I don't really get these records but I don't know it just it just connected with me

It actually was a cover of one of my best friends in college made a cover of Tomorrow Never Knows, which is like the last song on Revolver, super like trippy song. Because we had garage band on our laptops. We were the first like generation of Berkeley kids to have garage band. So we're checking in loops and like singing into the laptop. We're like, we can make our own beats on our computers. We were the first class to be able to do that. And he had made a cover of it and sent it to me.

I thought he was the most prolific, sickest artist of all time. I was like, dude, you're a genius. let's form a band. I was like, this song's amazing. He's like, dude, it's the Beatles. It's the last song on Revolver. I was like, what? Then he, like, burned me every album.

I like, they burned you every album. He did. I had every CD, like, CDR. Did you guys end up starting a band? He was in my band later on, but we didn't actually start a band. What was your first band? My first band,

my first real, like, band band band was called Faction, which is actually with Teddy Gagher. How crazy is that? Like from high school? Ninth grade, 10th grade, yeah. So Teddy Geiger is, you know, partly responsible for Sean Mendez's album, you know, recently. But back in the day, as an artist, super successful solo artist. When you guys were in a band, did who sang?

We both did. We were just like a whole like Lennon McCartney thing. He sang better than me. But we both sang. It was four piece band, too. He played piano a lot of time, guitar, piano, bass, drum. We wrote all the shit Like had an album

This whole thing was great Do you ever listen back to those songs? Totally Are they great? No Like could you shop those songs? No of course not But it sounds like there's something there

Right Like this is kind It's a little bit left of like A high school band Just like making Songs or something Do you guys Write together now?

We do Not enough But That's an amazing achievement To be Well it's He taught me everything I know. Really?

Yeah, he just, he was like, he was like working in Pro Tools in 10th grade when I like had a task scam like 16 track, like digital recorders. Like he should probably get like Pro Tools. It's this great computer program that you can record on. And I was like, ah, you know. That's crazy. Yeah. I can't kind of wrap my head around like two kids in Rochester that later become two of the biggest pop writers. Yeah.

Yeah. kind of bananas. Did you guys lose touch when you went to Berkeley? No, dude. Not at all. Was faction, like, uh, was that, did he go to Berkeley? He didn't go to Berkeley, no. He, like, his artist's career started popping off, um, like, right before our senior year of high school. So we were like best buds in high school, like, I had this band and everything.

He left and was doing an artist thing. Like, I didn't really see him senior year. And then I went to Berkeley. No, we've always stayed in touch. He was, like, visiting me in Boston a lot. We were always just jamming and, like, hanging. Your musical memory is pretty crazy. I don't know what you mean by that. Well, if I name a song right now,

you'll go to the piano and you'll play it in the right key. Even if it's something you're not, you don't know how to play. I'm good with chords. You're good with chords. Yeah. I mean, that's, but it's

sort of an understatement because it's, I assume you have a perfect pitch, right? No, I've like, relative. Relative, really good, like relative pitch. When did you realize, that you could, that you have this talent.

It's kind of like a weird Harry Potter kind of like, you're like, everyone else is sort of a muggle in the room and you come in, you're like, ah, I can play this. It was like... It was really, it was Berkeley. It wasn't something you were doing in faction. It was something I was always doing, but I didn't know how to

like, process it in my brain. I could always kind of sit down and figure something out. Right. But I got to give credit to like, the first two years at Berkeley, I like, I got so much better. Just like the ear training classes and the harmony like i always knew i could always kind of sit down and figure it out but i didn't know what it was i didn't know it was like a two minor so you didn't take piano lessons and do the

i did as like a little kid right and the guitar lessons but right so i knew like the basic basic like theory right but once i knew like once i took like the ear training classes and like the harmony classes and i could like see the relationship between chords or like what they sound like against a melody right that makes sense yeah and i just and simultaneously listening to Every Beatles album like 20 times a day. Their stuff can get pretty cordy, you know, in like a pop sense. It's not just like GCD every song. So that paired up with doing the classes.

The last two years I didn't learn much. I sort of like started producing and stuff. But the first two, I like my ear got crazy. I noticed it like a year and I was just like, I can fucking sing and play anything. So are Lennon and McCartney your songwriting teachers? Or did you actually take a, did you have a mentor? in songwriting? No.

They just, they helped kind of expand my, you know, what you're allowed to do in pop. Right. And so many people did. And like Dylan and... Did you want to be an artist in college? Yeah.

I had like so many bands in college. And in high school. I had like a funk band. Like I didn't sing in. It was all like horns. I had like a couple rock bands in college. Yeah, I was always like sort of doing an artist thing And then I kind of turned

Writer-producer guy And I'm doing my artist thing again now finally Yeah Which is exciting Yeah, I saw you put some stuff on the social media Yeah, the social media You were saying, hey, follow me on my music page And I turned to my wife

I was like, check this out Yeah, he's doing it No music up yet though It's a little top secret We'll get into that in a bit Because I'm curious how you balance all of that But when you're in at Berkeley and you're doing music stuff and then you immediately end up in Malibu. Immediately.

