And The Writer Is...with Ross Golan - Ep. 192: Julian Bunetta pt.2

Episode Date: October 7, 2024

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Welcome to And The Writer Is with Ross Golan. There are millions of singers, thousands of artists, and only 40 songs per genre at a time. These are the stories of the hottest creatives, the most venerable legends, artists, songwriters, executives, and more. Follow our socials and share your music with the And The Writer is community. We'll see you all there and now. Here's this week's episode. Welcome to And The Writer Is. I am your host, Ross Golan.

Today's future producer of the year is in the middle of an epic, epic, epic, epic run with the song of the summer and the song of the year. This guy has just cemented two of the biggest names in pop music today. He's doing all this while continuing incredible success in country. And still, just like his, he's a good dad. There's so much to talk about. And he's already been on here before.

So without further ado, welcome back to, and the writer is Julian Bonetta. Yay! Ah, the crowd goes wild. I had this moment today where my daughter and my son were each chewing on one of the strings of my hoodie. And I had this moment of, like, how... crazy that, you know, I know we talked about in the last episode, but we had, you know,

we had a song called hoodie that's for, with Hey Violet, which you were the EP of. And, uh, and to, you know, I wouldn't have thought fast forward probably, you know, close to 10 years, you know, eight years. Something like, I think it was like, yeah, 20, I don't know. Whatever it is. Whatever it is. Far away that, that I'd have two kids chewing on it. strings on my hoodie.

And then here we are having a second interview. You wrote your own future. Yeah, something like that. This is a crazy time. And you've got three songs in the top ten right now on Billboard. Has that sunk in? Yeah. Yeah, it has now a little bit,

just because I'm moving on to the next thing. You know, like, all right. I've looked at it, I've woken up every day enough and looked at the chart and be like, okay, it's real. Okay. I've done that, I've done that kind of enough days now towards like, okay, it's real. And like, now I've got to

keep working. Do you celebrate? Yeah. I know you celebrate in real time. Like when you create, your creation process is often a celebration. Yeah. Do you know how to celebrate the successes? Totally.

Totally. How do you celebrate the successes? Just like call someone that you're having the success with and just be like, dude, I know. And they're like, I know, I know, I know, uh, whatever. Just, you know, go to dinner, have a toast. You know, like buy your wife something, buy yourself something. You know, it is important to, I think, celebrate and to mark, like to put a stamp on an achievement.

and be like, wow, this was the culmination of X amount of years, X amount of hours, you know, and like to acknowledge it and like put a stamp on it, close it, or keep it open and hopefully it keeps rolling. But to like, you know, I don't know, I think it's important to do that stuff. It's totally important, but I think it's hard for, I think it's hard for people to celebrate because people are, especially in our industry, are constantly looking for what's next. I also think that, you know, for a lot of people listening to this, that the assumption is that the day you have this number one song that there's like a ticker tape parade.

Right, and then everybody calls. And what happens is like it goes number one and like, you still wake up. A couple weeks later, somebody else is number one. And then Bruno and Lady Gaga released his song. And you're like, oh, well, okay, that was fun. do you um does it cause any anxiety watching a song go up or down not really for me i mean it's fun it's fun to like watch horses race and kind of but you can't get i mean it's easier said than done to get wrapped up in it i you know having the success that i had with one d six seven

eight years ago now on this second go-round i'm really present for it and and understand that like this two will pass at some point. So it's pretty futile to get anxious trying to hang on to it. You just like the thing that got me here was not worrying about it. The thing that got me here was just focusing on what I can control, which is making the best possible song I can make with whoever's in front of me in the room and just giving it my all. If you go away from that, the only thing that's going to suffer is the song, which in turn will affect the chart placement, essentially. Is this wisdom taught or experienced? I think both. I think all the mentors I've had growing up have said things like this to me, which at the time before you're in this position, you don't understand.

You're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure, dude. It's like someone telling you about having kids before you have kids. You're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. But you don't hold on to that. You know, if you hear it enough and you surround yourself with good mentors, you hear it a lot. And then when you're in that position, those little voices kind of set in and go, oh yeah, okay, I remember I was told about times like this. I was told about, you know, how this can affect my ego. I was told about how to spend my money. I was told about these things. So. But still, when you're in, you know, and we talked about it the last time, so we don't have to go too far back into the 1D part of your life. But they were the biggest band in the world. There's no way that was going to stop. You know, like,

how do you have any perspective in the moment? And then I got to say, like, it's probably really helpful, like you were saying, it's really helpful this time around having experienced. Totally, having experienced the dip. Totally. And being on such a high, you know, I mean, there's some few, few people that can sustain a high over the course of 10, 15, 20 years. But, you know, for the rest of us, average people, there's just ups and downs and

coasts and all the things. And the thing that I was taught by people that I know is to just, in the times that you aren't number one, you want people to pick up your call. You want to have treated people good. You want to have, you know, you want people to respect you, and you want to be professional and conduct yourself in a way so that when you're not on top,

people want to still be around you and still pick your phone call up, you know? So this time around, it's wonderful and it's sweet, because I also get to do it with, you know, John and I get to do it with other friends. And so, you know, and it's not lost on me that I may never have another year like this. I might. Hopefully I do, but I might not. The last time, your interview came out in 2019 before the pandemic, which is kind of crazy

because how much happens in five years, six years, you know? When I look at your discography and what's been. going on, it's interesting that you call it a dip, but it seems like you were focused a lot on Nashville and you were focused a lot on other projects than aiming for like these big pop ones, which by the way, I think you could argue, and they would say it too, Teddy and Sabrina, when you were working with them initially, were not the biggest writers or the biggest artist. They became the biggest artist because they worked with you, not because you went to seek them out when they were already at the top.