You go from Boston to Malibu. Maybe literally you like flew. I was home for like two days and then I went out to Malibu. So what's the, explain how you got from Berkeley to Los Angeles. I'll give the short version because there's so many, the universe just locked in about three dozen things. all at the same time, but was dating a girl at Berkeley from L.A.

She didn't come back to Berkeley the rest of the time. So I was visiting L.A. a lot. Visiting her. It was like some movie shit. Like was at a Christmas party playing like beach boys on the piano or something. Everybody like singing along. And this dude comes up to me.

He's like, hey, I have one of your demos. I'm like, what? One of my other friends from Berkeley was an intern at a studio out here. And it was Damon. who came up to me at the party and was like my intern gave me like one of your demos from Berkeley you go to Berkeley right

I'm like yeah he's like oh we gotta connect like my brother Julian Benetta is a writer producer you gotta come out and and vibe with us and blah blah blah blah kind of got his number stayed in touch and like the next time I came out to L.A which was like the following summer I like went over there and like met Damon and Julian and jammed

and like kind of just hit it off like as bros but explain the Benetta family because I think if you don't understand where they live, how they live, who they are. Like, there's nobody in the music business like what's going on in that family in Malibu. So explain the Benetas. Okay. It's the best family ever.

And it all stems from Peter and Tracy, Damon and Julian's parents. They live out in Malibu, big studio. Julian has a house in the hood I have a house in the hood Damon has a house in the hood We all live out in the hood All like 30 seconds walking from each other And Peter's a major

Major writer Peter the dad had a bunch of hits in the 80s You know break my stride And nobody gonna bring my stride It's like tons of shit Yeah And he's sort of been the liaison And kind of dropped all this knowledge

About not dealing with assholes And about staying away from kind of the bullshit of the industry, I guess, for lack of a better term, which is really easy to do, like out in Malibu, like in the mountains. Right. So he's instilled all that kind of wisdom on us.

And it's great. It's unbelievable. You show up there from basically playing at a holiday party and all of a sudden you're in this strange mecca of music in the woods. Like, what are you doing after Berkeley? I was like, I don't know. I don't know. They're like, why don't you come live with us?

And I lived with them, like, for free for a year and had a studio. Amazing. They were like, come just try it out, like, with my family. I was like, great. And then we just, like, hit it off right away, and I'm in the same studio still. And how soon after that was it that you started meeting people and artists? And, I mean, Julian has, you know, at 18 years old, he was doing Hillary Duff Records and, you know, he's a prodigy. So, you know, here you kind of have this.

relationship where both of you guys come from real musicality. And when artists and writers are coming in with him, were they just sneaking you in the room? Or was it like, was it? Not really initially. I remember Damon, my manager, Damon Benetta, had set me up like the second day I was here. Like I flew in on like a Monday, on Tuesday for like a month.

He had booked me a, um, an EP. that I had to produce of this great artist Joe Gill. He's kind of a acoustic... Oh yeah, I like Joe. I love Joe. And I'd never like produce someone else's stuff before, but Damon just kind of thought I could do it. So Joe came up the next day and was like,

here are my songs and played me all the stuff. And then I started laying down drums and doing all the thing, kind of like figuring it out as I went along. So did that, which really just like got my feet wet, like instantly, had no time to like process what was going on. which was good. Have you ever had a chance to process what's going on?

I still don't know what's going on. Right. Ever. I'm just going to go, woo-hoo-hoo. Yeah. And then it becomes a song. Did your parents start to understand when you said, I'm going to move to Malibu?

They were like, who are these people? Yeah. Who are this a mountainous family? Yeah. Did they trust you in that process or were they skeptical? Yeah, they came out like in the first six months and like met everybody and saw that it was legit and like that they were nice people. but they were a little skeptical but

they must sound weird though just being from going to live with his family for free and malavit up in the mountains make music feels like some Manson shit when you were writing with Joe were you writing with Joe Gill or was just producing just producing which was totally a new thing for me

right so when did you start co-writing out here I mean you were co-writing with Teddy Geiger in high school so it's like it's not like you had to really be introduced to the process. No, Julian, like you said before,

Julian and Damon also made sure, like, once Julian and I established that we were, like, good writing partners, and he, same with Teddy, man. I learned everything from Julian. He just started bringing me in, and, like, I don't know. Did you start using logic? We always wrote well together,

so if there was a third person in there, like, we could always kind of make it work into something great, because we already knew that we could get something great, so if there was a third person, we were just all, like, figure it out. Were you sticking to a person? Pro tools or did you switch the logic? Pro tools all day, baby.

Do you and Julian have fights over that? We used to. You really? Really? I was kidding. Yeah. That's amazing. Because it's a pain in the ass because we can't work on stuff together. Right. You have to bounce on stems. We've written 400 songs together. It's like, bounce me the stems.

I can't just open his session and work on it and vice versa. When you have a rapport with Julian writing, just to two of you guys, Do you guys have like a certain method? I mean, is it something where it's, okay, this is what we do? We sit down, let's just pick up a guitar, now you start singing, or is it, you know, you pick up a piano, you sit at the piano and then you start singing, or is it just different every time? It's different every time.