But that said, you know, when you're, it's not like you had, you're calling it a dip, but it feels like you've been quite prolific during that time. But you're calling it a dip. Why do you call that a dip? Well, I call a dip because just the,

like 2019, 2020, COVID, I wasn't having a lot of releases, and I was in my, my life was completely restructuring, moving to Nashville, was one of them, getting married, having a child and a second child. So reinventing the way that I work in the process, because since I started, you know, when I was 18 or 19, I could just work until 4 in the morning every day and just grind it out and just put out. The output was so much.

much and I could just keep working on and just I could outwork people and I would outwork people that's how I got there but now I suppose you still can but at the expense of time with with family and at the expense of other things so I had to completely readjust the process in which I create and how I get into my creative mode and then how I want to go about working people and and so the dip for me was just more of, I don't mean like a chart dip or I've always had, I had successes. I had a lot of country number ones in between this time and I worked, made a lot of stuff I'm really proud of. But I just think it was more of a dip in my sort of confidence in knowing where to go and what to do because it was just a complete total new change. And it was everything

new to me. It was like ending at 6 o'clock at night was the most foreign thing possible for me. Yeah. I mean, you know, Joe and I've talked about this, where you have these, um, if you start comparing

with songwriters who don't have families, uh, and you start comparing the quantity of output, you will be, uh, you'll be very sad, very quickly. Because you are looking at the wrong thing.

Totally. If you choose to have a family, you are choosing to prioritize some of your time towards your future and it's an investment to something other than music. When you were saying you've had to adjust your process,

obviously the working 24-7 to having almost work hours. First of all, Nashville is really good for that. Nashville's great for that. When you were saying getting in the mindset, are you, you know, I almost find it, you know, it's almost like when you're done with the day,

you have to get out of the mindset as hard. You know what I mean? It's both getting in and out. How do you deal with it? Getting in and out is tough. The thing that I started doing is just consistently going back to co-writers I was working with that were fun,

that sort of spoke the same language in the room, that had the same type of process, doing more days with less people. So you could build up a momentum. You could start to build a momentum. And if you have 12 hours in a day, then you can burn the first three or four until you kind of hit momentum in the evening hours. But if you don't have that, like we don't have now, is if you do more consistent time with the same people, you just build up a rapport and the trust and you can drop into the

thing quicker. You can just get into the flow state very easy or you can pick back up where you left off if you have four days, three days with someone rather than one or two days, then one or two days, then one or two days. So I made a conscious effort to just do

more time with less people. And that helped and then also taking my moments that I... And this is during your quote dip. Yeah, this is when you're making this choice. Yeah, this is like 2021. you know I'm not counting 20 2020 you know in 2021 I also didn't I wasn't good on Zoom I just wasn't

I didn't do much so I just kind of went back and like learned re-learned some things about synthesis I kind of relearned some chords of my favorite you know baby face songs and Diane Warren songs and and just like kind of re just kind of like learned and had fun and like kind of got you know bought a new couple guitar pedals and just messed around with stuff and just kind of like got the fun back and the joy back and kind of like you know and then and then when people started doing sessions again you you you kind of started with your trusted people anyways because you know it was COVID so you had your kind of squad that you do stuff with and so I just kept doing that and then the camps you know for me have always been a big one and then the times that I do go away from the family and just go

do four days and just go all the way in and just burn the candle, you know, and do that. And that has always been a place where I found a lot of results in a lot of different things. And the camps for me is a way to go because I like to just get in there and get immersive. Yeah, I mean, when we did our last interview, it was at a camp. At a camp, yeah. And you've always curated, you know, your camps are legendary. Thank you. And part of it is because it's both fun and productive.

Yeah, that's the goal. Do you feel pressure to both create the environment for a camp and to create good songs? Are you able to enjoy both sides of it? You know, you're now a, you've got a publishing company, which we can get into. It's like, it's more fleshed out. It's a bigger company now. You've got things, you've got things to do that have nothing to do as songwriting. Yeah.

You know, how are you able to enjoy that? It's harder to enjoy them because I feel like, I always enjoy them. I enjoy the nights. I enjoy the mornings. But, like, day one, I always talk to my brother about this. who, if anybody doesn't know that's listening, which probably most people don't, but my brother, you know, manages me and runs our publishing company.

But every time after day one at the camp, he's like, how was it? And I'm like, it was day one. Day ones are just so stressful for me, because normally if I'm putting on the camp, I'm sort of camp dad, I'm making sure everybody's fed. I'm making sure the, you know, I'm just the go-to for anybody like,

hey, what's this, the that, can that you know so day one is always like I'm running around I can't even let go and then like I hear the stuff that's going on the rooms I'm like okay it's going to be okay and then I kind of like kick my own ass going into day two and then something great will happen and then by day three and four you're fully in but for the first couple days I'm I always am like oh this is this is never going to work this is going to be a bad idea how is the camps you've done you know some of them are just sort of for pitch You know, and back in the day, it was sort of, you know, a little more 1D focus and it's moved through. And, you know, when you've had the camp in France with Sabrina and the camp, the camps with Teddy, yeah. You know, those are all different. Do you find that camps don't work for some people? Because it feels like some people say, like, oh, I don't like camps.

And yet it seems like everybody who you work with ends up, you know, finding their sound almost through camps. I have yet to do one and really just come out with nothing, at least if I get to curate it, and if I get to really be in charge of it. There's other ones that I've been invited to, and not much came from it. But I definitely am very considered about how the chemistry will work,

how the rooms will work, how the different combinations of everybody will work, how the personalities will work. And some I don't set up. Like the Sabrina stuff is different because she's, you know, this one room and it's her pick of people. And the Teddy ones are Teddy and I and Teddy's, you know, manager and A&R. We all talk about how it is and there's more than one room going. But the math is like if you got a lot of people that care about each other and are really talented and are all there for the same common goal,

it doesn't really make sense why you wouldn't get something great. It's like if you put a dream team together in sports, like they're going to have some games, some scrimmage games that are going to be unbelievable. It's just everybody's competitive, everybody's talented, everybody's hungry, everybody's experienced. Like you're going to, something's going to happen that's magical. It just, it would.

Yeah, I think camps are, I love camps where you have, there's this, a quiet competition, that happens. Even if people aren't listening, you just know that there are two other rooms or another room that's just like working their ass off to have the better song that day. And it's like, it's not,

I understand it's all subjective, but you can't help but feel a little competitive and you end up. Totally. You don't want to leave that room that night and be like, yeah, that was terrible. You want to like figure it out. I would imagine that's what Motown

and so many other buildings where everybody in the next room, you know, has, it's like Big Loud has a building here, you know, in Nashville, and there's two floors, and everybody's got a room,

and you know in that room next door, there's a squad just as good or better than this squad in here. And it's wonderful because you care about everybody, but, you know, I think great people need a challenge to get the best out of them. That's why we have, like,

and that's why Michael Jordan had a coach. That's why you need people to push. You can push yourself so far, but having one other person there will push you further, and then if there's a lot of other people, it'll push you further. And not all camps yield the same thing, but there's always something that was worth going for, and you always get something.

Now, in two particular camps, we got, one was espresso for me, and then another one we got lose control, and the door. And so those are kind of those magic ones that happen every so often. Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, let's talk about some of those projects

because the last, again, you know, really, there was an interview I did that I've cited a few times with Ali Willis, you know, wrote like September for Earth Went in Fire and the Friends theme. And she was like, I'll never ask people about their hits. Ask about what happened before their hits because that's when the hits were written.

And she's right. It's like, you know, nobody cares about, you know, it's like nobody's watching anybody else. No one cares about what anyone else is doing. But, you know, if you're like out there doing, you know, country songs, you're like, oh, no, that guy's doing country now. And it's like, meanwhile, you're like, no, I'm not. In that time, you did the Nile album, which was sounds amazing. You did, you know, two Sabrina albums that you worked on and you did the Teddy, the whole thing, you know.

in doing lose control and doing the door what's interesting about Teddy let's just focus on that for a second is there was a time and I've worked with Teddy a bunch, love Teddy. He's like, you know, he probably had 200 songs. You know? He had like he had so many songs. Yeah.

And I remember it just felt so lost where it was like I know people who did 10 songs with them here and 10 songs with them there. Yeah. And amongst those 200 songs, there's probably a bunch of gems. Yeah, I would imagine. Why, of all the songs, you know, you can play the lottery with Sabrina, but Sabrina's not writing 40 songs for that album. She's such a focused writer.

She's doing the album. Nile's probably similar to that, too. Teddy had this huge catalog of songs Yeah, I mean he was starting from ground zero too You know Starting from Yeah true

Which is sort of a different proposition Sabrina had a lot of years to Find the thing Work through the thing Teddy Had been in so many different types of bands And done so many things And then when they started doing the covers

And that's what took off Then you have to sort of start from Okay You're singing the best songs ever. You know, still the one by Shania is like one of your big covers and, what are some of his other covers? But these are some of the best songs ever written. And so, like, that's the standard now. Why did those songs raise their hands? I mean, like, I'm not, obviously, they're great songs, but, you know, and it took 39 weeks for lose control

to go from being released to being number one or something crazy like that. I might be off by a couple weeks. But, you know, what a crazy phenomenon. It's stopped. It's top 10 right now and we're over a year from when it was released, like well over a year. Yeah. You know, why does that song work out of all the 200 songs when it was like, you know, I know these other producers, some that are also just, you know, they're great producers, great songwriters. What about that song worked. I mean, I have to chuck it up to a couple

things, but one of them, I think, was that what he was going through on the night before we wrote it, and that day and that camp was really intense emotional stuff. And it was palpable to

everyone there, and it was, like, it set a tone for what was really going on. So you couldn't just come in and write something. an idea called like, you know, dancing on the dance floor. Dancing on the dance. It just would not, it would not connect because this guy's here just torn to bits going through this thing he was going through with the girl he was with and just

really fucked up, you know? He was really wounded. And so it made a very clear bull's eye. And I like, you know, the camera, right, captures. whatever emotion is going on in a room. If someone's crying, if someone's happy, you can fake an emotion and set up a shot for an ad, but that's what a camera does, right, for the eyes.