I'm kind of like the crackhead in the room, and he's kind of like the overseer, which has made me a much better writer too, learning how to, like, take a, he's really good at taking to step back and really dialing in a lyric or kind of like saying, you know, is this lyric have to do with kind of what the song, what the title is and like all like big picture stuff when I'm like, like when I first moved to LA, people thought that I was, when I was first doing sessions, they kind of thought that I was like overselling my shit because I just get really fucking excited and like loud and like, would you be like this is a smash? No, I would never say this, never say the smash.

Okay, good. Because I kind of feel like you'd have to leave. Yeah. Like in the middle. I would never say like, this is a hit for sure. Yeah. But you just were excited. I just play a lot and I sing a lot and I'm fucking intense.

Yeah. But people kind of thought like, oh, he's this new young writer. He's trying to like prove himself that he's good or something. But like I was genuinely just like, I'm pumped. I love it. No, when we're in the room, it's super fun because you'll go and you'll just start playing something. Not trying to like. No, no, you're having fun.

It's actually a little bit of kind of trying to capture lightning. in a bottle with it where when you're having fun and you have that kind of personality in the room, it's nice to have a Julian or someone in the room that's like oh wait, no, that part right there. Exactly. Is that's the star.

Exactly. And the rest of it, like, let's move on, but what if we YouTube that and that became the second half of the third verse? Or whatever. And you're like, oh my God, that's so great. And I've gotten better at like doing that on my own stuff now. I have that tool now. I'm saying

me as a writer. You're writing for other people, writing for my stuff, whatever. Like, now I know if I'm singing something and doing my crazy thing, I'll be like, that one bit's really good. I've learned to, like, do that myself. It takes to have, it takes, like, a few days for me to go back and say, oh, yeah.

No, no, no, that is actually good. I mean, when you're on your own, it's hard to do that in the moment. Because sometimes you think, I think this is good. The faster it happens for me, it's just better. Always? Yeah. Like, at least

the nugget of of inspiration and like that magic kind of moment. Is that like a jazz background kind of situation? I mean no. You know like an improv sort of thing? I don't know. Just if it feels right and you're like excited about it then just like kind of hang on

to that thing and don't be too precious about like what about that but the melody we started like six hours ago it was also kind of sick which like you could go back and it could be great but you know I mean how many times have you like written two songs in a day and like this is some great stuff and then you're walking out of the session give a high five and someone goes on the piano you go what was that

what was that and you kind of go over and go oh my god that's pretty tight that's pretty tight and you like write a song on 20 minutes on your phone and it's like way better than the shit you spent 12 hours on working on you know that's my experience all the time because it just feels um less thought out or less like writery less rightery for sure I mean we I think we were calling that a Hail Mary situate that last hour totally every time just

especially at the end of three days of writing because you'll go back the second day you'll fix the first song the third day you're tracking vocals still working on that same first song right like writing second verse lyrics of like an idea that's already not that great right fucking horrible every time

though right it's my least favorite shit and it happens you're unsure if the song's great and then you're like working on like the bridge and like you're still not sure if like the chorus is great or something that's like my pet peeve I hate that and I do it all the time because like you don't really know

sometimes it takes a couple days to go back and be like wait this is actually amazing yeah that's hard though I think it helps to have somebody who's a third party listener who said no this one was actually really good and it's something's amazing then you put that time and maybe it takes you three days to write a bridge or maybe you need to do a chord

change or maybe you need to maybe the second verse should be a totally different flow just to like make it interesting but I know that this chorus or this title or this thing's amazing so I'm going to put those days in to finish it. It's good to hear you know it's we don't necessarily talk about process and history and I know that

we all are friends but it's a different thing when you get an opportunity to just have a conversation totally and actually get to ask and listen to you know everyone has such a different story I know can I interview you? Sure after these messages

so X Factor comes into your life yes that's like so you You go from being, I'm going to go work on an EP. I'm going to produce some of this stuff. And then you're going to be working on the biggest television show in the United Kingdom. Yep. And you will very shortly become somewhat of a household, like...

X-Factor guy? X-Factor guy. Totally. Which is how we got linked up with One Direction. Of course. You know. I don't know who they are. Julian

Julian was working on the X Factor over here when it was still over here and this is like two or three years into me living out here. 2011. 12. Moved out 2010. And I started helping with that.

He said, hey, why don't you throw some drums on this? Throw some guitars on this? You know, and these budgets were like huge and awesome and you get to like recreate, you know, Bohemian Rhapsody or like let it be. like something or you know fucking you know dirt off your shoulder like anything you get to like reproduce these amazing songs so you learned a lot really fast became a way better producer um helping julian then i was hired on my own like equal to julian being a second this is the next following year

and yeah it was every fall i still go out there and do it in the UK you still do it i still do it September to like Christmas it's an amazing gig get to live in London, get to write, get to work on this TV show, make some money, reproduce, like, the best songs ever written. And that must totally influence how you write and produce the next batch. Totally. It's unbelievable. And I've, and you learn a lot of songs, especially doing it in the UK. There's a lot of like, just hits over there that I wouldn't, I wouldn't know that, like, work didn't connect over here, whether it's like some random Bee Gees song or just some UK artist that you've never heard of. That was like a big song. But it's, it's a,

It's a lot of work. Are you able to write while you're doing it? Sort of on my own. You know, it's so much work. But like at the end of the night, I'll always like pull up a keyboard and like just be writing or like, or all get inspired, like you said, like from one of the songs I'm working on and be like, do you ever just take, oh man, this chord change is so good? 100%.