But a microphone does the same thing for the ears. It just takes whatever is happening in the room, if it's used correctly by professionals, it captures the mood of what everyone's feeling in that particular time. And what was being felt in that room was like kind of internal turmoil and chaos. And then, you know, it's like one of those lottery things, man. Sometimes the song and the artist and the timing and the sound all line up and it just works.

And other times you only get three out of five and it almost works. But this was just one of those magic star aligning things. I mean, that's all I can chocolate up to. I know that everybody in there has put in their 10,000 hours. You know, ammo and Teddy and Mickey. And then somehow it just, there's that weird thing that chemistry does, right? It's like, why when I write songs with these two people do I get amazing stuff? And when I write stuff with these two people, I don't.

Why, you know, chemistry still continues to just blow my mind. Well, and it's what you were saying before where once you find that chemistry, it's really hard to like, of course you want to go and start spending three, four, five days with that person. Like, why are you not?

Yeah, totally. But I do think what happens a lot of times is you know, Goffin and King, like they still ended up writing with some other people. Totally. Like they wrote a lot with themselves, but they still wrote with the, you know, and it's like,

at some point some of the things are like you want to taste a few other things in there to keep it fresh absolutely you pick up well you also want to like learn some things from people I think that's always worth going to but it's a different proposition doing that than it is to just if the most you ever wrote

with one person in a year is like four or five days that means that you're just going around everywhere which is important to do. As a professional songwriter, you got to go do that, you got to go speed date, you got to go find where the chemistry is.

You got to go, but then when you do find it, you got to cultivate it. You don't have to, but I like to, and every time I have, it's always yielded something really great. Do you ever write by yourself? No.

I have. In the past, I'll just like, kind of something will pop out and I'll do it. But now what I do with myself more in the studio is just kind of like tweak sound and kind of mix and produce. I like to have my mornings to just kind of like or do vocals. It's kind of meditative to just like melodine or to kind of like, you know, I don't know,

just get a good sound on something. This is a doorkiest thing I've ever heard in my life. I know. It's like chopping. It's like chopping vegetables or something, you know? It's like having all your things perfectly organized before you go and, you know. Just like slowly like up and down. I'm just trying to be like, no, that's it.

That's a little more formant here on this one vowel. Yeah. Do you feel like the door, do you feel pressure with the door? Or is it sort of from your seat, you're like, look, man, my job is done? You know, are you already looking for the next album with him? Yeah, we are rapping the next album. And the door, I don't feel pressure. I mean, the door, I still would consider a hit to be able to have.

two songs off the record these days. It's top 40 right now. It's top 40 on Billboard. Yeah, it's totally. And so it was like to be able to get two recognizable songs, you know, off a record is a big feat. And so I'm grateful. I'm proud of the work. I'm, you know, I'm just, yeah, I don't even know.

Before we get to Sabrina, you know, I think the show, the album is really strong. the Nile album and you again spent a lot of time with him. You have this long time relationship with him, you know, stemming from the very beginning with 1D. Do you feel, again, I feel like there's a lot of things where there's expectations

especially for those guys to do something special and not, you know, this is not a knock on Zane or Louis or you know, uh, uh, I'm blaking on. Liam.

Who's our fifth one? Liam. Liam. Yeah. You know, um, they've all, they've all had like, some singles that have worked,

but there's, yeah, they had some people, you know, number ones, I think. Nile's still like, Nile's still, like,

Nile's still putting out albums that are sonically competitive and is pushing the boundaries. Um, but he's not out there in the same. He's not doing the, you know, he's not,

he doesn't do the, the Harry Styles, he does Nile, he's going to win from what's on the record, not just necessarily the show that's around him. Nice pun. But what's the challenge for getting someone like that to stay relevant? I mean, I think it's the same challenge for anybody

that as you get older, your audience has also gotten older and they go on to live lives that have different priorities other than music and fandom. You know, they grow up, they have different interests, they get married, they may or may not get married or have kids, full-time jobs. It's different, you know, an 18-year-old music listener to a 24-year-old music listener to a 30-year-old music listener is, it's totally different. So you, at that point, you can't.

I don't think it's wise to sort of chase relevancy. I think it's more important to just be consistent and with a consistent level of quality. And if you do that, I think that eventually you get another swing at the, something else will come around. If you're just chasing and sort of just looking for the hit at a certain point, people can, I think an audience can smell it now. I mean, we spend so many hours looking at screens and looking at authenticity or non-authenticity and a snap judgment over an Instagram post or a TikTok. Hours and hours and hours.

The same way a human brain can smell a glass of wine and tell where in the world and what year it's made from, like, our brains, all of our collective brains are now attuned to, like, sensing, instantly sensing authenticity or not. and if the best thing someone can do that's kind of how I feel about the success I'm having is that regardless of what was going on I stuck to a process of what I believe to be the goal of what a song does to you emotionally

and then I got another the world turned this year in my favor and I think for any artists that are moving out of those young years where you are in the middle of the zeitgeist you look at Hozier. Perfect example. Yeah, man. You know, he's 10 years ago, or nine years ago,

but he just kept doing his thing, consistency, quality, and then all of a sudden the world turns, and right there he's right back at the leader of the pack again. You know? And it sounds like a Hozier song. Yeah, it's so important not to count people out. Totally. Because it is so easy, it is just so easy to move on.

to the next thing, but what we see is we get a lot of, you know, the, I guarantee you that half the pitches in this town say, we want something that sounds like Teddy Swims, we want something that sounds like Sabrina Carpenter. And then you end up getting

like a bunch of artists who are going to release the sort of thing, just like we did, I mean, how many countless people sounded like Post Malone and Billy Elish over COVID. And you just have, some people might end up even with a hitter too randomly

where it's like, oh, that sounds like a Billy song, and it sounds like a post song. But in this case, like, you know, leading the pack is a big thing. But, you know, it's, there are totally different, their total differences between Teddy and

Nile and Sabrina. Nile's been around a long time, been in multiple projects, hits in both in the band and solo, and Teddy's, you know, one of the few people who made it after becoming successful off of TikTok and social media. But Sabrina's been around for a while.

I know I worked a lot with her back in the Hollywood era. When she was on this podcast, we talked a lot about that. She's so smart and such a good writer. There are artists who have been on that label who have been successful, haven't been both on the label and afterwards. But it's another one of those things. She had released a number of albums with some high quality sounding music

with high quality writers. Totally. Why did you devote the time with, you know, in emails I can't send, you did a few records with her. Yeah. And I don't know if you had worked with her before that,

but why did you start working with her at that point? I started working with her because Steph Jones had been working with her for a long time and had always just been like, I really want you to meet Sabrina. I think you guys would really love each other. And then she'd play me tunes, and I'd be like, that's really cool.

Like, I'd love to, you know? This was like COVID. I mean, Steph and I weren't really working together in 2018, 2019, but we started to really become friends, and then we'd listen to each other's songs and hang, and then she was like, we should do a session. It'd be great. And I was like, cool,

because I had started to build up some chemistry with Steph. So we had two days, and the first day we all kind of hung and plunked around on the keys and whatever, and the second day we wrote nonsense. And so the chemistry, I was like, okay, there's chemistry here. I've felt this feeling. I really liked this song. I don't think I'm just gassing myself up.

I think I really, really like this song. I think there's really something here. And like, you know, a week go by, two weeks go by, a month go by and then like nope I actually I really like this song and we had so much fun just hanging and we we like to we have sort of the same process we like to just like really focus in the same way we like to laugh we it was like very easy there was it was most of the things the pleasantries were unspoken we didn't have to I didn't have to explain myself to her she didn't have to explain herself to me I just got her and I feel like she got me so there was immediate

chemistry and I was like I will cancel whatever to work with this girl I think she's so talented I was like I want to do more luckily she invited me to a camp and felt the same and so we got another tune on there called bet you want to from that but I just had that's all I had was was that time with her but I knew there was chemistry because it was just really fun and we got a great tune and then nonsense then we really spent a lot of time writing every outro to nonsense. And that's how we... That's how we really got close.

Like if nonsense would have just come out and done its thing, we really sort of became actual friends via like talking to each other every day figuring out what the next nonsense outro was. You know?

Yeah, so smart. It's like this half... It's that song also that... It's one of those songs where you're like, oh, I didn't realize you were allowed to do that. I think that's the thing that's really hard where you need enough volume in your career

where not every song is trying to follow the rules, but you can do an occasional song and be like, well, fuck it, this is going to be a fun one. Let's just do this because this is actually like, this is clever, let's go down this road. And you feel confident enough to do it like all the way there. Because you're like, well, I mean, if this song doesn't work, it's fine, we'll move on.

But like, we're always so, it becomes this rat race of, of like, is this song perfect? Will this song, you know? Yeah. How does this sound compared to everything else? Well, that song is naturally going to sound different than everything else. But like for her, she needed that to show how funny she is and how clever she is to break through in a real crowd of just so many different artists. and we all knew who she was,

but that song is the song that, you know, people may think of espresso as like, you know, the first, like, real, like, hit, hit. Yeah. Maybe, but nonsense is already a billion stream, so maybe they'll recognize nonsense. But nonsense was huge because it changed her,

it changed who she was. Well, it showed. You know, like, to us. Yeah, everybody got to just see the person that, we see when we're in the room with her and the person that that that like the sarcasm and the wit and the bite

and how fast and quick she is like that all the sudden just got to be on full display not just from the song it was from all the outroes that she did every night what's your favorite what's your favorite nonsense outro

I have no idea there's so many it's just but you know I mean I will say the Christmas I like I mean the thing that was really cool is we did a Christmas version

called a nonsense Christmas and we rewrote and that's what really kicked it off after with like the outroes and everything that doing the Christmas version was like we can do this right why not we can break the rules

let's just rewrite the whole song same exact melody but just make it Christmas which was like holy shit like that's brilliant. So that one would be the one because that I think is really what

catapulted it and then she made a video for it. Well now she has a Netflix thing coming out in a couple months like a Netflix Christmas which for sure is well yeah if you're an artist listening if you're an artist listening right if this started happening and you know you did a gag

you found some gag and it like had some people Snapchatting and then you did it again and did it again and ask yourself truthfully if you probably after about five or ten times would be like, all right, cool, that was fun. Or if you would do it for a year

and a half, a year and a half. I mean, that is what I also saw in her is that she is a killer. I mean, I think I'm a killer. Yeah, yeah. Right? I mean, I am so focused. I have been doing this for so long. And when I saw, when I was in the room

with her, I got that sense of that she's like she pushes me you know like she was pushing me to do better and be better it's like that's what I want to be around that's what I want to be in the room with I don't want to be in the room with a bunch of people like

this is totally fine this sounds as good as that that song that just got released that sucks this is as good as that I don't want to be in a room with that I've said that I used to be that you know it's like this is fine like what about that one person's song that sucks this one's better than that It's like, that doesn't get anyone anywhere.