Of course, right? Yeah, it's the best. So, you know, I think when you have a band like One Direction, you join X Factor after. after One Direction broke, right? Or was that right when they were breaking? No, no, it was before. I've been doing X Factor since before One Direction. Okay, so you joined, and all these...

So back in the day, Day, Day, Day, Savin. Yeah. Was chat with Julian and me and Damon and everybody who said this new great boy man. I think they got third or fourth in the X Factor. Yeah. There's a new boy band, new boy. I mean, a huge gap in the market. It's going to be great.

It's going to be great. And Sovin smashed it. It makes you beautiful. whole first out and the whole thing they blow up um net the boys like had written a song got like a song on their second album or something kind of hit it off with them too because like

at this point I'm 24 and they're like you know 18 or something and so we're like well like I'm not like one of these old right you know so we hit it off and they kind of want to be when you're 18 you want to be 24

and when you're like I'm still 18 exactly exactly Exactly. So, I mean, that must have been important for them to have someone that they can communicate with that's not, you know. Not like some 50-year-old veteran writer dude. Right. You know, just like a young dude that like, you know, let's have a couple beers and just talk about your ex. And let's like, let's just like get down to the nitty gritty of like growing up.

So you were friends with them before. I mean, if you're. This is all happening at the same time. Right. So you guys are, you're now one of the X factor. guys you guys must have ended up having some report and then they come out the first album they come out with the second one you get a song on the second one and you guys must have all been something of friends right yeah and then you know by the time the third album came around we were we were pretty close and julian

and i just said let's just dominate this thing you know it's but that's a crazy thing to say let's dominate what's the biggest band in the world at the time it was just it was it was just timing man everything just we were julian and i at this point our relationship was was um you know officially official and it was just like we knew we could get great shit were you nervous at all did you have any sort of exciting man we just did we were like bros with the band so we just did whatever we want like let's do a rock song and like seven eight time and then let's do like a piano 80s ballad and then let's do a fleetwood mac dreams like acoustic thing with the chippy vocal. How do you do that when everyone's like, oh, we need another, I'm sure

labels are saying we need what makes you beautiful and you're sitting there trying to say, no, no, no, we can go into this Fleetwood Mac kind of thing. Was there, was there any convincing or they were all stoked? At the core of it, we obviously knew that we needed to have some hits or have some big singles. But the band was so big at this point. So we knew if we had like something that already sounded like pretty big that it would that would probably work and then like story of my life

was like an kind of accident and kind of like paved the way to be like you know that was a big one of their biggest songs and we were kind of like why I can't believe this is like translating with this kind of band and that kind of opened the whole door

to be like all right let's just do whatever we want but when you think about the Beatles I mean that that was their charm was that in the beginning of you know those first yeah yeah everyone thought they were there were a boy band and then rubber soul comes out eventually and it changes into this whole other oh yeah no these guys are are the real deal and i think you know i'm sure at that point there were people in their 30s 40s and 50s who were still like oh these boy band guys are trying to be

cool are trying to be cool and people who are in their teens and 20s were actually taking the time to say no these guys are are pivoting right and they're successful musicians right and they're actually growing up and becoming men, you know, an artist. Totally. I'm going to list nine songs. Okay, go. And you're just going to say something. I don't care if it's like a who or a what or where or like, oh, let me tell you this

random story about this. Okay, go. Okay. Best song ever. Best song ever. Yeah, Wendy House, Ed Druitt. Wayne, Hector. And that, and...

Julian. Something about... Wayne came in huge. We had this. kind of who reference like big big piano thing and we had this

chorus you know dance the best song ever but like I can't really remember what it was I just knew it was great because I was dancing with you concept right and we wrote verses for like a day and they were all shit

right and Wayne Hector was in the studio next door we were like what's up man like yeah working on the song we just started playing it he just goes maybe it's the way she wants just started singing the verse

We just put it down and like five minutes later it was done. He's incredible. Yeah, he's great. Story of my life. One of my favorite songs ever been part of. Total accident, written in seriously less than 30 minutes. It was the first real week I had ever written on purely 1D. It was me, Jamie Scott, and Julian did like a whole week just dedicated to 1D.

And at the end of the week, like, label people came in and we played them all stuff. I said, man, a lot of this stuff's great. And then, like, one of us was like, what was that thing we did the first day? Like, it's not 1D, but, like, it was kind of cool. Like, kind of a Paul Simon thing. And then we, like, played it on the speakers. And they were like, that's the one. You know.