She's also really dependable and really, like, and that may seem like a weird adjective, but I think when you know she'll show up on time and you know she'll put in all the effort, so you know you will also... Yeah, I'm going to be accountable. I'm going to be held to her standard. Yeah, you'll be accountable.

Absolutely. So let's go to short and sweet. You know, the album's killing it, but espresso comes out and you know obviously our I think we were saying this is the first album that I can think of where every single member

every single creative every writer every producer has at least one episode also everybody has a single everybody on the album has a single which is pretty awesome that's crazy I know

is that awesome there's so many parts of this album that are amazing like I like that you have a female artists who had all female top liners. So, like, it felt like, I think that that's a choice. There are a lot of writers in this business that she could have worked with, but she

kept it close in, like, a really interesting, very cool way. She kept her, you know, she kept it small, she kept it close. But let's talk about espresso. Famously,

Splice. Splice, baby. I mean, what a tool. I mean, can you imagine if you went back to 1970 or 1960 or any time, and we're just like, hey, check this out? I mean, it would be like, if someone came to the future and showed us that, like, you know, flying cars, it's the most incredible gathering of tools for people. It's like, I couldn't even think of something like that.

10, 15 years ago. When we first started, it was like passing drum samples to each other. Like, hey man, can I have some of your drums? And you'd like, yeah, here's some of mine. Here's like a cool...

And that was great too, and it was wonderful. But, I mean, the things that... The way records sound sonically now, I think attributed a lot to Splice, it's amazing the way just records sound. The sonics are unbelievable. So you take these few tracks

off Splice, you know, you put them together can't everybody write a hit well it's just a guitar if you think that the guitars what made that song a hit yeah everybody can that song's not like

it's really smart but it's not like it's really not that good you're like it's actually not that good it's really smart but it's not good if you're no I mean but there's so many

but it's not it's not It's not Hansen. Like, it's not really repetitive. It's not like bubble. As bubble gummy as it may sound, it is intricately woven inter rhyme schemes. And it's a witty concept. But it's not, it's simple in the fact that somehow you can sing along to this thing

that is really complex. You know, again, I have to ask a question like, why does that song work? Why is that so big? I think it's just things that are stacked. It's the momentum and it's, you know, going from

nonsense to then her having feather which was the number one radio song and that video and being on, you know, it was just, it was like it was tea, it was time. It was just, it's sort of the force of all the blows that make

the impact. Or it's a surprise. If people can come out of nowhere and make an impact, right? Like, Lord comes out of nowhere with, or Gautier comes out of nowhere. And it's like, whoa. But to see, to watch in real time the person's momentum building, it's like you feel the excitement. You can feel the bubbling of it. I think all those things happening in a row without a break, just one thing after another was just like kind of this three punch.

combination. Maybe it would be different if we didn't have anything after that and we waited a year or if she waited a year to make a record, maybe this all would be different. Maybe it wouldn't, but I think you can never separate the person, the song, the timing, what's going on in the world. All of the things are just, it's like unlocking a five combination lock or hitting a slot machine, right? There's like several numbers that all have to align. It's like, it's like one of those. It's like one of games that you play as a writer. It's like if, you know, if thriller came out today, would it be a hit? You know, if, would it be? Who knows? You can say yes, I can say no, but we both don't know. And the fact is, is that it all, it's like, okay, would Thriller be a hit if someone else

sang it? There's all these hypotheticals, right? Would, would, you know, would Teenage Dream be a hit if Adele sang it? Would Rolling in the Deep be a hit if Sam Smith sang it? And like there's, but the fact is is that these songs have a singer a time they were released the sound of their voice, their name, all of the things the stars

have to align for these things somehow and I don't know how, but they do. Speaking of thriller, Quincy Jones doesn't take publishing on songs he didn't write. He had the opportunity, but he didn't.

I'm sure he had the opportunity. It was Quincy Jones. On taste, you're not credited as a songwriter, but you're credited as a producer. In this era, I feel like that takes integrity. Why are you not a writer on that song? Because I didn't write it. Why do other producers feel entitled to publishing

when they didn't write a song? Well, look, it's different. If I maybe didn't know Sabrina and someone brought me in and needed to finish it, then it might be a different thing. But I know all these people, and we're all in the same room writing songs together. And, you know, I don't know.

I have. I can't sit here and say, I haven't done that. I have. I like to think that I've been fair about what my ask was, and I was never rude about it and was willing to say, hey, look, if you don't want to do it, that's totally fine. You know, if you want me to work on it.

Look, I just think that there's like, seeing that is like, oh, that that's really cool because no matter what, like, people acknowledge that your contribution was worthy of a producer credit. And yet it takes, in this era, it takes a certain, situation in a way, it's more unlikely for somebody to be credited as a full producer on a song with other people, but credited as a producer and not as a writer. That means that it's, I don't know, there's something about that that that makes me feel like, I feel like I should applaud you for that. So I'm applying for that. Thanks. I appreciate it. Hey man, the song's also top 10 right now. So, you know, I mean, I've been in situations where that had happened to me, you know,

and I've been in situations where people did it. And I don't know, there's always situations, and so there's no sort of black and white answer for it. But I'm just happy to have my name associated with it. Because it's, when I first heard it, I mean, I just was like, this is, the words came out of my mouth. This is a fucking hit. I looked at everybody.

It's like, this is a fucking hit. Like, you know, on a first listen, I was like, yeah, I don't see a world where this song is not a hit song. Maybe the coolest part of that album coming out is that it came out the same day, not like weeks later. It came out the same day as the Thomas Red album that you are a producer on every single single. single song. That was a big release day. About a woman. Yes, that was a big release day.

Dude, there are people whose catalogs have very, have like that total amount of songs and that's it, you know? And you did, in one day, the entire Thomas Rat album, the hits plus

your relationship with John and on John Ryan on both albums. Like, that is the craziest day maybe ever. Like the biggest artist in pop and the biggest artist in country for that day, releasing full albums.

Why not just Michael Jordan and quit and play like minor league baseball or some shit? Like what do you do? Like what's the point after that? What do you do after that? What is the goal? Is there a goal after an achievement like that?

I think my goal, I mean, it was so fun because I got to be in New York and I was with my wife and I was with John, I was with my brother and it was with Sabrina and was with Thomas Rett and we celebrated and it was like so fun. You know, and we're always kind of chasing that high right

of like a big release or a big hit but the goal is just to like continue to do this is just to have like to have success and have fun and have experiences with friends and with other good people and with your community and to that's the goal. I mean, look, when you know,

or maybe you don't yet because your kids aren't there yet, but when your kids start going to school, right, drop them off at 7.50 in the morning and they come back and maybe do some after school stuff and they're home at four, it's like, what else am I going to do with my life between the hours of 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. What am I going to go do? Like, start a clothing line?

Like, the thing I love the most in the world is just doing this. It's like laughing and hanging with friends and figuring out the puzzle and doing the thing. You know? Like... Is it easy?

What? To write songs? I don't know, writing hits. Sure. Writing songs. I think it's harder than... I mean, it's easier than we make it, I think, actually.

I think we've all learned habits and things that we're, you know, that we watched, you know, mentors or learned from things and our habits we developed that we get into these things and we, part of our minds are thinking about success and think about the cut. But just like, if you throw all that away, right, and you just do it how you did when you were 17 with, like, another friend in your garage band. writing songs is fun and now I'm trying to get back to that

I've gone all the way around the block of learning the craft and I still have another block to go around of craft but now I find myself coming back to like wanting there to be an undercurrent of like fun and laughter and joyousness and like and just caution of the wind and let's try it who cares

and pushing each other and we can beat that but having it be enjoyable otherwise I don't want to do it I'll go find another place to do it where it is fun and enjoyable it's not that I don't know I know for me that I definitely have made it at several points in my career

harder than it needed to be no it's not right yet it's like yeah how about you just like put it in you bounce it don't worry about it and like we'll listen in the morning and in the morning it's either going to be great or it's not you know like it's okay like we can or we can just like

I don't know I I've definitely over theorized and over done things and sometimes it works but but I don't know I'm trying to just make it fun again and not be so serious it's not we're making we're trying to like bring joy

to people and so if we're not having fun while making it like How are we going to do that? Are you enjoying the attention? You know, it's like, there are all these producers in the world, but all of a sudden it's probably like, oh, shit, Julian, he's like on one right now. And it's like you've been on one like six times in your career. But like right now it's got to be this, whether it's country or it's pop.

Right now, it's like you can't beat the projects you have. Are you enjoying it? Yes. It's really nice to hear from colleagues and peers and friends that reach out. and are like, hey man, like, congrats, this is awesome. Like, that means a lot because we all know what we're going through. And we've seen tops of mountains and we've seen valleys and we know the hardships and, like, am I ever going to have success again?

You know, so that always means a lot when it's coming from a comrade, you know, a studio comrade. That always means a lot. And that is great. It's not like the other stuff, you know, it's next month it'll be somebody else. or next year, you know, that stuff goes, whatever. And I, I, but yeah, it's great. It's fun.

I know that there's, you know, some, some Grammy voting coming up soon. So, I mean, I'm excited and hopeful that people recognize the kind of year you're having because it would be super fun to celebrate you in that way. We're going to go on to our next segment. We're going to do a five for five. I'm going to just lives five things and just tell me what comes. comes out the top of your head. And I'm going to start with what I started with back in 2019,

and we're going to start with John Ryan. John Ryan. My co. My co. My co. Everything. All this success has, one of the biggest branches has, you know,

come from the chemistry of me and John. I've been doing it a lot of years. on my own and working with different people. But when John and I first started working together from song one, there was something there. And all the things from that chemistry have blossomed off of that. We just, you know, he's my brother. I mean, it's hard for perspective.

I think sometimes when you're in it. But, you know, I was just hanging out with something. people around the Goffin King estate this week. So that's what it comes to my brain when you're like, oh shit, we're like in the thing. Like, yeah, he's,

Benetta Ryan. It could easily be like a, you know, you could, in theory, vote for that as like a writing team for the songwriter Hall of Fame, regardless of what you've done independently. There will be a point. From your mouth to God's years. Hey man, you guys

have, you guys have We have a lot of credits together. The quality, you have a lot, the quality of credits together and you've, and the story of you guys together is easily worth, you know, a vote when it gets to that point. So, you know, we're talking Grammys in Starwater Hall Fame. Maybe it's the tequila. I don't know. We're yin and yet. I'm manifesting. I like it. Yeah, he, he, I don't know what the word is. It's like, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's. It's the yin and the yang. We just, a mirror.