Crazy. Midnight memories. Midnight memories was originally I love KFC, like, until the very end. We didn't have the chorus lyric. We, like, wrote all these lyrics. No way. I love KFC. You and me Stumbling in the street

Singing, singing, singing, singing I love KFC Wow Do you think that would have changed That would have made the song bigger? Way bigger Yeah You and I

Yeah, good, good song Good live, I guess Steal My Girl Cool chords For each beetlesy chords You and I, yeah Kind of like cold play vibes or something Steal my girl

Epic piano Five piano tracks or something Crazy drag me down Was originally double time All my life You can buy me And then at the last second We made a half-time like sting vibes

So dope Yeah It's a great record Thanks That might be my favorite It's a good one Perfect Um

It's just It's good History. It's good. That's like a Ed Druid, Julian Benetta, John Ryan, kind of like owed to us working on 1D for like four years straight. For sure. Yeah.

I went on tour with them for about two weeks, so I only got to witness it for a little bit, and you would go for months. Oh, yeah. Maybe we did all the records on the road. What's it like touring with One Direction? I mean, I know it's a really short question for probably the craziest time of your life. Yeah, it was the best.

I can't really describe it. It was just awesome. Every city. It was awesome because we were behind the scenes, so we didn't get, like, it was awesome. It was just everything, man. It was, like, the closest thing to being, like, young rock star tour, going to Japan, going to Brazil. It's, like, insane. And doing it, like, the best you could do it.

I mean. When they fly to Japan and Brazil. are they chartering a plane? Yeah, most of the time. That's nuts. Yeah. But it was great. We set up a studio just like this,

like a makeshift studio, a laptop in the hotel. Yeah, they would put mattresses along the side of the wall to try to dead men. Yeah. And like I had in Chicago, I had a brass band come in

into the, my hotel room. And just, da-da-da-da-na-na-na-na-da-record. It's so nuts. There were, there were security guards outside of the rooms. Yep.

You know, not even on the floor, when outside of the hotel to make sure there weren't people outside of the... Yeah. I mean, it's just insane. In Brazil, there was like 1,500 people out in front of the hotel 24-7, just singing 1D. I literally wake up in the middle, at 4 a.m. to just... Sorry, I'm alive. I take her home. A crowd of people just screaming, singing every song. It's fucking insane.

That's insane. I went out on the balcony, too. I put my hat on really low like this and, like, opened up my balcony and kind of stuck my hand out. Like, I was one of the boys. It was like, nah. At four in the morning. But how do these people find that we would drive an hour outside of some of these cities to make sure they'd have somewhere that would be secluded? And within half a day, 50, 100 kids show up.

So, like, their parents were like, knock yourselves out, kids. show up and they show up I don't know how they find out I still don't know it's one person one person sees him at the airport one person sees him in a car driving on some freeway

where there's probably a nice hotel I don't know I don't know how they would it was amazing never seen anything like it we went in in Tokyo because the boys aren't really supposed to leave without security it was like me Damon and I think Nile

who's one of the one D boys and he was just tired of having the security around. He's like, you guys want to go get some food or something? So we leave the hotel. It's literally four in the morning. Walk out. There's no one on the street. Tuesday in like center of Tokyo.

Walk under like this little train station, little noodle bar. We're eating. You know, he's like, oh, it's so good to be out of the hotel. Just be like, you know, doing normal people shit. And we walk out and there's just a girl at the door. And like another girl kind of like will run across the street just going, just looking over and she couldn't speak any English

but she got her phone and was like wanted to get a picture and just like took a picture really quick we were only out of the hotel for 25 minutes and I was like did she was she hiding in a bush and like saw us walk out really quick

and then like I just don't know it was amazing and it's not scary it's not like scary it's just shocking not at all it's just like how didn't you

didn't you don't you go to sleep like should be like Stanley Kubrick and a old movie of like The band The band

So after Right around here It feels like You know The Benetta Ryan Catalog Is It's just massive

But you start Doing some stuff That's outside of You know The Family Affairs Community Well I guess more Sort of an offshoot

Because we're all Friends-ish So you go into Starting to write With you know Ricky Reed and Joe London here and all these other people. I mean, was that an effort

to say, you know, I'm just going to see who else I gel with? Or was it just kind of like, what are you doing this weekend? Let's head up and then you just happen to start writing hits with other people. My publisher Casey's always like putting me on to the new to whoever's really dope like Joe and Eric and everybody. And there was a lot of trust that. And Julian also is really good at

like working on a whole project whether it's like he did the whole Hey Violet record like he's really good at buckling down saying same with one D it was like this is the sound I do like 12 songs this is the sound I'm going to use this synth on every song and like make it a cohesive thing where I kind of like

um am writing more random I'll write a hip hop song and then I'll write a pop song and I'll do a country song kind of all over the map so it was good to just go out and I mean it must have felt amazing on some level because you had been so focused on that band

to then yeah, your mind must have been just going nuts just like I'm going to write whatever's on off the top of my head and it's got to be totally different from that. Totally. I know that I'm going to go out of order on some of these songs and stuff

but Fireball that's your vocal. That's my vocal, yeah. And so many people, when you send in a day, demo, it's both the best and worst thing that can happen to the song. Because everyone is like, you need to be the artist. And it's like, no, no, I'm just singing the song. And if anybody wants to hear it, they need to listen to Fireball and focus on that vocal, because that's a good example

of what happens when no one else can match the demo. So instead, it's like, let's keep this. how was it taking you so long to then sort of I don't know if parlay is not really the right word because you haven't really wanted to do it you were just like no no that's fine we can use my vocal on Fireball and you had to do some live shows and all that right?