He's my, like, yeah, that's like, that's my guy. This is kind of interesting, but I'm going to say, like, this was also, this wasn't your second, this was your third, but I'm going to bring him back up. Because it's so fascinating, knowing their family relationship, but we got to go with Damon, your brother. Yeah. Well, I mean, that's my, my, that's my, that's my rock. outside of my family and my wife but the bond between

my brother and I just as brothers and as musical counterparts I just trust him a billion and one percent so to be able to have that in the back of my head

when I'm moving through the music business and taking that off of my plate I don't have to worry or even concern myself with any aspect of the business if I don't want to, is just I just have more brainpower to just go forth and succeed, you know?

And the only way we could build any of this is via him because I'm in the studio every day writing songs, not looking at emails. He's the one that built this ecosystem around me, essentially. He built it. I, you know, foster and nurture and, take time with young writers and do the thing and

write songs that make us money but he's the sort of architect of that. Yeah, I mean, people have their spouses or their siblings work with them but that doesn't make them good necessarily. So the fact that he's good

at what he does is really remarkable and it probably says a lot about, you know, the family you brought up, you know, shout out to your dad and, you know, growing up in the environment. There's no one I like seeing more at the BMI Awards than your dad. So it's like...

I feel like I'm not giving you good words. But it doesn't make him a... Like, like, an architect would be a good word. That was a good word. I like that. Yeah, I'll give them that. We'll go... We'll do the next one, which is going to be Teddy Swims.

I'm going to try to stick to one word here. Just an instrument. Sabrina Carpenter. Um, fire. Thomas Rett. Prolific. Okay, this one can have more words, but Virginia. I mean, Virginia is my everything.

Virginia is my, you know, my love of my life and giving me two beautiful kids. But also allowed me to, you know, you're talking about what happened before the hit. Ali Willis was saying that. Yeah. Is that I'm happy. you know like like i'm genuinely so happy and and feel so lucky and grateful to have her and and her to let me you know go on my writing camps and and go you know say hey babe i gotta i've really got to do this and like she she was three weeks post baby when i went to paris for the enro espresso

I mean, that is like, you know, you can't. Yeah, that sounds so crazy. Isn't it sounds so crazy? It sounds insane. Like, it sounds, I even feel weird saying it because it's like, how could you leave your fucking wife? Like, three weeks after she had a baby to go do this. But she knows how important and what it means.

I'm not just going to like to go, you know, have a vacation. I'm really going in there to try to go write a life-changing song. I only had, I think, three or four days of... I had four days of writing, a travel day on each end. What's the longest that you go away from your family? You know, four or five days maybe. Like on a camp like that, it'll be like four or five. But I don't do them often.

Do your kids care about anything that you're doing as a musician? Yeah, my daughter is old enough now to where she like listens and loves. She gets to see, like, she's known Sabrina since she was, you know, three and Teddy too, so she knows them. And so she, you know, she'll like songs or not like songs. That's great. But wait, back to my wife. Yeah, I was going to go ahead. I haven't even really said it out loud that, like, yeah, it's,

weird saying like yeah she was like babe i know you got to do this like go and and i think that what was happening before the hits to the alley willis thing is that i'm that i just have found so much joy and peace and she's such a big part of it and she's built it around me and we've built it together that you know when i go into the studio and this whole thing i'm talking about like joy and everything is because that's what i'm really feeling and i want to put that into the songs, you know. I didn't come up with a word for her, but... I think that's fair. You know, since we're already way past five, let's go with your kids. Okay. I just feel like they're teachers. They're teachers.

That's cool. Yeah, they're mirrors. That's real. They're teaching me more about myself, you know. Yeah, it's so bizarre. I mean, you know, when we first met the last, Like you said right before we started, we're a long way from Vegas, and we talked about the Vegas story in the first episode. And I believe that was actually John Ryan's very first day in Los Angeles or something like that, first week. So, you know, pretty wild to think, like, where that started,

where we'd go and do 24 hours in Vegas and come back and still record, like, that life. And then here we are celebrating, you know, career success and life success and, you know, familial success and all the things. And I think we were talking about this a little bit at the BMI Awards. What's so amazing about some of the fortune that has happened around our community is like, you know, we're all still here. We all get to like hug each other at these events and celebrate each other.

And it's just so cool to. see you at the top right now is fucking awesome man it is just like it's just so it's i mean i could say it's one for the good guys but it's kind of three for the good guys because you've got three in the top ten right now it just feels like good guys win and it also is like you know it's inspiring like there's no there are no rules like you know uh i mean that's how i felt when i saw you up there win songwriter of the year BMI Awards. It's crazy, man.

It's just wild. Like, it's the best. Well, I appreciate you doing this again. Thank you for having me. I'll do it anytime. I'm so curious, if this was five years

and the five years after the last, like, the last time went from like, okay, we're going from like Laza to like, that's when we meet. Yeah. Through all like then after that is like 1D and all that

stuff and then like we do an interview because you've done like a million things at that point and then all this happened like who know five years from now I mean come on I hope so I'm gonna keep doing it we're all going to keep doing it and we love it this is what we do

we're songwriters we're producers this is what we do that's a great way to go out all right homie you have a beautiful night there in Nashville. You too, and thank you again for doing it. Love you, buddy.

Thank you. There you go. This episode is produced by Joe London, mega house management, and myself. See you all next week. I'm Ross Golan signing off.