Yeah yeah yeah yeah I mean how does how do you deal with there aren't a lot of writers that get this influence where the whole industry is trying to get them to have an artist project right and here you go and you're handed like a major single as a feature

that's just not my like shit really in the sense that like that's not necessarily the best example of like what I'm about as an artist is like featuring a fireball or something right you know what I'm saying right and it's a little twangy you know I was born I sang it like an old guy singing like a country song or something

kind of on purpose right um to make it like sound a little sam or something. So did you fight against having No, I was like, hell yeah, let's do it. If no one can make it sound better, let's do it. Right. You know? And I thought about, as time when I was like, you know, how do I like parlay this into like doing something with my art of stuff? Because like this people have some eyes on me now or whatever. But it wasn't, I don't know, it's not the right, that's not the right angle for me. Right. I respect that. I think it's hard to say no. Yeah. And people must have been offering

you anything for that. in working with these guys and working with you and finishing these one-d-re records I was doing so much other stuff where I couldn't just stop and like force or Russia get an album together or something how much are your vocals on

on records that you write? They're on every song right? Yeah. Hope you're collecting your after it's a good health insurance. Yeah I just got a check in the mail there you go hey hey hey hey tch ting John Legend John Legend I mean I know the process

of that song That's like that's kind of like a real That's a real John Ryan Record Yeah that was real song That's like the real John Ryan Totally Front to finish

Totally Tell the process of that song The songs love me now Love me now yeah I was in London Doing the X Factor Actually perfect example

I'm in the middle of working on a track I don't know what it was I think it was like best of my love or something and brought up this little synth that I was going to add bass or something and I go do

dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun and just started playing that totally different nothing to do with the X-Fractor thing and I was like that's dope then I turned my phone on

like voice memo mumbled some shit for like three, four minutes while playing the little bass line. And that was it. And then I just opened up a new session and then just recorded the bass

and then just sang whatever I sang on the voice memo. And that's your, and, and I wasn't saying words, but I was going, you know, I was just mumbling. And then I just, whatever it sounded like I was saying, I just said, the lyrics really like

didn't mean anything in the beginning. I ended up changing him, some of them in the end, but... How did you write... Super fast. How did you write the lyrics on? Because I was saying... I mean, but afterwards, even when you're going back, do you have any...

I literally listen to the syllables and then just put words to it. And then, for that song, it's different for other songs, but that song, I just like, I was dope, melody's dope, and all that works, I'm just going to, like, write whatever I was saying, even if it doesn't make sense. That's my favorite part about songwriting is doing shit that doesn't even make sense to me necessarily, but somehow it sounds deep and people can make their own assumption of kind of what it's about. It makes me want to go and finish writing lyrics to all these songs I'm supposed to write

lyrics to right now. Because I always just stuck on that. You know, is this the greatest line? I love what if you have a chorus and then there's a verse from like another song or something and you somehow put them together and it just works. Even though like conceptually, originally they are two. different songs. How do you, I feel like that would give me so much anxiety sending that out.

I feel like people would know that they're from different songs, but they don't. But they don't. It works. Right. I mean, I don't do that often take like two different songs. Sure. Like, Love Me Now, I was just writing the verse and then I wrote the chorus and then. And then you sent it to Damon, your manager?

You sent it to Casey, your publisher. Yeah. Sent it to Damon, Casey, blah, blah, blah, blah. Then like maybe a year went by. And it was super rough. It was literally a bass loop and the vocal. else. And yeah, and John loved it.

And then he and I went in. He wanted to tweak some lyrics. And we went in and finished it together. And Blake Mills helped me finish the production and the whole thing. And it was great. But really quick. The writing process was so quick. Maroon 5.

Bruin 5. I know this, it's so recent right now, because you have the songs literally on charts, you know. Don't want to know might end up being your, that's probably your biggest song. It's like, was number one at total radio for... Forever.

Six weeks. Yeah. Forever. But you listen to it and it doesn't seem like a particularly complex composition. It also seems like something that's like... Bro, 30 minutes less again. I'm learning a lot about myself in this interview. It's like all the best songs are written in 30 minutes.

That's just me, though. That was exactly what I was talking about. 20 minutes ago. It was like, was in with Cash and Amar for like a few days. It's written like a bunch of shit. And like right at the last second, like I had like a folder of beats or something. And just heard that.

Like intro thing. And just sang the chorus in. Sanging the verse in. There you go. Didn't write anything down. Just like had the mic. Sure. Just like, wasted.

That's dope. And the more. started going for it and had the computer right there and just recorded it in. Then like 30 minutes later we were playing it on a loop a hundred times. And Jay Cash was sitting there being like, that's it. And Amar and Amar sitting there being like, that's it. Yeah, I mean, we were all just working on it together like in a little triangle like we are here. Were you aiming for a Maroon 5 at the time?

No. Not at all. That's so great. It was just, I don't know. But then all of a sudden. And I like saying it kind of like Adam Levini, too. It just worked. and then I mean cold happens

and it just isn't stopping with the Maroon 5 stuff it's so the album's amazing I think they're just wrapping it up now it's it's awesome but here you go and saying that you don't you know you like jumping around and doing all this stuff and then you end up with

another project that you have so many songs is it because the artist want to be you or is it because you want to you actually go into to that moment of being that artist or are you just writing yourself and I mean how does I'm honestly you can't even control it it's finding you um yeah it's it's it's you know cash is cash and amar marr obviously have like done marooned malick by the way we haven't interviewed yet but we will someday and j cash you've done j cash yeah nice how was it oh he's the best well like yo this

this fits crazy I love that too Number two. There you go. Really? Yeah. No, Cash, like, you know, to his credit, brought me in. It was like, hey, me and Amar want to, like, crush this Maroon whole project. And the same way, like, Julian and I did with OneD, let's just, like, swallow it and just go for the gold.

Yeah. And, you know, I knew I was going to be, like, singing all the demos and everything. And we just, like, we did our thing. And we have other songs that we wrote, like, maybe aiming for Maroon. and they didn't turn out for Maroon. But we just sort of sit and write and just do our thing. It's not like, you know, I don't know if Adam would sing this. It's not that.

It's just like, let's sit and make something great and then we'll kind of figure it out afterward. Or like change one lyric to make it like more of a pop thing or whatever we needed to do. Right. You know. It's awesome. To be part of, like, so many huge bands and so many huge artists' careers.

And it's like, you know, it's coming from you hanging out with your friends. I'm a lucky boy. Yeah, for sure. Teddy Geiger. ninth grade. Insane. That's the weirdest. I just want to, is there

a YouTube of any of those songs? Dude, that wasn't around then. There's not a lot of video documentation. Just in MySpace? Yeah, but it was a huge project. It was big. That was bringing back. Girls love Teddy. Yeah. Oh my God.

It was like 600 people at a show. It was all the high school girls. Teddy! But to go from that high school thing and then he gets a record deal in high school becomes I don't know that's hard

from Rochester not like you know he's not he's not he's not in Los Angeles he's not in New York City doing that you know

he was on some show he was on like a in search for the Partridge family I think it was kind of like an X Factor singing thing and like Billy Mann found him and they made a record or something

so crazy I'm going to list five things this is the section that we call I'm going to list five things we still don't have a name for it good girl that's what I'm going to say

every time I'm going to say but one of them is kind of times five because I just am going to ask it but each member of 1D tell me something about first thing it comes across your head about each one we'll start with Harry

I start with Harry Harry's the sickest just hands down one of the coolest guys I know. Incredible. Super nice. Super nice. Super talented.

Just badass, really humble, really quiet. Liam. Liam's my neighbor. Really? Yeah, he lives across the street. Do you guys hang out? Do you guys have pancakes in the morning? No.

Liam's great. He's got a lot of energy. He's kind of like me in the studio. He just jumps around. Louis. Louis. I finally hung with Louis. few weeks ago and we wrote. He's

he's just got his shit together now. Yeah, he's really sweet. He's so sweet. I can't say enough about him, enough good things about him. It was just great to read. I hadn't seen him for for a while or I'd always see him out like partying or something, but he came to the studio and he wrote and like just caught up and he was just like and it was hard on the road always because it's like

we're making the album and there's like I don't know, there's a lot of like like hyper, not tension, but there's a lot of just like energy going around whether it's egos, whether it's like just being on the road is like a lot. So it's nice to like hang with them like on the couch as humans.

Yeah. You know? Nile's the stuff. Nile's the man. Nile is the rock. You know? He hasn't really changed for in the last six years.

He's always just been, it's that Irish thing, you know? He's just the man. He's the sweetest guy on the planet. planet and he's just like hasn't changed one bit Zane Zane I haven't talked to Zane in a long time

but Zane's a sweet guy he's a quiet guy you know I think on the road whether it was like recording or whether it was trying to finish the records he was always kind of the quietest one but but had the best voice maybe of all the boys in the way I'm like a technical level he would come in the

In the room, he would sing, you're like, oh, that's why he's saying his voice. But I haven't talked to him in a long time. I hope he's doing well. And obviously his artist's career. He's killing it. He's killing it. Yeah. But all of them, dude.

It's like when you break it down like I'm talking about on the couch, like just chilling like all like class, class, class guys. Julian Benetta. One of my idols, one of my heroes. He's my big bro. He and I have been through more battles, you know, figuratively, whether it's songwriting or whether it's, you know, playing jam ball at the house. It's like he and I, one of the reasons we work so well together

is we just, we fight. Yeah. Like he thinks things should be one way. I think things should be another way. And we kind of just like yell for a couple hours. And then, like, in the end, it's, like, really amazing. We're, like, sick. It's a real family.

Yeah, it's, like, family shit. But he's just, like, Teddy, man. He taught me, like, he taught me everything. J. Cash. One of my big bros, too. J. Cash, um, he and I have gotten super close the last two years, obviously having success, but, you know, he's like a, he's the big teddy bear, man. He's like an evil teddy bear.

That's amazing. I love that. He's just the best. He and I have really. I love that dude. He always just wants to make fucking good shit. For sure. And he's not always sure if it's great.

And I'm kind of the same way. We'll leave a session. He'll be like, does this song suck. And I'm like, yeah, I think it does. Like try again tomorrow. And he's taught me a lot too, bro. He claims that he's not a singer, but he like sort of is. Yeah.

Like a lot of the melodies on the song, he'll be like, what if it went like, and I'll be like, you mean like, ooh, and do like something else. He'll be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But like it'll have stemmed from his original singing idea. Yeah. Yeah. What up, Jay? To one of our podcast producers and your publisher, Casey Robinson.

I think he and David Silberstein are battling for nicest people in the business. You know, they would fight to the death. They fight to the death for nicest in the business. No, he's, Casey was my first meeting in L.A. First, like, week or two I moved out here. I went and Casey was like, Damon's been playing me or stuff. Like, I'm a huge fan.

So Casey's just, you know, he's another rock. He kind of keeps everybody in check. We lived on the same hall freshman year of college. You know that? I had no idea. Casey Robinson is my sort of Teddy Geiger. Nice. It's like we just, we lived literally.

across the hall. Yeah. When we were 18. Yeah. And that's... So it's like one of those things where when he finds you, he's like, yo, you gotta check this guy out.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he's always been like... You're biggest fan. Yeah, exactly. No offense to Damon. I mean, Damon's... Damon's my blood. Yeah.

Berkeley School of Music. Go for two years and then leave. Wow. Maybe. I don't know. Or stay. It's amazing. Now it's so sick.

I went like two years ago and they have like a bunch of brand new buildings and so many new studios and like it's it's magical if you can like afford to go and your parents are supportive and like all or just whatever or go later in life whatever to go

it's so fun it's like a geek school sure you know it's like oh my god it's a flat five diminished it's like oh sick sick um yeah the school I went to was

also like they started once you go USC and when they did the industry program then it was you know more classical and jazz base and now they have a pop program so it's if somebody asked me what my experience is at USC it's not the experience that people are having now now they're having

you know same at Berkeley you know Lamont Dozier is like one of the professors there now not even like kidding like they have like some of the greatest songwriters ever time as like your professor it's a different scenario than what it was. We just missed out.

What was that? I'm saying we just missed out. You missed out on that. I missed out like two years after I left Berkeley built a 13-story studio thing right in the center of Boston, like all brand new. Do you ever go back to Boston? No, but I have a very quick, funny story

when I was there doing 1D three years ago now. I went to Berkeley, by myself, I'm listening to music and my headphones being super nostalgic, right? I'm walking around the campus, walking around, and I hear coming from one of the studios, my

band from college. I'm like, what the fuck? And I like, knock on the window, and this, like, little kid's like, ah! It looks over, like, sees me in the window. I'm like, that's my song. And he's like, and he kind of looks at me and goes back to the computer and comes to it.

And I bang on the door again, he's like, and the kid's like 19 or something. He's like, Hey, I'm like, dude, that's my band. What are you doing? He said, oh, I found it in, like, the school archives, and I'm remixing it. And then I sat in with him and was like, turn the guitar up. And, like, he happened to be mixing my band song as I walked by.

Wow. And I was just like, how is this possibly happening? That's what's his name from Tesla, Elon Musk? He always, he says that we're all, that there's a 99% chance we're all on a computer simulation. I know. I read that. It's insane. That's one of the.

computer having a glitch. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. They messed up, like, the timing on that song. You know, something happened. Well... He's like, this song was just recorded this week. Yeah.

I'm like, what? Yeah. I am John Ryan. Well, I want to be you when I grow up. I'm trying to keep up with you, Ross. Yeah, right. Let's give a round of applause for Ross. This big week for Ross.

Yeah, thank you. Huge. Congratulations. Thank you. But in all seriousness, I talk behind your back. time. Yeah, so do I. Because I think you may be the most talented person I've ever met.

And I say that, I say that on a regular basis. And especially when your name comes up, it's always, just, just wait. Just wait in 10 years from now. Some of the things you're going to do are going to just, like, blow doors off. Well, thank you, Ross. I'm so impressed with your talent. And the fact that you can, I mean, who doesn't want to hang out with you for a day? I mean, I usually cancel sessions that we have.

Totally. Everyone else seems to really enjoy your company. We wrote a good Christmas song. Yeah, I know. I'm proud of you, though, man. This doesn't happen. None of this happens by accident, unless it's a computer simulation. Elon.

All right. Well, thank you so much. Thank you so much, Ross. Thanks for listening to this episode of An 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 An The Writer. 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 Bergsmah, 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. So here's what you have to imagine, okay? this small Simon living in this house in the world where I really have no parents. I listened to those records on headphones, and I felt less lonely.

Right. And I think that those records saved my life many, many, many times over. Because I felt this kinship with the artists who were singing about their own loneliness and their own struggle. And I think that I've devoted my life to trying to give that back. more way. Until next time, this is Ross Bowling.